“Are you cold?” Knox asked.
“No, but the house has a smell about it,” she replied and told him the spider story.
He dropped her suitcase and tote bag on the floor and headed back to the door. “We can fix that musky smell as soon as I punch in the security code, which is 1313 if you ever need to use it when I’m not here,” he said as he touched the buttons on the pad. “I’ll have to get used to doing this all over again, and, honey, if there’s spiders in this house, I will slay every one of them.”
“My hero. Do you have a white horse to ride in on when you save the maiden in distress?”
“I can buy one if that will make you feel safer,” he teased.
“Don’t you dare. If it rained, I would want to bring it inside. I’ve worried about that rooster of yours being outside when and if it rains down at the site. I do have a couple of questions. Why did you choose that number, and whyagain?” she asked.
“Thirteen is my lucky number, so I just doubled it, and there was a security system in the house where I grew up.” He finished that and opened all the windows in the living room. “There you go. The fresh night breezes should take away the smell pretty quick.”
“I don’t remember that security thing from the last time we were here,” Lottie said.
“It wasn’t here then, but Tripp took care of having it installed for me, and after what happened at Swan Song Estates, I’m glad. There’s also one at the gate. Security code is the same.”
“Do lights flash and sirens sound when someone doesn’t enter the right numbers?”
“No, the Nocona police bring those things with them,” he answered. “Do you want that long bath in the claw-footed tub or supper first?”
“Food.” She headed across the room. “I’m hungry, so let’s bring in the groceries, and…” She took a step forward and looked him right in the eye. “If you tattle on me about cooking to the guys at the site, you will be in big trouble.”
Knox drew her close in a tight hug, then tipped her chin up with his fist. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She barely had time to moisten her lips before he kissed her. Her knees came close to buckling, and she wished that he would lead her to the bedroom right then. But then her stomach growled, and he took a step back.
“We’ve got all weekend, and you are hungry,” he whispered. “I’ll bring in the groceries.”
Flashing lights, sirens, hunger. What next? She sighed as she watched him go back outside. Were they doomed to never have sex?Maybe I’m really not his type and boring.
Lottie wandered into the kitchen and opened the cabinet doors, one by one. She wasn’t surprised to find that part of the kitchen was set up for convenience, just like her grandmother’s had been. Cups and mugs in the cabinets above the coffeemaker. Dishes to the left of the sink and dishwasher. But after checking out everything, she couldn’t find pots and pans, or anything that resembled where staples like flour and sugar might be stored.
Knox brought in several bags and set them on the counter beside the mint-green refrigerator. “Where do you want all this? In the pantry, or have you found space in the cabinets?”
“Pantry?” she asked.
“It’s out there.” He took her by the hand and led her through swinging doors into the laundry room and opened a door leading into a walk-in pantry. “I found it while you were looking at the bedrooms the last time we were here.”
“Wow!” she gasped. “I missed this when we were here. Iwas so surprised to see a fairly new washer and dryer instead of one of those old wringer things that I didn’t really come inside this room.”
Knox agreed and picked up a jar of jam from a shelf. “I got a house, a laundry room, and food.”
Lottie stood in the middle of the long, narrow room with floor-to-ceiling shelves on three sides and took stock of what was stored there. Jellies, jams, and canned food were on the shelves on one wall, pots and pans on the other, and staples in see-through containers at the back. “I love this,” she whispered. “I wonder why Geneva didn’t take some of this stuff with her.”
“She said that she got what she wanted out of the house, gave the personal things to a women’s shelter in Wichita Falls, and didn’t want to have a garage sale or deal with the rest. I guess all these canned goods are the rest. This is elderberry jam. I wonder if the berries grow somewhere on the property.”
Lottie took a large pot off a shelf to boil water for noodles and a smaller one to make spaghetti sauce. “These will work perfectly, and I know a little about elderberries.”
Knox set the jar back on the shelf and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look so surprised.” She brushed past him on the way out, and sparks danced again. “I helped my grandparents pick and clean blackberries, strawberries, and also elderberries. I whined the whole time when it was time to work in the elderberries until Granny poured some of the thick syrup that she made with them over ice cream that night fordessert. Then I realized that it was worth every single second that we dealt with those BB-sized berries.”
He followed her into the kitchen. “Are we going to harvest them if we find them on the property?”
“What is thiswebusiness?” she asked. “Do you have a mouse in your pocket?”
“Nope,” he answered, and quickly changed the subject. “What can I do to help with supper?”
