"Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 1 - Summon the Keeper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

Claire managed to bite off most of the shriek, but her heart slammed against
her ribs as she whirled around. "Don't ever do that!"
Jerking back a step, Dean brought the crowbar up between them. "Do what?"
"Don't ever sneak up on me like that!" She pressed her right hand between her
breasts. "You're just lucky I realized who you were!"
Although she was a good six or seven inches shorter than he was and there
was nothing to her besides, somehow, that didn't sound as ridiculous as it should
have. "I'm sorry!"
Austin banged his head against her shins and she looked down. "You took
your boots off."
"They got wet."
"Right. Of course." Bringing her breathing under control, Claire waved him
toward the locked door. "Break the lock, then step away. If there was a fire in there,
you won't want the mess tracked into the hall."
Dean flashed her a grateful smile as he jammed the crowbar into the crack.
Since coming west, he'd found few people who appreciated the kind of problems
involved in keeping carpets clean. "Yes, ma'am."
"And stop calling me ma'am. You make me feel like I'm a hundred years old."
When she saw him fighting a grin, Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm twenty-seven."
"Okay." A confidence given required one in exchange. "I'm t twenty-one." As
he pulled back on the bar, he glanced over at her expression and wondered how she
knew he was lying. "That is, I'll be twenty-one in a few months."
"So you're twenty?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The shriek of tortured wood and steel cut off further conversation. Hands over
her ears, Claire watched muscles stretch the sleeves of his T-shirt as the lock began to
give. When it popped suddenly, it took her a moment to gather her wandering
thoughts-although, she assured the world at large, it was purely an aesthetic interest.
In that moment, the door swung open, Dean looked into the room, and froze on the
threshold.
"Lord thunderin' Jesus! Mr. Smythe's been hiding a body up here!"
"Calm down." Claire put her palm in the center of Dean's back and shoved.
She'd have had more luck shifting the building. "And move!" Over the years she'd
seen bodies in every condition imaginable-and frequently the imagination had
belonged to fairly warped individuals. If this body had merely been left lying around,
she'd consider herself lucky.
Dean stayed in the doorway, the breadth of his shoulders blocking her way
and her view.
"I don't think," he said, grasping both edges of the doorframe, "that this is
something a lady ought to see."
"Well, you got part of it right, you don't think!" Choosing guile over force, she
slammed her knees into the back of his at the spot where the crease crossed the
hollow. As he collapsed, she pushed past him, one hand reaching out to the old-
fashioned, circular light switch.
The room was a little larger than the room Claire had slept in and the
decorating hadn't been changed since the early part of the century. An oversized
armchair sat covered in hand-crocheted doilies, a Victorian plant stand complete with
a very dead fern stood between the two curtained windows, and a woman lay fully
clothed on top of the bed, a sausage-shaped bolster under her head and a folded quilt
under her feet. Everything, including the woman, wore a fuzzy patina of dust. The air