Searching For Treasure - By L.C. Davenport Page 0,13

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