will have to concede me the title of sore-throat queen.”
She decided to take a break from filling and started to untangle the blown-up balloons from the hook on the side of the tank; she’d tie them into clusters so as soon as Paige showed up she could start placing them strategically around the atrium to complete the decorations.
And just where was Paige, anyway, she wondered. Kids in costumes were going to start drifting in at any minute.
Sabrina counted out fifteen balloons and began tugging them free from the anchoring hook on the side of the tank, intending to haul them out of the draft from the doorway so she could work more easily.
Her attention was focused on untangling the balloon strings, and when one unexpectedly gave way Sabrina took an unplanned step backward, directly into the doorway. Directly into a brick pillar—or at least that’s what it felt like to Sabrina. Only there weren’t any brick pillars in the atrium—and even if there had been, brick pillars didn’t swear.
The impact jolted her, and fifteen orange and black balloons soared free from her grip and bounded to the high ceiling. Short of driving a fire-department snorkel truck into the building, Sabrina bet they’d stay up there till they withered with age. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, and turned to face the object she’d collided with.
He was a big man, lean but broad-shouldered and a couple of inches over six feet. His size seemed to be magnified by his attire—a close-fitting black-and-silver motorcycle suit, complete with a dark-visored helmet, which completely hid his face.
“Nice costume,” she said almost automatically. “But you’re a bit early. The kids’ party won’t actually start for half an hour or so, and the adult version won’t get rolling till—”
“I’m not here for the party.” His voice wasn’t much more than a growl. Or was she hearing the effect of the helmet?
“You mean you always go around looking like a cross between Don Quixote and a Hell’s Angel?”
“I mean I was merely walking in with an armload of mail when I got tackled by—of all things—an ill-mannered cat.”
“You’d better be referring to my outfit,” Sabrina said pleasantly. “Because if you’re accusing me personally of being an ill-mannered cat—”
“I’m not the one who called you Don Quixote.”
Interesting, Sabrina thought. It almost sounded like he’d taken the Hell’s Angel part as a compliment.
“Just look at the mess you made.” He waved a black-gloved hand at the floor.
Sabrina looked down. What would have been a respectable pile of envelopes, catalogs and folders, probably a hundred in all, had scattered like a shotgun blast across the granite floor, some skittering as much as ten feet across the slick stone. “I’ll admit to being a bit clumsy,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t see you, but you must have noticed me. And you could have walked around me, you know.”
“How? You’re right in the middle of the doorway, as much in the way as it’s possible to be. Can’t that project be done somewhere else?”
“It could,” Sabrina said, “if the delivery company hadn’t planted the tank right here.”
“It’s on wheels.”
“Yes, but wheels or not it’s too heavy for me to move. If you’d like to lend a hand—”
He moved quickly for a big man, Sabrina had to give him credit for that. So quickly, in fact, that before she’d even realized what he intended to do, he had seized the tank and tipped it back, nudging the wheels into motion with the toe of his boot.
The bunch of balloons she’d tied haphazardly to the hook on the side of the tank floated loose. Desperate not to see the rest of her work escape to the ceiling, Sabrina made a wild leap for the trailing strings.
Her foot hit one of the scattered envelopes, which slid like an ice skate across the smooth floor. She missed the balloons, and her shoulder hit the top of the tank and over-balanced it. All three of them—motorcyclist, tank and Sabrina—spun out of control and hit the polished granite.
The crash echoed around the atrium for what seemed hours.
Sabrina lay still for a long moment, trying to gather her wits and catch her breath, afraid to open her eyes. She’d hit the granite with only a glancing blow, she knew—probably because the motorcyclist’s body had broken her fall. But what about him? If, in addition to her, the tank had landed on him—
After the echo of the crash died, all she could hear at first was a faint hiss. Was that him, or had the valve on the helium tank ruptured at impact?
She rolled clear and sat up. The hissing stopped. Now he was groaning—but that was good, wasn’t it? At least he was alive, though it was hard to tell through the darkened visor of his helmet whether he was conscious or not.
Mixed with the groans, she began to make out words. He was conscious, she concluded. And—judging by his choice of vocabulary—he was not very happy. Well, she couldn’t exactly blame him for being upset.
His muttering was getting louder, she noted.
“Excuse me,” Sabrina said. “But the kids are starting to come in for this party, so if you could modify the language—”
He stopped talking for a moment, and even through the darkened visor there was no mistaking the glare he sent her way. “A bit clumsy?” he quoted grimly. “That’s what you call a bit clumsy?”
“Wait a minute. You’re not going to blame this on me when the whole thing was your fault.”
“Mine?” His voice was little short of a howl. “I didn’t knock over the damned tank!”
“If you’d just told me what you were planning to do, I could have gotten the balloons out of the way—and if you’d picked up the mail, my foot wouldn’t have slipped.”
“You mean, the mail you knocked on the floor in the first place.”
Sabrina bit her lip. She couldn’t exactly argue with that, so she decided it was safer to change the subject. “Here, I’ll help you up.”
“No, thanks. I’ll get myself off the—” He shifted position as if to sit up and let out a yell of pain, twisting his body so he could clap both hands to his right knee. “I can’t get up.”
Sabrina felt the blood drain out of her face. She looked wildly around for help.
Though it felt like forever, it could only have been moments since the accident, for just now were people starting to cluster around them. A man moved through the crowd, edging between onlookers until he reached the center of attention and knelt next to the motorcyclist, and Sabrina loosed a sigh of relief at the sight of Cassie’s fiancé.
Jake Abbott shot a questioning look at Sabrina as he reached down to release the chin strap on the motorcyclist’s helmet. “What happened this time, Sabrina?”
“What do you mean, this time?” the motorcyclist said as Jake pulled his helmet loose.
Sabrina got her first good look at his face, but it didn’t tell her much. He looked vaguely familiar, and she thought that under normal circumstances he’d probably be quite good-looking. A lock of dark brown hair tumbled engagingly over his forehead, and any woman who needed mascara would have killed for his eyelashes—long, thick, dark and curly.
Of course, at the moment it was hard to tell, because the man’s face was twisted in pain and sweat had broken out in big drops on his forehead.
“Is she in the habit of assaulting perfectly innocent bystanders?” he demanded.
Sabrina ignored him. “Thank heaven you’re here, Jake,” she said. “He fell, and—”
The man on the floor spoke through clenched