Chapter Two
Bear had been home for less than twenty minutes and had already carried one work glove into the living room, abandoned it beside the couch, and stretched across the rug as if the day had exhausted him personally.
I left the glove where it was.
My house was warm after the cold outside, the heat from the woodstove settling into the pine floors and the heavy beams overhead.
Dinner could wait another ten minutes. I’d changed out of my work jacket but still had on the charcoal henley and canvas pants I’d worn up on the ridge, and I was standing at the kitchen counter debating whether leftover stew qualified as enough effort when my phone rang.
Bear lifted his head.
“Don’t get excited. Nobody’s calling for you.”
The number wasn’t one I recognized, but the local exchange looked familiar enough that I answered.
“Lucky Ramsey.”
“Hi. It’s Caprice Calloway.”
I smiled before I could help it.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes. Technically. I think.” Her voice carried the same quick confidence I remembered from the cabin, except there was amusement tucked into it now. “I’m invoking our agreement.”
That got my attention.
“What happened?”
“Nothing yet, which is exactly how I’d like to keep it. There’s a card beside the fireplace that says it uses a built-in gas starter and advises inexperienced guests to contact Property Management before attempting first use.”
“That’s right.”
“I am inexperienced, I have read the instructions, and I’ve decided that guessing my way through gas and live flame would be an unnecessarily dramatic end to an otherwise very nice evening.”
A laugh slipped out of me. “That’s a reasonable decision.”
“I thought so. I’m excellent at many things, Lucky. Apparently, operating this fireplace isn’t currently one of them.”
“You don’t need to know how before someone shows you.”
There was a brief pause.
“That may be the most civilized response I’ve ever received to admitting I don’t know how to do something.”
“I can come up and show you. Give me ten minutes.”
“Perfect. The fireplace and I will remain exactly as we are until you get here.”
I glanced toward Bear.
He was already asleep again.
“Ten minutes,” I said.
I put my jacket back on, checked that Bear had water, and left him sprawled across the rug with my stolen glove still beside his front paws. He opened one eye when I reached the door, then went back to sleep.
Outside, the temperature had dropped hard enough that frost crunched beneath my boots.
My house sat below the highest rental properties, close enough that I could reach Upper Ridge quickly when a guest needed something but far enough from the resort buildings to feel like mine.
The woods were almost completely dark now.
A thin scatter of stars showed above the pines, and the air smelled like cold bark and the faint woodsmoke drifting from houses farther down the mountain.
Caprice’s Audi was exactly where it had been earlier. Warm light spilled through the cabin windows, but the big stone fireplace remained dark.
She opened the door after my first knock.
“Come in. I have demonstrated extraordinary restraint.”
She had changed into loose cashmere pants and a pale sweater that made the cabin look even warmer around her. Her honey-blond hair was still neat, although a few pieces had worked loose near her temples.
“I appreciate restraint where gas is involved,” I said as she stepped back to let me inside.
“I thought you might.”
The remains of her dinner sat covered on the kitchen island.
Her laptop and tablet were still open at the dining table with the notebook, headphones, charger, and welcome folder arranged around them, although the whole setup had spread a little since I’d seen it earlier.
A pen rested diagonally across one page.
A second window was open on the laptop. One of the headphones had been left lying across the notebook instead of beside it.
The room looked lived in now.
Before we reached the hearth, the tablet chimed.
Caprice glanced toward it and then at me. “Would you mind giving me about a minute? I need to answer that one while the person who sent it is still available.”
“Go ahead. You were working before I got here.”
She crossed to the dining table and sat down.
I stayed near the fireplace while she opened a secure review screen, moved quickly between the tablet and laptop, checked something against a row of time markers, and typed a response.
She never hesitated over where to look or what to do next.
Whatever problem had arrived, she understood it well enough to resolve it without making it look dramatic.
Less than a minute later, she closed the window and rose.
“Thank you. Now you have my full attention.”
“I’m not sure the fireplace deserves that much pressure.”
Her laugh followed me across the room.
The unit itself was in good shape. The resort stocked the premium rentals properly, so dry split wood already filled the recessed niche beside the hearth, with kindling in a separate container and the screen, tools, and safety equipment exactly where they belonged.
I moved the screen aside, then checked the firebox and starter before touching the controls.
Caprice stood beside me, close enough to see what I was doing without crowding the hearth.
“The sequence matters more than the terminology,” I told her. “This handle opens the airflow so the smoke can travel up the chimney. Open it completely before you start, and leave it open as long as there’s a fire burning.”
“That is exactly the level of fireplace education I was hoping for. Useful, memorable, and unlikely to require note cards.”
“You can take notes if you want. I’m not grading them.”
“I appreciate that. My evening already had enough performance reviews.”
Something about the last sentence made me look at her, but she was watching the fireplace rather than me. I knew she worked in television, and I knew she was doing some of that work from this dining table. Whatever else sat behind the comment belonged to her unless she decided to tell me.
I arranged the kindling and two smaller pieces of wood with enough space for air to move between them, then showed her the starter control.
“The gas only gets the wood going. Once the kindling and these smaller splits are burning well enough to keep themselves lit, you shut the starter off.”
“So I’m not supposed to turn it on, admire the flames, and wander away to answer email.”
“I’d strongly recommend against that.”
“Good. Because I can absolutely imagine someone doing it.”
I turned on the starter. A low blue flame appeared beneath the kindling, and Caprice leaned slightly closer as the first dry pieces began to catch. Within another minute, orange flame climbed into the smaller splits. I let it establish itself, then shut the gas off.
The wood kept burning.
Caprice watched it for several seconds before looking at the control again. “And if I want another log later?”
“Wait until you have a solid bed of flame and embers, open the screen slowly, and add one piece instead of filling the firebox. If anything starts smoking into the room, smells wrong, or behaves differently from what I just showed you, stop and call. You’re not required to diagnose it.”
Her expression softened into a smile. “You really don’t believe in making people prove themselves outside their area of expertise, do you?”
The question caught me off guard.
“No. I’ve never seen much point in it.”
“Neither have I.”
She said it simply. She had watched me do a job she didn’t know how to do, asked sensible questions, and expected me to know what I was talking about.
That should have been ordinary.
It wasn’t always.
I put the screen back into place and stood. Caprice was closer than I’d realized, and at six-four, I was used to women having to tip their heads back to meet my eyes. With her, the difference was enough that I felt it every time.
The fire had started throwing real warmth into the room. A faint flush had risen along her cheeks, although whether it came from the hearth or something else wasn’t mine to decide. Her attention moved down over my shoulders and the sleeves of my henley before returning to my face.
My breath deepened.
I liked being looked at by Caprice Calloway.
That was going to make a straightforward service call considerably less straightforward if I let it.
“You make it look easy,” she said.
“It’s familiar. That’s different.”
“Yes, it is.” She glanced toward the burning wood. “I think people forget how much knowledge gets hidden inside something that looks simple when someone competent is doing it.”
I looked at her for a moment.
“That sounds like it could apply to your job too.”
“It absolutely does.”
I smiled back.
I checked the hearth once more, made sure the starter was fully off, and told her she was set for the night.
I could have left immediately, but Caprice asked one more practical question about how much ash could build up before she should call rather than deal with it herself.
By the time I finished answering, the first log had settled with a soft crack and the whole great room had taken on the smell of clean woodsmoke.
“This is much better,” she said, rubbing her palms together as she looked at the fire. “I was beginning to resent a fireplace for being decorative.”
“Now you can resent it for requiring wood.”
“I can live with that.”
I picked up my gloves from the edge of the hearth. “You shouldn’t need me again tonight, but the number works whether the problem is covered by our agreement or not. If something with the cabin seems wrong, call.”
Caprice walked me to the door. “Thank you for explaining it without making me feel like I should already know.”
“You shouldn’t already know.”
“I know.” Her mouth curved. “I’m still getting used to how often you say sensible things.”
I laughed as I opened the door, and cold air swept across the entryway. “Goodnight, Caprice.”
“Goodnight, Lucky.”