a Romantic Adventure by Kris Bock
The lost Victorio
Peak treasure is the stuff of legends – a heretic Spanish priest’s gold mine,
made richer by the spoils of bandits and an Apache raider. When Erin, a quiet
history professor, uncovers a clue that may pinpoint the lost treasure cave,
she prepares for adventure. But when a hit and run driver nearly kills her, she
realizes she’s not the only one after the treasure. And is Drew, the handsome
helicopter pilot who found her bleeding in a ditch, really a hero, or one of
the enemy?
“The story has it
all - action, romance, danger, intrigue, lost treasure, not to mention a
sizzling relationship....”
Chapter 1:
Erin could hardly believe what she was
seeing. Could this be it? After all this time waiting, searching, had she
finally, finally, found what she was looking for?
She forced herself to sit back and take a
deep breath. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t rush into things. She wanted to leap
up and scream her excitement, but years of academic training held. Slow down,
double-check everything, and make sure you are right!
She leaned forward and ran her fingers over
the grainy photograph. With that one image, everything seemed to fall into
place. This was the clue. It had to be.
She fumbled in her desk drawer for a
magnifying glass and studied the symbols in the photo more closely. At a
glance, they looked like your standard Indian petroglyphs. You could find them
throughout the Southwest, tucked away in caves or scattered among boulder
fields. She’d been on a hike just a few miles outside of town which took her
past a wonderful series of handprints and spirals, and what looked strangely
like a robot.
But this was different.
If she was right—and she had to be
right—these symbols were a map. A map that could lead her to one of the
greatest caches of buried treasure ever.
Erin flipped back a few pages, to the first
photograph, the one that showed an overview of the boulder field. She confirmed
that it had numbers identifying the specific rocks that the book then showed in
detail. She could see a few outcroppings that would help orient anyone searching
for those petroglyphs. The book also had a map of the area, and clear
directions. She would be able to find the carved map. If the landscape hadn’t
changed too much the last century, anyway.
She pushed that thought aside, jumped up,
and did a little dance.
She reached for the phone. In a few seconds
a voice said, “Yeah.” Erin could hear the sound of some tool on metal in the
background.
“Camie? I found it! I found the clue! I know
where the treasure is—well, at least, I think I’ve found the first clue that
will—”
Camie cut her off. “Forget the disclaimers.
You really found something? You mean, we might actually do this?”
The two women laughed into the phone
together. Erin collapsed into her desk chair, her cheeks sore from
smiling. “I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. Look, are you at work? I’ll come
by. I can get out of here in, oh, fifteen minutes, so I’ll see you in half an
hour?” She leaned over her desk and gazed down at the photo in the battered old
book. “I want to show you where we’re going. We need to make plans.”
“I’ll be here waiting.” Camie’s voice
purred, with a touch of twang. “Honey, we’re going places.”
Erin hung up and gazed at the book a moment
longer. Who would believe she’d found the clue to one of the most fabulous
hidden treasures ever, in a battered old library book? The book must have been
sitting there for years, quietly hoarding its secrets. But she had found it.
Six months of research had led to this.
In the beginning, it had been a whim.
Something to distract her from the tedium of teaching history classes at a
small science college where students didn’t value history. Researching lost
treasures was fun, and she’d written a few articles about it for magazines.
Reading the books on lost mines and buried treasures, you’d think the entire
country was covered with them. The Southwest had more than its fair share, from
miners who lost track of their remote gold mines, to prospectors who had buried
bags of gold and never returned to retrieve them, to bandits who had hidden
stolen loot and been killed.
But among all the legends, all the fact and
fiction, one story stood out. The Victorio Peak legend had it all. A Franciscan
priest and a swindler. Torture, murder, a government cover-up. Where was the
truth, among all the stories? Erin wanted to find out. Over time, and with
Camie’s encouragement, she’d started to take the treasure hunt more seriously.
It wasn’t so much for the treasure itself—that would most likely belong to the
government or the landowners. But from the start, she’d recognized the
potential, should she ever unearth new information. Forget academic
publications; this was the kind of story which could capture the general
imagination and catapult her into success as a writer of popular nonfiction. It
would make her reputation, open up new job opportunities—change her life in
ways she hardly dared dream.
Erin shook her head. Who would’ve thought
that she, the quiet, studious girl who’d spent her entire adult life in
academia in one way or another, would be planning such an adventure?
She checked that the front door was locked,
a habit left over from living in bigger cities, grabbed her bike helmet, and
went out the back.
Erin wheeled the bike around the front of
her house and mounted. At the corner, she paused and looked both ways. The long
frontage road was dangerously narrow, with a cement wall on one side and a
ditch on the other. Fortunately, traffic was normally light, and at this time
of day the road lay empty. Erin pushed off, still grinning from her find. She
rode on the right side, by the ditch, instead of facing traffic, because it was
just too frightening to ride alongside the wall when a car passed.
She’d gone a block when she heard the hum of
a car engine as it pulled out from a side street behind her. She rode along the
very edge of the pavement, even though the car would have plenty of room to
pass her without oncoming traffic.
Erin glanced over her shoulder. The black
SUV 20 feet behind her hadn’t bothered to pull out into the road at all. Jerk.
When would drivers learn to share the road with bicyclists? Erin pulled onto
the two-foot wide gravel strip between the pavement and the ditch. She couldn’t
stop without risking a skid, but she slowed so the SUV could pass.
The engine roared. Erin glanced back again.
Black metal bore down on her. Her heart
lurched and the bike wobbled. This guy was crazy! She whipped her gaze forward,
rose up in the seat, and pumped the pedals with all her power, skimming along
inches from the ditch. He was just trying to scare her. She’d get his license
plate and—
She felt the bumper hit her back tire. The
bike seemed to leap into the air, and she went flying. The dried mud and weeds
of the ditch seemed to rise up to meet her.
Visit all the Book Hooks from #MFRWHooks - You might find
your next great read!
Kris Bock writes novels of
suspense and romance featuring outdoor adventures in Southwestern landscapes.
E-books are available from $.99 to $2.99, or free with Kindle
Unlimited. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit
her Amazon page.
The
Southwest Treasure Hunter novels feature feisty heroines and supportive heroes
tracking down mysterious treasures in New Mexico and Arizona. Each book stands
alone, starting with The Mad Monk’s Treasure.
Kris’s other
titles include Whispers in the Dark, a gothic drama at an
archaeology dig in the Four Corners area, What We Found, a murder
mystery set in small-town New Mexico, and Counterfeits, a suspense
set near Jemez Springs.
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