Page 36 of Boxed In

Lucky for them, the driveway was screened by a row of pine trees, and the backyard was planted with numerous bushes and trees so that you could barely see the houses on either side. Which was good, since the car they’d come in hardly looked like it belonged in this neighborhood.

“Come on.”

After snatching up the chest, Luke got out of the car and she followed, taking a breath of the fresh air.

“So far, so good,” Luke murmured.

Olivia nodded as she stared at the old Victorian house with a turret at the front and a wide-screened porch in back.

“The Hanovers are doing pretty well.”

“Tom is a good salesman. He moves a lot of medical equipment.”

“Um.”

They walked across the patio, through a door and into the screened porch. Before they reached the back door, Luke stopped beside a table with a group of four flowerpots. He moved one holding pink and magenta impatiens and retrieved the house key.

“That’s a dumb place to put it,” Olivia said, then wished she had just kept her mouth shut. She was nervous—about being alone with Luke and with the warrior.

“Yeah, I told them something similar. Not quite in those words. They did it anyway,” he said over his shoulder as he opened the back door and ushered her into a huge kitchen with an island and granite countertops.

She saw Luke looking around and knew that Zabastian was taking in the setup. At least, it didn’t make sense that it would be Luke. He’d been here before.

“They prepare food here?” the warrior asked.

“Yes.”

“We should eat.”

“I guess you’re hungry—after a few hundred years in the box.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she decided it was another dumb thing to have said. From now on, she vowed to think before she spoke.

“Do you think the Hanovers will mind us raiding their pantry?” she asked.

“We can restock for them later.”

“Restock? How long do you expect to be here?”

He shrugged. “It depends.”

Feeling like she was trespassing, she pulled open the refrigerator and looked to see what the owners had left. There wasn’t much, but she found some grapes in the vegetable keeper and some Vermont Cheddar cheese that the homeowners hadn’t cleared out before they left. Not much of a meal.

“Maybe there’s something better,” Luke said. Opening the freezer compartment, he pointed to some plastic cartons that were carefully labeled.

“Ginny makes fantastic beef stew. We can thaw this in the microwave, then heat it up.”

“You’re sure this is okay? I mean making ourselves at home.”

“They trust me.”

“So when you tell them you were hiding out from armed men, they’ll understand?”

Nerves made his voice gruff. “Stop coming up with objections. We need to hole up here while we figure out where to find the Temple of the Moon.”

“You don’t think the phone directory will do?”

“No,” he snapped, then turned away. Inside his mind, he knew the warrior wanted to tell the argumentative woman to shut up and fix a meal. But Luke knew that wasn’t the way to handle the situation.

Handle? That wasn’t the kind of relationship he wanted with Olivia. He wanted something real. Something that would endure.

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