The Adventurer

never thought of myself as an optimist. God knows, I'm no Pollyanna."
    "Nonsense. Under that gruff, grouchy, bristly exterior beats the heart of a man who secretly believes in the same things I do. You're just too macho to admit it."
    "You think you know me so well, don't you?"
    She smiled serenely. "Naturally. I've been studying you since I was old enough to figure out the basic differences between men and women. That's how long you've been in my head."
    He touched her hand. "You were studying a fantasy creation, not a real man."
    "I know the difference between fantasy and reality," she assured him as she sat up and reached for her shirt and jeans.
    "And you're convinced I'm real?"
    She paused in the act of buttoning her shirt, aware already of the faint soreness in her thighs. She flashed him a rueful grin. "Very real. I can still feel the effects."
    His gaze grew serious. "Did I hurt you?"
    "No, of course not. I was just teasing." She patted his cheek and began struggling into her jeans.
    "Sarah?"
    "Umm?"
    "Never mind." Gideon got slowly to his feet, pulling on his own clothing with quick, efficient movements.
    She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she began to pack up the picnic basket. Something important was going through that inscrutable mind of his but she couldn't begin to guess what it was. Perhaps he was searching for a way to tell her he loved her, she thought happily.
    Gideon leaned over to catch hold of one corner of the red-checked cloth. He pulled it back slowly, as if not sure how to refold it.
    "Here, I'll do that," Sarah offered, taking the corner of the cloth out of his hand. She shook out the old tablecloth as Gideon walked around, kicking at pine needles. "What are you doing?" she asked finally.
    "Just making sure we don't leave any sandwich wrappers behind." He used the toe of his boot to sweep back another layer of needles.
    Sarah glanced down and saw the tip of moss covered rock thrusting up out of the earth. "That's what was digging into my back when you were making love to me. No wonder I felt as if I were trapped between a rock and a—" She broke off. "Oh, my God. A rock. Gideon, it's a
white
rock. Look at it."
    He glanced down. "It looks like a green rock to me."
    "Rocks aren't green. It's just got a lot of moss growing on it." Sarah dropped the red cloth and knelt on the ground for a closer look. Experimentally she scraped off some of the moss with her fingernail. "It is white."
    Gideon crouched beside her. "Think so?"
    "I'm sure of it." She looked up at him with growing delight. "Gideon, this is so exciting. Maybe we've found the jewels after all. Help me dig away some of the dirt."
    Obediently he reached out and pulled away a few clods of dirt. More of the white boulder was revealed. "If this is your famous rock, it's no wonder we didn't see it when we went looking for it. It got covered up long ago in a mud slide."
    "Yes, that's exactly what must have happened." Sarah sat back on her heels, frowning. "We'll never be able to uncover it with our bare hands. We'll need tools."
    "An excellent observation." The distant sound of an engine shattered the stillness of the forest. Gideon was on his feet instantly, tugging Sarah up beside him.
    "What's wrong?" she asked, taking the picnic basket as he thrust it into her hands.
    "Nothing. But it sounds like we may have company coming. The cardinal rule of treasure-hunting expeditions is you don't reveal the location of the treasure to strangers."
    Sarah hugged the basket to her and hurried to follow him out of the woods, past the old Fleetwood homestead and on to the cabin they were renting. The sound of the engine in the distance grew louder. "Do you really think we might have found the white rock that marks one of the points on Emelina Fleetwood's triangle?"
    He threw her an amused glance over his shoulder. "What does your famous intuition tell you?"
    She frowned, trying to sort out the jumbled impressions in her head. "I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I think that white rock is the one we've been looking for, but…"
    "But what?" The engine roar was closer now.
    "But I just don't feel much urgency about the whole thing." She grinned. "Not that finding a fortune in gems is totally uninteresting, of course. I'm not that laid back about it all."
    "I'd wonder at your sanity if you were."
    "Well, it certainly would be great fun to turn them up. But like I said, they're not as important as they once were." Sarah abandoned the effort to