Better Than Gold. Mary Brady

than the university has.”

      “No.” She grabbed his forearm. If she sent him away she’d only make things worse. This guy had to know what the people of the town would think, would do.

      He stopped and looked at where she held his arm and she dropped her hand and let out a long breath. He needed to know if he stirred up the town, he’d have to fend off the treasure hunters.

      “Is that coffee?” He pointed to the thermal carafe on the floor, one cup upended on top of the pot’s lid.

      She nodded. “Fresh. I brought it with me in case I got to go back to work this morning.”

      “Do you have another cup?”

      “Yes, sorry, and I have manners, truly I do. Would you join me for a cup of coffee?”

      “I’d like that.” He smiled full-on bright and swooning came to mind.

      ...as if...

      She headed for a closed door of the someday kitchen, glad to have a place to hide for a second to regain some of her decorum.

      “Mia.”

      She stopped and turned. “Yes?”

      “You might want to...” He mimed brushing off his butt.

      Decorum, yeah, right. “Thanks.”

      She hurried through the door and made sure it closed before she began cleaning off the seat of her jeans and the back of her coat. She so-o-o should not be distracting herself with the hot professor, no matter how great his smile was, not when life as she knew it might soon be tossed into the Dumpster outside the back door, along with all the rest of the useless debris.

      She leaned against the old sink, pressing her hands against the cold porcelain. If she gave him all the information she had, he could take his boxes and leave. No, he’d investigate the site thoroughly first.

      She pushed off. Get back out there. Nothing would happen until she did. A smile. It was just a smile, she told herself and brought her guard back up.

      Several ceramic coffee mugs rested in the dish rack. She grabbed one, shoved a handful of cream and sugar packets into the pocket of her coat and headed back out to face fate or the enemy or whoever this guy turned out to be.

      He stood, pensively staring at the gap in the wall. When he turned to face her, she shook her head at the flash of warmth that she could not stop as it spread through her.

      “Let’s go outside,” she said as she approached. “It’ll be warming up some by now.”

      With the carafe and cup in his hand, Daniel followed her out to where benches on the old sidewalk flanked the front doorway.

      “You can see the harbor better from that one.” She pointed at the bench to the right of the doorway.

      “Very nice. Very Maine,” he said as he sat down on the far end of the white-painted bench where he could see the boats, gulls and Mainers doing what Mainers did every day.

      She sat on the other end and held out her cup as he loosened the lid of the carafe and poured.

      “Cream or sugar?” She reached into her pocket and then held out her hand with the packets on her palm.

      “Black.”

      She wasn’t surprised.

      He sat back and as he gazed out over the harbor, she studied him. His profile, with well-defined nose, sharply defined upper lip and full soft bottom lip, looked good in the morning sun. Who was she kidding? He probably looked good in just about every light—or maybe very little light—like maybe that of a bedside lamp.

      Hmm. She put her coffee on the bench near where he’d placed the carafe and folded her arms over her chest. These were things she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about when her future was at stake.

      She turned her attention to the endlessly changing but always wonderful view five blocks or so away on the docks at the end of Treacher Avenue. The water of the bay sparkled dark blue, and the fishermen and those who serviced the boats hurried around in their morning scurry, some starting their day, some already well into it.

      A woman with a baby stroller stopped as she waved to someone on a boat in the water, but the boats were too far off to see who waved back. The town’s stray brown dog stopped and sat beside her until she moved on and then so did he.

      His cup sat beside hers and he had leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “It’s like an artsy movie.”

      “Evidence that life does go on even in a small town the world has never really noticed. I don’t ever get tired of it,” Mia said as she relaxed into the view.

      “One of my fondest characteristics of people from Maine. They appreciate where they are.” Dr. MacCarey, Daniel, looked more relaxed, seemed to have forgotten he was in a hurry to get the job done and get out of town.

      “Would it be so bad if we never knew who the man in the wall was?” And everybody’s lives could return to normal?

      She had stirred up more than she had ever planned. She had to get this guy to let things go. To get out of town no matter who was in that wall.

      She could hear the little angel on her shoulder reproaching her even as she had the thoughts. Integrity! You’ve got nothing if you don’t have integrity.

      Phooey.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      MIA RUBBED HER shoulder and asked Daniel, “Do your records mention Liam Bailey?”

      “He was an early landowner. The assumption is made that the town was renamed after him, but there is no record as to why.” Dr. MacCarey, Daniel, withdrew his gaze from the harbor and turned it on her. His eyes were definitely that deep dark earthy brown, the kind created to hold sensuality and mystery at the same time, and right now they held a keen kind of interest.

      “Anything else?” The words croaked a bit when she spoke, so she picked up her coffee cup to break eye contact.

      “The library at the university has some factual information, but it’s pretty—” he paused “—bare-bones.”

      She sputtered coffee and had to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand to keep from dripping on the front of her coat. “Bare-bones. I can’t believe you said that.”

      He held her gaze again as he spoke. “Even anthropologists use humor—from time to time.”

      She shouldn’t have looked at him again. His face was definitely much more relaxed than when he’d first arrived. He looked more accessible.

      “I tried to find information about Liam Bailey.” She turned away and forced herself to search the harbor for something to latch on to. After only a moment, she spotted what she knew, even from this distance, to be the Calvins’ boat, the Lady Luck, the one with the for-sale sign. So much for luck.

      “There doesn’t seem to be any information out there, not about our Liam Bailey anyway,” she continued, and then realized she had a white-knuckle grip on her coffee cup.

      “It’s hard to find specifics about someone from two hundred years ago.” He sounded pensive. “Unless they were famous or notorious.”

      Famous or notorious. If he never found out Archibald Fletcher was a usurper and not the original founder, he’d have no reason to suspect this body was anything more than a minor mystery, just a minor player sealed up in a wall, and Dr. MacCarey would leave out of boredom. Archibald Fletcher had a gravesite, after all, and had never gone missing. Liam Bailey, the ship’s captain who originally started the settlement and called it South Harbor, had a story, a legend.

      It wasn’t boredom that made the townsfolk leave. It was desperate circumstances. The Calvin brothers weren’t just selling the boat. They were selling their traps, their federal permit, their livelihood, and diminishing Bailey’s Cove