Dangerous Kiss (The Layton Family 1)

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.