Given he’d only known this guy for a few hours, Clark spared him the tragic backstory and instead took the key and let himself in. The building’s exterior appeared humble, befitting a small-town center of business operations, but the inside ruined his every hope of a muted, respectable workplace environment. It was too fancy. Though years of red-clay-covered boots marked and stained the carpet, the wood finishes of the desks and the crown molding belonged in a palace rather than a satellite office building. Christmas decorations, no doubt charged to his family’s accounts, cluttered every available space. Even the coffee machine was top-of-the-line, but something else bothered him more. He made a beeline for the wall beside the receptionist’s desk.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked.

“Turning the heating off,” Clark replied, searching for the temperature gauge instead of asking what in the world he was doing standing around here when Clark had made it clear their little tour had ended at the graveyard gates.

“It’s, like, forty degrees outside.”

“And we all carry coats, don’t we? Heating is expensive.”

The other man’s shocked gaze bore into Clark’s skin. He paid it no mind. He was a practical man in every sense of the word; he didn’t indulge in luxury. He wore fashionable but reasonably priced clothes, even stitching buttons and cuffs himself when they showed signs of wear. He wore his father’s timeless suit jackets, having them tailored to fit perfectly. He wasn’t very well going to heat an entire building, especially when no one worked inside to enjoy it. Besides, chill increased productivity. Hundreds of workplace studies said so. He’d stopped heating the office in Dallas; everyone here would get used to it. His next order of business, while Michael underscored his movements with a warbling whistle version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” was to find the receptionist’s black book. When he finally procured it, he flipped through the pages, holding them close enough to his face to read them. He’d forgotten his glasses back at home.

“What’re you doing now?”

“Calling my staff. I didn’t give them the day off.”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” he asked. His boldness lasted up until Clark shot him a narrowed look over the secretary’s desk. “It’s just… They made plans. Want to see their families, you know.”

“Why are you here? Why aren’t you at work, I mean?”

“The foreman gave us the day off. We were all supposed to be out working on the festival to help with the Christmas Eve crowds. The 24th and 25th are packed. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“You work for Woodward?”

“Yep. On Ranch 13 on the Eastern lot.”