Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) by Lori Handeland Page B

gave him
new ideas. If lying in a coffin wasn’t a new place and a new
experience, he didn’t know what was. Garrett ought to get a doozy
of an idea out of this.
    He approached the wooden box, more captivated
by his crazy concept with every tick of the clock. What would it feel like to lie inside?
    Garrett hadn’t felt such a sweeping need to
know in quite a while—that blessed niggling of nosiness that kept
him writing hour after hour, day after day, until he uncovered all
there was to know in the dark depths of a story and laid the
secrets out for everyone, including himself, to examine.
    “Well, hell, now I’ve got to do it,” he said
as he opened the lid and climbed in.
    The coffin had been built for a corpse of
years past—when men didn’t top six feet. Garrett’s knees kept the
lid from closing completely.
    “Not quite my size, Andrew. So sorry, old
chum.”
    The laughter bubbled up again, but he
squelched it. He wanted to absorb the experience. Somehow, someday,
in some future book, he’d need to know what being in a coffin felt
like, and he might never get another chance to lie in one if he
didn’t do it now.
    “Smells like wet wood.” His knuckles scraped
the side, and he hissed as splinters threatened. “Scratchy.
Unfinished.” Shifting against the pain in his spine, he winced.
“And hard. Could use a pillow if not a mattress. Not very restful,
but the usual occupant wouldn’t notice. If I could get the lid
closed, would there be any light in here?”
    Garrett twisted and turned until his knees
scrunched in sideways. The lid thumped shut. Something clicked.
“Uh-oh.”
    He pushed on the lid. He was stuck, all
right. The sound of his heart filled the small area. Was the space
actually getting smaller? Or was he getting bigger?
    Now he was hysterical. And hot,
cramped, hungry and... He admitted it—scared.
    He put some muscle behind his next push. The
top jiggled but held. He slammed his palms against the top again
and again. Regardless, the coffin remained firmly shut.
    “They sure don’t build ’em like this
anymore.” His voice sounded normal, and that calmed him a bit. Too
bad the latch was built better than the body. Sunlight streamed
through tiny cracks at the corners.
    “If I were undead, I’d be dead.”
    Garrett stifled the urge to laugh. He had to
squelch it or he might never stop. He also had to stop panicking or
he might do something crazy. Make that crazier. For a person
trapped inside a coffin, any loss of control would be very bad. He
needed to think .
    If he could use his legs, he might be able to
bust through the top. Unfortunately, he couldn’t because he’d
crunched his legs in sideways to fit.
    Garrett had gotten out of sticky situations
before. As a child he’d always been into, on top of or underneath
something. His father had said his infernal curiosity would get him
killed one day. Looked like James, Sr., was right again.
    Panic threatened once more, but Garrett
quashed it. He’d survived worse than this. Worse than this had made
him thrive. Facing fear was what Garrett Stark did best, mainly
because the J.J. inside him was afraid of a lot.
    He wrote about his nightmares so he could own
them, then lived life as if there was nothing on this earth that he
feared. A lie, but then, Garrett told lies for a living.
    In truth, there was one fear he’d never
conquer. His fear of failing at everything that mattered. He’d made
a good start at letting that fear own him.
    Livy hated the ground he walked on. His son
thought he was dead. The career that gave him the only sense of
worth he’d ever known was about to crash and burn. And Garrett had
just discovered what claustrophobia felt like.
    Maybe he could use that in a book, too. If he
lived.
    “Breathe deep. Plenty of air. Just not enough
room.”
    Remain calm. Eventually someone would
find him. When the smell reached the street.
    Garrett cursed and slammed his hands once
more against the lid, as if it would actually