only option she had. Keep her head down. Keep focused. Concentrate on
business. She wasn’t taking any chances. The road that ended in a broken
heart wasn’t one she was going to traverse again, walking it alone or not.
Chapter 6
Romi
Four hours later, Romi was covered from head to foot in layers of dust,
grime, dirt, and likely mouse poop. There could even have been a few rat,
squirrel, or racoon turds thrown into the mix. She honestly wasn’t sure. She
wasn’t a wildlife poo expert. She was sure that the barn was the most
untidy, unhygienic place she’d ever set foot into.
At first, she wasn’t even sure they would find anything they could
salvage. Everything just looked like heaps of garbage. Rusty garbage.
Broken garbage. Things that were once nice, but had been set out to mellow
in the elements that worked their way in through the cracks and holes in the
weathered structure.
Her excitement for her first pick deflated fast on seeing the mess. Kiera,
however, was completely undaunted. She charged ahead fearlessly and
started digging through the mess. She didn’t give any instruction, so Romi
just followed her lead and worked on a different pile.
It was
surprising, what was hidden under the mounds. By the time Kiera
gave the signal to stop digging, they’d actually amassed a few piles of
treasures. Sure, they might need to be cleaned up, but it was unmistakably
stuff they could sell.
“What’s under that sheet?” Romi asked, pointing to a large covered
object off to the right. It was wedged between the wall of the barn and about
a hundred other objects. She hadn’t even seen it before. Kiera must have
uncovered it by pulling things away.
“I don’t know. I was going to unwrap it.” Kiera ran a hand over her
forehead, which glistened with sweat. Her face was streaked with dirt, her