Searching For Treasure (5 page)

Jack led her through the trees and bushes to the gazebo in the distance, the moonlight showing them the way. Dana was grateful to see that the seats were clean and the floor swept. Someone had anticipated such a visit this weekend. There was something so romantic about a gazebo in the moonlight.

She tried to remember the last time she had done something spontaneous and romantic with a man. She couldn't think of any. No wonder she had been feeling nervous around Jack. She needed to get out more.

Jack sat down next to Dana. Their bodies were at least two feet apart but their hands, which were resting on the back of the seats, where only inches away.

As if hardly aware he was doing it, Jack reached out his finger and stroked it across the back of Dana's hand. It was a simple little touch, barely there, but Dana felt it shoot through her body right down to her toes. He continued to stroke hypnotically back and forth, frowning at their hands as if it was a puzzle he had to solve.

"Jack?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Slowly he turned her hand over and rubbed his thumb across her palm and then up and down the length of each finger. It was one of the most erotic sensations she had ever felt.

"It doesn't feel like nothing."

For the first time since sitting down he looked at her, his face a mystery in the shadows of the moonlight. He placed her palm against his larger one and once again began rubbing the top of her hand, this time with his thumb.

"Remember when we watched 'An American in Paris'?"

Dana was startled by the sudden change in topic. "Uh-huh."

"Remember the scene under the bridge, where Gene Kelly is with Leslie Caron and at one point he reaches out and strokes his finger across her hand?"

Dana tried to swallow past the tightness in her throat, her heart pounding in her chest. He was like a strange magician casting a spell on her and she was drowning in the magic of it. She tried to remember the last time she'd had this feeling with a man and couldn't come up with a single instance. This was new.

He tore his attention away from their hands and looked at her again. She wished she could see his face. "You know
,”
he said quietly, "I don't think I've ever seen anything sexier in a film."

"Jack?" It was barely a whisper.

"Yes?" he replied.

"Kiss me."

For a moment he froze as if she had shocked him. Then slowly, ever so slowly he leaned towards her until his lips were merely a breath away, pausing a moment before gently touching his lips to hers. The spark of electricity that arced between them stunned them both into immobility. Then with a groan that seemed to come from his soul, Jack pulled her to him and deepened the kiss. Dana circled both arms around his neck and held on tightly. She couldn't remember a kiss ever feeling this good.

Finally, Jack pulled away slightly, dazed and a little scared at the intensity of the feelings washing over him. "Jeepers..."

"Would you please cut the commentary, and do that again?"

"Yes ma'am."

The first kiss took them by surprise; this one was more aware, deeper, slower and equally satisfying.

This time Dana was the first to pull away. She rested her face on his chest and mumbled into his shirt. "What's happening here?"

"Don't you know?"

Fear of putting a name to it, fear of what it meant to their friendship and to the bond they'd shared for so long, kept her silent. She simply shook her head. Jack knew not to rush things with her. She was far too special to him to ruin it all with rash actions.

"Well, when you figure it out let me know, okay? Come on, let's go back inside."

Silently they walked back towards the castle, lost in their own jumbled thoughts. On the way they passed an ancient oak, stretching its branches like arms across the night sky above them. Jack stopped and cocked his head as if listening. "Do you hear that?"

Dana did.

There was a whispering in the slight breeze, soft feathers of sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The words were unintelligible, but the tone was passionate. It seemed to be that of a man and a woman somewhere in the garden.

Dana strained to listen but just as she thought she could almost understand the words, the whispering stopped. She felt chill bumps chasing goose bumps down her back. With unspoken agreement, they hurried back into the castle, locking the door behind them.

Chapter 4

Dana slept fitfully that night, troubled by strange dreams. In one, she was a dog chasing her own tail. In another, she was back at her old high school running down the corridors looking for Jack who she could hear calling her name. But each time she turned a corner, he seemed to be further away than before. In the last one, she thought she heard Freddy Krueger bellowing at the top of his lungs and tap dancing on some stairs. Oddly, when she awoke, she could still hear it.

"Oh, what a beautiful morning!"
Tap, tap, tap
.

Dana stared blearily at her watch.
6 a.m.!
The morning outside her window was barely there, the Sun still struggling to rise, and someone was singing and dancing outside of her room.

"Oh, what a beautiful day!"
Tap, tap, tap.

In almost synchronous accord, bedroom doors were flung open and disgruntled sleepers staggered out to glare down the stairs at whoever was so offensively happy that early in the morning. The mystery was soon solved when Rose leaned over the railing and did a little bellowing herself. "Grace!"

Grace was dressed in white leggings and a black t-shirt that read, ‘My mind is like lightening, one brilliant flash and it's gone’. She turned and waved cheerfully up at them from the landing below. "Good morning everyone! Isn't it a glorious day? I've got a beautiful feeling!"
Tap, tap, tap.

Then to everyone's further shock she jumped onto the banister sidesaddle and attempted to slide down. Amazingly she almost made it, only to teeter and fall backwards out of sight when she reached the bottom. With a collective gasp, several members of the group rush to the top of the stairs, stopping when Grace bounded back into view. "Everything's going my way!"
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
She wound up her dance routine with a wobbly pirouette and took a little bow.

Rose looked around at all of the faces staring back at her, some thunderstruck, others glowering. "What can I say?" she said with a shrug. "She's a morning person."

With the early morning excitement over for the moment, Dana turned to go back to her room. She caught sight of Jack leaning against the door of his room as if that was the only thing holding him up. His dark hair was tousled, his eyes were heavy and he smiled at her sleepily. Dana felt her ears burn and her toes curl. Things had really changed, she realized. Somehow since yesterday, the two of them had changed.

No matter what did or did not happen between them in the future, they were now aware of each other as a man and as a woman instead of just friends.

She returned his smile with an uncertain one of her own and hurried back into her room, afraid she would embarrass herself by doing something uncharacteristic, like falling to the floor and kissing his feet.

Sometime later after showering and dressing, and semi-confident she had herself back under control, Dana headed down downstairs to breakfast. Halfway down she found Austin playing doctor with the banister, sporting a stethoscope and wielding a tiny hammer that looked as if he expected to check the reflexes of the polished mahogany. Every few inches he would tap lightly and then listen with the stethoscope.

"You're not wasting any time, I see," Dana said.

Austin smirked at her. "I would have been doing this last night if the old man hadn't laid down the law."

Brett walked down the stairs behind her. "The early bird catches the worm, Miss Parker. And may I say you are looking extra tasty this morning."

The look Dana gave him could have frozen a charging two-ton rhino at thirty paces. Brett never stood a chance.

Dana continued her way down the stairs, hearing Austin chuckling behind her. "Maybe later you'll find out that I'm made of sterner stuff," Austin said. She didn't bother to respond.

When she reached the bottom, Jack was waiting for her. "What's up, doc?" he said.

Dana relaxed. She had been afraid that they would feel awkward towards each other this morning.

"Jerks
,”
she replied, one word saying it all.

Jack glanced back up the stairs. "You want me to clobber them?"

"Nah, not before breakfast. Maybe later."

Jack grinned at her, hooked an arm around her neck and kissed her on the ear. Then he gently pushed her towards the dining room in comfortable camaraderie. The relief Dana felt was so enormous she was almost weak from it. The easy bantering, the closeness they shared, it was still there. Her greatest fear had been that they would lose that if they-

Her thoughts skittered to a halt, still refusing to put a name to it.

Jack seemed determined, and she intended to follow his lead that things should still be the same between them. She was almost tempted to pretend the time in the gazebo had been a dream, except that Jack had left his mark. She could still feel his kiss on her lips.

With the exception of the two treasure hunters upstairs and Mark, who had yet to make an appearance, everyone else was already enjoying breakfast which was fully as sumptuous as the dinner the night before.

"This Cook of yours is a thousand wonders, Oscar
,”
Henry enthused, happily smearing butter on a biscuit. "I think I'm in love."

"Have you seen her yet?" Grace asked.

"Nope, don't have to," Henry replied.

Noah and Dana each speared a couple of slices of cantaloupe onto their plate, ladled milk gravy over them, and then sprinkled the whole thing with salt and pepper. They took their plates back to the table, broke open a biscuit and began eating with gusto. Jack, who was used to seeing this, didn't bat an eyelash. Everyone else stared at them in shocked silence.

"Ewww, gross!" Josie finally declared. Everyone nodded in agreement.

Noah and Dana glanced up from their plates and looked around at the myriad expressions watching them eat. "What?" they asked in unison.

Henry shook his head; glad he had almost finished eating. Otherwise, watching them might have put him off his food. "Dana, Rose and I were putting our heads together trying to decide what you did for a living," Henry said.

"I told him I thought you looked like a glamorous spy," Rose said.

"Really?" Diane looked at them with keen interest. "What does a spy look like?"

Rose blinked and then laughed. "You got me there, hon. I don't really know."

"She's actually a show girl at one of the riverboat casinos on the Red River," teased Noah.

Dana, who had gotten up from the table to fetch another biscuit, did an impromptu bump and grind. "Only part-time
,”
she said in a breathy voice.

Everyone laughed. Jack practically choked on his black coffee. Josie looked a little confused. "You're just fooling, right?"

"Yeah, hon, she's just fooling," Rose answered her, chortling with laughter and wiping tears from her eyes.

"So, what kind of job do you have, Miss Dana
,”
Josie asked, her shyness from the day before quickly fading.

"I work out of my home. I have my own online mail-order business."

"She started out from nothing," Noah announced proudly. "At first she just sold arts and crafts and home canning at festivals, garage sales and craft shows. Then when the Internet came along, she went high-tech."

Noah looked at his sister, a wealth of memories in his eyes. He thought back to the dark days after their parents had died and when Dana had discovered there was very little money left for them to go on with. He remembered waking up to the sound of Dad's circular saw whining in the night. He walked outside to his father's workshop to find Dana cutting up boards into ten-inch squares. He could tell she had been crying.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, go back to bed."

By the next morning she had decoupage pictures cut out of old calendars and magazines onto about two dozen of those squares and hauled them down to a nearby consignment shop to sell as wall hangings. By the time he got home from school that day, the house looked like a factory.

Jack told him years later that Dana had received a visit the day before from someone at child welfare services who was concerned about her ability to provide for a ten-year-old. Terrified of losing what was left of her family, armed with creativity and fueled by a fierce determination, she quit college and turned to the only thing her parents had left them: the contents of their house.

She went through all the closets, pulling out old clothes, cutting off buttons to sell to sewing and craft shops and used the fabric to make rag rugs. She finished up the scraps by using them to turn old picture frames into something new. Even the 1950s-era suit her mother had worn on her wedding day had been ruthless sold to a vintage clothing store, though it had broken Dana's heart to do so.