Alaskan Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

instinctively wanting to get to the root
of the matter, but her gut was telling her if she pushed the subject any
further, her handyman was going to disappear and never come back.
    And she needed him.
    Blaze may have known the proper
way to tally up a Balance Sheet and deliver a Quarterly Earnings Statement, but
she didn’t have the first clue how to unclog a pipe that didn’t succumb to Drāno.
    Blaze found the right key and
inserted it into the lock.  She could almost feel the sigh of relief behind her
as she turned the knob and shoved the door open, revealing a darkened interior
beyond.
    “I’ll start taking the plywood
off the windows tonight,” Jack said, following her inside. The place smelled of
old smoke, wood, and dust.  “Get some light in this place.”  He set the duffels
down inside the foyer, then started digging in his jacket pocket.  “Until then…” 
He fished out an LED flashlight and handed it to her.
    Blaze reached for it, grateful.
    Instead of handing it to her,
however, Jack flipped it on suddenly and shone it in her eyes.
    “What the hell ?!” Blaze
cried, holding up a hand against the blue glare.
    Jack lowered the light,
frowning.  He started sniffing the air again, short, brief little whuffs, like
a confused bear.  “You ain’t a vampire,” he said, sounding stunned.  Just when
she was starting to blink the red dots out of her vision, he shone the light
into her eyes again.  “And you ain’t a fairy.”
    Blaze snagged the LED flashlight
from his grip and yanked it away from him.  Growling, she switched it off. 
“Look, Jack,” she said, “I know you’ve been out here in the sticks a long time
on your own, buddy, thumb squarely up your hairy little ass, but you’re gonna
learn some people skills or you’re not working for me.”  She frowned when Jack simply
stared at the flashlight in her hand, seemingly caught between the urge to bolt
and the urge to snatch it back.  She switched it back on and shone it on his
face, making him start.  “You listening?”
    Jack blinked up at her and
shielded his face, and she almost thought she heard a low growl rising in his
chest.
    “Good,” Blaze snapped.  She
waggled the light at him.  “First rule.  I don’t care if she looks like she
belongs in steel and boiled leather, manning the helm of a Norse battleship—you
don’t call your boss a blood-sucker, and you don’t ask her if she’s
gay.”
    Jack lowered his hand, looking
confused.  “Huh?”
    “Second,” Blaze said, turning the
light on the room, “If you’re going to have any contact at all with the guests,
you’re going to stop making rude comments.  Period.”
    “Rude comments?” Jack asked,
sounding perplexed.
    She switched the light back to
his face.  “Suggesting I have a bit of draft horse in my ancestry?  Or that I’m
a ‘dumbass city-slicker?’”
    “Well,” Jack said gruffly, “You
got big-ass feet and you fell in the lake.  Now do you mind?  I’ve got
sensitive eyes.”
    Blaze stared at him, stunned by
his hypocrisy, and left the light on his face another few seconds.  Finally,
she turned it again to the inside of the lodge.  “So what do you think?”
    Jack lowered his arm from his
face suspiciously.  “Think you got a hell of a deal on the place.”
    “It’s a lot of work,” Blaze said,
shining the light around the basement floor, the light catching the reflection
of windows that were still boarded from the outside. 
    “Yeah,” Jack said.  He gave her a
long, guarded look.  “What are you?”
    “Business major,” Blaze said,
distracted.  “Ditched everything to come out here, though, so I can’t afford to
screw up.”  She crossed the room to shine her light on a pile of grass and
black deposits on the floor beside the wall.  “What is that?”
    “Looks like a squirrel found its
way in here,” Jack said.  “They’ll probably be all over.  Stuff’ll be chewed,
too, so you’ll probably have to replace