Searching For Treasure (11 page)

"Nothing." Walking on her knees, she moved closer to him. She picked up his right hand and, sliding it along her back, wrapped his arm around her waist. Jack, who was wide-awake now, pulled her closer. He watched her in wonder as she explored his face with gentle, questing fingers, across his lips, down his nose, smoothing out the tiny laugh lines around his eyes. Again and again, her fingers traveled his face as if she was trying to memorize it. She leaned forward and whispered against his mouth. "Stay with me tonight.” Then she kissed him.

With a groan Jack pulled her to him even tighter and kissed her with desperate hunger. He buried his hands into her hair. His kissed her eyes, he kissed her lips, and he kissed her throat. Shuddering with need, he took a ragged breath. "Do you know what you're asking? If we do this, there's no going back."

"I don't want to go back
,”
she whispered, running her tongue along his chin. He sucked in his breath. "I want to go forward. Don't you?"

He wanted to shout with joy. Instead he tumbled her back onto the bed. Smiling down at her, his eyes shone with all the love he had been afraid to reveal for so long. He kissed her with such heart-shattering tenderness she wanted to weep from it. "Finally
,”
he whispered.

Chapter
8

The gray outside of Dana's window was just beginning to lighten when she woke. Momentarily startled by the feel of someone's foot sliding along her calf, she smiled lazily in remembrance.
Jack..
. Jack was with her this morning.

His scent, warm and manly, permeated the room and Dana inhaled deeply. While this wasn't the first time she had awoken with a man in her bed, this was the first time it had felt right. Dana had never understood why she always felt awkward and uncomfortable the morning after spending the night with a man. She was beginning to realize that it was because she had been waking up with the wrong man.

Dana felt an arm snake around her waist, pulling her across the bed until her back pressed against a solid, muscular chest. Her whole body tingled.

"Hey
,”
he said, burying his face into her hair.

"Hey, yourself."

Jack stretched languidly beside her. "God, I feel good."

Dana linked her hand in his and pulled it up to her face, cupping her cheek with his strong fingers. She kissed his palm. "Me, too."

"Why haven't we done this before now?"

"Beats me."

Trailing kisses down her spine, Jack paused. "Do you hear that?"

"Mmmhmm."

"What is that?"

"It sounds like-"

"Good morning, Good morning!"
Tap, tap, tap.

If anyone had imagined that the fear and excitement of earlier would have kept Grace in bed past 6 a.m. to catch up on her beauty sleep, they would have been wrong. This time, however, only Rose bothered to emerge from her room.

"Grace, shut the hell up!" Rose shouted.

"Good morning to you and you and you and you!" Blowing kisses to an imaginary audience, Grace tapped her way down the stairs and out of sight.

*****

It was some time later before Dana and Jack made an appearance at breakfast, Jack playfully chasing her into the room. Seeing the broad smiles on their faces, Rose exchanged a telling glance with Henry. "Well
,”
she said, taking a sip of her coffee, "like Mama used to say, looks like somebody's been getting their pain eased."

If there had been a hole in front of her, Dana would have gladly dived in headfirst and dragged Jack in behind her. But it took more than a little teasing to dim her grin.

Mark, however, was immediately concerned. "Were you hurt, Miss Dana?"

Henry coughed and cleared his throat. "I'll explain it to you later, son."

"Oh. Must be about sex," Mark said. Henry coughed and sputtered some more. Mark gave him an irritated look. "Well, I'm not ten, you know."

Her cheeks flaming, Dana buried her face into Jack's shirt. "Please, Lord, just take me now."

"I just love French toast
,”
announced Grace, waving the bite speared on the end of her fork, gallantly attempting to change the subject.

Oscar was only too happy to oblige her. "It's Lost Bread."

"Excuse me?"

"Mrs. Babineaux calls it Lost Bread or pain perdu."

Grace eyed her plate suspiciously. "It looks like French toast to me."

In addition to the warm platters of Lost Bread, which were indeed crisp-crusted deep-fried pieces of bread similar to French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar and nutmeg, breakfast, once again lavishly laid out.

Noah, who had been piling his plate high with banana fritters when his sister and his friend had walked into the room, continued to lurk next to the sideboard, adding far too much apple butter to his plate while he waited for them to approach. He knew they looked happy, but what did that really mean? Looking everywhere but at them, he found himself unaccustomedly at a loss for words. "Um, you guys all right?"

Dana looked at Jack, who simply nodded. Grabbing a couple of beignets and a cup of coffee, he gestured towards the kitchen. "Come on, pal, let's eat out back this morning." Leading Noah out of the dining room, Jack looked at her and smiled reassuringly. This wasn't the first man-to-man talk Noah would have with Jack and probably not the last. Jack was a whole lot better at it than Dana had ever been.

Taking her plate and settling at the table, Dana watched Rose brush crumbs off of Henry's t-shirt with a distinctly territorial gesture. She hid a smile. Apparently, it wasn't only her and Jack that had been infected by the romance of this place.

"I was telling Henry all about our little run in with the world of voodoo last night."

Looking vastly disappointed at having missed it, Mark added, "Miss Grace said she was scared to death. How come you weren't scared, Miss Dana?"

"I'm just not scared of chickens, I guess
,”
she said with a laugh.

"Aren't you scared of nothin'?"

"Anything
,”
Henry corrected automatically, not even looking up from his plate.

"Oh, sure. If it had been a spider, say, I would have been tearing down the walls." She shuddered. "I can't imagine a more horrible feeling than a spider's web on my skin. If I accidentally run into a cobweb, I totally freak out."

"Grandpa once had a kid in his class that used to throw spiders on all the girls. Is that what happened to you?"

Dana was surprised. Ignoring Mark's question, she asked one of her own. "You're a schoolteacher?"

"Retired. Fifth grade. Wasn't very good at it I'm afraid. I'd try to teach them, but I really spent more time fussing at them, telling them to straighten up and fly right. Once I had dreams of shaping young minds, you know? But spit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one gets full the quickest."

"You taught me, grandpa
,”
said Mark loyally.

Henry's eyes twinkled with warmth. "That I did, boy, that I did. Which reminds me," he said, turning to Oscar, "you said something about a school teacher bandit the other night. I've been meaning to ask you more about it."

"Yes, Roan Davis was his name. He lived here in Raven Keep Castle as the schoolmaster for the Randolph children."

"Randolph. You mentioned that name before."

"I remember
,”
said Grace.

Oscar seemed surprised and delighted that she remembered. "That's right. By all accounts, he was very well thought of by Mr. Randolph and very popular with the children. But, the story goes that at night he was secretly preying on coaches. There were also claims that he robbed banks and trains, but I believe those were simply embellishments, since he was only supposed to be doing his thieving at night. I would imagine it would be quite difficult to rob a train in the dark."

"I believe that Josie said that my room was the old schoolmaster's bedroom," Dana said.

Oscar nodded at Dana. "That's right, Roan stayed in that room as well as several other teachers throughout the years. Many wealthy children were home-schooled in those days. Originally, there was a door that connected it to the nursery. But that was boarded up when I remodeled. Jack and Noah are sleeping in what had originally been the schoolroom and nursery."

"At least Noah is
,”
Rose cracked.

"So what happened to Davis?" asked Dana, ignoring the remark.

"Eventually he was caught and sent to prison amidst much scandal, as you can imagine. A legend sprang up that he had hidden his treasure somewhere in this castle, taking the secret of its location with him to the grave. One story has it that a fellow inmate claimed that Davis told him just before he died that the secret to the location was hidden in a letter. What became of the letter, or if it ever really existed, no one knows. But off and on people have been looking for the treasure ever since."

"But I remember you saying that you didn't believe the story
,”
observed Rose.

"Oh, there is historical evidence of Davis and the fact that he went to prison for robbery. But I have always had difficulty believing in stories of hidden booty."

"Like pirate treasure?" asked Mark.

"Exactly. The mere idea that bandits and thieves would hide their money rather than spend it always seemed a bit ludicrous to me."

"Now there's a point I've never considered
,”
mused Rose. "Oh well, I know this is our last day here and all, but I'm kind of bored with looking for treasure. And Grace has always been more interested in the ghosts than a pot-load of cash that may or may not exist. I'll tell you all the truth; I've had more fun just hanging out with you folks. It's kind of been like a cruise that never left land."

Yawning mightily, Josie wandered in. "I didn't miss breakfast did I?"

Oscar smiled indulgently. "Just about, sleepy head. Why so late, didn't you sleep well?"

"Not really, I had these weird dreams about maniacal laughter."

Dana turned red and Rose hooted with laughter of her own. Josie looked around. With another yawn she asked, "Where's Noah and Jack?"

With an evilly gleeful look at Dana, she replied, "They're out back discussing the consequences of maniacal laughter."

*****

Noah wasn't laughing when he asked, "So are the two of you getting married?"

Jack gaped at him. "Whoa, aren't you jumping the gun a little bit?"

"Why not, you're with each other almost all the time anyway. You just don't live together. You love each other, don't you?"

With a shock, Jack realized that he had
n’
t actually told Dana that he loved her. But then again, she hadn't told him either. "Your sister and I have always loved each other."

"Don't treat me like a kid. You know what I mean." With sudden wariness, Noah studied him. "Or was last night just about sex?"

"It wasn't just sex,” Jack replied with some heat. Not for him.
And dammit
, he thought,
not for her either
. Hadn't she said she wanted to move forward? But maybe she meant something different by that than he had. Did she just want to be friends who slept together sometimes?
No
, he told himself fiercely, the way she felt in his arms, the way she responded to his touch, it couldn't have been just sex for her. Could it?

"Jack, now you're worrying me."

"Why?"

"Because you look worried."

Jack sighed. "The truth is, we really haven't talked about it."

"About marriage?"

"About any of it."

Noah stared at him, quietly astonished. "Don't you think you should?"

"Probably
,”
he said with a rueful chuckle.

"Jack, aren't you in love with my sister?"

At least this was one question he could give Noah a definitive answer to. "Yes, I have been for quite some time."

"And she's in love with you?"

Of this Jack was less sure. He shrugged. "I don't know, I think so."

"But you don't know for certain."

"Not until she tells me, no."

Noah was silent for several minutes. It had seemed so simple at first. Try to get Jack and Dana to see that they belonged together. He knew it and they knew it, too, whether they acknowledged it consciously or not. At least now Jack had. Surely after last night Dana did as well. So why hadn't she said anything? Why hadn't Jack? "This is a lot more complicated than I expected it to be."

"You and me both, brother. You and me both." Jack got up from the steps, dusting off his rump. "I'm going back in for some more coffee. You coming?"

*****

"Dana," Noah exclaimed as he came back in the dining room. "You wouldn't believe the kitchen. It's as clean as a whistle and there's no sign of Mrs. Babineaux. It was spooky."