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owning hotels.
    It was almost seven and his staff had better be running the hotel properly. “You need food.”
    “Yeah, I know. Whatever is in those pills I took earlier for my headache, it’s trashing my stomach.”
    “And the stress isn’t helping. Nor is the coffee.” He sighed and straightened. “Where are your shoes?”
    “Shoes?”
    “You do have some?”
    “Yeah, and amazingly I even manage to get them on my feet upon occasion.”
    He stared at her.
    “They’re in the closet over there.”
    “Get them on. We’re going to breakfast.”
    She arched a brow. “I’m not hungry.”
    “Ulcers are nothing to mess around with.”
    “Figures. You would worry about everything too. No wonder you CEO types are known to burn out. And I don’t have an ulcer.”
    “Your shoes.” He crossed his arms.
    Her jaw jutted out. “I’m fine.”
    “Your shoes.”
    She threw up her hands. “God, you’re like a damn bulldozer.” Jesslyn marched to the corner closet, sat on the tiled floor and mumbled to herself as she put on a pair of tennis shoes.
    Aiden shook his head and wondered what perversity in him liked trading barbs with her.
    Whatever it was, he didn’t care. The woman needed food and he was going to feed her.

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CHAPTER FIVE
    He paced. No answers had come to him in the night. But the police couldn’t find anything, at least he didn’t think so.
    Crimes were not as easily committed as they once were, even with all the precautions he’d taken.
    Perhaps the last one had been a mistake. Someone might put it with one of the others.
    Though why they should, he couldn’t guess. The possibility though lingered and he didn’t like that. They might link one other to last night’s victim, but the others … The others were all long forgotten.
    Well, he never hunted here. Went out of his way to find those that would hardly be missed.Last night had just gone all wrong.
    The question that plagued him was why?
    To prove he’d made a mistake?
    Or something else?
    A horn blared out on the street and he startled. The smells of the early morning here wafted on the air. Pine and exhaust mixing faintly with coffee and baked goods.
    He sniffed, rubbed his hand down his leg. He needed to think, some quiet to figure out what he was supposed to do about everything. The idea of going after Ms. Black did not exactly appeal to him. Not unless it was supposed to.
    The problem was knowing if it was supposed to or not. She was innocent. Not like the others. He knew that.
    But still....
    He shrugged and hoped the answers would come to him soon.
    * * * *
    Jesslyn mopped her last bite of waffle through the lake of syrup on her plate and popped it in her mouth. She leaned back and sighed.
    Aiden, his plate pushed to the side, stacked his hands on top of each other and watched her. “Better?”
    It would be churlish to lie. “Yes,” she admitted on a grin.
    “Food does wonders.”
    She shrugged. They’d come to his new hotel. The old Sharlaton, a massive log and stone complex, four stories tall, set in the middle of the resort community. For some reason she’d expected to see people remodeling.
    He’d laughed and asked what she expected in the foyer. Paint cans and scaffolding?
    Okay, so she had. And though she couldn’t see the paint and lumber, the traces of it still lingered in the air.
    The over all décor was what seemed to predominate all these mountain resorts. Heavy
     
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    unfinished wooden furniture. Ranch motives mixed with a southwest flavor. Seemed normal to her. Lots of stone and wood. “Nice place you have here,” she said. “Did I already tell you that?” “Not in so many words.” He took a sip of coffee.
    She looked at her tea, very weak tea too. “You are cruel.”
    “Next time you can have coffee if you don’t run yourself to the ground.” The lines around his mouth tightened.
    “Are you always like this with people your rent a place from?”
    The man gave a new meaning to the word