Chapter 3 #2
He turned and walked toward the front entrance, leaving Kymberlie standing in the wreckage of her dreams, shaking with a confusing mix of fury, fear, and unwelcome attraction.
∞∞∞
Kymberlie stood motionless in the center of her ruined club long after Gabriel’s heavy footsteps had faded away. The silence pressed in around her, broken only by the occasional drip of water from the ceiling onto the saturated carpet.
She’d sunk every penny she had into this place. Five years of backbreaking work, of proving everyone wrong when they said she couldn’t make it work.
And now, with a few strokes of his pen, the fire marshal had brought it all crashing down around her. Christmas season—the three weeks that would make or break her year—gone. Just like that.
She ran her fingers along the bar top, the smooth granite now gritty with soot. Even with insurance, the smoke damage alone would cost thousands to remediate. Add in the electrical work, the repairs to the doors, and a set of new extinguishers… the total was climbing into the impossible range.
She’d been counting on the holiday party and wedding reception revenue to build a financial cushion. Without them…
The heavy front door swung open, sending a shaft of cold December sunlight cutting across the dim interior. Gabriel now carried a thick manila folder and a rolled tube of bright orange papers. The sight made Kymberlie’s stomach lurch in dread.
He strode to the grimy bar and laid out the folder, opening it to reveal a stack of papers filled with official letterhead.
“These are the citations,” he explained, his tone neutral and professional. “I’ve detailed each violation, the applicable code sections, and the required remediation.”
Kymberlie flipped through the pages, her heart sinking further with each one. The technical language blurred before her eyes, but the dollar signs flashing in her mind remained crystal clear.
“And this,” Gabriel continued, unrolling the orange papers, “are the official notices.”
Bold black letters screamed across the top:
UNSAFE TO OCCUPY—DO NOT ENTER
By authority of the Lemhi County Fire Marshal
“You need to post these immediately.” He pulled a roll of blue painter’s tape from his pants pocket. “One at each entrance.”
She couldn’t make herself reach out to take the offered tape roll.
“Look, I know this is difficult,” he said, his voice lower now. “There are resources available—small business emergency loans, permits that can be expedited. I can help point you in the right direction.”
The unexpected offer caught her off guard. She glimpsed something beyond the rigid enforcer—a man who might actually care about the impact of his actions.
But her pride and anger quickly smothered any gratitude she might have felt.
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “I just need you to leave so I can start making calls and figure out how to save what’s left of my business.”
Gabriel nodded once. He tapped the folder of citations. “I’ll need you to sign these before I go.”
She scrawled her signature across the forms without reading them, desperate to end this humiliation.
“I’ll be back later to check that you posted the notices in the right places,” he said as he headed for the door. “And Kymberlie…” he paused, looking back at her. “I really am sorry about your club.”
He left her gripping the edge of her bar in a white-knuckled grip.
“Holy shit.”
The voice from the doorway made Kymberlie jump.
Micah Jacobsen, her bartender and fellow pack member, stood there surveying the damage with wide eyes.
She’d been so focused on Gabriel and his bad news that she hadn’t heard Micah drive up.
How long had he been lurking outside? How much had he overheard?
“Is Fire Marshal Hardass really shutting us down? Right before Christmas?” Micah demanded, confirming he’d heard enough.
Kymberlie’s throat tightened. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead, she silently held up the orange notice.
Micah blew out a disgusted breath and walked in. “Everyone’s been talking about how he closed down the VFW hall over in Salmon last month for some bullshit violation.” He lowered his voice. “Word is, he got run out of his last job in Granite Gap. Some kind of scandal.”
Kymberlie’s ears perked up. “Oh?”
“Not sure exactly. But Tyler Swanson just hired Gabriel as his safety compliance inspector.” Micah snorted. “Working for a construction company’s gotta be convenient when you’re in charge of telling people they gotta fix things if they want to stay in business.”
The information settled uneasily in Kymberlie’s stomach. Could Gabriel be getting some kind of kickback for being overly strict?
“He seemed pretty convinced he was doing the right thing,” she said, surprising herself by defending him. “And he wasn’t wrong about all the stuff he found. It just sucks, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, his type always finds something,” Micah replied. “Why don’t you call Bill and Mandy? I’m sure they know someone who can fix things for you without all the red tape.”
Kymberlie considered contacting her pack alphas, like Micah was suggesting. It was so tempting…
But cutting corners by using her pack connections had gotten her into this mess in the first place, hadn’t it?
And despite her anger, something about Gabriel’s intensity when he talked about safety had struck a chord.
“No.” She sighed. “I need to do things the right way this time. Great-Uncle Jack didn’t do me any favors when he inspected this place and let a bunch of important stuff slide.
” She looked up to meet Micah’s skeptical expression, and added, “Last night… people could’ve died in here.
I couldn’t live with myself if anything like that ever happened again and I could’ve prevented it. ”
Micah’s expression softened. “I know, cuz. It scared the shit out of me, too.”
She glanced down at the stack of citations and the ugly orange notices. Against her will, she remembered Gabriel standing close to her, the heat of his body, the intensity in his amber eyes.
Why did her wolf have to respond to him, of all people? The man who’d just shut down her business, who might be hiding a troubled past, who represented everything rigid and inflexible that she’d spent her life pushing against.
My life really sucks right now.