“I didn’t mean to.” She felt flustered. The last thing she wanted to do was put him on the defensive.
“I’m not offended at all.” He didn’t smile, but looked at her pleasantly. “And maybe we could build the tribe faster if we just handed out checks, but I’d rather attract people more slowly and organically because they want to be here.”
“Quite understandable.” She tried to smile. She wasn’t sure it was convincing. Something about John Fairweather rattled her. He was so...handsome. She wasn’t used to being around men like him. The guys in her office were mostly introverted and out of shape from sitting hunched over their computers all day long. John Fairweather obviously spent a good amount of time at his desk, judging from all the material he’d showed her, but somehow—tan and sturdy as the oak tree on the cover of his annual report—he looked more like someone who spent all day outdoors.
“Are you okay?”
She jerked herself out of the train of irrelevant thoughts. “Maybe a cup of tea would be a good idea, after all.”
* * *
Constance lay in her bed at the Cozy Suites Motel, staring at the outline of the still ceiling fan in the dark. Her brain wouldn’t settle down enough for sleep but she knew she needed to rest so she could focus on all those numbers at the casino tomorrow. She wanted to impress her boss so she could ask for a raise and put a down payment on a house. It was time to move out from under her parents’ wing.
It was one thing to move back home to save money after college. It was another entirely to still be there six years later, when she was earning a decent salary and could afford to go out on her own. Part of it was that she needed to meet a man. If she was in a normal relationship with a nice, sensible man, a practiced charmer like John Fairweather would have no effect on her, no matter how broad his shoulders were.
Her parents thought almost everyone on earth was a sinner who should be shunned. You’d think she’d told them she was planning to gamble all her savings away at the craps tables the way they’d reacted when she announced she was going to Massachusetts to look into the books of a casino. She’d tried to explain that it was a big honor to be chosen by her firm to undertake an important assignment from a government agency. They’d simply reiterated all their old cautions about consorting with evildoers and reminded her that she could have a perfectly good job at the family hardware store.
She didn’t want to spend her life mixing paint. She tried to be a good daughter, but she was smart and wanted to make the most of what natural talents she had. If that meant traveling across state lines and consorting with a few sinners, then so be it.
Besides, she was here to root out wrongdoing at the casino. She was the good guy in this situation. She shifted onto her side, trying to block out the thin green light from the alarm clock on the bedside table. If only she could get her brain to switch off. Or at least quiet down.
A high-pitched alarm made her jump and sit up in bed. Something in the ceiling started to flash, almost blinding her. She groped for the switch on her bedside light but couldn’t find it. The shrieking sound tore at her nerves.
What’s going on? She managed to find her glasses, then climbed out of bed and groped her way to the wall light switch, only to discover that it didn’t work. The digital display on the clock radio numbers had gone out.
A jet of water strafed her, making her gasp and splutter. The overhead sprinkler. A fire? She ran for the door, then she realized that she needed her briefcase with her laptop and wallet in it. She’d just managed to find it by the closet, feeling her way through the unfamiliar space illuminated only by the intermittent blasts of light from the alarm, when she smelled smoke.
Adrenaline snapping through her, Constance grabbed her briefcase and ran for the door. The chain was on and it took her a few agonizing seconds to get it free. Out on the second-floor walkway of the motel, she could see other guests emerging from their rooms into the night. Smoke billowed out of an open door two rooms away.
She’d forgotten to bring shoes. Or any clothes. She was more or less decent in her pajamas, but she could hardly go anywhere like this. Should she go back in and get some? Someone behind her coughed as the night breeze carried thick black smoke through the air. She could hear a child crying inside a room nearby.
On instinct she yelled, “Fire!” and—clutching her briefcase to her chest—ran along the corridor away from the fire, pounding on each door and telling the people to get out. Had someone called the fire department? More people were coming out of their rooms now. She helped a family with three small children get their toddlers down the stairs to the ground floor. Was everyone safe?
She heard someone calling 911. She rushed back up the stairs to help an elderly couple who were struggling to find their footing in the smoky darkness. Then she ran along the corridor and banged on any doors that were still closed. What if people were still in there? She hoped that the sirens and lights would have flushed everyone out by now, but...
A surge of relief swept over her as she saw fire engines pull into the parking lot. It wasn’t long before the firemen had finished evacuating the building and moved everyone to the far end of the parking lot. They trained their hoses on the fire, but whenever the flames and smoke died down in one area, they sprang up in another.
“It’s a tinderbox,” muttered a man standing behind her. “All that carpet and curtains and bedspreads. Deadly toxic smoke, too.”
Soon the entire motel complex—about twenty rooms—was ablaze and they had to move farther back to escape the heat and smoke. Constance and the other guests stood there in their pajamas, watching in stunned disbelief.
At some point she realized she’d put her briefcase down while helping people out, and she had no idea where it was. It had her almost-new laptop in it, her phone and all the notes she’d made in preparation for her assignment. Most of the information was backed up somewhere, but putting it all back together would be a nightmare. And her wallet with her driver’s license and credit cards! She started to wander around in the darkness, scanning the wet ground for it.
“You can’t go there, miss. Too dangerous.”
“But my bag. It has all my important documents in it that I need for work.” Her voice sounded whiny and pathetic as she scanned the tarmac of the parking lot. The fire glowed along almost the entire roof of the motel, and acrid smoke stung her nostrils. What if she didn’t find her bag? Or if it got soaked through?
“Constance.”
She jerked her gaze up and realized John Fairweather was standing in front of her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a volunteer firefighter. Are you cold? We have some blankets on the truck.”
“I’m fine.” She fought the urge to glance down at her pajamas. How embarrassing for him to see her in them, though it was pretty selfish and shallow of her to be thinking about how she looked at a time like this. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You could try to calm down the other guests. Tell them we’ll find room for everyone at the New Dawn hotel. My uncle Don’s driving over here in a van to pick everyone up.”
“Oh. That’s great.” She’d made quite a fuss about not staying there. Now apparently she would be anyway.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You look kind of dazed. Maybe you should be treated for smoke inhalation.” His concerned gaze raked over
