Page 80 of Another Man’s Treasure

“He did,” Artur says. “Sipan Varian was my great-great-great-grandfather.”

“So this is all connected,” Willa muses as I try to pick my jaw up off the floor. “We thought it might be, but we couldn’t know.”

Artur’s smile broadens. “I moved to be closer to my calves and grandcalves, but it's always been my charge to help usher in a new era, if it happened during my lifetime. It’s every Sandoval male’s charge, which is why Emmer’s primarily been working the sale up until now. We didn’t test positive for keeping traits so we knew we couldn’t be his successors, but we could do this. Once it became clear it was happening, we decided to come here in person.”

Wild stares at him in utter shock. “We’ve been working on this for a year, though; how could you have possibly known it was time? We didn’t get a clue until this week.”

Sandoval shrugs, smiling at his son. “I prayed to the minotaur gods and goddesses for a sign. When you expressed interest in the ranch, I liked what you were about, and I felt good in a way I hadn’t felt about any of the other interested parties.”

“A feeling?” Wilder scoffs. “You based this entire thing on a feeling?”

“I trusted the minotaur gods and goddesses,” Artur corrects.

“But wait,” Willa says, lifting a hand. “It sounds like you’re tying the sale of the ranch in with this whole rebirth of Pine Gulch Keeper business. Wild and Oz aren’t Keepers.”

Sandoval’s smile grows impossibly wide. “They aren’t, but you could be, couldn’t you, Miss Lane?”

Wilder

This entire dinner has gone so sideways I don’t even know where to start. This bombshell news? What am I even supposed to do with it?

“She didn’t test positive for keeping traits,” I offer gently. “I don’t want you to hang your hopes and dreams on her; we⁠—”

“That’s not exactly right, is it?” Artur asks Wills. “You never went through the testing, did you?”

Willa shifts uncomfortably in the seat, looking between the Sandovals and me. Waving a dismissive hand around, she looks anywhere but at the Sandovals. “Technically, no.”

Oz gasps, and I lean around him to stare at my baby sister. “Willa, what in the hells is going on? What’s he talking about?”

She grabs the end of her braid and tugs on it, a nervous tic I haven’t seen her do in years. Not since the tense times just after our father left us and disappeared.

“I didn’t want to,” she says quietly. “I was in law school, and I didn’t agree with how Hearth HQ ran the program. What if I’d been forced to become a Keeper halfway through school? I wasn’t willing to take the risk, and I had a…friend in the testing department. He helped me out.”

I’m so flabbergasted by this, I can’t find a single word to say.

“How’d you come by that information?” Willa asks.

“We’ve our ways,” Artur says simply. “That’s all you need to know.”

A shadow appears to the right just as I’m about to ask for more details.

“Not hardly,” says Saint Ashbourne, dragging a chair over. He drops into it with both arms over the back, grinning as he looks between all of us.

Oz tenses next to me, and I’ve never been more grateful for Willa being next to him so there’s space between us. I’d love nothing more than to reach over this table and throttle him.

“You’re not needed at this dinner, Mister Ashbourne,” Emmer says coolly. “See yourself out, if you please.”

“I don’t think so,” Saint says with a cruel laugh, glancing at Oz and me. “See, I’d thought when I came here maybe Oz and I could rekindle a little something we had before, but of course he belongs to Wilder, so that didn’t work out. But it got me thinking, because it wasn’t really that long ago. How recent could this little interlude really even be?”

Ice fills my veins as Oz wraps his tail around my wrist, squeezing it so hard it cuts off my circulation.

Saint reaches out and grabs a piece of bread from a basket in the center of the table. Biting off a big hunk, he chews as he smiles between us. “See, here’s the thing. It gave me time to do a little bit of digging, get to know the local folk, ya know? It turns out folks here are real happy to talk about anything and everything. Including,” he waves at Oz, “how long they’ve known Oz, and how very, very single he’s been up until quite recently.”

Oh shitting fuck. He’s far more observant than I gave him credit for.

“Those pixie twins?” He grins big at Oz, who’s frozen by my side.”They are an absolute wealth of information about you two.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I manage on a growl.