Aidan’s face softened. “He liked you. Said you had an old soul and young hands, whatever that meant.”
“It meant I could understand old cars but still had steady enough hands to fix them.” Dylan found herself smiling despite everything. “He had a way with words.”
“He had a way with everything. Including making things complicated.” Aidan held out the paper. “He hid something—a family heirloom. Left clues to find it. His letter said I’d need help from someone clever, someone who thinks differently than I do.”
Dylan took the paper. The handwriting was distinctive—the precise script of someone who’d learned penmanship when it was still an art.
“‘Where iron horses once ran free,” she read aloud, “before the mountain came to be, / where settlers first put down their claim, / before O’Hara was our name.’”
Her mind immediately began working the puzzle, grateful for something concrete to focus on while her heart attempted to maintain something like normal rhythm. “Iron horses—that’s trains. The old railroad line that ran through the valley.”
“That’s what my family figured, but it’s miles of track bed. We need to narrow it down somehow.”
“The second part is key,” she murmured, studying the words with the same intensity she brought to diagnostic problems. “Before the mountain came to be—that’s not literal. Mountains don’t just appear. Maybe it means before something was named? Or before development? Was there a time when part of your land wasn’t called a mountain?”
“I have no idea.” Aidan moved closer, ostensibly to look at the paper, but she could feel the heat of him, could smell that pine soap that had been undermining her concentration for five years. “My grandfather loved his puzzles, but he always said they had logical answers if you knew how to look. He said the same thing about engines, actually. That every problem had a solution if you could see past what you expected to find.”
“Wise man,” Dylan said, handing back the paper before she did something stupid like lean into Aidan’s warmth.
“He was.” Aidan refolded the letter with precision. “Would you help me? I know you’ve got this big decision to make, and if you take the Seattle job?—”
“It’s not in Seattle,” she corrected automatically. “The shop is. But Marcus said I could work out of any of their locations. They have one in Bozeman.”
Aidan went very still. “Bozeman’s only three hours away.”
“Two and a half if you don’t hit traffic.”
“That’s…that’s not leaving. That’s commuting distance.”
Dylan hadn’t thought of it that way, but he was right. She could keep her apartment, still come back to Laurel Valley on weekends. It was a compromise she hadn’t let herself fully consider.
“Would you help me?” Aidan asked, his tone shifting to something more businesslike. “Saturday morning. We could start at the old railroad bed, work through the clues systematically. I’ll bring coffee and those apple cider donuts from Heavenly Delights.”
“You remember my donut preference?” Dylan was surprised he’d noticed.
“I notice more than you think.” There was something in the way he said it that made her pulse skip. “Eight o’clock? We can meet at the Pine Ridge turnout.”
It wasn’t really a question—he was already assuming she’d say yes. The confidence should have annoyed her, but instead she found it oddly appealing. This was the Aidan who ran a successful business, who made decisions and followed through.
“Fine,” she said, trying to sound more reluctant than she felt. “But I’m only doing this because I respected your grandfather.”
“Of course,” Aidan agreed, though his slight smile suggested he wasn’t buying it entirely. “Patrick would appreciate you helping carry on his unique brand of torture.”
“He’d probably find the whole thing hilarious,” Dylan said, remembering the old man’s wicked sense of humor.
“He would.” Aidan’s expression softened. “He always said the best treasures were the ones you had to work for. I’m starting to think he wasn’t just talking about the ring.”
She should say no. Should maintain the distance that had kept her heart relatively intact for five years. Should make her decision about Marcus Rowan’s offer based on logic and financial sense, not on the way Aidan O’Hara’s eyes lit up when he talked about his grandfather.
“Patrick would have loved this,” she said instead of answering directly. “A treasure hunt, making you work for something. He always said the O’Hara boys had everything too easy.”
“He wasn’t wrong.” Aidan’s smile was rueful and oddly charming in its self-awareness. “Everything except figuring out what actually matters.”
Before Dylan could parse what that meant, the door burst open and Ralph’s voice filled the garage like sunshine after rain.
“Morning, everyone! Another beautiful day in paradise!” He stopped short, taking in the scene—Dylan and Aidan standing closer than professional distance dictated, both of them looking like they’d been caught at something. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Dylan said quickly, stepping back and grabbing a wrench she didn’t need. “Just discussing Saturday.”
