Into the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

idiot quest.
    At least the room was warming up, and she could dispense with the sleeping bag. She shoved a hand through her tangled hair, scrambling off the thin mattress. And then she saw her suitcase.
    She stared at it, not making the mistake of thinking it a good sign. If Dillon had managed to fix her car, then he wouldn’t have brought her suitcase up—he wouldn’t do anything to prolong her stay.
    She opened the door to the long, narrow hallway.The bare lightbulb at the end illuminated the empty bathroom. All the other doors were closed, and she wondered where he slept.
    Not that it mattered. At that moment the bathroom was looking pretty damned good, and a shower was becoming more and more appealing with the arrival of clean clothes. She wasn’t getting out of here until Dillon woke up and she was able to get Nate’s things, and there was no way she was going to sit around in these clothes for another minute.
    At least there was a lock on the bathroom door. One of those old skeleton key things—if she’d had half a brain the night before she could have taken the key and locked her own door. And then Dillon couldn’t have come in the darkness to dump her suitcase. Had he stood there and stared at her while she slept? Doubtful.
    The bathtub was a grimy, claw-footed antique with a shower overhead, but the water was hot and the grayish towels smelled clean. She combed her wet hair with her fingers and grimaced at her reflection. She’d thrown T-shirts and jeans in her suitcase instead of her usual professional clothes. She looked like a twelve-year-old, with her scrubbed, makeup-free face, wet hair and boy’s clothes. Any other twenty-eight-year-old woman would be happyto look so young. For Jamie it just reminded her of when she was sixteen and Dillon Gaynor was the terrifying center of her universe.
    She’d had all sorts of fantasies about what it would be like if or when she saw him again. She’d be cool, calm, mature, with perfect hair and makeup, maybe a subdued suit and the string of pearls her parents had given her. The person she was raised to be.
    Instead she’d shown up at his doorstep like a snowy waif. And he wasn’t going to look at her today and see the calm, professional woman she’d become. He’d see a kid, and he’d remember.
    Maybe. Or maybe that night was just a blur, along with a thousand other nights. Maybe he didn’t remember.
    But the problem was, she did.
    The hall was still dark and silent, all the doors closed. She dumped her dirty clothes in a corner in her room, then glanced outside. It was getting lighter—maybe seven o’clock in the morning. She had two choices: wait for Dillon to get over his hangover and drag himself out of bed, or go down and start taking care of things on her own. It was a no-brainer. She needed to find out where her car was, get it towed, call Isobel, find some coffee, find something to eat….
    The stairway was narrow and dark, and if there were any lights she couldn’t find them. She went down carefully, holding on to the rickety railing, feeling her way in the shadows. She got to the bottom, reaching for the door into the kitchen, when she stepped on something soft and squishy. Something big.
    She screamed, falling back in the shadows, and then immediately she felt stupid. It was probably nothing, just a discarded piece of clothing….
    The door to the kitchen was yanked open, and Dillon stood there, filling it, radiating impatience. “What the hell are you yowling about?” he demanded. “Did you fall?”
    â€œI—I stepped on something,” she said, trying to control her stammer. “It was probably nothing….” She glanced down at the small square of floor at the bottom of the stairs. She gulped. “Or maybe not.”
    â€œIt’s a rat,” Dillon said, his voice as flat as his expression. “We get them every now and