Loughlin adjusted his pants as he turned and started to hobble back across his field. His insurance company would be getting a call from Sue McCurdy’s office, that was for sure.

“You okay?” she asked Leith as he pressed his butt and lower back against the pole and stood half bent, hands on his thighs.

“Oh, sure. I’m Atlas, baby.”

She’d never allowed any man to call her baby. He was mostly joking, but there was an easy warmth in his expression, and it didn’t rankle her at all. In fact, it gave her a little island of peace in all this.

“Any reason why the competition can’t go on?” he asked.

She looked around. Everyone was safe . . . but everything else was a disaster. The heritage tent—the tables, books, and photos, and all the kilts for display and sale were strewn everywhere. Shea and a bunch of men in shorts and cleats were burrowing under the remains of her tent and mourning the sad, sad death of some fine bottles of whiskey. Strings of fairy lights made a minefield of the lawn, and most of the tables in the eating area had been overturned or splintered. The athletics field—thank you, Spirit of Mr. MacDougall—was untouched. There really wasn’t any reason the guys couldn’t get to throw around the big stuff.

“No,” she told Leith with a great sigh. “Keep it going. For the love of God, we’ve got to give these people something to do today.”

Duncan came back with the shovels, passing them out, and Leith gave instructions on where to dig, how far down to go. Jen wandered away from the noise and pulled out her phone.

That early on a Saturday, it would be a miracle if her tent contact would be available. He wasn’t. She left a frantic message, knowing there was very little he could do, being that he was located close to New York, but it was worth a try. In the meantime she could help the kilt makers and heritage people dig out their wares. Rolling up her sleeves, she waded into their tent and helped pull out some tartans and books from the dirt. Many were unsalvageable, stamped with massive hoofprints.

Aimee and Ainsley came over. “What can we do?” her sister asked.

Jen could hear Shea swearing up a colorful storm just as a lot of other locals and attendees were starting to mill about. She told her sister and niece, “You guys stay here and help the heritage people. Too much broken glass over by Shea. Don’t want Ainsley to get hurt. I’ll go to her.”

By the looks of it, Shea didn’t really need the help. Pretty much every rugby player had come over to sift through the broken tent and salvage what bottles were whole and unbroken. Whenever they found one, they raised it above their heads and bellowed like a pirate finding treasure. Hot Rugby Guy was still there, but instead of staring at Shea or attempting to flirt with her as some of the others were hopelessly doing, he was helping to methodically pick through the debris.

Someone tapped Jen’s shoulder. She turned to find Chris holding his fiddle case under one arm. He looked pissed.

“We can’t play today.”

“What?”

He sneered at the dirt, kicked a chunk with his sneaker. “This morning the sheriff took Scott in for questioning about the Loughlin barn fire.”

She clamped a hand over her mouth. Neither she nor Leith had had the chance to tell Olsen last night about Scott’s potato chip hat, but when the sheriff’s office had called her last week to inquire about what she’d seen in the back of the barn that first day, she’d told them about the items. Maybe Olsen had seen it last night and had put two and two together on his own. If Scott had caused the fire, he’d called himself out on stage.

“So unless you can find another drummer in the next couple of hours . . .” Chris said.

Fuck. She bit at the curse and it tasted nasty. “Maybe you can play solo? The crowd loved you last night. You were undeniably the star.”

He paled. “I don’t know. I’ve never done that. I sort of need the other guys.”

“Please. I’m begging you.”

“Let me think about it.” He wandered off, already looking like that answer would be no.

Great. Absolutely great.

For the next half hour, Jen picked glass out of the grass. Her phone rang. Jogging away from the noise, anxious to hear what solution the tent company had for her, she picked up the call without checking to see who it was.

“Jen.” Slight New York accent with a strong twinge of desperation and disappointment. She knew that voice like the sound of her own alarm clock.

“Tim, hi. Listen, can I call you back in, say, an hour?” Even that timeline was being hopeful.

Her boss cleared his throat. A different phone rang in the background and she recognized the tone as that from the Bauer Events office. “I really don’t think you have an hour,” he said. “The vacation’s over a few days early. I need you back in New York. This afternoon.”

Chapter

23

To say Jen’s heart sank would have been an insult to gravity. The great muscle in her chest that had been treating her so well over the past two weeks plummeted with cheetah speed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sue hurrying over, frantically waving her arms to get Jen’s attention. Though it killed her, she held up a finger to the mayor and headed around Shea’s tent, away from the athletics field, and into the parking lot.

“I’m in northern New Hampshire, Tim, working on some personal stuff. There’s no way I can get back by tonight.”

“Not tonight. This afternoon. And if you hit the road in the next hour, it should be plenty of time. Umberto Rollins goes off at eight and the thing is a giant clusterfuck. You need to come back to fix it, or we’ll lose one of our biggest clients. And I might have to reconsider you for a partnership.”

She sank onto the bumper of some stranger’s car.

“What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happened. Rollins’s assistant went to the site first thing this morning to check on setup for tonight’s event. I thought you two were on the same page, that you were on board with what they wanted.”

Jen gasped as a flash of red crossed her eyes. “I was. I mean, I am.” She ground fingers into her eyelids. “Gretchen.”

“Damn straight it was Gretchen. Changed pretty much everything they didn’t want changed.”

Save for her mother, Jen didn’t think she’d ever been this furious with anyone. “I didn’t pass the buck,” she told her boss. “I’ve been keeping in touch with her, checking up on her almost daily.”

“I know you didn’t pass the buck. You did what good managers do; you managed. But now it’s on your head to fix.” He was an excellent businessman, a hard-ass when he needed to be, and her idol for a very long time. When she’d first met him, she’d had visions about the kind of worker she wanted to be and the heights she needed to reach.

His voice dipped low. “It’s bigger than just the setup. Rollins said he’s being courted by Morris Events, and he’s threatened to walk if you personally don’t come back and fix this.”

The very first thing that came to her mind was: Did anyone die? Was this really that serious?

This world that Bauer described—the frantic city business life she’d been living for six years in which life or death seemed to hang on table seating or napkin selection or the guest list—had felt so distant while she’d been here in the mountains, even though it was a world she’d hunted with fervor, and then purposely built up all around her. Suddenly she was dunked back into it, and it felt bracing and unwelcome.

“I understand,” she heard herself say, but it sounded so far away.

“And it goes without saying you need to fire Gretchen.”

Why can’t you just fire her now? Jen nearly asked, then realized that Tim was entirely correct. This was Jen’s mistake, Jen’s assistant, and it was her responsibility.