As for Nick Gentry… She’d completely ignored him as she strolled through the huge dining room, past the equally huge men seated around a huge table. They were all bearded and dressed almost identically in flannel shirts and jeans, and they’d stared at her as if she were an alien creature whose rocket ship had crashed on the planet Earth.
“Good evening,” she’d said briskly.
Six heads had nodded. Six voices had mumbled “Ma’am” as she’d breezed past them toward an arched doorway that led into the kitchen.
Forget huge.
The kitchen was the size of a barn.
An enormous brick fireplace. A brick hearth. Soot-smudged walls. Cobwebbed ceiling. All the requisite appliances: stove, sink, fridge, freezer, dishwasher, worktable. An open pantry and endless cupboards.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that everything was old. Really old. Decades old. And even before she’d opened the fridge, the freezer, the cupboards and the pantry, a sinking feeling told her what she’d find.
Nothing.
Zero.
Nada, niente, and however else you wanted to say it.
Old Mother Hubbard had nothing on the Triple G.
The cupboards were bare of food except for the Spam, the beans and the sweet chili sauce. The fridge had yielded what she thought might be a chunk of hard white cheese hiding under a layer of green fuzz as well as what looked like a bowl of butter. A mysterious something wrapped in butcher paper, unlabeled, frozen solid and easily the size of a half a steer was in the cavernous freezer. Cupboards under the sink held a motley assortment of mismatched plates, bowls and mugs and a battery of dented pots, skillets and pans.
The pantry had been Lissa’s last hope.
Men lived here. Worked here. Worked long, hard days. There hadn’t been a professional cook in residence lately, but surely there was food…
And there was. Potatoes, onions, bread, ketchup, sugar.
She looked at the worktable again, where she’d laid out what she’d found, as if in hopes that a miracle might have occurred.
None had. Add to that stuff a sad-looking heap of wizened apples she’d just unearthed from darkest corner of the pantry along with small tins of garlic powder and cinnamon plus canisters of coffee, flour and—seriously?—lard, and she had the makings for a delectable feast.
Lissa closed her eyes.
All she needed was a magic wand, a fairy godmother, and she’d be home free.
There was a rising hum of whispers and grumbles coming from beyond the arched doorway. From the dining room, she thought, biting back a groan, where Napoleon’s starving army waited to be fed.
Now, added to that came the hard click of boot heels. No. Not Napoleon’s army. This was the Mongol horde and its general was Genghis Khan.
And Genghis was standing right in back of her.
She’d heard him coming, but she’d have known it was him without that. She could sense his presence. Big. Powerful. Masculine. He’d brought with him the scent of soap, water, and man. He must have gone upstairs and showered while she was doing a desperate search through the kitchen.
A little frisson of something she refused to identify swept through her.
She took a breath, let it out, took another, then turned to face him.
Yes. He had showered. And shaved.
What a great face he had. That jaw. Those cheekbones. Those eyes…
“I see you’ve found the supplies.”
His voice was cool and calm.