Authors: Barbara Bretton
He was still laughing as he disappeared back down the hallway once again. Caroline barely restrained herself from tossing an antique vase at his head. The fact that she had been guilty of a similar notion about Sam's pregnancy earlier that afternoon didn't absolve him of his guilt. Of all the idiotic, outdated notions, his statement about hormones took the cake. Sure, Sam was a touch more weepy than usual these days, but this wasn't the Dark Ages, for heaven sake.
Grabbing two fox capes from a chair near her Louis XIV desk, she hurried back toward the store room. He was bent over a stack of coats by the door to the store's tiny bathroom, an impulsive after-thought she'd had added to the storage area when she renovated the building last year. "I suppose you also think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant."
"Don't put words in my mouth." He rose slowly, unfolding inch by powerful inch, until he towered over her. Dear God, he was enormous. He certainly had never looked so...so
imposing
back at O'Rourke's Bar and Grill.
Why couldn't he at least have the decency to be less aggressively male, surrounded by fur coats and fancy dresses? He looked absolutely ridiculous standing there in his close-fitting t-shirt and even closer-fitting jeans with the hole in the right knee. Oh, Caroline knew plenty of men with holes in the knees of their jeans, but those men had bought said jeans complete with fashionable holes scattered hither and yon. She had no doubt Charlie Donohue had come by his state of disrepair honestly.
"I know all about your type," she said, living dangerously. "Yeah?" He took a step forward. She said a prayer and held her ground. "I could tell you a few things about your type too, lady."
"Oh, really?" She drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. "I'm sure I'd love to hear."
"You're some rich guy's spoiled little daughter who has some time on her hands between dates so daddy bought you a store to keep you busy until he hands you off to some poor human bank account you'll call a husband."
"You're more perceptive than I would ever have imagined," she drawled in her best spoiled little rich girl's voice. She'd tried for many years to cultivate her to-the-manner-born persona, and it was gratifying to know how well she'd succeeded. "Now if you don't mind, it's been lovely but I think we should say goodnight."
"That's it?" He looked almost disappointed. "I cut you down to size and you stand there like Princess Diana, saying thank you and goodnight?"
"I could recite the Preamble to the Constitution, if you like, but that won't change things. This was a rotten idea of Sam's and we'd be smart to cut our losses before there's bloodshed."
She headed toward the big metal fire door that separated the storage room from the rest of the store but Donohue stepped in her way. "Not so fast."
"Joke's over, Donohue," she said, heart beating faster. "Let me pass."
"You're making me feel like a louse," he continued. "Go ahead. I'll give you one free insult and we'll call it even."
"I don't make it a habit to insult people,
Mr.
Donohue."
"I've watched you shoot down guys at the
bar, Bradley. Your mouth should be declared a lethal weapon."
She ducked around him and was practically at the door when, to her horror, he gave it a push and it clanged shut. The sound rang in her ears.
"You idiot!" She forgot to modulate her voice as she pounded on the door with her fists. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Idiot," he repeated with a grin as he leaned against the door. "Not bad, but you can do better. One good insult and I'll open the door and--"
She whirled to face him, eyes blazing with fury, fists aching. "Don't you understand?"
"Unlock the door." He looked down at her. "You
do have the key, don't you?"
"There
is
no key, you idiot! We're on a timer."
"You have a phone in here?"
"So the minks can call their mothers? Get real, Donohue! Face it: we're locked in here until tomorrow morning."
ii
"I have to hand it to you," said Donohue. "You had me going there for a minute." Locked in the fur vault with the enemy until nine o'clock the next morning. Talk about unjust punishment. "Now open up."
She swung on him with all the self-righteous fury of the condemned. Her delicate fist landed a punch right in the middle of his solar plexus and he ducked one to his jaw. He grabbed her wrists; he could encircle both with one hand. Under different circumstances, that might have given him a rush of pleasure. At the moment, however, he was more interested in self-preservation. If he wasn't careful, he could end up a
castrato
.
"Do something!" she cried. "I'll go crazy if I'm stuck in here with you."
"You're not exactly my idea of a swell evening yourself, lady," he muttered, dropping her hands and stepping out of reach. He glanced at his watch. Six p.m.
Fifteen hours until the door opened again in the morning.
Fifteen
long
hours alone with a crazy woman.
And he'd thought combat
was scary.
Charlie pounded on the door, aimed karate chops at the lock, and searched in vain for a window or an emergency switch--anything that would get them the hell out of that fur-lined ice box. He turned himself into a human projectile aimed at the door hinges but no dice.
"They told me the security system was foolproof," said Caroline, voice trembling.
"They were right," Charlie growled. "Fort Knox doesn't have a security system like this son of a bitch."
"Must you?" she asked automatically. "It's bad enough we're locked in here together. You don't have to be crude on top of it."
"Crude?" His laugh made her want to punch him again. "I haven't begun to get crude."
"Keep it to yourself then. I don't need a bar room vocabulary lesson, thank you." She knew all the words; she'd even used a few of them herself on occasion. However she wasn't about to grant him so much as an inch. If she let down her guard for an instant, he would be running roughshod over her as if he owned the place.
He muttered something about "ice princess" and she murmured "simple-minded cretin," then they both fell silent. What was there left to say, when you came down to it? She was certain her vocabulary of insults paled compared to his. Besides, there was the matter of her image to be considered, although how she would maintain her cool, calm, and collected persona for the next fifteen hours was beyond her.
She glanced around the room, cursing herself for not having the presence of mind to put in a skylight at the very least. But, no. She had to listen to the "experts" who told her that sunlight was the arch enemy of fine fabrics. "No windows, Ms. Bradley, and plenty of air-conditioning year round. Fur vaults must be cool and dark," she'd been told. "Think hibernation!" Great for grizzlies, but not exactly optimal conditions for two adults trapped together against their wills.
If only there was
some way out of this mess. Her gaze fell upon Donohue who was pacing the length of the room like a caged beast. He was big and strong. Why couldn't he fling himself at the door just one more time? Surely the locks, wonderful though they were, couldn't withstand another assault from all of that coiled male outrage. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but the look he shot in her direction convinced her to keep her own counsel, at least for the moment.
His jet black brows seemed permanently knotted over the bridge of his nose and his jaw was set in granite. She'd already pummeled him once and gotten away with it. From the expression in his eyes, she doubted if she would get away with a similar stunt again.
No,
she thought, sitting on a box in the far corner of the room, right near the sables and minks.
The thing to do is concentrate.
She'd never once met a problem she couldn't solve with her wits and she'd be damned if she let this one get the better of her. There was no way she would spend the next fifteen hours alone with only Charlie Donohue for company.
Absolutely no way on earth.
#
The first sixty minutes of the captivity of Charlie and Caroline ticked away with the slow and deliberate rhythm of a funeral dirge. Caroline felt a scream lodged somewhere deep in her chest. Charlie wanted to see if he could pull a Rambo and blast through the walls with fists instead of an Uzi. The incessant hum of the industrial-strength air conditioning unit made it seem even colder than it was--and that was saying something.
"Moron," muttered Caroline from the safety of her spot near the fur coats.
"Ditzy blonde," growled Charlie from his position by the door. Neither acknowledged the other's words or, for that matter, the other's presence in the growing-smaller-every-minute store room. The clock on the wall showed 6:59. And then it showed 7:00. "I feel like I've been here for eons," said Caroline, more loudly this time.
"Solitary confinement would be easier than this," said Charlie, equally loud.
"A sophisticated adult would have inquired about a timed lock system."
"Bull," said Charlie, determined to let her know exactly how he felt about sophisticated adults. "Anybody with a brain would have a fail-safe system for emergencies."
Caroline lifted a patrician brow in his direction. "And, pray tell, how many emergencies does one encounter in a fur vault?"
"Can the Princetonese, Bradley, and give me a hand." He hunkered down and began prying away at the base of one of the door hinges.
"You'll never be able to move it like that," said Caroline, glancing at her brand-new French manicure. Fifty dollars and two hours about to go down the drain. "You need tools."
"Right," said Charlie, "and I'm using the ones I have." He waved those big hands of his in her face and Caroline gulped at the sheer power they represented. "Now give me some help." He paused, his own gaze resting on her perfect fingernails. "That is, unless you'd rather spend the night with me."
"Move over," said Caroline, "and let's get this damn door open."
#
Seven o'clock became eight.
Eight o'clock gave way to nine.
And by nine-fifteen it had become crystal clear to even the most pigheaded of optimists that an escape hatch was just not in the cards.
Charlie sank to the ground and held his head in his hands. Caroline thought his posture a bit extreme but then who was she to talk? The notion of spending the next twelve hours in his company had her teetering on the verge of tears.
"This is terrible," she said, her voice breaking on the last word. "We're trapped and it's all because of you...."
Charlie looked up, about to fire off a wisecrack in his own defense, when he caught the glisten of tears in her eyes. She looked so pathetic standing there next to him. So delicate. So female
.
Now hold on a minute. That was dangerous thinking. She might look like a porcelain doll, but she packed one hell of a wallop.
Remember that,
he warned himself. Even if she was remarkably curvy beneath her t-shirt and tight jeans. Even if her big cornflower blue eyes looked wide and vulnerable.
Even if he felt an answering stir deep inside him, that primitive male urge to comfort and protect.
Just remember that the ultra-feminine, extremely pretty Caroline Bradley swung her fists first and asked questions later.
Still it took Donohue until nearly ten p.m. to convince himself to stay on his side of the makeshift fur vault.
#
And as for Caroline, she was deeply immersed in self-pity, wondering what sin she'd committed to deserve a fate like this. In her darkest nightmares, she'd never imagined anything as dreadful as being locked in her own store with Charlie Donohue for company. That is, if you wanted to consider his presence as company. The two of them hadn't exchanged a civil word since he first walked through her front door. If only Sam had kept her matchmaking nose out of Caroline's life and let Murphy help unload the furs into the storage room. Only a crazy person would have thought putting Caroline and the O'Rourke's short order cook together alone in close quarters was a stroke of romantic genius. Not that Sam had intended for them to be locked together like this, but sometimes fate had plans that mere mortals would never understand.
Caroline cast another surreptitious look in Donohue's direction, doing her best not to notice the interesting play of muscles along his back and biceps.
Come to think of it, Donohue
was behaving awfully well, considering the circumstances under which they'd found themselves. Another man might have taken advantage of the situation, dousing the overhead light and turning the storage room into a wolf's lair with Caroline as the lamb on her way to the slaughter. There were advantages to being trapped with a man who didn't find you the least bit attractive, even if that fact stung her ego.
Donohue, through pacing for the moment, sat down on a crate near a collection of beaded Arnold Scaasi gowns and broke the silence. "I'd kill for a burger and fries," he said.