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  Burlington’s head snapped around, following Claire.

  Ready to inflict serious damage, Jake barreled toward Burlington.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Claire inhaled heaven.

  Granny Marie’s apple strudel must have just come hot out of the oven. Its cinnamon scent permeated her bedroom. Exhaling, her stomach rumbled and her mouth watered in anticipation. In a few minutes it will have cooled enough to eat. This time she wouldn’t rush in to cut off a slice and burn her mouth on a steaming apple. For once, she could wait. Anyway, her toasty-warm bed was too comfortable to leave.

  Rolling onto her back, she reached for the covers to snuggle deeper. Her heavy arms slid across her warm body. There were no covers, only her bare skin sticking to slick leather upholstery. The truth unfolded slowly. She wasn’t in bed. No. It must be the couch.

  Had she fallen asleep in the living room and kicked off the blanket in the night? How had she ended up sleeping on the couch? Had she been watching a movie? Struggling to remember, her thoughts moved as if they were mired in honey.

  A crackling, popping noise snapped in the distance. Why would Granny Marie be making popcorn for breakfast? It didn’t make sense, but Claire couldn’t grasp why. Everything seemed off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  As she stretched, a tingling sensation burned up both arms. Damn, she must have slept on her stomach with her arms trapped underneath her. She flexed her fingers, trying to increase circulation in her numb limbs.

  Only half awake, Claire sniffed the air hoping for another burst of cinnamon apple. An unexpected richness snuck in with it. She wrinkled her nose. Olive oil. Why did she smell olive oil? Straining to open her eyes, confusion swamped her sleep-addled head.

  A sudden tension coiled tight in her stomach. She needed to do something, but what? A glimmer of the truth lay just beyond her mind’s reach, but like a half-remembered dream, it floated in her subconscious, swaddled in a fog.

  Again, she tried to pry her eyes open, but the lids were too heavy. Panic ratcheted up her heartbeat, her blood rushed in her ears. Something was wrong. Why couldn’t she open her eyes? Why was it so hard to move? She tried to call out for help. Her tongue, thick and heavy in her mouth, hampered her efforts and only a soft moan came out.

  Struggling not to lapse back into a dazed state, she inhaled deeply.

  Smoke invaded her lungs. Choked her. Coughs racked her body as her lungs gasped to inhale clean air.

  The violent spasms jarred Claire fully awake. Her eyes snapped open. She couldn’t make sense of what she saw.

  She was on the couch in Harvest’s break room.

  Naked.

  Jake lay nude at her feet.

  Candles, so many candles, surrounded them, their wicks alive with fire. It looked like a romantic tryst gone desperately wrong, as if they’d passed out after making love.

  An oily trail dotted the hardwood floor, leading to the room’s only exit. Smoke snuck in under the door in a skinny column of gray.

  Everything came back to her. Jake had poked Franklin in the eye, thrust her toward the door and gone after Burlington. As he had struggled with Burlington, the goon recovered enough to rush Jake. All three had gone down. Unable to leave him like that, she’d run full throttle into the melee. They’d rolled in a ball of flailing arms and kicking feet, chairs and tables knocked over by the combatants.

  In the middle of the brawl, a sharp object had pricked her leg. Ice had surged through her veins and her body had gone slack. Though her vision had turned hazy, she’d seen Burlington looming above her, a half-filled needle in his hand. She’d wanted to lash out at him, but couldn’t lift her arms or legs. Helpless, she had sunk into a sea of desperation.

  Unable to move, she had stared up at the ceiling while the skirmish had gone on around her. Fighting the effects of the drug, she had turned her head in time to see Burlington plunge the needle into Jake’s shoulder. He’d reared back and roared before collapsing to the floor.

  She’d wanted to reach out to Jake. Touch him. Brush his hand with hers. But the drug was too powerful. Her vision turned dark. Unable to move or see, only her hearing connected her to the world.

  “The other vial broke when the table flipped over. Half a dose will have to do for them both, Mr. Franklin. Take them to the break room and strip them. Light the candles in there. You will start the fire with whatever is flammable on the premises. It is a restaurant; it should not be hard to find something that will do the job.” Burlington had paused, his footsteps pounding on the hardwood floor away from her and toward the backdoor. “This cannot look like arson at first blush, Mr. Franklin. Do not disappoint me in this. Oh, and one final thing…”

  At that point, she had fallen completely into the void. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Felt nothing. Until now.

  Terror ripped through her. She had to wake up Jake. They had to get out. She sprang up. Too quickly. The room wavered before her. Afraid if she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t get them open again, Claire concentrated on the doorknob. Silver. Round. It seemed so far away. She counted to twenty and tried to keep her breathing steady as smoke filtered in under the door.

  The room stopped spinning. She slid off the couch to the floor beside Jake. Curled up on his side, he slept-off the drug. His hands were clasped and tucked underneath his chin. He’d already suffered a probable concussion from his multiple run-ins with Franklin. What the hell had been drugged done to make it worse?

  What if she couldn’t wake him? She doubted her sluggish muscles could pull him out of harm’s way. She could barely move her arms enough to stroke his face.

  “Jake! Jake! Wake up. We have to get out of here.” Smoke burned her esophagus and another coughing fit shook her body. “Jake! Wake up. Now!”

  The tingling in her limbs lessened. Grabbing his bare shoulders, she leaned in close to his face. Her mind raced as panic swamped it, but her sluggish body moved in slow motion. Cursing her inability to wake him, she laid her forehead against his and prayed for a miracle.

  Her nose rested against his as she gathered her strength to try again to wake him. In any other situation she wouldn’t have been able to stop from sneaking a kiss. “Jake! Wake up now or we’re both going to die!”

  His eyeballs rolled under his closed lids. She held tight to the hope his reaction offered. Her muscles pulled and ached, but they were under her control again. Digging her fingernails into his tender skin, she shook him by the shoulders. “Come on, Jake! Wake up! We have to get out of here!”

  “Five more minutes, baby,” he mumbled.

  “Jake Warrick, you get up right this moment or so help me God I will leave your naked ass in the break room to burn to death.”

  His eyes popped open at her meaningless threat. The terror riding roughshod through her body released its grip. She smiled despite the dire circumstances.

  “Why would I burn to death?” A second later he sniffed the air and realization dawned in his gaze. He shot to his feet, and immediately fell to the couch.

  “Give yourself a minute. I don’t know what Burlington shot us up with, but it does a number on you.” Claire grabbed her sundress and pulled it over her head. “Where are your keys?”

  “Jeans.” His face glowed with a distinct pale-green tinge.

  She found Jake’s clothes in a pile beside the couch. She dug his keys out of his pocket and tossed the jeans to him. He put them on with deliberate care. Dazed, he stayed focused on the task, but his skin had gone back to its normal tan. Her thong was balled up on the floor by Jake’s shirt. She leaned against the break room table and lifted a leg to put it on.

  A squeal of twisting metal followed by a loud crash stopped her in the middle of slipping on her underwear. Jake jumped up from the couch. He stood firm on his shoeless feet.

  “The metal shelves by the prep table.” She sank down against the table. Her restaurant. Her fucking restaurant was going down in flames all because of some asshole’s greed. Everything she’d worked for,
all the hours she’d spent, all the money she’d scrimped and saved, it all burned on the other side of that door. She’d never hated anyone as much as she loathed Burlington right now.

  “How do we get out?”

  Claire swung her head around. Jake stood, fully dressed, only inches from her. She gulped down her pain and finished pulling up her thong under her dress. “Turn left out the door and we can get out the delivery entrance. It opens up to the alley. If they’re still in the parking lot, they won’t be able to see us.”

  Jake lowered his head and crushed his mouth to hers. His strong lips delivered the kind of searing kiss meant to embolden her spirit, not entice her body. Brief and intense, like a shot of passionate courage, it did the job. By the time he broke the kiss, she’d regained her emotional footing.

  Bucked up, she set her sights on the door. “Let’s do this.”

  The doorknob warmed her palm but didn’t burn it. Cautious, she turned it and opened the door an inch. Jake peered through the slight opening.

  He pushed it shut. “There’s smoke, but I couldn’t see any flames. Are there any towels in here?”

  Claire pulled two orange dishtowels from a drawer near the sink. She wet them and handed one to Jake. They tied them around their heads bank-robber style so only their eyes showed. He reopened the door, sank down to his hands and knees and crawled into the hallway. She dropped to all fours and followed close behind.

  A pitch-black darkness enveloped the windowless hallway. The bastards must have cut the power and knocked out the back-up generator. That meant no sprinkler system, no emergency lights, no fire alarm and no one coming anytime soon to hose down Harvest.

  Dry Creek’s population deserted Main Street most Mondays after five p.m. It had been near nine p.m. when she’d found the phone and flash drive in the bathroom. She couldn’t begin to guess how long had passed since Burlington sent her to dreamland.

  If she had any luck, and in her heart she knew she did not, dawn had arrived and Margret Goodwin was about to open her bakery shop across the street. That busybody would call the fire department and everyone else in town. Maybe the firefighters would arrive before Harvest burned to the ground. Damn. She’d never hoped to be the subject of Margret’s telephone gossip tree before.

  Smoke irritated her eyes, but she fought to keep them open. She could make out the barest glimpse of Jake’s outline ahead of her. A coughing fit took hold of her, shook her entire body down to her toes. In her attempt to gulp in oxygen, she sucked the towel into her mouth. Whipping it off, she dragged in a ragged breath. Tainted air burned its way down her esophagus and spread through her lungs like wildfire tears across the plains.

  The combination of smoke from above, fire behind and darkness surrounding them became overwhelming. Trapped in an inferno, panic gripped her and her lungs tightened. Another hacking spasm rocked her body. The walls closed in around her. Overwhelmed with confusion, she second-guessed everything.

  Did they turn right or left out of the door?

  What if they had turned the wrong way?

  The hallway wasn’t that long. Shouldn’t they be at the door by now?

  Frozen by indecision, she stilled. The approaching fire heated her back, but didn’t burn. Not yet.

  “Claire, where are you?” Jake’s disembodied voice traveled through the dark.

  She couldn’t see him, but her heart held onto his voice like a lifeline. It tugged her forward. Right hand. Right knee. Left hand. Left knee. She repeated the process away from the flames and toward freedom.

  The drugs and smoke inhalation had zapped her energy. She collapsed by the heavy metal door. Jake sat, his back leaning against it. Seeking his strength, she pulled herself to his side and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “It’s locked. Is there another way?” His drug-slowed voice tickled against her ear.

  “Keypad.” The single word scratched her raw throat. The keypad deadbolt lock used its own battery not connected to Harvest’s power source or the generator. With luck, Burlington had missed it.

  She pushed her listless body up, balancing against the door until she stood straight. Blindly, she patted the wall, searching for the keypad to unlock the door. She ran her fingers across the invisible pad, imagining the location of each button, and punched in Harvest’s ten-digit phone number. A vibration buzzed her hand as a small door slid open, revealing the deadbolt knob. Holding her breath, she turned it. A quiet click chimed.

  The smoke was so thick she could barely get any words out as she sank to her knees. “Try the door.”

  Jake stood and weaved a bit before pushing against the door. It opened soundlessly. Fresh air washed over them both like a cleansing rain. Claire sucked it deep into her lungs, desperate for survival. Coughing, she edged into the alley.

  “Wait here, I’m going to go check out the parking lot.” Jake scurried off, looking much better than she felt.

  She glanced back down the darkened hallway. Flames danced at the far end of the hallway, eating their way up the walls. All her bravery drained out of her weary body. It took every ounce of her strength not to give in to the despair, sink to the ground and weep.

  She’d worked so hard to maintain the historical aspects of Harvest, including hardwood floors and hand-carved wooden detail work along the ceiling. It had taken months to talk the reticent local farmers who provided most of Harvest’s food into posing for the photos lining the stairwell. Her mother had helped pick out the autumn color scheme that permeated the restaurant, from the burnt-orange towels to the deep-purple nametags. The bar—that gorgeous, Western-style bar. She’d been like a kid at Christmas when the workmen installed it. All of it was now just fuel for the fire.

  Tears soaking her smoke-irritated eyes, Claire watched the blaze march toward her. Even though heat poured out of the open doorway, she shivered with chill. Her mind shut down as her heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

  “They’re gone,” Jake panted as he raced to her side. “Come on, Burlington said something about South America. I’ll bet you my hockey season tickets the asshole is getting ready to pilot his jet south. The regional airport is fifteen minutes from here. Come on, we might still catch them.”

  He backpedaled toward the parking lot, but Claire couldn’t move. An unexplainable protective instinct pushed her to stay with Harvest as it went down. She couldn’t leave it alone as flames shot through the roof any more than a parent could leave an injured child. Harvest was her baby.

  She jumped when Jake’s hand brushed away the tears she didn’t realize had been flowing across her cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I know you want to stay, but the bastard who did this may still be at the airport. We can call the fire department on the way.”

  A whoosh exploded in the kitchen and the flames burst forward like a fiery fist. Jake yanked her backward, away from the flames racing down the hallway toward them.

  Anger squeezed her tear ducts shut. There was nothing she could do to save her restaurant. Her dream had turned to ash.

  The need for vengeance grew inside her soot-filled chest. Like the fire before her, the rage started as a spark but built quickly, destroying every other emotion in its path. Burlington would be held accountable. He’d pay for it all. Nothing and no one would stand in her way.

  Claire set her shoulders and clamped her jaw tight. Heat licked at her face as she stepped back into the gravel strewn alley and walked away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The blaze shrank in Jake’s rear-view mirror as he sped down the deserted Main Street away from one disaster and, no doubt, straight into another.

  The digital clock on the dashboard read twenty minutes after midnight. The town had rolled up its sidewalks, the first bit of good luck they’d had in days. With no traffic in sight, he kicked the accelerator to the floor, speeding through four red lights and ignoring the doubt creeping into his thoughts about their chances of success. Everything came down to this moment. They had to get to the regiona
l airport before Burlington escaped.

  Tucked safely in the passenger seat, Claire tossed his SUV’s manual to the floorboard as she groped inside the glove compartment for the cellphone. He’d gotten two at the store the day before on a buy-one-get-one-free deal.

  “Got it.” She slammed the compartment shut and sat back in her seat. Jiggling her leg, she chewed on her bottom lip and kept her gaze locked on the sleek, silver flip phone powering up.

  He reached out, clamped his hand down on her bouncing knee. “We’ll make him pay for all he’s done. I promise.”

  Her bare knee stilled beneath his palm as he massaged her smooth skin. Although he stayed focused on the road, some of the tension melted out of his shoulders, eased away by the softness of her leg under his fingertips, and he was distracted for a moment by the warmth of her creamy skin. He’d spent his adult life running away from women before they could leave him. No attachment. No heartache. But the redheaded spitfire beside him had changed all that.

  Claire sucked in a breath, pulling his gaze toward her. Confusion and desire battled in her eyes. She opened her mouth, but turned her head at the phone’s jingle, announcing it was ready. She waited a moment longer, then dialed 911.

  “I want to report a fire at Harvest Bistro, 6522 Main Street… No, no one’s inside.” Her tight voice broke. “Please hurry.”

  She hung up and immediately dialed again.

  “Hank, it’s Kendall’s father, she was blackmailing him.”

  While she gave her brother the details, Jake kept his eyes on the road as Dry Creek disappeared behind them. It was a straight shot to the airport. The SUV wasn’t built for speed, but it barreled down the highway like a rocket-powered tank. His headlights illuminated the idle sugar beet factory and closed big-box stores on either side of the highway. He glanced over at her alabaster skin lit up by the dashboard’s green light.

  She waved her free hand in the air as she argued with Hank. “No, we are not waiting for you. The sheriff’s office is half an hour from the airport; by the time you get here he could be gone. We can’t take that risk. Just meet us there. Hurry!”