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“Yes!” Dezi flung her free arm around his neck and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. “I would be honored to go out with you.”
“Well, then let’s get out of this cave and back to the Lucky Lady Lodge.” His heart lighter than it had ever been in his life and feeling like he could eventually have a future, including a good woman and maybe even children, Grimm flung open the door to the boarding house and stared into the barrel of a shotgun.
“Give me the treasure, or I’ll shoot the girl.”
“Eugene?” Dezi exclaimed. “I thought you were in the hospital in Bozeman.”
Eugene sneered. “I would’ve been had my twin brother won the fight.”
Dezi’s eyebrows formed a V over her nose. “Terrence Gifford is your twin?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, he tried to double-cross me and cut me out of my share of Leon’s treasure.”
“So, you almost beat your twin brother to death?” Dezi shook her head. “Is a treasure worth losing your twin?”
“I’d rather lose my twin than give him half of Leon’s riches.” Holding the shotgun in one hand, Eugene held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
Dezi frowned. “What?”
He pointed to the metal box under her arm. “The treasure box.”
“But—”
“Give him the box, Dezi,” Grimm said. “It’s not worth losing your life.” His gaze held hers, willing her to comply and keep to herself the fact that it was empty.
Dezi handed the box over to Eugene. “You were the one who stole the map out of my uncle’s house.”
“No, that would have been my brother, Terrence.”
“My uncle’s letter from my room at the lodge?”
He grunted. “It was too easy.”
“You had the clues, why didn’t you get there first?”
He snorted. “Why should I go to all the trouble of hiking into the mountains and exploring a dangerous, abandoned mine? I knew you would. All I had to do was follow you until you found it and then take it from you.”
Grimm made a move toward Eugene.
“I’m aiming at Dezi. If you care about her at all, you won’t try anything stupid.” Holding the metal box in one hand and the shotgun in the other, Eugene backed through the door and kicked it shut.
Grimm dove for the doorknob, but Eugene locked it from the other side before he could push it open.
The acrid scent of gasoline permeated the area around the door and leaked across the threshold.
“He’s going to set the building on fire.” Grimm grabbed Dezi’s hand. “Come on. We have to get as far away from the fire as we can.”
Already, smoke seeped through the cracks into the mine as the fire consumed aged wood.
Grimm hurried past the areas they’d already seen and slowed when he came to the place where he’d found the metal box.
From that point forward, he proceeded with care, not wanting to escape the fire and smoke only to fall to his death in a vertical shaft. He had to stay alive long enough to get Dezi out of the mine and back to the surface.
Going back the way they’d come wasn’t an option. Hopefully, the rails would lead him to the abandoned ore processing plant and another way out.
CHAPTER13
The longer theywalked through the tunnels, the more Dezi suspected they were going in circles.
