Chosen by Christine Pope (best romantic novels in english .TXT) 📖

but right then I was suddenly too tired to bother with going out to the greenhouse. It could wait another day.

What I did find, tucked under one of the counters, was a wine refrigerator. “Thank you, Mr. Real Estate Developer,” I breathed, looking at the gleaming bottles, all chilled to a perfect fifty-four degrees. Not that I knew the first thing about wine, but I did know about needing a drink, and boy, did I need one.

I selected a Black Mesa Montepulciano. I had no idea what a Montepulciano even was, but it sounded exotic. Probably far too exotic for my prosy meal of sausages and potatoes, which were still happily sizzling away on the stove top, but I doubted anyone from Wine Spectator magazine was going to drop in and grade me on my wine pairings.

There was a drawer seemingly dedicated only to wine openers and related gadgets — stoppers, little metal collars with padding inside to keep wine from dripping down the side of a bottle after it had been opened. I’d never been able to manage a waiter-style corkscrew, but there was also one of those “jumping jack”–style openers, and I selected that and went to work on the wine bottle, keeping an eye on the potatoes and sausages the whole time.

The sound of a cork coming out a wine bottle has to be one of the happiest sounds in the world, and I thought I could use a little happiness right then. I pulled one of the heavy blown-glass goblets out of the cupboard and filled it approximately halfway. Everything I’d read and heard said you were supposed to let wine breathe, but I wasn’t going to bother with that. I took a sip and closed my eyes. No, I hadn’t been much of a wine drinker, had always ordered mixed drinks or tequila shots when I was out with my friends. Now, though, I started to understand the appeal of wine, the smooth darkness of it on my lips, the gentle warmth it seemed to spread through my limbs.

I allowed myself another sip, then went back to the stove so I could turn over the sausages and stir the potatoes around a little. They were basically done, so I scrounged in the cupboard for a plate and dumped everything onto it. Dutchie’s tail began to wag frantically, and I couldn’t help smiling.

“Okay, we’ll see if there’s anything left over,” I told her, then got out a knife and fork, picked up my goblet of wine, and went into the family room. No way was I going to be the only person sitting down at that massive copper dining room table.

But the family room was a much cozier space, and I settled myself on the couch and placed the plate of food and my wine glass on the coffee table. A flat-screen TV hung on one wall, although it wasn’t going to do me much good unless the real estate developer had a stash of DVDs hidden somewhere. He probably did, but in that moment I was too hungry to worry about it. As with so many other things, I’d go exploring later.

There was also a kiva-style fireplace in one corner, with a nice stack of wood in a basket next to it. After I was done eating, I thought I might light a fire and allow myself to simply sit here for a while, quiet, letting my food digest. Hell, maybe I’d even drink that whole bottle of wine. After everything I’d been through, getting drunk sounded like it might not be a half-bad idea.

But no…I knew I wouldn’t do that. Just the glass, and maybe half of one afterward. The voice had reassured me I was safe here, and had closed the gate to the compound behind me, but until I’d slept a few nights unmolested, I wasn’t about to let my guard down like that. Dutchie had proven to be a good watchdog, and I had a feeling a place like this had some decent built-in security, but even so, being careless seemed like a good way to get myself killed.

Instead, I drank the wine slowly, taking small sips in between bites of my food, until my glass was empty and my plate almost so. There were a few potatoes and the end of one sausage left, and I put the plate down on the floor so Dutchie could have the rest of it. Who cared if that wasn’t the most hygienic thing in the world to do? She was deliriously happy about getting some table scraps, and as far as I was concerned, she’d earned them.

Once she’d polished the plate clean, I picked it up, as well as my wine glass, and went back to the kitchen. The plate went in the dishwasher, and I poured enough wine into my goblet to get it to a little below the halfway mark. In the drawer with all the other wine accoutrements, I found a stopper, so I jammed that into the open bottle, figuring I’d finish it off the next day.

And although I was bone-tired, sitting in front of the fire didn’t seem so appealing after all. I might as well get more of a handle on this place that was now supposed to be my home. Going back to the family room, I discovered that the large carved cabinet placed up against one wall did in fact hold the real estate developer’s Blu-Ray collection. Most of it was fairly typical new-release stuff, with some action classics thrown in. There was also an entire shelf of porn, and I just had to laugh when I looked at it. It was pretty obvious what he’d intended to do with at least some of his time after surviving the zombie apocalypse, or whatever.

I closed the cabinet with one hand, lifted the wine goblet with the other so I could take a drink, and wandered off down the hallway that led to the bedrooms and the office. That was the space which really interested me the most. After flicking on the light — and marveling at how easy that was — I went into the room and took a quick survey. Again, the furniture here was dark distressed oak, a perfect match to the hacienda-style feel of the rest of the house. One wall was mainly window, covered in wooden shutters. Against another wall was a large desk with what looked like a brand-new iMac sitting on it.

There was also a gun safe. I set down my wine glass on the desk, then went over to the safe and tested the lock. I suppose it was silly to think that the thing would have been open, but I couldn’t help experiencing a stab of disappointment when the doors wouldn’t budge. My father had trained me not to leave guns lying around, and although I was sure they would be fine where I’d put them on the shelf in the closet, I’d feel even better if I could lock them up.

Sitting next to the desk was a file cabinet, and I opened that, quickly rifling through its contents. This was a trove — I found manuals for the computer, the drip setup in the greenhouse, all the appliances, the security system. That seemed to feed into the iMac, so I touched the space bar on the keyboard, waking it up from its sleep. Thank God it didn’t seem to be password protected; I was able to find the security program easily enough, which brought up a feed from a number of cameras. At the moment it was showing a grid of all nine of them, although it appeared that I could also expand one image and then rotate through them if I preferred.

Not that it mattered one way or another, as far as I could tell. By then it was completely dark, and the cameras didn’t show much of anything. I supposed it made sense not to have security lights blaring around the exterior of the house and the perimeter of the property; that would only serve as a beacon to show that someone was living out here. And actually, after I toggled around a bit, I realized that no lights were needed, as the cameras switched into infrared mode in the dark. Pretty high-tech.

How much had the developer spent building this place? I couldn’t begin to guess, but it had to be at least a million dollars. And all for nothing…well, at least where he was concerned. I was more than grateful that the house existed, and that the voice had found it for me, but it still seemed somewhat ironic that so much money had been spent to defend against something which ended up having no defense.

That thought sobered me, and I picked up my goblet and took a large swallow of wine. Dutchie had followed me in here, settling down on the floor in a little ball. There was something almost resigned about her posture, as if she knew that once a human being started mucking around on a computer, they were going to be useless for a good number of hours.

But that wasn’t why I’d come in here. I only wanted to know what the room held, and now that I’d seen the kind of security that was protecting this place, I felt a good deal better. Had the system been on when I got here, and the voice had simply disengaged it to allow me to enter, or had he switched it on once I was safely inside the compound? He’d clearly intended for me to come here all along, so I had a feeling it was probably the former. There hadn’t been much chance of someone accidentally stumbling across this place, but even so, better safe than otherwise.

Among the manuals was the guide that had come with the gun safe. I flipped through it with one hand, sipping from my wine glass at the same time. When I got to the last page, I saw that some numbers had been written down along the edge of that leaf. The combination?

Only one way to find out.

I put down the wine glass and went over to the safe, then slowly spun the dial around to match the sequence of numbers I’d found inside the manual. There was a soft click, and the door opened outward.

Even though I’d grown up around my father’s arsenal, I couldn’t help letting out a gasp at what I found. There was — well, an arsenal worthy of holding off an entire horde of zombies. Shotguns and rifles and a parade of handguns, along with box after box of ammo. The problem wouldn’t be defending this place if necessary, but deciding which gun to use to do it.

Well, that and trying to squeeze my own meager collection in here.

I closed the safe, reclaimed my wine glass, and finished the rest of it with