Free Dragon Moon by Unknown Page B

Marshall was probably still up.
     
    He’d done some research on the guy and found out that he made his living leading tree-hugger trips for city types who wanted to get back to nature. And apparently he went for long walks in the woods where he’d somehow discovered the damn box.
     
    He was going to end up dead pretty soon. But first Mitch had some plans for him.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    TALON LEANED BACK in his seat, keeping his gaze fixed on Kenna. “What can you do?” he asked.
     
    At first, it looked like her mind had drawn a blank. Then she began to speak. “Keep the house clean. Weed the garden. Carry wood. Carry water. You don’t have to pay me. It can be an exchange.”
     
    Well, that was an interesting set of skills. “How are you at MS Word?” he asked, watching her carefully.
     
    “What?”
     
    “A computer word processing program.”
     
    She seemed to shrink into herself. “I’m not familiar with that.”
     
    Another thought struck him. “Do you have a driver’s license?”
     
    She swallowed. “No.”
     
    From the panic in her eyes, he wondered if she knew what a driver’s license was. Where the hell did she come from, really? With her odd accent and her out-of-kilter fears. She’d made a vague reference to “the hills.” He knew there were rural areas of Pennsylvania where people lived in isolated communities. Maybe she belonged to one of those crazy religious cults where one guy ran the whole show. Or maybe there was a bunch of elders telling everyone else what to do. Was she being forced to marry one of the old men? Was that why she’d run away? Or had she been abducted by aliens and just escaped from the mother ship? Yeah, sure.
     
    “How old are you?” he asked.
     
    “Twenty-two,” she answered in a quavery voice.
     
    He nodded.
     
    “Can you cook?”
     
    She looked toward the stove. “You could teach me.”
     
    “It’s not my best skill.”
     
    She jumped back in with more suggestions. “I can sew. And . . . make beds. And I know how to make soap and preserve books.”
     
    “Preserve books?”
     
    She flushed. “Well, I guess you don’t do that here.”
     
    The almost desperate expression on her face made his stomach clench. He didn’t know her background. He wasn’t sure he could trust her, and he was worried about his wild, out-of-control response to her. Yeah, let’s not forget about that.
     
    Or was that part of the reason he was willing to keep her close? He hated questioning his own motives. But even if he’d have to watch himself around her, he wasn’t going to toss her out. At least not without proof that she was up to something underhanded.
     
    Before he could talk himself out of it, he said, “We can give it a try.”
     
    The look of relief that flooded her face was almost too much to take. She wanted this. More than she was letting on.
     
    “Thank you,” she murmured.
     
    Because he was having trouble coping with his own emotions, he asked, “Do you want something to eat?”
     
    She hesitated, her tongue flicking out to stroke her lower lip.
     
    “You’re hungry, right? But you don’t want to ask for food.”
     
    “Yes,” she admitted in a low voice.
     
    “You don’t have to second-guess everything with me,” he said, wondering if it was true.
     
    He thought about his larder. He had a lot of meat in the freezer and the food he took on camping trips. There was also a stock of canned goods for when he had clients staying over.
     
    “Canned beef soup all right?” he asked.
     
    She nodded.
     
    “I guess you’re not a vegetarian.”
     
    “A what?”
     
    “You eat meat.”
     
    “Doesn’t everybody?”
     
    “No.”
     
    While he opened a can from the pantry, he noted that she was watching him carefully, as though she had never seen a can opener and wanted to learn how to do it.
     
    He stirred the soup, put some in another mug, and set it in the microwave. This time her expression was wide-eyed, and he