Treasure Heart

By Bob Jordan

The "Treasure Hunting Bug" bites Jake Thompson when he spies a metal detector on a billboard. But how could he know what lay ahead when he and his Chocolate Lab strike out for the park to search for buried treasure?

A rusty old key and spent .38 caliber shells Jake unearths, becomes the link to a forty-year-old crime. Its power can either destroy several lives or reunite long, lost lovers. Hidden money, broken hearts, buried secrets, misunderstandings and possible new beginnings all await...with a single turn of that key. Which will it be?

Treasure Heart is a true mystery / romance novel, based on a real character. If you've gone through a divorce, lost someone you've loved, or looking for a new beginning in your life...this book was written for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Jordan
• Release date: Jun 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476307336

Bob Jordan

Bob Jordan was born in 1949 in the midwest. He had a 'Leave It To Beaver' type of childhood. Bob's childhood friends had much to do with his decision to become a writer of books. "I shared the playground with some strange, quirky kids. As I grew older I was never able to leave them behind. Their faces, stories, and laughter hitched a ride into my adult life and have been with me ever since. I had to write about them, they left me no choice!" Bob sums things up this way, "I never grew up, I just got taller."My books are also in audio and are available here: http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Unfinished-Business-Audiobook/B00BY7MFE2

Book preview

Treasure Heart

by

Clanci

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Bob Jordan

Registered with the United States Copyright Office

Cover Art Copyright 2012 Miss Mae

Cover Art by Miss Mae

Smashwords Edition Licensing Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with other people, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this ebook without purchasing it and it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

Acknowledgments

A special thank you to my editor, Laurean Brooks. I am blessed to have worked with you!

To my X. Thanks for leaving me…If you hadn’t, I never would have written this story. I don’t miss you; I miss the person you once were.

Chapter One

October 1980:

The metal detector buzzed and Jake Thompson knelt to dig in the moist earth to dislodge his latest find. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like a key. With his thumbnail, he scraped away caked-on mud. Yes, it was a key. With most of the dirt gone, he briskly rubbed it against his pants’ leg, and looked again. A slightly faded picture of a bus with the number 9 stamped below it, showed through. Within a few feet, the metal detector went off again. Four inches underground he dug up three .38 caliber casings.

That’s strange, Jake mused. "Where did this key come from, and what does it unlock? And these spent gun shells…how did they get here? He propped his metal detector against a gold-leafed maple and eased down in the shade beneath it, beside his Chocolate Lab. He held the new-found treasures out to Daisy for inspection. What do you think, girl? Are these our big finds of the day?" After a couple of sniffs the dog lost interest and rolled to her back to relax in the wonderful scents and sounds of nature. Jake stuffed the key and casings into his pocket and relaxed against the tree.

He’d been bit by the treasure hunting bug. The new hobby was both rewarding and relaxing. It got him out of the house and back to nature. With each beep from the metal detector, his heart pumped faster. Treasure hunting took Jake’s mind off his painful divorce, diverting it to something he enjoyed. He and Daisy could hardly wait for Sunday afternoons and their drive to The Narrows, as he called it. Skimming the two-hundred-acre, county-owned property with his metal detector, Jake had already amassed a good-sized collection of old coins which he meticulously cleaned and separated when he got home. Besides the coins, he managed to fill a large mason jar with tokens, rings, bracelets and other assorted tchotchkes. He never knew what he would find next. Not that he’d unearthed anything of much value. At least nothing he was aware of. But who knew? The biggest treasure could be waiting just around the bend or across the gurgling stream.

Jake recalled the day the treasure hunt fever started. He and Daisy were headed home from a nature hike at The Narrows when a large billboard caught his attention. The picture depicted an outdoorsman operating a metal detector in an open field, searching for buried treasure. What a great idea! he thought.

As a lad from Ohio, he loved treasure hunts with his older sister, Linda. They would often find buried pop bottles in their neighborhood then cash them in at nearby Willis Market for a bag full of penny candy. So the idea of owning a metal detector resonated with him. Heck, he already had the perfect location. Besides plenty of acreage, The Narrows was a habitat for an assortment of cows, horses, ducks and geese. Its solitude and beauty had become a healing suave for his broken heart.

Jake sighed. It was funny how childhood memories rushed back just when he needed them most. Like running into an old friend. He smiled, closing his eyes to mentally replay those distant snapshots. Stretched out under the shade tree in a half-dreaming state, he might have lain there a lot longer, were it not for Daisy’s bark. He opened his eyes to watch his Chocolate Lab chase a bushy-tailed fox squirrel up a nearby oak. The squirrel fussed at Daisy from its perch on an outstretched limb. Jake laughed at Daisy, as she sat on her haunches patiently waiting for the squirrel to come back down.

Life had been good to him over the past year. That hadn’t always been true. The year before, his marriage of fifteen years fell apart without warning, leaving him devastated. Like a sucker punch, he never saw it coming. Jake’s wife had been his best friend, and he thought the feeling was mutual. All he had wanted was to spend the rest of his life in one happy adventure after another with his soul mate.

When she left, Jake felt abandoned. Numb from the after-effects of the shattered relationship, he literally forced himself to eat and breathe. The first six months he could not enter the bedroom they shared; the memories overwhelmed him. Instead, he slept on the couch until he could get a grip on his life. His marriage shouldn’t have ended; he and his wife were supposed to grow old together. A handyman by trade, Jake once thought he could fix anything. But where his marriage was concerned, his talents were useless. Like Humpty-Dumpty. "All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not" put his marriage together again.

Friends told him, time was the greatest healer. If that was true, he wished he had a magic button to push—one to fast forward past the pain. Because at one point the pain was so unbearable he didn’t care whether he lived or died.

Jake pulled himself out of his reverie and reached over to stroke Daisy, who had given up on chasing the squirrel, and returned to his side. He wrapped an arm around the Lab’s neck and hugged her close. Life had such strange twists. Daisy was much more than a rescue dog; she literally rescued him from despair. He needed to be accountable to someone, so he adopted her nearly two years ago, right after she left him. He didn’t know it at the

Reviews for Treasure Heart

[rebeccagraf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man finds himself alone with his dog after his wife has left him. He is pulling it all together when everything around him begins to shift. He gets a new job, discovers a decades old secret, and meets a new love. All in a very short story.The pace of the story was well done as it is a short book, and the author gets a lot of stories including a deep backstory into those pages. That keeps the reader wanting to continue and not put the book down. There is the story of the main character, the story of an older friend of his, the story of a ghost town and an old bus station, the story of a young woman, and the story of a woman who moved on with her life. That doesn’t even include the story of a crime years ago. See what I mean? When it comes to the various story lines, I’m impressed with the number the author pulled in and how well they all came together. I have to admit that I had most of it figured out long before a quarter of the way in, but it did not lesson the enjoyment of the read.The characters were very interesting. I think they were well developed. The only issue I had was that at several points in the story were conflict or tension existed the dialogue and the actions of the characters were too stilted. I didn’t feel right as I read them.I really did enjoy this read. I would read more of the author’s works. It’s a read you’ll enjoy and not want to put down just because you want to see it all tied together in a nice bow like you hoped it would be.Note: I received this book from the author with no expectation of a positive review.