soon. I’m sorry if I delayed you.”
Clearly she had mistaken him for someone who worked there. He wished he did; it would have made his explanation so much easier. He took a deep breath and slowly turned around, grateful the shadows hid the telltale wildfire in his face. “Hello, there. Fancy seeing you here.”
“You?” she asked, her eyebrows narrowing suspiciously. “What is this? Are you following me or what?”
“You should have your ego looked at. I think it’s swollen.” Zack had learned long ago to improvise with the best of them. It was one of his survival tools when working undercover. Feigning injured innocence, he pulled her bracelet from his pocket, swinging it from his fingers like a pendulum. “You left this tangled up with one of my buttons when you fell into my arms. I was simply trying to return it to you. Sorry, but no ulterior motives. You’re sort of cute, but you’re a little cocky.”
Now it was her turn to blush. “Oh. I suppose I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
“Like a kangaroo.” Biting back a smile, Zack tossed her the bracelet, and she caught it in midair with a neat flick of her wrist. “Nice catch,” he murmured appreciatively. He loved a woman with good hand-eye coordination.
“Thank you,” she muttered, fastening the bracelet on her wrist. “This bracelet has tremendous sentimental value to me. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost it.”
“No problem.” Unfortunately, the words reminded Zack there was, in fact, a major problem. Once again he tried to open the door. He tried it again. Finally he slammed his hip against the stubborn metal. “Ouch. That’ll leave a mark. Listen, I hate to tell you this, but it seems we’re locked in.”
“What?” an alarmed voice directly behind him asked. “Locked in? As in locked in? We can’t get out?”
Zack jumped, unaware that she had come up the stairs. He looked over his shoulder, feeling the jolt of her stabbing blue eyes a mere twelve inches from his. Even in the shadows, they seemed an intensely brilliant source of light. Her skin was golden, her generous lips stained wetly with a rich cinnamon gloss. This was the sort of woman who could give a sought-after ladies’ man a run for his money…so to speak.
“We can’t get out,” Zack confirmed hoarsely, trying not to stare at that full-bloom rosebud mouth. “Not till they come and find us, at any rate.”
“Are you kidding me? Tell me you’re kidding me.” Then, a full octave higher, “We’re trapped?”
“Think positively,” Zack encouraged. “We’re not so much trapped as we are very, very secure.”
“I’m claustrophobic!” she yelped, losing her cool. She pushed past him, jerking on the handle with both hands and nearly knocking Zack off the steps in the process. “I can’t deal with this, I tell you. I have to know I can get out of places I go into. If I feel trapped, sometimes I…sometimes I panic and…”
“And what?” Zack asked warily, looking at her dilated pupils. “Oh-oh. You don’t look so good. Sometimes you what?”
“I…do…this,” she muttered weakly. And for the second time in less than ten minutes, she collapsed into Zack’s waiting arms.
Two
Anna Smith had never been the kind of person who came unglued easily, and never in public in front of a stranger. She had a little stubborn streak. Which was why, even as the little stairwell in Appleton’s General Store was spinning into nauseating darkness, she was absolutely exasperated with herself. This was so pathetic for a twenty-six-year-old woman.
Fortunately, she wasn’t completely out of it. She managed to more or less walk on her Gumby legs, supported by two strong arms and a bright, bracing stream of encouragement: “You can do it, here we go, down the stairs…good girl, good girl…”
He had a nice voice, she thought groggily. And very calm, almost like he was used to dealing with emergencies like this all the time. He dragged her along, finding an unlocked door close to the stairs. He turned on the light, and Anna found herself firmly planted in a hard folding chair.
“You okay?” he asked sharply, clicking his fingers in front of her fluttering, half-closed eyes. “Hello, there! Yoo-hoo! Coming around? You can open your eyes, we’ve got a nice big room here. No windows, but…we won’t think about that. You’ve got a door you can walk in and out of. Isn’t that nice? We still can’t get out of the basement, but…we won’t think about that, either. If you don’t say something soon, I’m going to use up all the oxygen blabbering.” A pause, then in a more hopeful tone, “I suppose I could try artificial respiration.”
“Don’t you dare,” Anna muttered, trying to control her weighty lids. “You know perfectly well that I’m breathing. Of all the idiotic things for me to do, fainting like that…”
Zack watched sympathetically while she tried to bury her swimming head in her knees. He’d been in a similar position himself many times after a rowdy night on the town. “That’s it, take slow, deep breaths. You’ll feel better soon.” Then, with humor, “If it makes you feel better, I have this effect on women all the time. They’re swooning here, there and everywhere.”
Slowly, her white-knuckled hands clutching the seat of the chair, Anna forced herself to sit up straight. She saw they were in a very large storeroom of sorts, which caused her to breathe a great sigh of relief. As long as she didn’t think about the locked door at the top of the stairs, she should be able to keep the demon claustrophobia at bay. “This is so embarrassing. I suppose I should thank you for catching me.”
“Not if it’s painful for you,” Zack replied, hearing the reluctance in her voice. “Something tells me you’re one of those women who don’t need assistance too often.”
She gave him a wobbly smile, her eyes still a bit glazed. “And something tells me you’re used to women who very much appreciate your assistance. I’m doing better now. This chair feels like it’s bobbing on the ocean, but other than that, I’m fine. This kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time, just so you know.”
“Freaking out was understandable in these circumstances,” Zack replied. “We’re all human, you know. Except Captain Todd, the bane of my existence. He’s another species altogether.”
She blinked in slow motion, her brows drawn together. “What are you talking about? Who is Captain Todd?”
Zack grinned, shaking his head. “Never mind. Since you’re lucky enough not to know him, we’ll keep it that way.”
There was a long silence while Anna absorbed the full effect of his remarkable smile. She was clearheaded enough to translate the potent, wickedly sensual message he was delivering. His heavy-lidded gray eyes went along for the ride, as well, curling up at the edges in captivating little sunbursts. She saw sweetness there, and a silky-smooth masculine appeal that no doubt went over very well with the ladies. His thick hair was dark as midnight, a bit damp and carelessly finger-combed back from his face. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, just under six feet, but he had the build of a lean young athlete. Even his well-worn leather jacket couldn’t disguise the hard stretch of well-defined chest muscles beneath the soft gray T-shirt he wore. Anna found her eyes skipping lower, to the low-riding, stonewashed jeans that were more white than blue. She couldn’t help it; he was standing and she was sitting, and the flat plane of his stomach and hips was directly at eye level. Altogether a dazzling and heady package…and here she was without sunscreen or shades. She couldn’t help but shake her head at the voyeuristic trend of her thinking.
“Ahem.” Zack cleared his throat, more than a little self-conscious. She was studying him in precisely the same way he usually studied an attractive woman. Not in a rude way, but unusually candid. In his experience, and he had quite a bit of it, women tended to be a little flustered around him. He liked being the one who did the flustering, not the one being flustered. Having the tables turned wasn’t nearly as much fun. “You’re suddenly very