db1bd484fe8700408f51338793ca8c56

She didn’t think he was being sarcastic. Stopping by the desk, she lowered her backpack to the center of the ancient blotter. “Since this appears to be the only available desk, I guess I’m leaving my computer out here. I can use it for hotel business.”

“Laptop?” Dean wondered, studying the dimensions of the pack curiously.

“No.” Once everything else had been dumped in the sitting room, she returned to the desk. Opening the backpack, she pulled out a fourteen-inch monitor and stand, a vertically stacked CPU with two disk drives and a CD-Rom, and a pair of speakers.

“You’ve got to love the classics,” Austin snickered, watching Dean’s jaw drop. “Now pull out the hat stand and the rubber plant.”

“Hat stand and rubber plant?” Dean repeated.

“Ignore him,” Claire instructed, untangling the cables. “I’m hardly going to put a rubber plant in here with all these electronics.”

Dean removed his glasses, cleaned them on the hem of his T-shirt, and put them back on just as Claire unpacked a laser printer.“This is incredible. Absolutely incredible.”

She shrugged, rummaging around for the surge suppressor.“Not really, it only prints in black and white.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Boss?”

Squinting a little in the glare from the monitor, Claire leaned left and peered out into the lobby. Although all available lights were on, her computer screen was still the brightest source of illumination in the entire entryway.“What is it, Dean?”

“I thought I’d head downstairs and I just wondered if there was anything I could get you before I went.”

“Nothing, thank you. I’m fine.”

“You could getme a rack of lamb, but we all know who’d object to that,” Austin muttered without lifting his head from the countertop.

When Dean showed no sign of actually heading anywhere, Claire sighed and saved her file.“Was there something else?”

Fingers tucked second-knuckle-deep into the front pockets of his jeans, he shrugged, the gesture more hopeful than dismissive.“I was just wondering what you were doing.”

“I’m treating this site like any other I’ve been summoned to seal.” She was not going to surrender her life to a run-down hotel; no way, no how, no vacancy. “I’m writing down everything I know, and I’m prioritizing everything I have to do.”

Head cocked speculatively to one side, Dean grinned.“I wouldn’t have thought you were the ‘lists’ type.”

“Oh?” Both eyebrows rose. “What type did you think I was.”

“Oh, I guess the ‘dive right in and get started’ type.”

Either he hadn’t heard her tone, or he’d ignored it. Claire took another look at his open, candid, square-jawed and bright-eyed expression. Or he hadn’t understood it. “Well, you’re wrong.” His smile dimmed, his shoulders sagged slightly, and his head dipped a fraction—nothing overt, nothing designed to inflict guilt, just an honest disappointment. She felt like such a bitch, her reaction completely out of proportion to his. “But how would you know differently?” Impossible not to try and make amends. “I do have something for you to do tomorrow, though.”

“Sure.” His head lifted, erasing the fractional droop. “What?”

“TheG needs replacing on that sign out front.”

“No problem.” Smile reilluminated, he glanced down at his watch. “I’d better get going, then; it’s almost time for the game on TSN.”

“If he had a tail, he’d be wagging it,” Austin observed dryly as Dean’s work boots could be heard descending the basement stairs. “I think he likes you.”

Claire found herself typing to the rhythm of heels on wood and forced herself to stop.“I’m his new boss. He just wants to make a good impression.”

“And has he?”

“How can you make such an innocent question into innuendo?”

The cat looked interested.“I don’t know. How?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The room was completely dark. The air smelled faintly of stale cigar smoke. The silence was so complete, the noises her body made were too loud to let her sleep. The cat was taking up most of the room on the bed.

That, at least, she was used to. The rest, she decided to do something about. Slipping out from under the covers, she felt her way over to the window in the outside wall.

There’s nothing out there but the driveway. No harm in opening the curtain a bit and letting in some air.

It wasn’t that easy. After forcing her will on a heavy brocade curtain that didn’t want to open and struggling with the paint that sealed the sash, Claire managed to shove the window up about half an inch. Breathing heavily, she knelt on the floor and sucked an appreciative lungful of fresh air through the crack. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she made out a window across the drive, the silhouette of pointed ears and, beside them, a pair of binoculars resting on their wider end.

No wonder Augustus Smythe had kept the curtains so emphatically drawn.

A thump behind her warned her to brace herself for the furry weight that leaped onto her lap and then onto the windowsill.

“Could I have a little light here?” Austin murmured.

“What for?” Claire asked as she cast a glow behind him. “You can see perfectly well without it.”