Jill Shalvis - Out of This World

“It was no problem,” Axel said. “Our faithful guide brought ’em back.”

Marilee looked confused. “Who?”

Axel frowned. “Me, of course. I’m the guide around here, not you.”

“Ah.” Marilee’s lips twitched. “Right.”

Axel scowled. “I am.”

Marilee swatted lightly at one of the tassels on his hat, sending it swaying. “Okay.”

Still scowling, Axel leaned over her shoulder and peered into the pot. “What the hell is that?”

“Dinner.”

Axel grabbed a spoon and took a tentative taste. With a shudder, he made a horrendous face. “Jesus, woman!” He tossed the spoon into the sink. “What did I ever do to you?”

I peeked at Kellan, who was struggling to bite back a sympathetic smile.

“It’s fine,” Marilee said defensively, hunching her shoulders as she stirred with much more aggression than necessary, making a few splatters, while Axel choked dramatically.

“Fine? Fine for what?” he asked, grabbing a towel and swiping his tongue on it. “Poison?”

Marilee huffed. “Kellan liked it just fine, didn’t you, Kellan?”

Axel swiveled toward Kellan in disbelief. “Dude?”

Kellan winced, and Axel sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He turned to Marilee again. “Look, you know you’re off-the-charts hot, right?”

Marilee lifted a shoulder, looking slightly mollified at the compliment.

“Yeah, well, you should also know it makes men stupid,” Axel said. “They say things they don’t mean.”

Marilee glanced speculatively at Kel, then back at Axel. “Do you?”

Axel scratched his head.

“Axel Leon Hanson, do you say things you don’t mean?”

When he didn’t answer, she pointed at him with her wooden spoon, then poked him with it in the chest, leaving a red sauce stain right in the middle of his Grateful Dead T-shirt that even in the barely lit room we could all plainly see. “Talking to you, dude.”

Axel sighed again. “Now why did you have to go and ruin my shirt?” He pulled at the material, which came away from his chest with a wet suction sound. “And I don’t say things I don’t mean. You know that.”

She stared at him. “So when you said I can’t cook worth a damn…”

“Yeah, I meant it.”

At her shocked, hurt expression, he grimaced, then put his hands on her arms. “But I think you’re amazing outdoors. Does that count? I love the way you can name all the trees and flowers and shit. And then there’s how you always know where you’re going. You never get lost.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Maybe.” Axel headed toward the, table and without a care, began to empty his pockets. Penknife, loose change, fish hook, nail, gum…

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Unloading.”

“Whoa. Stop right there, bud.”

He arched a brow, smiling at her-that contagious smile-but Marilee resisted like a champ.

Instead, she pointed at him with the wooden spoon again, her expression fierce, like a den mother, like a housekeeper at the end of her rope. “When we have guests, you’re not supposed to treat this place like it’s your house.”

“Oh. Yeah. Forgot, sorry.” Reversing his progress with a bit of a sheepish smile, he scooped everything back into his pockets. “See? All cleaned up now.”

“Yeah, I see. I see that you forgot to wipe your boots again.”

He looked at the floor and winced.

So had I, because we’d all tracked in some mud.

“We have guests?” I asked.

“Oh.” Marilee shot Axel one of her long looks, which made me very curious and very uneasy at the same time. “I meant you two, of course.”

Axel moved to the refrigerator, and my gaze followed. I realized I could see right through it, to all the food on the inside, which made my mouth water.

No, I was not going to get distracted by food, no matter how much I was starving.

“Don’t open that,” Marilee said to Axel. “We don’t know how long the power’ll be out.”

“They’re hungry.” Ignoring her command, he began filling his arms with bread, butter, apples, oranges, cheese and crackers.

My stomach growled loudly.

“Food first, and then a change?” Kellan asked me.

“What are you going to change?” Axel asked, craning his neck toward us.

Marilee shoved him, and he pulled his lower lip into his mouth.

“I meant her clothes,” Kellan said, watching the exchange with as much curiosity as I was. “She needs to change her clothes.”

“Right. Her clothes.” Axel smacked his forehead. “That’s what I meant, too, dude.”

Marilee glanced at him with some sort of warning in her gaze, and he just lifted a shoulder. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Slow sometimes, is all.”

Marilee began to slice up the cheese and apples, using choppy gestures that had me seriously concerned for her fingers, at least until Axel pushed her aside and took over, utilizing the knife like a culinary chef, his movements so fast that his hands blurred.

His talent was clear, and a bit startling, given that I’d pegged him as slow and inept, but apparently there were some things he could do, and do well.

That one of those things was wield a knife somehow didn’t make me feel much better.

He and Marilee had gone oddly silent. I knew there was something really weird going on, but I was so fried, I couldn’t seem to summon the energy to get to the bottom of it.

Kellan pressed me into a chair, Marilee handed me a plate and, before I knew it, I was stuffing my face. Unable to help myself, I glanced at the freezer, concentrated and saw right through the door to the boxes of Girl Scout Cookies.

I think I had a miniorgasm.

“Do you have any dessert?” I asked as casually as I could.

“No, not yet, sorry,” Marilee said with apology. “But I’m going to bake brownies tonight.”

Axel choked out a cough that sounded like “God help us,” and Marilee glared at him until he went back to being silent.

“So you have nothing?” I said. “Not anything like, say, cookies?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Damn it. I wanted to go to the freezer and whip it open, but I controlled myself-barely-promising myself a midnight sleepwalk to the freezer, and when I did, this time I wouldn’t hold back.

I was going to eat them all.

Every.

Single.

Last.

One.

“I was thinking of calling Dot,” I said to Kellan, “just to check in.” And to see if she could help us make some plans to get out of Crazy Town.

Marilee shook her head. “Phones are down, too.”

I pulled my cell out of my pocket. No reception. “I don’t suppose you have wireless Internet?”

Both Marilee and Axel burst into laughter.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “What about radio? We could call Jack and get him back here.”

Marilee looked startled. “You want to leave early?”

Axel shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Jack never returns early.”

“Oh,” I said, and suddenly felt extremely powerless. Hated that.

Kellan put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “So there’s no way to communicate with the rest of the world?”

“We’re self-contained,” Axel said. “That’s what Gert loved about this place.”

Of course she had. Oh God, this felt bad. Very bad.

“There must be some sort of evacuation plan in case of emergency,” Kel said with quiet calm.

No sparks of temper, no kicking ass, not Kel. Just a cool, easy way that somehow soothed me.

Odd, since I’d always been attracted to the wildly passionate, temperamental sort. But I was extremely grateful that it was Kel at my side, because he gave me something few others ever had.

Security.

How he did it under such pressure was a big mystery, but I wished whatever it was would rub off on me.

“Oh, I can radio Jack,” Axel said. “But it has to be life-and-death for him to respond.”

“So other than one of us dying, there’s really no way out?” I asked in a very small voice. “Because I thought this was the twenty-first century. How can we actually be stuck here?”

Axel smiled. “Now see, that’s why they call this God’s country, boss. No one gets in and out of here but God.”

Marilee and Axel exchanged another long look.

And suddenly I wished I had gotten a lot closer to God over the years.

After I realized how stuck here we really were, and that I wasn’t going to get any Girl Scout Cookies until I could sneak them myself, things sort of caught up with me.

I was so tired that I had to prop my head up with my hand, my elbow on the table, and still I kept drifting off in the middle of eating my cheese and apples. I nearly snapped my neck while I was at it. I swear, my eyes just kept closing on me. The warm fire didn’t help, nor did the lack of bright overhead lights-cookies would have helped-and I closed my eyes while Marilee and Axel talked to Kellan about…

The sexual healing powers of the mountain?

Huh?

I tuned into the conversation in time to hear Marilee say, “It’s true, there’s just something about this place. When people come here, they find a renewed spirit. It brings out the passion.”

“Wild passion,” Axel said, sounding like he’d experienced this firsthand.

“Sex?” Kellan said, sounding doubtful, clearly wanting to clarify. “You’re telling me your guests all get sex?”

“Well,” Marilee started. “Not necessarily-”

“Yes,” Axel said over her. “Seriously, dude. I think it’s in the water, dude.”

I managed to concentrate, and by accident, I looked right through Axel. Damn, I could still do that. But his heart hadn’t picked up speed, nor his pulse, which I supposed meant he actually believed every word, that this place was truly some sort of…sexual healing zone.

I drifted off for a moment, picturing that, getting sexually healed by…Kellan?