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“That’s why we’ve got the dogs,” Ace grins proudly, “they’ll be able to guide us back to the house.”
“Are you sure?” Rip asks, “They haven’t been here for that long.”
Ace nods, “Oh yeah, trust me. They’ll be able to get us back there.”
“Well okay then,” Mason smiles.
As we hit the treeline, we fall into a comfortable silence as we all work on not tripping over any of the underbrush and also looking for any sign of an old building. Ace insists on that even though I’m reasonably certain that if there were a building this close to the edge of the backyard, we would’ve noticed it by now unless, of course, it was extremely dilapidated and just ruins.
I have to admit that I’m glad I had the foresight to put on my comfy trainers that I don’t mind ruining, because Ace made us leave so damn quickly that there was no time to change into anything more appropriate. Let’s just hope the temperature doesn’t suddenly drop or it starts raining because none of us are really equipped for a hike in the woods, and despite what Ace said I have a feeling that we will be staying out here until we find something and not coming back another day, he’s just too excited.
I have to admit that I really hope we find something as well.
“What do you think could be out here?” Rip asks, the curiosity heavy in his tone.
“Well, realistically, because of the age of the house, there will probably be old garden buildings like pavilions, that sort of thing, maybe an old greenhouse,” Mason replies thoughtfully.
I smile, “But knowing my grandmother as I’ve come to and considering she likes her secret spaces, I’d be really surprised if she didn’t have something hidden on this property somewhere.”
“Wouldn’t Gerald have told us?” Rome questions.
“Not necessarily, he didn’t tell us about her office,” Ace replies.
Rome nods in agreement as Rip pulls a face, “Yeah, but we have found it now, so surely he would tell us about any other hidden places that she had.”
I shake my head, “We had to find that ourselves remember before he would tell us anything.”
“Yeah, good point.” Rip replies. “She also could not have told him. I mean, I know they were really close, but that doesn’t mean that she told him everything.”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Rome replies.
We carry on forging our way through the woods in silence for a while, all of us on the lookout for something out of the ordinary now that we’re further in the woods.
“You know, technically, we could have looked through her library to see if there were any plans of the house and grounds in there,” Mason suggests.
“We’ll call that plan B,” Ace replies, his lips fighting off a smile.
“Only because you insisted that we leave immediately, and there wasn’t really any time for any of us to come up with a plan of execution,” Mal points out.
Ace rolls his eyes, “We don’t always need a plan for everything that we do. Sometimes it's good to live spontaneously.”
“He’s not wrong,” I agree.
After a while of walking, with Ace picking random directions for us to go and claiming that he’s got a good feeling about this one, we stop looking and instead, just enjoy spending time with each other. I flit from each of my men spending time with each of them and just enjoying it. We must have been walking for over two hours without any sign of anything but trees and bushes when Ace’s phone starts going off, louder than it usually would; we all turn to look at him, and his eyes widen.
Pulling out his phone, he taps away on the screen and then promptly turns around and starts heading back the way we came.
“Ace, do you want to explain what the alarm meant and why we’re heading back to the house?” Rome asks as we all follow after Ace, who is moving surprisingly quickly since we’ve already walked so far.
“And how you got signal out here when I didn’t the last time we were here?” I add.
“I boosted the reception on my phone just in case. I have my phone linked up to my laptop, and I have a program running to unlock Demelza’s laptop. That was the alert to say that we’re in,” he replies excitedly.
“No fucking way,” I reply. I’ve been trying not to be impatient about what could be on the laptop. I mean, I’m still hoping for something about my father to be on there. The fact that I don’t even know his name is really starting to bother me, and the mystery surrounding him. I mean, why won’t Gerald tell me anything? Why didn’t my mom tell me anything? Actually, with her, it could’ve just been that she was being a controlling asshole; there very well could have been no good reason at all for not telling me about him.
Ace looks back at me, his smile wide, “Yep, and since we’ve already been out here for a while and haven’t found anything, I would much rather go back to the house and see what treasures are hiding on your grandmother's laptop.”
“Me too,” I agree.
