Heart of Stone by Gail Dayton

Author:Gail Dayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, adventure, fantasy, magic, alternate universe, idaho, quest
Publisher: Gail Dayton

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CHAPTER NINE

"No, Harald, you can't mash the money together in a wad, you have to straighten each bill out and stack them together flat." Shayna tried to keep her eyes on the road and watch Harald at the same time.

He held up both fists full of crumpled cash. "Merchants would rather have this than gold?"

"Hey, if you think it's money, it is. According to my economics professor, anyway. Now, please, quit wadding it up and put it away before you lose it." She shot a quick glance at him and was relieved to see him set the money on the car seat in the shelter between his legs and begin to smooth it out. Ben Franklin's portrait was on way too many of those bills for her comfort.

She slowed for the highway intersection coming up, and pulled off onto the shoulder. "Do we know where we're going yet?"

Harald glanced up at the sword propped against the dash of the rental car. "North."

"Okay, okay. Useless asking you." Shayna reached across him and opened the glove box, rummaging for the road map. She'd bought it when they rented the car with the cash Harald had received in exchange for his gold. Some of the cash. That gold had been worth a small fortune.

They'd had to deposit the check in her bank account and pull out what they could, because of government money-laundering regulations. Shayna figured the DEA or the FBI would be paying her a visit after all this was over. But what the heck, she would have an adventure to tell the grandkids about.

"The money is flat," Harald said. "Where should I put it?"

"In your pockets." She wrestled the map open, then pinpointed their location. "How far north are we going? Miles and miles, or just a little way?"

Harald scowled at his sword. "I do not know. Miles, I think." He gave up stuffing money into his pockets and put the rest in her purse.

"Okay." Shayna beat the map into folding again and handed it to Harald. "Hold that. I know where we're going now."

"Oh?" He smiled his patented smile at her. "And where is that?"

"Home." Shayna put the car in drive and turned right, onto the highway headed back into spud country.

They traveled in silence for fifteen miles or so. Harald seemed to be more comfortable with the speed now, watching the fields flash by out the window, so Shayna gradually eased it up over the sedate 55 mph she'd been doing. The foothills of the Tetons rose at a distance to her right, while the craggy mountains themselves created the distant purple haze on the eastern horizon. To the west, occasional outcroppings of black lava rock in the fields foretold the immense volcanic desert beyond. And all around them in the fertile Snake River Valley stretched field after field of green and growing crops.

A car roared past and Harald only flinched. He was doing better. She didn't know many claustrophobics who would do as well spending this long in an elevator.

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