Matters of the heart can consume the mind. Don’t neglect friendships in the midst of courtship.
PEARL CHAMBERS, The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship
Friday morning Abby dressed in her new outfit and slipped into the low heels that her friends had bought her.
With the new dress that fit her curves, but bloused out so that she didn’t feel self-conscious, she noticed that her librarian hair needed more attention. So she pulled it down from its bun and straightened it. When she did that, her lips looked naked, so she applied a little lipstick. When she did that, she seemed pale, so she added the slightest dab of blush. By the time she left the bathroom, she looked like a completely different person. Her hair’s blond streaks showed up more readily when she left her golden hair down.
Her mother’s expression stiffened at the sight of her. “My, my. Is that the outfit your friends bought you?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“It’s lovely. It looks very expensive.”
“It was.” She brushed her waist. “It’s from that fancy boutique on Main Street. I think that Heather paid for it all. Now that she’s found love, she’s convinced that all of us need to up our game to find romance in Smitten.”
“There can’t be many single men at the library in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe you should wait to wear that on Sunday.”
“I’m wearing it for myself, Mom, because it was a gift from my friends and because it makes me feel good,” she said gently. “Not because I’m trying to snag a man.”
“Well, all right. If you say so.”
“It’s my book club tonight, so Caroline is bringing you dinner. She said she’d come by the library first to pick up a movie. I’ll make sure it’s something you like.”
“Something with Sinatra, maybe?” her mother asked.
“I’ll see what I can find. I’m going to stop by Molly’s this morning before I go to work. I found something in the book last night that made me wonder if maybe the treasure could be real.”
Her mother clapped her hands together. “Really?”
“Probably not, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t at least check?”
She kissed her mother good-bye on the cheek and drove the short distance to Molly’s house.
Abby knocked on Molly’s door, but there was no answer. She was probably out with Noah running errands. Abby reached into the planter and pulled out the spare key and let herself into the old farmhouse.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice echoed.
She screamed and turned to see Heather. “What are you doing here? You nearly sent me out of my skin!”
“I saw you pull up. Thought it might be fun to surprise you.” Heather wore coveralls and was clearly there to do some kind of gardening. “Just wanted to get to some of the weeding here. Molly has enough to do.”
“Well, you surprised me, all right.”
Heather put down her pruning sheers on the front porch and followed Abby inside. “Look at you in your dress. Don’t you look gorgeous.”
Abby twirled. “I do feel gorgeous. Thank you, Heather. What you girls did for me was really nice. I’m sorry I was a grump about it. I’ve been thinking . . . maybe my growing up adopted has made me kind of self-conscious about being in debt to people.”
“But it’s not debt if it’s a gift. And we’re your friends. We love you. We wanted to do that for you.”
“I think the idea is growing on me. But anyway, thanks.”
“Is the idea of Wyatt Tanner growing on you?”
She felt heat rise in her cheeks. “Wyatt?”
“Abby, there’s nothing wrong with being human. Wyatt is a respectable, gorgeous, single man. What is wrong with admitting maybe you dressed up for him?”
Abby walked through to the dining room. “I didn’t. I’m only trying to feel better about myself, like I’m worthy of a pretty dress like this.”
“And a man like Wyatt,” Heather said.
“You’re impossible.”
“What did you find out from the book?”
“Well, a couple of things, actually. First off, gold is mentioned in quite a few places. I think I may have found a pattern. Look here.” She opened the book to scraps of paper where Pearl marked the words of interest. “‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above gold.’ Pearl replaced the word rubies with gold.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Heather, in Proverbs, the actual text reads ‘A wife of noble character is worth more than rubies’—not gold. I can’t imagine she’d make a mistake like that. It has to be intentional. Pearl was a woman who knew her Scripture.”
“Oh, good catch. Well, she might have just thought gold was worth more. Who knows, maybe back in the day it was.”
“That’s what I thought too, but then I saw that she flagged something about gold ‘saved for the generations.’ Maybe the treasure is no longer in the cave. Could she have mined it already and then hidden it?”
Heather looked wary. “Surely one woman couldn’t do that.”
“Maybe not, but look at this passage that’s highlighted. It says a ‘golden cord of three’ is not easily broken.”
“And?”
“In Proverbs it’s just a ‘strand of three,’ not a golden strand. She’s deliberately misquoting these for some reason.”
“This is exciting! You think the treasure is real now, too, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” Abby said. “But yesterday at the library I looked up the old Chambers homestead records to see exactly where the property lines were back when Pearl wrote this book. Turns out Molly’s barn wasn’t on the property until just a few months before Pearl’s death.”
“So?”
“So what if the barn was built as some kind of hiding spot? If Pearl mined the gold somehow.”
“Abby, we have to check this out.”
“I agree. Can we go out back there now, before Molly gets back?”
“You’re going to wear your new dress into that barn?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. But we don’t have time for me to change. I promise not to dig or anything. We’ll just look around a bit.”
The barn smelled musty and was filled to the rafters with sports equipment, old wood, and wet hay, and sawdust was everywhere. Abby kicked some into her shoe and shook it out.
“Abby, you’re ruining your new shoes!”
“Look, Heather!” In the corner of the barn lay a wooden box. Abby kneeled down gingerly to inspect it. “It’s a sluice box.”
“What?”
“It’s a way that Pearl might have mined the gold by herself. She could have had help with the ore and mined it in this sluice box.”
“Why would they have kept the mineral rights on the property, then?”
Abby looked up at Heather. “Maybe she didn’t get it all. It would have been hard rock mining. If Pearl did it by herself or with a few helpers, she wouldn’t have been able to get all the ore. She would have needed dynamite.”
“I hate to think of Molly struggling so much financially when Pearl might have left her with everything she needs. Why wouldn’t she make it obvious?”
“This was a rough town back in the day. A logging town. A prudent woman like Pearl would have kept it very quiet.” She stood and heard a tear.
“Abby, your dress!”
Abby gasped and looked down at her silky skirt, which was in two shredded ribbons, one for each knee. Part of her brand-new skirt was still on the nail that stuck out from the barn wall. “What have I done?”
“Maybe solved part of a mystery,” Heather said. “But you’ve definitely proven your point. You might require some tougher gear. I still don’t condone orthopedic shoes, but I’m definitely going to go with rayon over silk.”
“I’m sorry, Heather. But I really want to be Anne Elliot, not Scarlett O’Hara.”
“You tried to tell us.” Heather gave her a hug. “Find Molly’s gold and you can be both. Which would Wyatt prefer?”
“It wouldn’t concern me regardless,” Abby said and fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly. She didn’t risk saying anything more. The fact that she’d be flying with the likes of Wyatt Tanner in the morning would lead her friends to believe she had a shot at romance in Smitten. Adventure, not romance, was the most she would hope for.