Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Tyler poked at the bacon, waited for Martin to arrive at the fire, and hoped and prayed that everything wasn’t fucked up. When he’d woken this morning, with Martin pressed hard against him, he’d ached in every muscle. The cot wasn’t big enough for them both, but even though he’d woken a couple of times in the night, there was no way he would have moved. Martin slept, and the nightmares didn’t chase into his sleep, so for that Tyler felt as if he was doing a good thing.

So what if his back ached now? Who cared about a little backache?

What he didn’t want now was for what happened to change what they had between them. The fragile attraction, the interest, and now the shared knowledge could be enough for Martin to want to go back to Crooked Tree. Tyler had already decided that if Martin wanted the Jeep to return, then he would say yes. Nate could always bring it back to collect him when the work here was done if needed. Not that he wanted Martin to go. Actually that was the last thing he wanted. Martin was cool and new, and it could be fun here.

Remember his past, remember he’s still healing from that. Stop being so fucking selfish.

Tyler pushed down his inner voice, reminding himself that he was willing to let Martin take the Jeep. Thing was, by the time Martin came out of the bathroom tent, looking as if he’d washed up and smoothed his curls with water, Tyler had all this pent-up energy and blurted out the first thing he thought of.

“You can take the Jeep if you want to go today.”

Martin stopped in his steps and frowned. “You want me to leave? I get that, I guess, but I can call Nate, and he can collect me. I’m not leaving you here without a vehicle.” He stepped closer and held out a hand. “Thank you for last night, for listening, for saying you’ll keep my secrets.”

Tyler took his hand, but instead of shaking it, he used it to tug Martin into a hug. “I never said I wanted you to go. The last thing I want is for you to leave. But if you need space, or you need to go, I’ll understand.”

Martin hugged him back, then stepped away and poked at the bacon on the plate. “Not going anywhere, but you might want to think about hiding the trowels. I dug a fucking huge hole last night in my dreams, and I have no idea why.”

“Gold,” Tyler announced. “You were looking for the gold, probably.”

“I thought you were joking about finding gold.”

Tyler dished up bacon from the small saucepan, which Martin took with a grateful smile.

“I never joke about gold. In that stream it’s very likely there will be specks of gold, but you’re more likely to find sapphires. When I’ve checked today’s data, you want to help me look for some?”

“Here?”

“Yep, you’ll see.”

They ate breakfast in companionable silence, as if there hadn’t been this whole messy night just gone, and then went their separate ways. Martin to make coffee, and Tyler to check the data coming from the seismometer. It wouldn’t be ready to attach to the wider network until he’d run all the right tests, and he was peering at banks of numbers when Martin thrust coffee under his nose.

Tyler exchanged the iPad for the coffee. “Have a look.”

Martin took the other chair and scrolled through the data, his interest turning into a frown, which then became a look of confusion. “It’s not stable, is it? Do we need to dig it up?”

“Why?” Tyler prompted with interest.

“Your readings are all over the place. You have spikes here that are well outside the expected range.”

“See, that would be a seismic event right there.” Tyler pointed at one of the spikes that had occurred late yesterday evening. “The ground is constantly moving, thousands of tiny little tremors, that happen way underground, that up here you never feel. They won’t rock buildings or destroy towns, but they’re there, all the time.”

Martin glanced up at him and then down at the screen, and Tyler expected him to say Tyler was talking crap, but he was nodding.

“That would explain the variance,” Martin muttered and stabbed at the screen before pinching it to zoom in. “It’s quiet right now, but there are smaller valleys and peaks there.”

“Background noise.” Tyler loved his subject, and Martin actually seemed interested right now. “That is seismic noise, a persistent vibration of the ground, from all kinds of sources. We don’t need that data, but it forms part of the baseline for this station. What we are looking for are clusters of movement, what we call swarms, and linked up to the entire network, it might give us warnings that a larger quake is on the horizon.”

Martin handed the iPad back and then sat back in his chair, nursing his coffee, staying quiet as Tyler finished his reports and then submitted them. Together they moved Martin’s tent away from the hole he’d dug in his nightmares, and then filled it with loose mud, packing it down.

“Now I need your help.” He led Martin to the Jeep and pulled out two five-gallon buckets nestled inside each other and full of pieces of wood and what looked like giant sieves propped up between them. Together they hauled everything up to near the drop stone, and Martin sat and watched as Tyler constructed a frame from pieces of wood with predrilled holes, taking everything closer to the water.

“Ready to look for treasure?”

Martin glanced from the frame to water. “Yep.”

He smiled, and Tyler desperately wanted to kiss that smile. He cradled Martin’s face gently and smoothed curls with his thumbs.

“Can I kiss you, Martin?”

In response, Martin leaned in and met Tyler halfway, and the kiss was sweet until it turned hot. They kissed enough so that they both ran out of breath, but it was Martin who pulled back.

“Stop trying to distract me from the treasure,” he teased.

And all Tyler could think was that he’d just had the treasure in his hands.

He just hoped it wasn’t fool’s gold and that he would get to see Martin after they were done here.