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“But you’re barely twenty-four. What’s the rush?”
“I’m not making Rowan wait to have the family he wants. Not after what his bitch of an ex-wife did to him.”
Aspen leans closer. “What did she do?” At least, she’s whispering now.
“I can’t tell you. You know how Rowan is about his privacy.”
“Come on. It’s me. Your big sister. He’s practically family. I’m the aunt to his future children.”
Ashlyn mimes zipping her lips shut. I’m amazed. Can my baby sister actually keep a secret? Miracles do happen.
“Can we continue the gossip session inside?”
Ashlyn throws the shovel over her shoulder. “Sorry, sis, but no. We’ve got a job to do.”
“You are not digging in my front yard.”
“We’ll fill in any holes we make. Promise.” Ashlyn bats her eyelashes. Does she actually think I’ll fall for her innocent act? My baby sister hasn’t been innocent since she learned to crawl and managed to make her way out of the living room into the pantry and lock herself in.
I was eight at the time, but I will never forget how Dad and Mom frantically searched the house for her. She was finally found when she started wailing because she was hungry. Although, how she could possibly be hungry when she devoured everything she could reach in the pantry is beyond me.
“But we know the Black Hat Bandit’s missing loot is buried in your front yard.”
I cross my arms over my chest. Not this again. “We know no such thing.”
“But the newsletter article said we’d uncover the loot at the cornerstone of the mansion.”
“Yeah, sis,” Aspen pushes. “The loot has got to be here.”
They’re referring to a treasure hunt they’ve been on for the past months. In specific, they’re searching for the fifty-thousand dollars the bank robber, the Black Hat Bandit, stole from the Hastings National Bank in Nebraska in 1955.
Aspen found a letter from the bandit’s lover, Patricia Hall, when she was clearing out the storage room in her bookstore, Fall Into A Good Book, referring to the loot. Since then, the two of them have been on the hunt to find the money.
“The mansion was built in 1925. There’s no way Robert Adams aka the bandit could have hid the money in the cornerstone. The building was already thirty years old when he came to town,” I explain.
Based on their latest ‘clue’, they’re convinced the loot is hidden in the cornerstone of The Inn on Main. They’re out of their minds if they think I’m going to let them dig around my business on some wild goose chase.
“Maybe he hid the money in the ground in front of the cornerstone,” Ashlyn suggests.
“You have to admit it’s plausible,” Aspen pushes.
I’m admitting no such thing. I cross my arms over my chest and Aspen gasps before rushing to me. I swat her away. “What is wrong with you?”
She indicates my stomach. “Your belly popped.”
Ashlyn drops the shovel, and it clangs to the ground. She claps and bounces on her toes. “This is so exciting. I’m going to be an aunt.”
Aspen elbows her. “I’m going to be the best aunt.”
“Children,” I hiss, “I have four sisters who are going to be aunts. Two of whom will be disowned if they don’t quiet down and put away their shovels before any of my guests wake up.”
Ashlyn picks up the shovel. “I’ll put this away.”
I follow her toward the garage under my apartment where I notice the door hanging open. “You couldn’t have closed the door after you broke in?” I don’t need any wild animals nesting in my garage.
“We weren’t going to be long. Besides, no one heard us,” Aspen claims.
“No one?”
