trying to find Gloria’s hand. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. It’s okay,” he told her over and over again.
The panic wouldn’t leave even as she heard his voice. Her terror was too huge to overcome. In saner times, it bothered her no end, reacting this way, but right now, all she could do was shriek.
“Pull me out,” she pleaded. “Pull me out!”
And then she felt a hand reaching across her waist, brushing against her lap. The next moment, the belt that was holding her prisoner was released and she was being pulled out of her living tomb.
The second she was clear of the car, she began gasping for air, sucking it in as if there wasn’t even an ounce of it within her lungs. Her legs weak, her body a heavy liquid, she clung to the man who had pulled her free.
Shaking, she was still aware of the soft feel of suede against her cheek and the infinite comfort of the arms that had locked around her. She fought to regulate her breathing.
“Where are you hurt?” Jack demanded. Had she hit her head? Broken something in the split second before the air bag had cocooned her?
When Gloria didn’t answer, Jack tried to move her back and hold her at arm’s length to see her injuries for himself. At first she wouldn’t let go of him, her arms locked around his neck in a death grip. Finally he managed to gently but firmly push her from him.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked again. Scanning her face, he saw nothing. There were no scratches, no cuts, no marks at all except for what appeared to be the beginning of a slight bruise along her forehead. That could have come from the air bag itself, he judged. But one thing was abundantly clear. The dark-haired woman he’d been verbally sparring with not a few minutes earlier was clearly shaken.
That made two of them, he thought.
And then, suddenly, there were people crowding all around them in the intersection.
“I saw the whole thing,” one man behind him volunteered.
A woman in a flaming-red scarf that was wrapped around her neck pointed to the other driver. “It was his fault.” The accusation was made in a high-pitched voice.
A businessman craned his neck as he leaned out of his car window. His vehicle was directly behind the bruised Jaguar. “Need a witness?”
Voices were coming from all sides, swelling in volume. Gloria tried to block them all out as she struggled to regain her composure. She was only vaguely aware of Jack leading her to the sidewalk. She followed him like some docile child, hating this role she’d been forced to play. Hating the way she’d reacted. Still unable to do anything else.
She’d completely lost it back there and she was ashamed of that. But it had felt as if she was being buried alive.
Jack was taking her face in his hands, examining it closely. Was he trying to figure out what kind of a lunatic his father was lending money and support to?
Gloria felt like an idiot but her heart refused to stop racing.
“You okay?” he asked gruffly.
The gruff voice helped to center her, pulling her out of crisis mode. But still, she didn’t trust her voice to answer so she merely nodded in response.
“Okay, stay right here,” he instructed her before glancing over his shoulder at the other driver, “while I get some insurance information out of Mario Andretti over there.”
A ring of Good Samaritans and people looking for some excitement had surrounded the offending driver. No one seemed inclined to allow the man to leave. Jack quickly got the necessary information from the driver, who kept babbling his apology, claiming the sun had gotten into his eyes and could they please keep this off the record so his insurance wouldn’t go through the roof?
From the way the other man was talking, Jack got the impression that this wasn’t the man’s first offense.
It made his blood boil. Someone so careless should be kept off the road.
Maybe if you’d kept Ann off the road, she’d still be here today.
Jack blocked out the thought even as it echoed in his brain. He couldn’t go there yet. He suspected that he probably never fully could.
Jack looked at the other man coldly, feeling not even an ounce of pity. He hated recklessness and the man had clearly run the light. “My insurance agent will be in touch.”
Flipping open his phone, he called for roadside assistance. He wasn’t about to go anywhere with the air bags deployed, even if they were now in the process of deflating. Besides, who knew the kind of damage his car had sustained? There was no way he was about to take the road with an unsafe vehicle.
Pocketing the cell phone, he took a few names from the bystanders in case the insurance adjuster would require the testimony of witnesses. He’d learned a long time ago to cover as many bases as was humanly possible. The other driver was sitting moodily in his vehicle, muttering something about hard-nosed businessmen who thought they owned the road. Jack could feel his temper flaring, but he ignored him. There was nothing to be gained by stooping to the driver’s level.
What counted was that no one was hurt.
Gloria had given him one hell of a scare, he thought, looking over at her. Finished taking information, he tucked his Palm Pilot into his pocket and crossed back to the woman standing on the curb.
She looked calmer now. That wild look he’d seen in her eyes was gone. Still, he wasn’t completely at ease about her. The sound of a siren began to cut through the din. Someone had either called the paramedics or the police. Probably both.
“You want to go to the hospital?” he asked Gloria. Funny, he hadn’t thought of her as fragile until now. Like fine china about to crack.
She shook her head, trying to regain her self-esteem. It was at times like this, when everything felt so out of control, that she reverted back to who and what she’d been just two years ago. A woman too weak-willed to make it from one end of the day to the other without help.
You’re a whole new person since then. Remember that.
She shook her head as she squared her shoulders. “No, I’m all right.”
He appeared not to believe her as his eyes seemed to bore holes right through her. “Are you sure? You were screaming back there as if you were being filleted.”
That was a pretty apt description of it, she thought. Not that she had any control over her reaction. Lord knew, she wished she had.
Gloria took a deep breath and looked away, avoiding his probing eyes. She supposed she owed him some kind of an explanation. She kept it at a minimum. Her voice was hardly above a whisper as she said, “I have claustrophobia.”
Jack cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard her. “What?”
Frustrated, Gloria pressed her lips together. She’d managed to put everything else in her life in order, but this was a failing, a shortcoming from her childhood, and she hated it because there was no way she had ever managed to exercise any control over it. For the most part, she tried to think of other things when she couldn’t avoid a situation such as riding up in elevators to floors that were too high up to walk to.
But with this accident there had been no time to prepare. It had stripped her of all her little mind-diverting tricks and left her naked and vulnerable.
“I have claustrophobia,” she repeated more clearly. Her teeth were clenched as she strained the admission through them.
He passed his hands lightly along her arms and shoulders, as if her word was not enough. “So nothing’s damaged or broken,” he pressed.
“Nothing’s damaged or broken,” Gloria confirmed. And then she added in a less audible voice, “Except maybe my self-esteem.”
He surprised her by shrugging away her admission. If she