Page 6

Four

Stella

The night out dancing had been exactly what we all needed.

Huck was the first to say yes. And even though Zoe’s feet still hurt and Teddy was buzzed and raw-faced from his Australian companion, my friends didn’t need convincing to leave the dance floor and head out to see if the revelation I’d had with Huck about the waterfall was right.

We piled into the van, and Gus, who had been far more interested in making out with Zoe than drinking, climbed into the driver’s seat.

Zoe sat in the front with him, navigating toward the closest waterfall that fell within the plausible zone I’d mapped out at the bar, and I was wedged between Teddy and Huck, my whole body vibrating with anticipation.

“Do you usually go out in the middle of the night?” Huck asked.

“Not when we’re hunting shipwrecks in the Florida Keys, but here…definitely. It’s not the kind of activity you want to broadcast. The middle of the night is perfect. Just remember to watch your step.”

Finally, the sign for Skógafoss came into view and Gus took a hard right into the empty gravel parking lot.

After he parked, we hopped out and stood beside the van donning coats and double knotting our boots.

Beyond the gravel lots, Skógafoss rose up several stories before us, slicing through the inky black night like a silver blade in the moonlight.

I had to be near it. My hands started to tingle again as I ran toward the waterfall.

Lanky Teddy, who also was blessed with the energy of a golden retriever puppy, got there first, skidding on the slick rocks beside the pool formed by the falling water.

Even at this distance, mist washed over our faces and we reveled in it for a few moments before pressing on.

Huck stopped beside me. He didn’t say anything, but from the expression on his face, I knew he was feeling the same thing I was—some mix of wonder and awe and excitement.

I liked that he came along and that, unlike me and the rest of my friends, he didn’t run.

He wasn’t rushing and he took things in.

“Are you writing this in your head right now?” I asked, extending my arms and slowly turning in a circle.

I felt his eyes on me. “I might be,” he said.

I was expecting a different response, something playful, a corner of his mouth turning up, a glint in his eye.

But I wasn’t disappointed by his words, even though they weren’t exactly what I’d expected.

His tone was thoughtful, colored with hope.

As a person who charged into things, I didn’t fully understand his reserve, but that didn’t prevent me from being fascinated by it.

By him. Already, he was more than I thought he would be.

“So how exactly does this all work?” he asked.

“We use metal detectors. The ones we have give off different tones depending on the type of metal. We work together to cover a pattern called a grid. It’s pretty simple, just takes a bit of luck and a lot of patience.”

“Sounds like publishing,” he said.

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Interesting. So you should be set, then. You ready to check it out?” I asked. I shouldered the bag with our gear and took off toward the rushing water.

“Hell yeah!” Teddy shouted, and launched into motion. His unbridled enthusiasm was just one of my favorite things about him; it got us all fired up.

“Should someone keep an eye on our enthusiastic friend who, unlike the rest of us, appears to still be a little drunk?” Zoe asked, gesturing at Teddy.

“Good plan, babe,” Gus said. “I’ll babysit him and make sure he doesn’t go for a swim.

” Gus followed Teddy, lugging the rest of the equipment easily.

As the archaeology expert on our team, he had the important job of documenting and verifying anything that we found, but he was also the strongest and had useful training from his time in the military, which made him the perfect Teddy wrangler.

At the base, the roar of the waterfall was thunderous, just like a constant storm; we had to shout to be heard. I handed Huck a flashlight.

“I’m going to start scanning with my metal detector,” I said. “It’s set to pick up any precious metals. Can you light the way?”

“You got it,” Huck said. His flashlight beam sliced over the damp earth, encrusted with rocks.

We stepped carefully over the slippery terrain, mindful not to trample the plants dotting the landscape.

I strained to hear the sound of the metal detector tones over the waterfall.

It was painstaking work, mapping a site.

We had four detectors and each of the team members knew to take an area, cover it methodically, ensure not a square foot was missed.

It was the same thing we did on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida and around the islands in the Caribbean.

The same thing we’d done every summer since Teddy, Gus, and Zoe vowed to help me find the treasure that was supposed to be my legacy.

It was practically second nature at this point.

We swept over every inch, pausing only to dig when the machines alerted us and being careful to always put things back as we found them.

An excited yelp from Zoe got our adrenaline pumping, but the hit turned out to be modern material—a metal locket on a thin chain, precious to someone, surely, but not what we came here for.

After a time, Huck and I took a break on some high ground away from the falls where we were protected from the mist. The skin on my hands was wrinkled from moisture exposure, and I trembled from the cold.

Around us, the sky was lightening, signaling the arrival of dawn.

Soon the tourists would descend, and we’d need to leave, erasing any trace of our search.

We would check to make sure that we’d completely filled in the handful of holes we’d dug during the night and drive away. Wash, rinse, repeat.

“Are you disappointed?” I asked Huck. I was used to this roller-coaster feeling—getting hyped up that this time might be the time only to find nothing is the nature of treasure hunting—but I recognized that I really sold this story to Huck in the bar, and to a first-timer, a whole night spent getting drenched only to come up empty-handed might be more than a tad anticlimactic.

“Not even close,” he said. “It was exciting. I enjoyed watching you work. Speaking of which, you look cold.”

“Freezing,” I said. “I got all excited and totally forgot to put on my rain gear.”

“You know what’s good for warming up?” he asked, rubbing my arms gently, turning friction to heat.

I raised an eyebrow, acutely aware of the sensation of his hands against me and desperate to hear what he was going to say.

“Coffee.”

“That sounds perfect,” I laughed.

Huck pulled me to my feet, and I signaled to everyone to head back to the van.

“So no new hits? Did we cover the grid completely?” I asked them while we stripped out of our soaked clothes and into dry ones.

“Yeah, we got nothing,” Zoe said. “I really thought this was it when I got that first hit.”

“Me too.”

“You were brutally rebuffed,” Teddy said. “But you did better than I did, Z. I got a big fat nada.”

Gus planted a kiss on top of Zoe’s mass of curls gone even more wild from the moisture. “Unlike my charge, who had a temper tantrum and split his pants trying to climb a rock face after I told him not to, you took the disappointment like a champ,” he told her.

My heart gave a little squeeze at the tenderness.

Maybe this wasn’t just a vacation hookup after all.

I would’ve said it looked like love, but I didn’t know much about that.

People learn love from their parents. Not me.

They gave me other things, like lessons in self-reliance and confusing maps.

Quests I never seemed to be able to complete.

“What about it, first-timer?” Teddy asked. “Is this going to end up in your next book?”

Something unreadable passed over Huck’s face, but he gave Ted a small smile. “You never know. I might need to embellish a few things.”

“Like what?” Zoe asked, interested.

“Maybe that locket you found was actually a giant heart-shaped sapphire, worn by a Viking queen,” Huck said.

Teddy, Gus, and Zoe all glanced over at me.

“Just as you pull it from the earth, an ancient society of Viking assassins crests over the waterfall, wielding silver axes and swords. They attack with vicious precision honed over hundreds of years of training. Unarmed, you fight back using the landscape and darkness to your advantage, but you’re losing ground and blood as the—”

“Dang,” Gus mumbled. “I’m so invested I’m not even worried about the historical accuracy.”

“I die?” Zoe interjected, her tone a mix of incredulity and awe. “And here I was, starting to like you.”

Huck took the opportunity to peel off his soaking-wet fleece, revealing a taut torso with defined musculature that showed he balanced his hours at the keyboard with time at the gym.

He wasn’t big like Gus, but I could tell that he was strong.

I considered averting my eyes, but honestly, I was enjoying the sight, the lines of him, the smoothness of his skin over the muscles of his chest and abs.

I had to give it to him—Huck Sullivan was incredibly sexy.

Teddy handed him a sweater and he pulled it on over his head, shaking out his damp black hair.

I turned my attention to making sure the equipment was properly stowed so I didn’t get myself into trouble.

“Death?” he said to Zoe. “Haven’t got that far yet.

Could be so, or maybe you step into a sink hole that is actually an entrance to an underground passageway, where you’re able to narrowly escape. ”

“I would read that,” Teddy said. “I would.”

“Me too,” Gus said.

“Same,” Zoe added. “And not just because I want to ensure I make it.”

The grin Huck displayed in response to this positive feedback was genuine. I could tell by the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the lift in his shoulders, which was new. He met my gaze and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

We moved toward each other as if pulled by some invisible force.

The rest of the crew was busy stuffing the wet clothes into a bag—later we’d lay them out to dry in the sun—and Huck and I took advantage of the solitude to step to the side of the van. He reached up and pushed a damp curl away from my face.

“What about you, Stella?” he said. “Would you read it?”

I met his eyes. “Not sure I can wait for it to hit the shelves. What happens next?”