Justin Thyme Ch. 16

"Yes, Sir."

"By the way, Michael, I'm not trying to rub you wrong. If I don't call you Mike I'll end up blowing it when we finally see Abernathy. OK?"

"No problem, Sir."

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Mary was up and getting ready for work, but thoughts of last night kept crowding her mind. She thought Tom was a good man, but doubts kept cropping up. Her experience with Paul clouded her thought process, but Tom was nothing like Paul, was he? Stephanie liked Tom, and she hated Paul, and Tom treated both of them with respect, not trying to take advantage in any way. If anything he seemed to try to keep a distance. Her offer of her guest room jumped into her mind, embarrassing her, but there was nothing to be embarrassed about there, was there? Sure, the neighbors might raise an eyebrow, but as Stephanie so crudely had said, they would probably say it was about time. The certainly had done enough to try and hook her up with people over the last eight or nine years.

Strangely, she found herself getting ready for work before she got dressed. Normally she showered and dressed before drying her hair or doing anything with her make-up, but this morning she did everything in the nude, looking at her reflection in the full length mirror on the back of the door. "Get a grip, Mary," she told herself, but she had to admit her feelings were stirred by Tom. She decided she would not "set her cap" for him, as her grandmother had called it, but she would see what transpired and take one day at a time. Every time she thought of Tom her heart fluttered though. The last thing she did before pulling on her robe to go back to her room to dress was to pluck at both nipples and then smooth her hands down her sides as if to reassure herself she still had curves.

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Dad and I went back to the house and got Mom and Rosemary. I know Dad would have liked to drive the Mini to Scottsdale, but of course it wouldn't work. Rosemary and I clambered into the back seat to leave room for Grandpa and Grandma in the middle, which suited us nicely, as we could at least hold hands together and talk quietly.

Grandpa was waiting for us at the door, even though we were three minutes before time, and he was looking impatiently at his watch when Dad drove into the driveway. For as even tempered a man as Grandpa is, he sure does hate to wait for anybody! Grandma came out the door just ahead of Grandpa carrying an ice cream bucket, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know she had some homemade cookies in there for us.

As soon as we had the car on the highway headed north and all of the pleasantries were taken care of, including a couple of Grandma's still warm snickerdoodles in hand, Dad said, "As President of the Thyme and Thyme Again Properties, I hereby call this meeting of the Board of Directors to order." Mom had her tablet on her lap to take notes of our discussion, and we began kicking around our purpose for the trip to Scottsdale. First of all, Mom and Grandma wanted to see the lower office, as we had taken to calling it, and we needed to inventory the contents of the locked room, plus anything of interest in the desk. Next, we had to look at the documents in the hidden drawer in the old desk in the library. I had a feeling that was going to prove very interesting for sure.

I shot off a quick text to Michael telling him what we were doing. I know he said he wasn't concerned about getting anything from what we found in the house, but we were determined to be fair and above board, even though it would cost me significantly. I, at the same time, planned on at least a four way split with the other owners of the house, that is Mom, Dad, and Rosemary. I didn't see why I should be the sole beneficiary for what I found in our house.

Once we had decided on our plan for the day Dad brought up my idea of adding an electronic opener for the hidden door in the carriage house for discussion. Mom and Grandma were both non-committal on the idea, but Rosemary quickly objected. "I don't like the idea. If somebody somehow found the switch they would have access to the whole house from the inside, and we wouldn't even know they were there. I wouldn't feel safe with it."

I wasn't as worried about someone finding the switch since the outside doors would remain closed other than when in use, and we would never use it if anyone else was in the bay, but I could understand her fears. Grandpa concurred with her on the idea, not so much from the fear standpoint, but simply that it gave another means of access that was now denied. As it was one had to either go through the house and through a hidden door, or one had to go upstairs to the old servant's quarters to find the hidden door there.

I had no problem conceding. After all, security was my biggest worry about the house. I felt responsible for all the young ladies in the house, and if another entry made Rosemary nervous I would not put one in.

Dad swiped his keycard at the gate, and it opened promptly and smoothly, exactly as I expected it to do. Rosemary and I let go of each other's hands as we entered the property, but the little minx leaned across me to watch the gate go up, rubbing her boobs across my arm in the process, and 'catching' herself by grabbing my far thigh with her thumb right next to my cock. She managed to rub back and forth on me a couple of times, pretending to see how high the gate went, or some sort of thing. It was not what I needed right then. I was already struggling with a hyper-charged sex drive after the last couple of weeks with her and Stephanie, and this was the longest I had gone without any activity since we started.

Mom hadn't seen the house since we had the exterior painted, and she was quite excited to see the results. She wanted to walk all about the house to see it from every angle, so we waited while she and Dad walked around. Rosemary managed to stand slightly behind me, and brushed a boob across my upper arm several times when Grandpa and Grandma were looking away, plus she pointed out several things for them to look at. I had to step away from her, just to look at the taunting look she gave me. My cock was heading toward hard, and I didn't need to be sporting a bulge around my family.

Finally, Mom was through looking at the exterior. I guess once a realtor it is in your blood, and you have to check every place out. We all trouped into the house and made our way to the library, where I wanted to stop and check out the desk, but the lower office was first on the list of priorities. Rosemary and I stood back and let Mom look in the closet to see if she could find the door latch, but after a few minutes of tugging and pushing she gave up and had us show her the hanging rod release. She was just too impatient to see the sights themselves that she really didn't care about the mechanics of the door.

Dad went down the ladder first, just in case Mom or Grandma slipped, then we all promptly followed and I made sure the door latched before descending. Grandpa pointed out where we found the skeletons, and how they were holding the guns, and watched Mom and Grandma shudder. I think he got more fun out of telling that tale than anything else about the house! He and Dad took a cursory glance through the desk, but found nothing of any real significance. We would come back to it later and go through the papers more carefully. Several maps were folded carefully and put away, but we didn't take the time to look at them.

Grandpa picked up the key ring from the desk drawer and led us all down the short hallway to the storeroom, or whatever it was, and I felt a growing surge of excitement in my chest. After all, it isn't every day one finds out how much gold he owns! Of course, we knew about the rolls of coins, and we planned to take half of them home with us so I could look up dates and values. Some of them probably had some numismatic values beyond the melt value of the gold. Michael's share we would leave locked in the room until the next time he was up here with us.

Mom shuddered a little bit when she saw the door. "It looks like a dungeon or something," she whispered.

"We will keep that for those who fall behind in their rent," I joked, but Mom wasn't in a joking mood.

I really have to hand it to whomever it was that built this house. After over a hundred years the door swung open smoothly and silently. I turned on the work light we left in the room the last time, and Mom gasped as she saw the golden glow that filled the room from the light reflected off of the bars on the shelves. "I've never seen gold like this, nor that much at one time, either!"

It was a tight fit into the room for all of us at one time, and Rosemary used it as an excuse to rub her ass against me as I stood in the doorway. She even reached back and grabbed my cock and stroked it a time or two for good measure before looking back at me with those puppy dog eyes and grinning. Nobody was overly excited about looking at the ledgers lined up on the shelves, but there was a very good chance they would hold as much value as the gold in the room. Maybe not, but I had a hunch there would be info in them that we could make use of down the road.

Mom and Grandma both handled some of the obviously hand-made and homemade gold bars. They were all marked 10oz, but none of them were certified, and they weren't the normal shape for a gold bar. It appeared Sam Johnson had smelted ore down and weighed them out himself secretly, which explained the forge tucked away in the back corner of the far end of the carriage house. Normally one would expect to see a forge for blacksmithing out in the open where it would be cooler, especially down here in southern Arizona, but this one was set up for other than blacksmithing, while made to look like a blacksmith or farrier's workplace. That old boy never missed a trick that I could see.

Even gold loses its appeal after a while, so Mom, Grandma, and Rosemary drifted out of the room and went back upstairs to look at what Rosemary and I had accomplished while Grandpa, Dad and I stayed behind to sort out what we had and to evaluate it. Of course there were the thirty bars on the shelves, but on the floor were two crates that had gold bars stacked in them. I bent over to pick up one crate, but I struggled to budge it. This find was exceptional to say the least.

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The ER was unusually quiet, even for this time of the morning. Dr. Meechum decided to take his break early and run down to the cafeteria for a quick bowl of oatmeal and what passed for coffee. The coffee in the waiting room was far superior, but it was supposed to be for family members of patients, so staff was supposed to limit themselves to what the cafeteria provided.

Raisins and cinnamon added to the oatmeal gave it some flavor, and apple slices alongside added some fruit to his diet, but Tom couldn't get excited about his breakfast this morning. It might be a healthy breakfast, but it didn't taste like a couple of over easy eggs, fried in bacon grease, and a large bowl of grits with a large pat of butter and three or four slices of bacon like he grew up with as a kid. Sometimes he thought he knew too much about medicine for his own enjoyment. He stirred the oatmeal moodily and stared into the bowl without lifting the spoon to his mouth.

Tom was surprised with himself. He had started the morning out in such a great mood, but found himself moping and down in the dumps all of a sudden. Perhaps it was because he had time to think instead of being busy in the ER as normal. As he stirred his unappetizing breakfast he slowly came to the realization the problem was he was lonely. It was Mary's fault. She was the one who cracked open the shell he had built so carefully around himself, and the light shining in the crack made him see himself differently and he did not like what he saw. The thought of Mary though did brighten his thoughts for a bit as he contemplated what he could do to begin developing the relationship he mentioned to her. His total preoccupation with medicine and becoming a doctor along with his isolating himself from people left him wondering how to go about such a task.

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Stephanie awoke late in the morning and stretched hugely, enjoying the quiet and peace of having no school again today. She slipped from her bed and padded into the bathroom and started the shower water. As she stepped in she thought of the last shower she took with Rosemary and Justin and felt her nipples tighten and a flutter in her lower belly. It was a shame they had to go to Scottsdale today. She really wished they could be together again.

After her shower Stephanie toweled off and wrapped her hair in the towel before walking naked to the kitchen to fix breakfast. The breeze from the air conditioner vent chilled her still slightly damp skin causing her nipples to tighten again, and when she got to the kitchen itself she saw her mother had left the blinds open on the side window that overlooked the neighbors. At first she started to duck back out of sight, but then she thought, "They are at work. Nobody can really see me anyway," and she walked on into the room tingling with anticipation of "What if... ."

A real flutter of anticipation stirred inside and she fought to keep from looking out the window continuously just to be sure she wasn't seen. It became a real rush thinking that just maybe the neighbors were home, and they were watching her. What would they be thinking about her body? Would they find it sexy or not. Would they even care? Gradually she became more daring, not ostentatiously, but just in her normal activities as she ate her breakfast, then cleaned up the table and straightened the kitchen.

Stephanie thought about what she was doing, and realized it wasn't so much that she wanted to be seen as that she just really didn't care. Just feeling the cool air conditioning directly on her skin felt exquisite. As she walked into her bedroom to get her computer she thought about her feelings, and finally decided she felt free. Free and unencumbered. Not sexy as such, although she was somewhat turned on by the experience, but she just felt so wondrously free.

Turning on her computer she waited impatiently for it to boot up, and then did a quick search for nude life and started browsing various sites, seeing pictures of both male and female in non-sexual situations enjoying life in the nude. Could she bring herself to do such a thing? "Only if I can get Justin to go along," she thought. Her cell phone rang, interrupting her reverie, and she picked it up to see it was Susie.

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My phone rang while I was still in the storeroom with Grandpa and Dad. I was irritated at the interruption, and I didn't recognize the number, but I answered it anyway. "Hello."

"Hello, Justin? This is Brian Stevens. I just got off the phone with Jim over at the electronics store, and he suggested I give you a call and that we get together sometime in the near future when you have the time to do so. He said something about working with you to set up a store in the Phoenix area. Would you have any time available to get together?"

"What kind of time frame do you have in mind?"

"Whatever works for you. I'm finishing up at ASU, so my time is limited until the end of May, but I can work my schedule to meet yours pretty much if you are going to be in the area."

"Tell you what. I'm really tied up right at this moment, and I need to take a look at my schedule. I'm presently up here in Scottsdale, but I don't know how long I will be here today, nor for sure when I'll be back up here. Let's do this, give me a call back at around four o'clock and I'll try to have a handle on what I have going on. Will that work?"

"Certainly. Thanks, and I'll speak with you at four," and the line went dead. I seems like he's from the same school as Grandpa when it comes to talking on the phone.

Dad was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "Sounds like Jim didn't waste any time, did he? What happened to after graduation?"

"He probably wants to get this guy sewed up before he takes another job."

Grandpa grunted. "Here you are with both hands full and your pants to hold up, and you want to grab another armload. Better be careful, or you'll find your britches down around your ankles, boy." I know Grandpa really cares and isn't just trying to be a busybody, but I didn't see where I was taking on that much more. I was just going to be a silent partner, and I didn't blame Jim for running Brian past me for my approval before he made him an offer.

Gold is heavy. Most people understand the concept intellectually, but they don't really understand it until they try to handle and move the stuff. How Sam Johnson was able to get all of it down here without anyone finding out about it I have no idea. Obviously, Murray knew something, and probably suspected more, especially as he appeared to be the go-between for Johnson and a prospector, but it was equally clear he didn't know all of it. Gold and lead are very close in weights, and while I know a pound of gold and a pound of feathers weigh exactly the same amount they take up much different amounts of space!

One does not realize the density and the mass of an object until he tries to pick it up. The box was only a foot tall and a foot by two feet, but weighed over fifty pounds! Grandpa laughed at me. "You'd better try unloading that and seeing how much is in there before you bust something. One reason most people can't hide gold when they find it is because it is so heavy that it draws attention."

Dad knelt down on the floor with me and we started unloading bar after bar of gold and counting them. Seventy two bars of gold, and there was another crate just like it. My head swam with the thought of what we had here as Dad and I carefully replaced the bars in their crate. Sitting next to them were two leather bags that were quite heavy also. Grandpa opened one of them up and said, "I thought so." He reached inside and pulled out a chunk of ore and tossed it to me. It weighed at least half a pound, and had only a little quartz imbedded on the edges. He hefted one of the bags and guessed it was about forty pounds or so.

Grandpa looked over at Dad and said, "I'd suggest we call it a day down here. I don't think we can do much more damage here today. We have some talking to do." My head was spinning. Mentally I tried to figure out what we had found, but I couldn't get the numbers to compute in my head. Seventy two bars in each crate, plus another thirty on the shelf made for one hundred seventy four bars of gold, at ten ounces each, and I was sure they were troy ounces, and gold was going for about thirteen hundred dollars an ounce. That was one thousand seven hundred and forty ounces! Just that number was staggering, but when multiplied by thirteen hundred my brain refused to operate. Finally I pulled out my phone and used the calculator.

We were sitting on over two and a quarter million dollars, and that didn't even count the three hundred plus thousand dollars in gold coins from the railroad! I walked dazed from the room and watched as Grandpa and Dad put the bar in place and locked the door. Then it struck me. I hadn't counted the two bags either! There was no way of knowing how much was in them, but based on the piece Grandpa threw to me, it was quite a bit! Even if we discounted a fourth for waste, and Grandpa was right in his guess of forty pounds we were looking at another sixty pounds of gold.

I pulled out my phone again and did a quick calculation based on 13 troy ounces per pound just for rough numbers. Sixty divided by thirteen is only about four point two. Obviously I did something wrong. Sixty pounds and thirteen ounces per pound, oh! Silly me, I should have multiplied. My brain is really frazzled now. Sixty times thirteen is another seven hundred eighty ounces! That is over another million dollars. By now I didn't even count the extra fourteen thousand, but just rounded it. All told, we had over a four million dollar find. I'm just a high-school senior! I don't have a clue what to do with four million dollars!