Was this a replay of Hurricane Sandy, when much of New York had gone dark? Was it a replay of the big blackout of 2003, when a power surge had taken out a hunk of the east coast all the way from Ontario through Manhattan?
Or was something else going down?
“Jaimie?”
Her heart was still racing, but he could almost feel her gathering herself together.
“Yes,” she said, and he heard the susurration of her breath as she took a step back.
He let go of her and tried not to think of how good it had felt to hold her against him. This wasn’t a time to start feeling the result of having been without a woman for a few weeks.
“OK,” he said briskly. “Let’s see if we can find out what’s happening.”
Her eyes met his. Good. There was concern in them, not panic.
“The storm?”
He considered lying and decided against it.
“I think that’s it…but we want to be sure.”
He watched the tip of her tongue slide over her bottom lip.
“You mean—”
“I mean, let’s see if my cell phone works.”
He took his iPhone from his rear pocket. She bent, felt for the shoulder bag she’d dropped when she grabbed him.
“Here,” he said, “let me.”
He found the bag and handed it to her. She fumbled with the zipper and pulled out her phone.
Each of them pushed a button.
His phone lit.
Hers didn’t.
She gave it a little shake, said something under her breath.
“The damn things never work when you—”
Zach held up his hand. He was online, clicking from site to site and picking up nothing until… Yes. There. Something was coming in. CNN. The reception on the news station was poor; whatever the anchor was saying was completely lost, but the text crawl at the bottom of the screen was clear.
Powerful storm wreaks havoc along northeast corridor. Massive power outage reported from Montreal through Baltimore. Authorities say they have no estimate yet as to how long it will take to get the situation under control…
OK. It was the weather. And he believed it. Two separate nations were involved. If this had been an attack, they’d be sending out a very different kind of announcement.
Still, there was always that faint element of doubt. You didn’t survive wars in two of the world’s most godforsaken places without hanging onto what his unit had always called survival cynicism.
“Have you found something?”
He looked at the woman. At Jaimie. Wordlessly, he turned his iPhone toward her. She read the crawl, read it again, then looked at him.
“The storm,” she said, on a slow exhalation of breath. “That’s good. I mean, at first, I thought it might have been—”
He held up his hand again, turned away from her, hit a speed dial number on the phone. It rang once and then a voice said, “Figured you’d call.”
“Yes,” Zach said.
“You can relax, dude. Word just came in. It’s the weather. Nothing else.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Zach nodded, disconnected, and turned toward Jaimie.
“Who’d you call?”
He gave a lazy shrug. “A friend. A, uh, a government meteorologist. I thought he might have more info about how long this is liable to last.”
“And?”
“And, they have no idea. An hour, a couple of hours…”
“You think it’ll take that long? I have a flight back to D.C. at nine o’clock.”
What he thought was that it might take days and that even if it didn’t, the airports would be canceling planes right and left, but there was no logic in telling her that. Instead, he nodded, shut off the phone and tucked it back into his pocket.
She made a little sound of distress.
“We can’t use it,” he said. “We have to conserve the battery.”
“But you just—”
“We’ll turn it on every hour and check for news. How’s that sound?”
She hesitated. He’d heard the wariness in her voice. Yeah, and who could blame her for that? She knew squat about him and here she was, trapped with only him for company.
“Every half hour,” he said, with a quick smile. “OK?”
She nodded. “Fine.”
Fine wasn’t quite what she meant, but she was determined to brave it out.
Good.
The last thing he needed was a hysterical female on his hands.
But she was definitely female, even with her body obscured by the voluminous folds of his robe, or maybe the very size of the robe, the way she was almost lost within it, only emphasized her femininity.
She was also doing her best to hang onto her composure.
She was an uninvited guest; he had not pretended otherwise. Now the city had gone dark and she was trapped far above it with a stranger.
He had to admire the way she was handling things.
She was also trembling. Fear? He didn’t think so. The wet clothes were getting to her. He had to get her out of those clothes, especially now that they might be stuck up here for who knew how long. She could wear one of his sweatshirts, a pair of his sweatpants rolled up.
The problem wasn’t what she could put on but how to get her to do it.
Instinct warned him that there might be some inherent difficulty in a man telling a woman he’d just met that she had to get undressed, even if it was for a strictly honorable purpose.
OK. First things first. He had flashlights. Batteries. Candles. Even a one burner propane stove. It was time to get them out.
“Well,” he said briskly, “we don’t want to sit around in the dark all night.”
“All night?”
“It’s best to be prepared for the worst, right?”
“Right,” she said, after a couple of seconds.
“Besides, it’ll be more cheerful if we have some light, a cup of coffee…”
“Coffee,” she said, and flashed a quick smile.
“Coffee. Some soup.” He smiled, too. “That dinner I was talking about before.”
Her smile faded. Her shoulders stiffened.
Jesus, he was an idiot. A little while ago, he’d been flirting with her, talking about dinner. It had made her uncomfortable. Now here he was, bringing up the topic again.
“Hurricane Sandy,” he said. “Remember? She taught me a lesson. I have a little stove. Flashlights. Batteries. Candles. Even one of those wind-up radios.”
“Oh.”
He could see some of her tension easing.
“It’s all upstairs.” He reached for her hand. “Come on. There’s just enough light to get us up there if we’re careful.”
He took a step. She didn’t.
“You won’t fall, I promise. I know this place inside out. Just hang on to me and—”
“I keep a flashlight and candles in my kitchen.”
Zach arched an eyebrow. “And?”
“And, why would you keep those things upstairs?”
“I don’t know. I just do. Now, come on. Hold on to my—”
“Where upstairs?”
Great. What did she do in her spare time, study feng shui?
“On the shelves in my dressing room.”
“Your dressing room.”
“Right. Just off my bedroom.”
“Your bedroom.”
What the hell was there an echo in here?
“Right. Upstairs, in the dressing room just off my bedroom. And while we’re up there, you can undress. Get out of those clothes and into—”
She pulled her hand free of his so fast that her nails raked his palm. Then she undid the sash of the robe, yanked the thing from her shoulders, and tossed it in the general direction of a chair.
“Goodbye, Mr. Castelianos.”
Zach blinked as she hoisted the suitcase masquerading as a shoulder bag and slung it over her arm.
“What a
re you doing?”
“Thank you for your hospitality.”
“For my…”
She marched past him. He could hear her wet shoes squishing against the Brazilian rosewood floor. Frowning, he replayed the conversation. Crap! He’d said all the magic words. Bedroom. Undress. Get out of those clothes.
“Hey,” he said, going after her, “look, whatever you’re thinking… What I said came out wrong.”
Jaimie kept moving, even though she couldn’t see too far ahead of her. It was getting darker and darker as night settled over the lightless city.
What he’d said had come out wrong?
Like hell it had.
Oof!
She’d walked into something. A table? She felt her way across its surface. A table. Yes. Hadn’t there been a table on the wall next to the elevator? People said your eyes adapted to the absence of light. Really? Because if this was all the adaptation hers were going to make, she was in deep trouble.
But not as much trouble as if she went upstairs with Zacharias Castelianos.
What he’d said had come out exactly as he’d meant it.
OK. Perhaps not.
He might have been talking about the fact that she was wet. And cold. Well, yes. She was, but what did it matter?
He’d been bent on seduction, right before the lights went out.
That smile. Those words. That sexy voice, that sexy body, that spectacular face.
If she stayed here, anything might happen. Anything.
And there was only one way to be sure that nothing did, because as it was, this was turning into the most confused night of her life.
Dammit, where was that elevator? She hated feeling her way through a dark room. She didn’t like the dark at all; she never had. As kids, Emily and Lissa used to love to play scary games outside on moonless nights at El Sueño. Not her. Running around when you couldn’t see more than a few inches ahead of you, having somebody, even when you knew it was your sister, sneak up on you and clamp a hand on your shoulder wasn’t funny.
Neither was this.
And where was that damn elev—
His voice came from right behind her.
“Look,” he said, “honey—”
“My name is not ‘Honey.’”
“Right. I knew that. It’s…Jaimie.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I know this is a little difficult. You. Me. Us, here together.”
“There is no us. We are not together. I am in your home, uninvited and unwanted. My apologies, Mr. Castel—Dammit!”
Where had that wall come from?
Zach reached out, caught her by the shoulders to steady her. She shook him off, felt along the wall, found the elevator, felt for the call button, found it and pushed it. Hard.
“Jaimie.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Castelianos.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if you managed to get out of here, where would you go?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
“Of course it is,” he said irritably. “You think I can just watch you walk off into the night when who knows what’s liable to be happening out there?”
It was the who-knows-what part she was trying not to think about.
Where was that miserable elevator?
She jabbed the call button again.
“I asked you a question. Where would you go if you got out of here?”
“And I said that’s not your concern.”
“You think you’re going to grab a taxi and head for a hotel?” He gave a disbelieving snort. “No way. Everybody else in Manhattan had the same idea ten minutes ago. Plus, even if you found a cab, there aren’t any traffic lights. It’ll be like the Indy 500 out there. ”
He was right. He was probably right about all of it, but what did that matter? She was not about to stay here even if she had misinterpreted what he’d said.
Why would any woman in her right mind agree to spend what might be hours in the dark, fifty floors above the city, alone with a stranger?
“Dammit,” she snarled, aiming a kick at the elevator door, “what’s with this elevator? Where in hell is it?”
“I don’t know how to break this to you, honey, but elevators operate on electricity.”
She swung toward him. Easy enough, because he was only a couple of inches away, looming over her, arms folded, all six foot two or three or maybe four of him.
She stared at him. Then she swallowed. Hard.
“I knew that.”
“So you were pounding on the call button because…?”
Her chin went up. Her eyes narrowed.
“Where’s the service entrance? The fire stairs?”
Zach sighed. She was one stubborn piece of work. And, really, what did he give a damn what she did? She wanted to walk down fifty flights of steps? The steps would be lit; there’d be battery-powered emergency lights leading the way, the same as the emergency lights on an airplane. After that she’d be on her own, on the dark streets where she might learn that people weren’t always at their best in situations like this, but again, that was up to her.
He was nobody’s knight gallant. He never had been.
“Do a ninety-degree turn,” he said wearily. “Hang a right, go down the hall, hang another right, go through the dining room, through the breakfast room, into the kitchen. The service door will be dead ahead.”
She swept past him. Went maybe two steps. And stopped.
He smirked.
“A little dark for finding your way through the forest, Gretel?”
Oh God! Very dark. So dark she could only make out occasional lumps and bumps of what had to be furniture.
“Not at all,” she said, and stepped forward, straight into a chair.
“I have medical supplies upstairs, right alongside the candles and flashlights, when you finish destroying yourself.”
His tone was pleasant. Cheerful
Jaimie gritted her teeth, unzipped her shoulder bag, dug through makeup, pens, pencils, a small notebook, Power Bars, breath mints, a tiny tin of aspirin, balled-up tissues, her Kindle, her phone, her iPad, her wallet…
There!
She closed her fist around her keys.
Caleb had given her a tiny LED flashlight the year she’d moved to D.C.
“This way, Diogenes won’t be the only one who searched for an honest man,” he’d said, and she’d laughed, hugged him, clipped the thing onto her key ring and promptly forgotten all about it.
Until now.
Don’t fail me, she thought, and clicked the on-off button.
A narrow, bright, almost adequate beam of light pierced the darkness.
Next time she saw her big brother, she’d have to give him a supersized kiss.
She followed the light down an endless hall, down another hall, through a couple of rooms and into an industrial-size kitchen. The light bounced off acres of shiny stainless steel, vast expanses of ceramic tile, over a door, over a second door.
She tried the first one. It opened onto a pantry.
The second opened onto a hall.
A dark hall and a dimly lit EXIT sign.
She stepped out the door carefully, searched around with the flashlight until it picked up a stairway.
A long, steep, narrow stairway that ended in a right-angle turn.
And a blackness broken by wavering flashes of light.
“Shit,” Zacharias Castelianos said, from just behind her.
“Meaning,” Jaimie said, trying to sound triumphant instead of terrified, “you thought the stairs would be completely dark.”
“Meaning,” he said, “building code requires a battery-powered emergency system, but this one doesn’t seem to be working very well.”
No. It wasn’t. The lighting wasn’t just poor, it was uncertain. Would it last all the way down to the lobby?
Would it last for fifty floors?
Jaimie’s throat constricted. It wasn’t too late to turn back…
“Listen, honey—”
It was
the “honey” that did it. Showing this man any weakness would be a mistake.
“I am not your honey,” she said coldly. “And I am not asking for your advice. The light is fine. And if all else fails, I have my flashlight.”
The emergency system chose that instant to blink off. It came back on quickly, but not before the pencil-thin beam of the keychain flashlight bounced off the dark wall with all the effect of a drop of water bouncing off the rocks at the base of Niagara Falls.
“Dammit, woman,” Zacharias Castelianos snarled, “will you please think logically?”
“I am always logical, Mr. Castelianos. I am not only a Realtor, I am a CPA.”
“Well, hell, why didn’t you say so? A certified public accountant. That means I’d pick you first to lead my team descending Mount Everest.”
“It’s a set of stairs, not a mountain. And what I do is not your problem.”
She was right. Hadn’t he already come to that same conclusion?
“I am a grown woman, and fully responsible for myself.”
Right again, he thought, and heard himself say, “You’ll never make it.”
“Certainly, I will.”
“Those lights will go out. Or that thing you call a flashlight will die.”
Bingo. She’d already thought of both possibilities. Those long ago, not-so-amusing games at the family ranch in Texas would end up sounding like good times.
Especially since she had a thing about heights as well as darkness.
Standing at a window and looking down over the city was one thing. Flying was OK, too. She could ride a ski lift up a mountain without blinking.
But she wasn’t big on ladders, even step stools.
And here she was, about to take on stairs that went down and down and down…
Do it now, James, before you chicken out altogether.
She took a step forward.
“Don’t be a fool!”
His voice was sharp. Her breathing was rapid. Neither was a good sign, but she slung the strap of her shoulder bag over her head so that the bag would hang like a backpack.
Excellent idea.
Bad execution.
The strap wasn’t long enough. All the weight of the bag bobbed between her shoulder blades.
“That’s not balanced. It’s going to make things even more difficult, if you insist on—”
The blonde with the disposition of a mule took a breath, shined the light on the next step, and started down the stairs.
Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters) Page 6