Lone Star Cinderella by Debra Clopton Page B

most surely needed to get out more.
    She shielded her eyes as she scanned the ravine. “So, what do you think he meant by the matching rocks? Ithas to be something prominent. I mean, he was just riding through, so to him it had to be an easy landmark.”
    He scratched his neck and gave it some real thought. “I have two different thoughts.” He checked his watch. It was three o’clock and wouldn’t start getting dark for a few hours, so they could at least hike to the rock outcropping.
    â€œThen lead on,” she said, slapping at a buffalo gnat. Seth grabbed her elbow when she subsequently stepped in a hole.
    â€œSteady there.”
    â€œThanks. So, tell me about your grandfather,” she said as he held a branch out of the way so she could move forward.
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œOakley. The one who won this land in a poker game—he’s the one who hid this map. He sounded like a card.”
    â€œOh, he was that. Not the most upstanding citizen from what we know.” He glanced back at her and lifted a brow. “We think he may have considered riding with one of those gangs in his day. That’s the kind of guy he was.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t have been alone. Do you know that in that decade of the 1870s a lot of cowboys considered it?”
    â€œYeah, but that doesn’t make it right.”
    She laughed. “Well, no, I didn’t say it was right. I’m just saying that was a fact of the times. It’s part of the reason for so much folklore and admiration that was felt for some of those outlaws.”
    â€œDidn’t Sam Bass help poor folks out by giving them cash?”
    She shrugged. “Who knows? There are so many accounts. Some say he never took money from the people on the stagecoaches, but that’s not true. He had no problem hurting the train porters. He beat one unconscious with the butt of his pistol when the guy couldn’t tell him the safe combination.”
    â€œNot a good thing.”
    She studied the ravine again. “Just imagine, a treasure could be hidden right out there. Practically in your backyard.”
    â€œBig whoop.”
    â€œWhy are you such a sourpuss when it comes to this buried treasure? Crazies are not going to come here. Relax. Besides, with a scowl like that, if they did come, they’d take one look at you and run.”
    â€œThat’d be the smart move for them to make.”
    Melody balled her fists on her hips and looked at him like she didn’t know what to think about him. Well, that was two of them.
    â€œWhat year did your grandfather win all of this in the poker game? And, by the way, that is really curious to me.”
    â€œWhat’s not curious to you?”
    â€œHey, you should try being curious some time—like now. Don’t you find it odd that someone would risk all of this in a poker game? Goodness, how bad do you have to be to want to risk losing this much?”
    â€œUm, gamblers have a problem with limiting themselves,” he said, arching a brow. “That’s why they’re called gamblers. ”
    She rolled her violet eyes.
    â€œNo. He didn’t win all of this in a poker game,” he conceded. “He won seventy acres, is all, and broughthis family here to take over running the stage stop. His son married the only child of the man who owned the rest of the land.”
    â€œDo you realize that you and your brothers know more about your ancestors seven generations back than most people know about one generation back? I mean goodness, Seth—you’re talking about your great-grandfather’s great-great-grandfather!”
    â€œWe tend to take it for granted,” he started walking again but she lagged behind. He glanced back at her. “You coming or you going to stand there in the bushes?”
    â€œSorry, I just think it’s fascinating. How do you know so much?”
    â€œThe campfire stories. See, the thing is that