“No signal. Trust my father to find the tiniest signal and drop his bombshell.” I felt the light throb that signaled a headache was on the way.

The power came back on.

The lights flickered to life, and I had a perfect view of the sympathy on Tessa’s dirt-streaked face.

The creak of a door echoed into the space. “Anyone down here?”

“Everett!” Tessa spun and headed for the stairs at a trot. “Thank God. I can’t believe the power went out. Again.”

I followed her. “I’m moving update wiring to the top of the list.”

The maintenance man stood in the doorway, tools in hand. There was a serious look on his face. “It wasn’t the wiring.”

“Really?” Tessa paused. “Don’t tell me a guest plugged in three hundred appliances in their room and was surprised they tripped the breaker?”

Everett shook his head. “I found the problem. Someone had tampered with a panel.”

Now I frowned.

“What?” A groove formed on Tessa’s brow.

“And, it looks like this lock’s been tampered with, too.” He pointed at the outside of the basement door.

I spotted the scratch marks on the card reader.

Tessa’s mouth dropped open.

Someone had trapped us in the basement on purpose.

“This is crazy,” Tessa said. “It must have been an accident.”

It didn’t look like an accident. No one at Windward had been particularly welcoming, and I figured this was another big fuck you to me.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t let anything or anyone get in the way of what I wanted. I straightened. “I’ll talk to Caden about this.”

Tessa didn’t look happy, but nodded. She straightened her dress. “I’m sure you need to get ready for your conference calls. Why don’t I organize for Chef Harvey to send a plate of food to your office, and I’ll…”—she looked down at her dirt-streaked dress and grimaced —“… tidy up. We can resume our tour this afternoon.”

“That’s fine.”

“Good. Thanks again for the rescue, Everett.”

I watched her hurry off with that brisk, efficient stride of hers.

“She loves this place.”

I glanced back at the maintenance manager. With his job and the flannel shirt, it would be easy to dismiss him, but I saw the intelligence.

And the protectiveness.

“I’m getting that.”

“You tear this place down, or rip out the heart of it, you’ll destroy her.”

With that, he strode off down the corridor.

I wasn’t here to make Tessa happy. I was here to make the Windward Mountain Resort worthy of being the Langston Windward. I looked at the dirt smeared on my shirt and shook my head.

So far, I wasn’t off to the best start.

13. Tessa

Chapter 13

Tessa

Clean and tidy again, I finished dealing with some paperwork in my office and checked in with Jazz.