Searching For Treasure - By L.C. Davenport Page 0,16

have had that last biscuit, she thought. She decided that a light answer would be best for her digestion.

"Yeah, I really look cute in feathers."

Jack moved even closer to her and she shivered from his nearness. His voice was a soft breath in her ear. "How about me Dana? Am I cute, too?"

Cute? Are you kidding? Dana took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of him, a scent so familiar yet now so new. She leaned back slightly so she could look at him. She gave him a sexy smile of her own. "You're beyond cute, Jack."

He grinned and bringing her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles affectionately. "Come on, D, let's go searching for treasure."

Chapter 5

As the morning passed, Dana began to relax into the scary yet wonderful feelings she now experienced around Jack. Things weren't really all that different, she decided, she was just much more aware of the physical intimacy that had always existed between them. They had always touched each other; holding hands, affectionate hugs, casual kisses. But what had always been natural and comfortable now seemed strangely exciting.

She began to fear less and less the warm glow she felt spreading through her whenever she looked at him. It was the same kind of warmth she saw looking back at her through Jack's eyes. A look, she realized with a start, that she had been seeing for some time now.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! She gave herself a mental head slap. What's wrong with me? Am I blind or just a coward?

"Rose was right," declared Jack, wiping ineffectively at the soot on his hands. "This is a filthy place to be hiding things." They had spent the morning poking around the different fireplaces on the ground floor. Jack loved to do research and had read up on old places in preparation for this weekend.

One book had mentioned that chimneys used to be fitted with a partition a little below the opening for the flue. The space below this was completely hollow and oftentimes the owner would have a secret hiding place built into the empty area. But it was apparent that the previous owners of Raven Keep Castle had preferred a cleaner place to keep their valuables.

With a devilish glint in his eye, Jack ran his finger down Dana's nose, leaving a streak. "Hey!" Dana shouted.

"I thought you looked way too clean."

"You turkey!" Jack waved his other blackened fingers at her menacingly. Dana cringed away, laughing. "Don't you dare."

Thinking better of his threat, Jack dropped his hands and leaned against the mantel. "I’m very hungry,”Jack said in a sultry voice. Dana coughed and her pupils widened.“Shouldn't it be close to lunchtime?" he continued in his normal voice.

Dana looked at her watch. "Pretty soon I would imagine."

"I wonder if lunch is going to be as lavish as breakfast and supper was."

"The Cook is becoming something of a mystery. None of the guests have seen her yet. The food just seems to appear as if by magic."

This observation was interrupted by voices drifting through the open window, one ringing with anger, the other one pleading, and both rapidly heading towards the castle.

"You said you had a hold of me!"

"I did. My hand slipped."

Josie came dashing into the castle, fighting mad and close to tears. She was also covered in mud from her chin to her knees. Noah followed, clearly upset. Josie whirled on him. "You did it on purpose," Josie said.

"I didn't! Dana, tell her I wouldn't do such a thing."

"He wouldn't do such a thing,”she repeated dutifully. She looked at her brother suspiciously. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! She thinks I intentionally dropped her in the mud."

Dana's lips twitched. "Did you?"

"No!"

"What happened?" Jack asked grinning, clearly enjoying himself.

"There's an old oak tree out back that has a big hole in it just above your head,”Josie began, illustrating with her hands a circle about eight inches across.

"The Whispering Oak?" Jack said.

"No, a different one. In case you haven't noticed, Jack, the place is drowning with oak trees," Noah said.

"Noah, don't be rude." Dana turned to Josie. "Go ahead and finish your story."

"Anyway, Uncle Oscar said that sometimes people used to use holes in trees like mailboxes, you know, to pass letters back and forth? I just wanted to see if maybe something could be inside. But someone had left a garden hose running and there was a big mud hole right where I needed to stand. We dragged a box over, but I still needed to kind of reach way