Swept Away (The Swept Away Saga, Book One)

Chapter Eight

The smell of fried chicken filled the air of the kitchen as Dad and I cooked dinner the next night. It was a comfortable routine we'd established in my time here. Some nights he would prepare the main entrée and I would make a side salad or steam some vegetables. Other times, like tonight, I did the majority of the cooking and he handled the side dish. It was carrots and rice tonight.

"So," I started conversationally, "I've been meaning to ask you, how do you buy stock in your own company anonymously?"

His laugh bounced around the room as he sliced the vegetables. "It's pretty easy to do with online trading. Of course, the broker and the company know who I am—they would even if I wasn't the owner—but it's very easy to list it all as a secret. I did it exactly for this reason, too. I knew that someday, someone would try to take it from me. Oak Isle is a very coveted piece of land. We have a deal with the owner now, but I bet Duke's been trying to get him to end it as well. With our discovery in the swamp, I imagine Ralph—he's the guy who owns the island—won't budge on our deal."

"I guess that's nice security," I chuckled. "Do I get to hear what your big plan to drain the pit is now?"

Glancing over, I saw the grin that graced his face so easily. "Not tonight. I want to show everyone tomorrow. You up for a bit of a road trip before?"

"Where to?"

"Just upstate, to the next city. I need to stop by and pick up some drills."

"I guess that'll be fine. Do we have time to do any shopping? I'd like to grab a few more outfits and some new tennis shoes. The ones I have now kinda got destroyed by the swamp."

"No problem," he answered, shrugging. "I'm sure there's a mall or something there."

Dinner passed quickly as we discussed our plans for the next day, a slight excitement to our speech.

The next morning found us in the car, windows down as we sped across the highway to Crawfordsville. Dad was humming along to the radio, lost in his own thoughts as I watched the coast. Everything here was just so . . . green. I still couldn't believe it. The desert did get colorful at times, but nothing like this. It was like my whole adventure here had turned into some kind of make believe paradise. By the time we were in the city, I'd decided that maybe it wasn't so bad Dad wanted to leave me everything. A life on the coast could be my type of life.

"Do you want me to drop you off and go to Beman's by myself?" Dad asked as we passed through town. "They're going to drive the drills out after us, so it needs to be the last thing we do."

"That's good with me," I replied, smiling happily. "I shouldn't be too long."

"Awesome." He turned into the parking lot of a strip mall and let me out, promising to be about thirty or forty minutes. With my wallet in hand, I made my way to the chain shoe store on the end, hoping to find some good work shoes that could withstand the island.

Forty minutes later, I found myself sitting on the sidewalk, a couple shopping bags around me, as Dad pulled up. On the main street, I could see several large drilling trucks heading out of town.

"They knew where to go." Dad laughed as I slid into my seat.

"Of course." I smiled. "The Treasure Pit has probably given them lots of business over the years."

"Yeah, I'm still glad I came, though. There were a few things that needed ironed out and we would have had to send them back if they'd come the way they were set up. What a waste of money that would have been, eh?"