She smiled at that. “I’m Anna Smith, occasional fainter. We’re in a little predicament here, I guess.”
You guess right, Zack thought with gentle humor. Lucky us. “Nice to meet you. I’m Zack Daniels, catcher of fainting women. You make a very stimulating predicament partner, do you know that? And I’m an expert at predicaments and partners, so I speak with authority.”
Anna decided he was harmless enough, despite his inclination to flirt. And he did provide nice scenery for their predicament. “Well, here’s hoping we won’t be partners for long. No offense, but this place isn’t my idea of a dream vacation. Hey!”
Alarmed, Zack jumped and looked over his shoulder. “What? Who? Hey what?”
“I see a telephone!” She made her way through a pile of boxes, lifting up a bright pink telephone from beneath a sheet of clear plastic bubble wrap. “Of course, they would have a phone down here. Why didn’t we think…” Her voice trailed off. She lifted her head, sheepishly meeting Zack’s dancing eyes. “It’s a Barbie phone.”
Zack nodded, not even trying to hide his grin. This just kept getting better and better. She was a laugh a minute. “The Barbie sticker kind of gives it away, don’t you think?”
“I can’t believe my luck tonight…or absence thereof.” She dropped the phone back in the box with a heavy sigh. “Oh, my goodness. Why can’t anything be easy? Do you think there might be a phone in one of the other rooms? Maybe there’s another exit somewhere, or maybe a basement window we can crawl out of.”
“I doubt it. The sign on the fire door said No Exit.” Zack was enjoying himself immensely. She was pure magic to watch, the way her changing emotions were reflected in her vivid eyes, her lips, the light catching the burnished-gold streaks in her hair whenever she moved. Nothing was hidden, nothing was calculated. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d met a woman who didn’t try to impress him. They liked his looks, which he guessed was understandable. Not so understandable was their starry-eyed fascination with the potential danger involved with his work. The possibility of Zack being on the receiving end of severe bodily harm was inexplicably titillating to them. It wasn’t very nice of them, but then again, Zack had never really focused on nice women. “I’m sure they’ll find us sooner or later. Why don’t you relax?”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not the type who sits around expecting to be rescued. I’m perfectly capable of rescuing myself.”
“An independent and resourceful woman,” Zack said respectfully, settling himself in the folding chair she had vacated. “How inspiring. I’ll sit here and admire your resourceful character while you rescue us. You may begin.”
Obviously, he wasn’t taking this situation of theirs very seriously. Ignoring him, Anna proceeded to explore the room at length, rummaging through piles of boxes, cleaning supplies and office equipment…but no telephone. She went to the door twice, giving the darkened hallway a quick look before scuttling back into the room. “You could do something,” she told Zack irritably, annoyed by his complacent attitude and Cheshire Cat smile. “I’m not keen on exploring the other rooms. I feel trapped whenever I look out there. Would it be too much bother for you to separate yourself from that chair and look around?”
“Well, I suppose I could take a look around,” Zack said after a moment of reflection. He stood up and slowly stretched, his sparkling eyes noting her reaction with amusement. “I do have a little cold and I’m feeling under the weather, but I’ll manage somehow. Still, I hate to leave you in here all alone, you being so delicate and all. Will you be all right without me?”
Anna placed a hand over her heart with exaggerated sincerity. “I will do my poor best.”
Zack grinned. “Lady, you’re the most entertaining thing that has happened to me in my entire life. I’ll be right back. Don’t move a muscle.”
He was gone for several minutes. Anna heard doors opening and closing, boxes being shoved around and occasional sounds of exaggerated discouragement. Then she heard him knocking on the fire door and calling out for someone to help them, all to no avail. When he came back, he had an expression of utter dejection, though his keen gray eyes were still lit with enjoyment. “We are doomed, my pretty new predicament partner. No exits, no windows, no way to call anyone. And there’s not a sound from upstairs. I’m afraid they may have locked things up and left. I can’t tell you how upset I am about this. We have ourselves in a pickle here. Or rather, a pickle jar with a very tight lid.”
“Well, this is just wonderful,” Anna muttered, hands planted on her hips over her leather coat. “Absolutely wonderful. What on earth do we do now? I’m not about to spend an entire night locked in some basement, I’ll tell you that.”
“I’m afraid,” Zack said kindly, “you are.”
She stared at him suspiciously. “You know something? I think you like this situation.”
Zack could have told her he was tickled hot pink with the whole thing, but he didn’t think the timing was right. He settled with, “Let’s just be happy it isn’t Saturday night. If it was and the store wasn’t open on Sundays, we could be here all weekend. We wouldn’t have any food except for gummy bears and candy necklaces, and—”
“What’s that?” Anna was instantly distracted from their little problem. Zack Daniels had just mentioned her favorite food group: candy. Besides, it just wasn’t in her nature to be grumpy for too long. “You really found gummy bears?”
Grinning like a proud hunter, home with his kill, Zack pulled a cellophane bag from his jacket pocket, swinging it from his fingers in front of Anna’s nose. “I found a whole case of gummy bears and two cases of candy necklaces. Oh, yes—and games. Candyland, Monopoly, Twister. We can find all kinds of things to keep us occupied.” He slowly uncoiled his teasing, bone-melting smile again, making the room seem suddenly smaller and a great deal warmer. “Trust me, Anna Smith. I’m an expert when it comes to handling predicaments.”
“And now we’ll have sharing time,” Zack announced in his best Sunday school teacher’s voice.
Anna’s baby blues narrowed. She was nobody’s fool; she had nixed the idea of playing Twister right off the bat. Instead, they had spent an hour playing the ever-popular board game, Candyland. Despite Zack’s dark mutterings about “sissy games,” he played along like a good sport and emerged the winner. After that they’d found a chess game. Again Zack won. He never seemed to need any time at all to ponder his next move, yet his strategy was astonishing. The win, he claimed, meant that it was now his turn to choose the next activity.
“And what precisely do you want to share during sharing time?” Anna asked cautiously. She was leaning with her back against the wall, legs stretched out before her. Her boots were off, as was her long black coat. Zack sat opposite, leaning against a four-foot-high box of paper towels with his jacket for a pillow, chewing on a candy necklace he was wearing.
“Stuff.” He grinned, wriggling his eyebrows like the evil villain Snidely Whiplash. He’d been flirting shamelessly throughout the chess game, inspired by the way she slowly ran her tongue along the edge of her upper lip when pondering her next move. Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen much progress. Anna took every teasing comment he made in stride, easily holding her own. She was accustomed to men flirting with her. She didn’t think it was so much her looks that were inspiring the attention as much as it was the basic nature of men. It had become tiresome, to say the least. While in high school, she had first heard the old saying, “Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” She had gone right out and purchased a pair of non-prescription eyeglasses, but the old adage had proved false. Glasses or no glasses, she was destined to be the target of masculine interest. She realized early on that very few of her admirers were interested in her fine character, lively sense of humor or steadfast loyalty. Nine times out of ten, it was a purely physical