Fortune's Heirs: Reunion: Her Good Fortune / A Tycoon in Texas / In a Texas Minute

He thought he heard her swallow. “I won’t.” She sounded utterly unsure of her promise.

“It’ll only be a few seconds,” he assured her. This was a relatively new building. Fortune-Rockwell had moved out of its old home office into this one less than five years ago. Everything was supposed to be state-of-the-art.

Which meant that these kinds of things weren’t supposed to happen.

“The lights are bound to come back on.”

Extricating his arm, he put his hands out to feel for the wall in an attempt to find the phone. Somehow he got turned around and he found her instead.

Instantly he pulled back his hands. Whatever he had touched—and he had a real suspicion what that had been—was incredibly soft, even if it was packaged in suede.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s okay.”

Her reply was barely above a whisper. He could hear the fear mounting in her voice. “We’re going to be all right,” he told her firmly.

“I know we are.”

Although she didn’t sound quite so sure she believed him.

Just as he wondered if she was going to faint, an auxiliary light came on. The illumination it cast was dim, but at least they were no longer in the dark.

Her skin looked almost translucent, he thought, glancing at her face. “There.” Jack indicated the emergency light source. “See?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I can.” She could see just how small, how confining, the space was. For some reason the dim light only made it feel that much smaller. A tightness was taking hold within her chest.

“And so can I,” he told her. And what he saw was unadulterated fear. The same fear that had been in her eyes when he’d pulled her out of the car when the air bag had deployed. “It’s going to be all right,” he repeated. The words felt empty, hollow, highlighting the frustration he felt.

She turned desperate eyes on him. “When? When is it going to be all right?”

“As soon as the lights come back on.”

He knew his answer wasn’t very reassuring. Nothing frustrated him more than not having control over a situation. Annoyance strumming through him, he opened the panel just above the keypad of floor buttons and extracted the closed-circuit telephone receiver. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

There was no answer. For a minute he felt like hitting the receiver against the wall, but losing his temper wasn’t going to solve their dilemma. He tried his cell phone. There was no signal. When it rained, it poured.

“The power must be out.” Gloria’s voice was hardly above a whisper. She could feel her throat closing up again.

He shook his head. “The phone lines are on a separate circuit.” Swallowing a curse, he hung up the receiver. “Maybe some of the other elevators are out, too, and whoever is supposed to be answering the phone is out checking on another car.”

“Yeah, right.”

His attention shifted toward her. Poor lighting or not, she really didn’t look too good. “Sit down before you fall down.”

But Gloria remained standing where she was, her whole body as rigid as if it had been chiseled out of rock. She turned her eyes to his face.

This was what they meant by a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, he thought.

“Do something.” It was half a command, half an appeal.

Just what did she expect him to do? There were precious few options available. “Well, I’d get out and push the car up to the next landing, but my cape’s at the cleaners.”

“Do something,” she repeated, more insistently this time.

Okay, he’d bite. “And just exactly what is it that you’d have me do?”

She shrugged helplessly. If she knew, she’d have done it herself. “I don’t know—a guy thing.” Looking around, she saw what appeared to be a removable panel directly above their heads. “Like climbing up and pushing that off.”

He looked up at the same panel. “What good will that do?”

“We could climb out.” With a dismissive snort, he looked down at her high heels. “I’m very nimble,” she insisted.

He decided to humor her for the space of a moment. “Okay, supposing we could climb out, then what?”

She didn’t know about him, but it would do her a world of good. “At least we wouldn’t be trapped in here, suffocating.”

“We’re not suffocating. There’s plenty of air in here.”

She had her hand on his arm again. For a relatively small woman, she had really strong fingers. “Please.”

Jack knew she wouldn’t give up until he gave in. He supposed that since there was no one answering him on the phone, it wouldn’t hurt to try to see what was going on, although he wasn’t about to attempt shimmying up the cables to the next floor. There was no way he could possibly pry open the doors on the next landing. Even if he were a weight lifter, it wouldn’t be possible.

He moved to the wall and tested the integrity of the railing that ran along three sides of the car. Recessed from the wall, it seemed sturdy enough to hold him.

Jack glanced back at her. She’d shed her coat in a heap on the floor. “Come here, give me your shoulder.”

He watched her tongue lightly run along the outline of her mouth and tried not to let it affect him. “Why?”

Exasperated by the situation and by the fact that there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to negate the mounting anxiety in her eyes, he snapped, “Because I didn’t have any breakfast this morning and I’m hungry.” Taking her arm, he pulled her over to the wall. “I need it for leverage, that’s why.”

Removing his shoes, Jack clamped his hand on her shoulder. She wobbled a little, then braced herself. The phrase “iron butterfly” teased his brain. “You’re sturdier than you look.”

“So they tell me.”

He raised his foot as far up as he could, getting it onto the railing. Gloria spread her legs apart, taking a stance as he pushed off her shoulder and rose up parallel to the wall. There was a space between the ceiling and where the sides ended. He secured his fingers along that ridge. Moving in half inches, he managed to make it to the trapped door.

Holding on with one hand, he pushed the panel with the other. It took a little doing, but the panel finally gave way. Jack moved it to the side. Clearing an opening large enough to accommodate him, he pulled himself up with his arms.

Watching his every move, Gloria held her breath. She saw him disappear through the opening. For a moment she was alone. Alone in a small space. Just as she had been all those years ago. Perspiration was forming all up and down her spine. She could feel her blouse adhering to her back.

Damn it, stop panicking. It’s not going to do you any good, she insisted silently.

Gloria forced her feet to move until she was standing directly under the opening that the panel had covered. She craned her neck. There was nothing but darkness outside the car.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing.”