Burnt toast, Dax thought, gently squeezing her fingers.
“Well, we’re not dead yet.”
Maybe not, but they would be soon enough. Tons of brick lay on top of the thin ceiling of the basement above their heads. They’d been saved only by the dubious strength of that protection. Dax had no idea how long the floor would hold. He didn’t imagine it could withstand the inevitable aftershock.
“Does someone know where you are?” he asked, carefully keeping his growing shock and dismay to himself.
“No.” Through their joined hands, he felt her shiver again.
He’d been in some hairy situations before, it was the nature of his job. He was good at saving his own behind, even better at saving others, but he thought maybe his luck had just run out.
Regret and rage threatened to consume him, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He drew in a ragged breath and nearly gagged on the lingering dust. “Come on, this is the hallway, there must be more rooms. They’ll be far cleaner than this, it’ll be easier to breathe.” And maybe there would be some sort of steel-lined safe they could crowd into for protection when the ceiling over their head collapsed, assuming they had enough oxygen to wait for rescue.
“There’s two offices, a bathroom and a small kitchenette,” she intoned. “Furnished.” She shrugged, her shoulder bumping against his. “I have the listing in my pocket.”
Dax wished the flashlight hadn’t gone out, wished that he’d gotten a look at the woman next to him before it had, wished that he’d eaten more for breakfast that morning than a bowl of Double Chocolate Sugary O’s.
“We’ll be fine.” She sounded secure, confident, despite her constant shivers. “We’ll just wait to be rescued. Right?”
Dax decided to let her have that little fantasy since he wasn’t ready to face the alternative, though he held no illusions’when the weight of the crumbled two stories above them came through the ceiling, they were as good as dead.
Feeling their way through the inky darkness, climbing and struggling, they left the hallway. It wasn’t fast or easy, and Dax kept waiting for the woman to falter or complain, or fall apart.
But to his amazement, she never did.
They decided they were in one of the offices, which after a bit of fumbling around, they discovered had a couch, a desk, two chairs and some other unidentifiable equipment. The second office was smaller, and from what they could tell, void of furniture. The kitchenette seemed dangerous, the floor was littered with fallen appliances and a tipped-over refrigerator.
There was no safe place to hide except back in the first office. Like a trooper, the woman stoically kept up with him as they made their way. He couldn’t help but wonder at her incredible control, and what had made her that way.
A DISTANT rumbling was their only warning, but it was enough for Amber, who reacted without thinking by throwing herself at the stranger who’d become her entire world. Later she’d be mortified by her lack of control, but at the moment control was the last thing on her mind.
As the earth once again pitched and rolled beneath their feet, the man snatched her closer and sank with her to the floor.
“Hurry,” he demanded, pushing her under what felt like a huge, wooden desk. He crawled in after her.
She had time to think the earth’s movement was slight compared to the other quake before he hauled her beneath him, sprawling his big and’ oh my ’very tough body over hers, protecting her head by crushing it to his chest.
Time once again ceased to exist as she closed her eyes and lived through the aftershock. Huddled in the pitch dark, Amber knew what the man holding her so tightly feared’as she feared’death. It could easily happen, right this second, and she waited breathlessly for the ceiling above them to give and crush them.
Unwilling to die, she held on, reacting instinctively by burrowing closer to the stranger’s warmth, his strength. He had both in spades and shared it freely.
After what seemed like years’she’d lost all sense of time’the rocking stopped.
She became aware of how close they were. How big a man he was, how every inch of her was plastered to every inch of him. A stranger.
She’d thrown herself at a stranger.
Mortified, she pushed at him. Immediately, he rolled off her and they lay there beneath the desk, separated by inches. Holding their breath.
Nothing crushed them. In fact, the silence was so complete it was nothing short of eerie.
“It held,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” In the dark he shifted, and she got the feeling he was staring at her. “You’re incredible, you know that?”
No one had ever called her such a thing before. “Why?”
“You’re so calm. No panic.”
“You didn’t panic,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but…”
“But I’m a woman?”
“I’m sorry.” There was a reluctant smile in his voice. “But yes, because you’re a woman I guess I expected you to wig out over that one.”
With hard won habit and sheer will, she never wigged out. Not Amber Riggs. She had too much control for that. The master himself had taught her the art. Her father had demanded perfection from her, and total submission.
He’d gotten it.
The fact that her cold, hard, exacting military parent could still intrude on her life, especially at a time like this, where every last moment counted, really infuriated her. She shoved the unhappy memories aside.
“I like control,” she said, and if her voice was tinged with steely determination, she couldn’t help it. She was proud of her cool, sophisticated front. It certainly hadn’t come easily. How many times had she been told she mustn’t be like the mother she’d never known? The mother who’d been wild and uncontrollable before she’d taken off after Amber’s birth?
A slut, her father liked to remind his daughter.
No, Amber must never be like her.
Little chance of that when she’d grown up with no maternal influence to soften her strict, unbending father. Once upon a time, she’d done everything in her power to earn his approval, but it had never come. She’d learned to live without it.
She didn’t need his, or anyone’s, approval.
As a result, her life was quiet, and okay, maybe a bit sterile, but she’d convinced herself that was how she wanted it. She didn’t need anyone or anything, and she especially didn’t need what she secretly felt unworthy of’ love.
Instead, she buried herself in the one thing that would never hurt or disappoint her’her work’and she liked it that way.
So what was that stab of regret she felt now, while she lay waiting to die? What was this terrible sadness coursing through her, this certainty that by ignoring all emotion and passion in order to succeed at her work, she’d somehow let life pass her by?
She was single; no husband, no children. Not even a boyfriend or a casual date. A barren woman with a barren life.
What would it be like to have a man waiting for her right now, worrying over her? Loving her with all his heart and soul?
She’d never know now.
Another rumbling came.
Before she could react, the stranger was there, again yanking her close into the heat and safety of his arms. He had big, warm hands and they settled at her back, soothing and protective.
This quake felt much slighter, a huge relief. But it allowed other