Searching For Treasure (8 page)

The sudden shift in weight, easing the tension on the rail, caused it to relax and swing, and the metal bolts holding it protested shrilly from the abuse. Dana felt a violent trembling, but she couldn't tell if it was her or the metal she clung to. Her heart pounded and her head felt tight as she waited to fall.

"Okay, Dana, now you," Rose said, calmly.

"I'm not sure I can." The arm she'd been hanging from felt numb and locked into position. Trying her best to support her weight with her left hand she painfully began extracting her right arm from the twisted design. Finally, once her wrist was free, she let go, falling backward into space.

She felt air rushing past her ears and then a cottony softness broke her fall, a softness that flung her body back up ever so slightly before she was gently lowered to the ground.

Jack and Noah were around her in an instant, holding her, kissing her, and crying over her. Their voices were a babbling roar in her head.

"Boys, give her room, let her breathe." Rose pulled them apart and helped Dana to her feet, her eyes searching Dana's face. "Girl, you scared the pee-wonky-doodle out of us."

Dana shocked everyone, herself most of all, when she dissolved into a fit of giggles at the bizarre choice of words. Jack moved towards her, fearing an onset of hysteria. But Rose waved him off, nodding in satisfaction. "She'll be all right."

The reason for their ordeal snapped back into her mind and Dana looked around her, searching for a missing face.
Where’s Brett?
Wait, there he was leaning against a tree, looking as white and shaken as everyone else. Even Austin, glowering as usual, was at the edge of the group clustered around her. While it had felt like a lifetime, she knew they couldn't have been hanging off of the widow's walk for more than a minute. Could their pursuer have gotten out here so quickly?

"Has everyone been out here the whole time?" Dana asked.

Puzzled faces greeted what seemed like a strange question, but Josie, who had been weeping softly in the warm circle of her uncle's arms, finally came to life. "That's right." She looked around accusingly. "Somebody chased us." Then with a broken sob, she threw herself into Dana's arms knocking her backwards into Jack, who grasped her tightly by the shoulders. Clutching Dana's shirt, Josie cried, "But you saved us. You held on and on, I was so scared, you didn't let go... you didn't let go."

Dana held her tightly and tried to offer comfort to the crying girl. "Hey, that's enough of that; you're going to make yourself sick." She pulled Josie away slightly and smiled gently. "Actually, I think it was they," she said with a nod at the others around them, "who saved us."

"It was Rose
,”
Henry said admiringly, speaking up for the first time. "Wow, I've never seen anyone better in a crisis. We were all running around like chickens with their heads cut off, yelling for a ladder. But she ran inside with Mark in tow and had him pull down the drapes from the front room."

Dana looked at her feet, noticing for the first time the thick brocade fabric they had used to catch them. It was now looking a little frayed around the edges where fists had gripped it.

"It was the closest thing around that looked strong enough to use as a makeshift net. There wasn't time for a ladder, assuming we could find one," Rose said.

Everyone jumped when, with a groan and a final shudder, the wrought iron railing of the widow's walk gave up its tenacious hold on the castle and crashed into the bushes beside them.

Looking at Rose with heartfelt gratitude, Dana pulled the older woman into a group hug with Josie, who had refused to give up her hold.

"Thank you," Dana whispered fervently. "Thank you."

"Hey, hey, let's not get mushy." Rose pulled away gruffly, clearly embarrassed. "You'd have done the same."

"Dana, what happened?" asked Grace.

Expectant, curious faces looked at Dana. "Why don't I tell you about it inside?" Dana tugged ineffectually at Josie's arms, the girl still clinging to her like a barnacle. She was afraid she'd have to be surgically removed. "Shouldn't it be about time for lunch?"

Seemingly the result of some kind of second-sight, a light and simple lunch had been laid out, consisting of steaming bowls of thick and buttery tomato bisque and lightly toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. Chilled pitchers of fruit punch complimented the meal. After everyone was seated around the table, Oscar turned to his niece. "Josie, what were you doing up there? I know I told you, I didn't want anyone up there."

"Uncle Oscar, the door was open
-”
she began, but Dana interjected quickly.

"That was my fault," she insisted. "We saw the door was opened and that someone else had been up the stairs. I convinced Josie to do a little exploring. It seemed," she shrugged helplessly, "like fun."

"Yeah
,”
Josie shuddered, her eyes bright with remembering, "Until someone shut us up in there and began stalking us."

The already keen interest around the table sharpened at her words. "We thought it might have been one of you playing a gag." Dana decided not to mention the intuitive sense she'd had that whoever had followed them on the stairs had meant them real harm. She was aware that Josie had felt the same thing and hoped the girl would follow her lead. "I guess maybe we just overreacted."

"Overreacted!" Uncharacteristically silent for the past several minutes, Jack finally exploded. "Jeepers, you were almost killed!"

Josie's face blanched white and Dana cut Jack a warning glance.

Noah put a hand on his arm in an attempt to calm him down. "Hey, man, chill out, okay?" With a disgusted snort, Jack stormed out of the dining room. They all stared after him, everyone except Noah and Dana surprised by this unexpected display of temper. Noah shrugged an apology. "He had a bad scare. It makes him cranky."

"What about us?" Josie burst out uncharitably. "Someone tried to scare us to death and that was before we fell off the castle."

Everyone traded looks with everyone else and then looked back at Dana and Josie. Nobody admitted anything.

"I can't say for certain where everyone was just prior to the collapse of the widow's walk
,”
Oscar said, "but I do know that everyone participated in getting you down." He looked around the table. "We were all right there outside."

"Maybe," Brett, offered, strangely tentative, "you just imagined it?"

Dana stared at him incredulously. "Both of us?"

He shrugged. "Mass hysteria?"

"Could there be someone else in the castle?" Grace asked breathlessly.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Have you been reading those gothic romances again?"

"The only one here, besides all of us, is the Cook. She's an elderly lady that I highly doubt would be chasing young girls on darkened stairwells," Oscar said.

"A caretaker?" Grace continued stubbornly. "A handyman? The gardener?"

Oscar simply shook his head. "Josie and I have been doing all of the work ourselves. I haven't been able to afford part-time help since the contractors finished their repairs."

"What about a hobo or homeless man?" Grace said.

"With so many people constantly about? He would have been discovered by now."

"Maybe it was a ghost
,”
Noah said with a laugh, then subsided when no one else laughed, too.

"Oh, good God
,”
growled Austin.

"Hey, I was kidding."

The lunch conversation petered off after that with no satisfactory conclusions reached. Dana excused herself to her room. In the bright light of day, Dana was beginning to wonder if maybe she had overreacted to a simple prank and had infected Josie with the same paranoia. And once the joke turned nasty, the perpetrator was too ashamed or too embarrassed to now admit it. Somehow this explanation didn't feel right, but it made more sense than anything else did.

Chapter 6

She had barely made it two feet into her bedroom before Jack was at the door. She felt as if he had been laying in wait. "I ought to turn you over my knee."

Dana grinned and said, "Kinky."

Her attempt at humor fell flat on its face. Jack had clearly passed cranky right into furious. "What the hell did you think you were doing? You knew you weren't supposed to be up there. But you couldn't resist, could you?"

The adrenaline in her system had not completely abated and Dana felt her own temper start to sizzle from it. "No, and neither can you. If you had been with me, we both would have been going up those steps. So you can lay off the parental tone."

"This isn't about me." He then put lie to the words by adding, "You took five years off my life."

"Well, it wasn't any picnic for me, either," she said shouting, practically nose to nose with Jack. "So you need to back off and calm down! You don't have the right to be angry with me!"

Putting her hands on Jack's chest, Dana shoved futilely in helpless frustration, trying to push him out of the room.

Jack grabbed her wrists, pulled her roughly against him and kissed her fiercely with all the anger, all the fear, all the longing that boiled inside of him. Everything went into that kiss. All the years of hiding what he felt, all the years of waiting for her to feel the same, all the years of desire, of want, of nee
d–
poured into that kiss. When he broke away, it was hard to say which one of them was the most shaken.

He looked down at her, her face white with shock, her lips bruised from his kiss, her eyes dazed from the power of it. "Now tell me I don't have the right
,”
he ordered hoarsely.

Behind him Noah cleared his throat. "Uh, guys?" He edged into the room cautiously, like one might approach a spooked horse. "Everything all right?"

Jack released her slowly, never breaking eye contact. Dana cleared her throat. "Yes,” she said quietly, her eyes troubled. "Everything's fine."
Liar, liar, lair!

Without a word, Jack spun on his heel and left the room. Dana sank onto the bed and pressed her hands to her face. The skin under her fingers felt hot.

Noah closed the door and sat down beside her. "That was pretty intense. What's going on?"

"I only wish I knew,” she whispered.
Liar!
Dana looked at her brother and smiled faintly. "Don't look so stricken. This isn't the first time Jack and I have had an argument."

"I know, but-" Noah suddenly sounded very young, "I don't like it when you fight."

"I know." She touched him briefly on his cheek. "Neither do I."

Noah hesitated as if he wasn't sure how much to say. "The two of you, there's something differen
t…
"

Dana looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I do
n’
t kno
w…
different. For one thing, I've never seen him kiss you like that before."

Unconsciously, Dana rubbed her fingers across her lips. "That's because he never has." She was still awed by the emotions that had swirled over and around them in those few seconds. The foundation of her life, in which her friendship with Jack was such a huge part, had trembled with that kiss. This went beyond the warm glow of physical attraction she had been trying to get used to earlier in the morning, which now seemed like such a long time ago. This was something more, something infinitely more dangerous and frightening.

This feeling inside of him, this feeling inside of her, held within it great risk, the risk of losing everything they were to each other for a chance at something new.
Is it something better than friendship?
It appeared that Jack had the courage to take that risk. Did she?

"Maybe you could go talk to him?" Dana said nothing. She just shook her head rather sadly.

Noah watched his sister for a moment as she stared off into space, lost in her thoughts. He had wondered for quite some time why Dana had never tumbled to the fact that Jack always seemed too busy for girlfriends but had plenty of time for her. And why Jack couldn't see that Dana continued to pick boyfriends that just didn't get her the way he always had, making them destined to fail.

Noah had had plans in mind when he agreed to take this trip with them. He had intended to try his hand at a little matchmaking, to try and get them to open their eyes and realize that they were perfect for each other. But it didn't turn out quite the way he had expected. For one thing, Josie had distracted him. Now it appeared that they were opening their eyes all on their own, with little help from him. Except things between them had become tense and intense, and now they were mad at each other.

Noah left Dana's room and headed down the hall to stop and knock softly on a different door. "Hey. Can I come in? I need your help."

*****

Dana spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, feeling the after-effects of her time on the roof. She allowed herself a long, hot shower, letting the water run over the soreness in her arms, in her neck and across her shoulders. Her back felt like one long bruise where it had been yanked and pulled.