Dangerous Kiss (The Layton Family 1)

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?