Gold Fire (28 page)

She uttered a sharp, nervous laugh. “Lucky for me you still can’t see straight.” But she felt a warm flush creep up to her cheeks at the way he’d said it, without thought, as if stating a simple fact. It was probably a residual sexual pull left between them that caused a fluttering in her chest. “I need a shower before you get the sleep out of your eyes.”

“I’d better come with you, make sure all the pretty doesn’t wash off.”

She made a sound of disgust and tossed her pillow at his head. “Moron.” Nonsensical sweet talk had never made her go all mushy. Still, the way he’d said it tickled her deep inside, as if he knew she hated corny lines and just wanted to get a rise out of her.

“A moron who’s smart enough to wake up with you in my bed.” She yelped as he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down for a good morning kiss.

She kissed him back, digging one hand in his tousled hair while the other smoothed over the strong muscles of his back.

He crossed one leg over hers, his morning arousal evident even through the layer of quilt caught between them. His kiss ended with soft nuzzling beside her ear. “So, am I out of your system yet?”

“I don’t know.” Which was an outright lie.

“Well, I don’t think we should take any chances. Maybe a shower will wash me out.” He slid a hand down her side and over her hip, sending shivers along the same path.

She sighed happily. “It’s worth a try.”

•  •  •

Jase’s phone rang while they were still toweling off. She was relieved to have him step away for a few minutes. It was hard to think past the feel-good fuzzies that had become a permanent state when she was with him, and she needed to do some serious thinking. Having sex with him was supposed to help her stop thinking about having sex with him. Where in hell did she get that stupid idea? Having sex with him only made her want more sex.

With him.

That was the unsettling realization she kept coming back to. That, and the even scarier realization that they weren’t just having sex, they were making love. It was hard to keep things impersonal when he got
extremely
personal with his mouth, not to mention those penetrating gazes.

And he made her laugh. She liked being with him. Damn it.

Being in a relationship with the man who was screwing up her professional life was even worse than lusting after him. She didn’t know how to get out of it. She didn’t
want
to get out of it.

Damn it!

She sighed at her reflection in the mirror. It looked awfully smug and satisfied to be the face of defeat.

She was baring her teeth at the mirror, wondering if he had an extra toothbrush, when Jase walked back into the bathroom, his angry, brooding face appearing behind her in the mirror. She forgot about toothbrushes. “What’s wrong?”

“That was my friend Brandon.” His jaw rippled with the tension of clenched muscles as he gave her a long look. “How do you feel about Matt Flemming?”

Shit, whoever Brandon was, he must have ratted her out. He’d told Jase she’d gone to Matt’s condo and of course Jase had leapt to the wrong conclusion. Not that it was any of his business . . . although it sort of was if she was sleeping with him.

She faced him. “We’re just friends.” Because she hadn’t expected Jase to turn suddenly possessive, she couldn’t hide her annoyance when she added, “Did you think I’d be here if we were anything more than that?”

“No. I just wondered how hard it was going to be if you had to choose sides.”

Confusion mixed with tiny prickles of dread. “Why would I have to do that?”

“Because I think he might finally have found the way to defeat me.”

Chapter
Fifteen

S
he hurried into her blouse and skirt while Jase got the
Echo
—the twice-weekly paper delivered free to every house in Barringer’s Pass—from his mailbox. He laid it on the kitchen table so they could both see it. They didn’t have to open it.

Right below the front-page banner of the
Echo,
large bold type proclaimed, “Rusty Wire Investigated for Health Code Violations.”

“Oh, shit,” Zoe said. Then started reading.

Minutes later, she looked at Jase. Anger was there, but also a deep, restless worry that left lines beside his eyes. “You were right,” she told him. “Someone put them up to it. Those two guys were supposed to start a fight just so they could do this.” She gestured at the paper. “But it won’t work, Jase. They won’t find anything because there’s nothing to find.”

“It doesn’t matter. The damage is already done. You said it yourself—they planted doubts in people’s minds. A clean inspection won’t make any difference.”

She didn’t want to believe it, but she had no choice.
Just by raising the question, the association was planted in people’s minds. The Rusty Wire was infested with mice. Dishes were reused without being properly washed. Employees tried to hide it, and were rude and abusive to customers who questioned their practices.

She knew how the reasoning would go: With so many claims, there must be something behind it. Two customers had been upset enough to get themselves arrested, and the health department had been called in. It must be true.

Jase’s phone rang again, and he checked the caller ID before answering with “I just heard, Jennifer.” He listened, his expression growing darker by the second. “No, stay there. I’ll be right over.”

He pocketed the phone and looked at Zoe. “The health department inspector says they’re close to closing me down.”

She blinked, a moment of shock stealing her words. “How can they do that? You’re not even open! They have to inspect it first.”

“They did, at least the outside of it, this morning.” His mouth grimaced as he said it. “Jennifer said they responded to an anonymous phone tip. They found rats crawling all over some garbage that was lying just outside the back door.”

She barely knew where to begin her tirade. “That’s ridiculous! Your place is always clean. Besides, anyone living around here knows that garbage is an open invitation to bears. Garbage lying in the open is the
last
violation you’d find
anywhere
in Barringer’s Pass.”

“No kidding. I imagine that makes it even more horrifying for our customers.”

The injustice was too blatant to overlook. “Some
petty bureaucrat is throwing his weight around. Or accepting bribes. That’s the only way it could happen. You were set up.”

He snorted in wry amusement. “Welcome to the other side, Miss Larkin. Yes, I was.”

“How can you be so calm about it?”

His glance speared her, hot and dark. “Believe me, I’m far from calm. But I’ve been getting jerked around, warned, and set up for the past ten days. I knew those two were up to something with their staged accusations, and I should have seen this coming, done something to head it off.”

She wanted to reassure him that a brief fight with the health department wouldn’t be a permanent black mark against him. That rumors weren’t impossible to overcome. But it wasn’t true. She should know.

“I’m done taking this shit.”

The low words jerked her wandering attention back. He hadn’t said it forcefully, or pounded the table, but something in his dead-flat tone made the little hairs on her neck stand up. His stare had become distant, his mind suddenly somewhere else, and she knew she was seeing a different Jase, a more determined one. The Jase who had focused on the lofty goal of Olympic gold, and achieved it.

“How can I help?”

His gaze snapped back to her. “I appreciate the offer, but you can’t.”

“Jase, I’ve dealt with these people, too. If this inspector’s trying to throw his weight around, it’ll help if he knows you’re not in this alone.”

“I’m not. He’ll come back once we open this afternoon, and Russ and Jennifer will be there. I may invite
a reporter, too, to get a firsthand account of our passing grade. The Rusty Wire always passes. But you can’t be there.” He held up a hand when she started to protest. “Zoe, I don’t want you caught in the middle. Matt might be willing to let you become an accessory in his schemes, but I’m not. I want you far away from this.”

She sulked, knowing he wouldn’t budge. It bothered her that he thought Matt had used her, but she had no way to refute it. It bothered her even more that he could be right. She wanted to place the blame on David and Ruth Ann Flemming, manipulating behind the scenes, but couldn’t shake the memory of Matt’s confidence in the face of outright rejection. As if he
knew
Jase would change his mind.

As if he knew how to make him change it.

Mentally she made a note to track Matt’s activities the same way she intended to track David’s and Ruth Ann’s. And felt a small tug of guilt.

Working against her own employer was unethical, another step across that line of right and wrong behavior she’d been following so rigidly.

She winced.
Rigid
was a word she was beginning to hate. It put blinders on her, made her predictable, and allowed people to use her. She was done with rigid.

Jase was right, she had to choose sides. If the side she’d been on was wrong, then she’d just have to bend. She could do that, even if it did make her feel a bit queasy. The last time she’d thrown the rule book aside, she’d taken a header straight into the mud. This time she hoped it got her
out
of the mud.

“I need to get home and find some clean clothes before I have to go back to work.”

“With Matt?” A muscle jumped beside his eye and
his mouth flattened as he digested the disturbing news. “I don’t trust him. I don’t like to think of you being anywhere around Matt Flemming.”

“I probably won’t be. I have plenty to keep me busy besides Matt.” Except for one thing she needed to tell him. But she didn’t want to argue with Jase. “I know you want to get to the Rusty Wire, make sure everything is perfect if inspectors will be there later today.”

“You’re right.”

She saw that determined look again and almost felt sorry for whoever drew this job at the state health department. Jase was fighting for his saloon, and right now the health department owned the front lines. He’d be all over that inspector.

The coming battle had stiffened his back and touched his eyes with a cold, dangerous look. It all fell away as he pulled her into his arms, holding her close and kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry this came up. Bad timing.”

“It was time for me to go, anyway.”

He pulled back, the hint of a smile touching his mouth. “Are we still pretending you’re going to get tired of me?”

He smiled as if it was a harmless joke, but it hit her right in the gut. She’d barely admitted to herself that getting him out of her system had been an excuse to sleep with him, and a weak one at that. He’d never been fooled. He wasn’t only perceptive, he was bold. And a bit too cocky.

She put on a cool look. “Is it so hard to believe that a woman might get her fill of you?”

“I think plenty of women have had their fill of me. It’s different with you and me.”

How could he figure that out so easily, so painlessly? She ignored the sudden racing in her pulse, more ready than ever to deny any feelings for him. “That remains to be seen.”

“Okay. You’re leading this dance. I’ll follow, as long as you take us in the right direction.”

She wanted to demand what the hell he meant by that, but she was afraid of the answer. Afraid he would get that determined gleam in his eye, the one that meant he’d stop at nothing to win. Afraid he was ready to have a relationship with her.

She had a big problem with that.

•  •  •

The only good thing about his saloon being on the verge of failing inspection was that it took his mind off Zoe. Sleeping with her had packed a bigger wallop than he’d expected, and he’d been expecting plenty. He didn’t need anything fuzzing up his thinking right now.

They already had enough to close him down. The rats and the garbage within inches of his back door pretty much sealed the deal. He figured he had one chance to turn it around. A clean inspection inside might help him convince the inspector that he’d been set up, that the garbage and rats were so out of line with the rest of what he’d found he could consider it a mean practical joke.

And so far, so good. The few infractions in the kitchen were minor, and typical of any restaurant. Tongs placed on a counter that hadn’t been disinfected. A container of chopped green peppers in the refrigerator without a lid. Infractions they’d fixed on the spot. He’d asked the inspector how often he saw those things, not because he didn’t know but because the
reporter from the
Echo
was taking detailed notes and he wanted it in her story. He even obliged her with a few quotes as they followed the inspector to the storage room, boasting about how they’d always passed previous inspections with good scores, and how confident he was about this one.

Gloria from the
Echo
nodded as she took notes, then pulled out a digital camera. “How about a picture? Can I get you by the pizza ovens?”

“Sure.” He posed with arms folded confidently, flashing the grin that he knew darn well made him look both likable and competent. It had worked on the cover of
Time
magazine, it would work on the front page of the
Echo
.

“Perfect. One more,” she said, angling for a different view.

At the back of the kitchen he heard the inspector ask, “Where’s the light switch?”

“Got it,” Russ said, just as the camera flashed in Jase’s eyes. A second of silence followed.

His smile was still in place when Russ exclaimed, “Holy crap! Jase! What the fuck?”

Bile was already rising in his throat as he rushed the few steps to the storage room. He pushed past the inspector in time to see two mice scurry behind a case of canned mushrooms. One shelf above it, three more mice sat placidly atop a bag of sugar, nibbling on the contents that flowed from a mangled corner.

Below him, a camera flashed. He looked down to see Gloria wedged between him and Russ at thigh level, kneeling as she framed another shot.

He stepped in front of her, backing her out as he closed the door. Not that it mattered. They’d just
blown their inspection score to hell. As Russ had so concisely put it,
What the fuck?