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was where most of the trash collected. Sure, I’d love to have my half of the lot leveled and graveled, but that took money.
    I’d used the money I’d made from years of selling my art photographs to buy this place. I was making enough to pay bills and the salaries of my small staff, of which Cassandra was my only full-time employee, but I had nothing left for extras. I could have footed a few repairs, sure, but not a complete overhaul.
    “Don’t worry about the cost, Janet,” Mick said. “I’ll help you.”
    Mick always did seem to have money—cash money, no plastic for my dragon shape-shifter. I never asked him where he got it, and I wondered whether he, like dragons of legend, had a cave somewhere piled with gold. He’d told me he had a territory on some island out in the Pacific, but never much more than that.
    “I don’t want to take your money,” I said to him. “We agreed.”
    Me not accepting money from Mick and running this hotel on my own was my way of taking control of my life. Abandoned by my hell-goddess mother, I’d been raised by my grandmother and my father, my grandmother never letting me forget that I was different and dangerous. I had never fit in anywhere and believed I never would. Becoming a photographer and buying this hotel was my way of establishing my independence.
    Cassandra broke my thoughts. “You may not have a choice, Janet. How badly do you want to stay open?”
    “Bad enough.” I looked up at Mick. “We’ll talk about it.”
    “I’ll start going through this and make notes for you,” Cassandra said. “Don’t worry. We’ll make that inspector eat this list.” She walked out, high heels clicking on the tile floor.
    “In a weird way, I think she’ll enjoy this,” I said.
    “Cassandra likes a challenge,” Mick rumbled.
    “What about you? Do you like a challenge?”
    Mick smiled at me in a way that made my heart feel light. “I do, baby.”
    I hoped Mick would follow up on the wickedness in his smile, but he merely kissed the top of my head and picked up his jacket. He took a camera from his pocket and set it on the desk in front of me.
    I stared at the camera in astonishment. “It survived?” The camera had been in one of my saddlebags.
    “DPS was lifting out the remains of your bike when I got there, and they let me take this.”
    I didn’t like the word “remains.” The camera, an expensive digital model, looked whole and unblemished, but when I clicked the on switch, it did nothing. I pulled a cord from a drawer and hooked the camera up to the laptop on my desk. Drawing power from the computer, the camera came on and obediently uploaded what was on the memory card.
    “What about the magic mirror?” I asked while the computer worked. “The one on my bike, I mean.”
    “I didn’t see it, but your motorcycle was in a lot of pieces.” Mick gave me a look of sympathy as I winced, then he gestured at the computer screen. “You got some nice shots.”
    I’d spent the day before the accident taking many photos in Canyon de Chelly. I’d planned to enlarge and frame the best of them for my friend Jamison Kee for his upcoming birthday. Jamison was a sculptor—a somewhat famous one—who’d helped me get my start as a pro photographer. I didn’t do anywhere as well selling my photos as he did his gorgeous sculptures, but I’d always been grateful to him. Jamison had grown up in Chinle, right next to the canyon, but now he lived here in Magellan with his wife. I wanted to give him something to remind him of his home.
    The pictures had turned out well, if I did say so myself, but then, it was difficult to take a bad shot of the canyon. Canyon de Chelly is full of colors, shadows, and sudden flashes of light, breathtaking spires and vistas of sheer beauty. I smiled as I clicked through the photos, happy that my work had survived.
    I stopped. “Hold on.”
    “What?” Mick leaned over me, smelling of dust and dragon warmth.
    I enlarged the photo on my