Julie Miller - The Marine Next Door

“We’ll find out what I can remember.”

John wedged his big fingers into the slit between the doors. He grunted with the strain on his forearms and biceps until he created a gap wide enough to slide his hands in all the way and get a better grip. “Let’s see where we are.”

“Joe? This is Maggie Wheeler from 707. We’re stuck on the elevator. Are you working on the wiring? Or did the power get cut somehow? Yes. There are three of us.”

Once he could get his shoulders and body weight into it, John pushed the doors all the way open and took a step back to assess the concrete wall across from his feet. There was a gap about a yard wide at the top that revealed a white number 7 painted on a pair of outside elevator doors.

“Joe says he’ll be right up,” Maggie reported, stowing her cell phone. “Of course, that means he’ll be taking the stairs, and with his arthritis, that could still be a while. Are we between floors?”

“Yeah.” John wasn’t looking forward to spooking the woman any further, but right now he was a little glad that he’d gotten stuck in the elevator with the flame-haired Amazon instead of someone more petite. He glanced back to link up with those rich green eyes. “You got a name, Sarge?”

She nodded. “Maggie.”

“Maggie, can you reach those doors and help me open them?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped up beside him. Good. That was an old trick that still worked apparently. Calling a person by his or her name got them to focus, maybe even trust a little. Giving that person a specific job to do was often the easiest way to distract her from her fears.

Even though he felt her flinch when their hands brushed against each other, she didn’t hesitate to slide her fingers between the doors and help pull them apart. Now they were looking out onto the carpeted hallway of the seventh floor. Weird. The only time he’d seen an elevator not align with the exterior doors was when the power had been deliberately cut by firefighters battling a blaze.

John glanced up. But the damn light for the seventh floor was still lit up. He wouldn’t be able to see out into the hallway if the lights were off there, too. What kind of crazy wiring did they have in this place?

“What do we do now?” Sergeant Maggie asked.

John was all for getting off this carnival ride until he could figure out just what the heck was going on. “Son?” He turned back to Travis Wheeler. “Are you a climber?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Careful,” Maggie warned, understanding what John was asking of her boy. “Shouldn’t we wait?”

“Give me the bat and glove first,” John instructed. “Backpack, too.” The boy handed over his prized possessions and John slid them through the opening onto the eye-level floor above them. “Hold on a sec. So your mama doesn’t worry.” He met the wary glare of deep green eyes as he picked up the two boxes of books and wedged one against either of the open doors. “That should buy us a few seconds in case anything happens.”

“What could happen?” Maggie asked.

John nodded to her purse. “Call Standage back. Tell him not to touch or do anything until we give him the all clear. We don’t want the power to suddenly reengage.”

While she called the super, John laced his fingers together and bent down to give the boy the boost up he needed.

“Cool, Mom.” Travis paused with his fingers and chin resting on the hallway floor. “This is just like that movie I watched at Juan’s house. The one where the elevator crashed and almost cut that lady in two when she was climbing out.”

“Oh, Lord,” came the maternal gasp from behind.

John cringed at the boy’s enthusiastic but ill-timed observation and pushed him on through the opening. “Not the time to be talking movies, kid.”

As Travis crawled several feet beyond the opening and retrieved his things, John turned to the redhead clinging to the back railing. Without the freckles, there’d be no color to her skin at all. He reached out a hand to her. “Your turn, Sarge.”

She clung to the railing. “Joe says he’ll wait until I call him again.”

“Good, but we’re not going to wait. I don’t think you want to be stuck in here with me any longer than you have to be.”

“You know, it’s not really you,” she insisted.

“If you say so.” But scared was scared, whatever the cause. John’s hand never wavered. “Come on, Maggie.”

With her eyes locked onto his, her shaky fingers revealing the same distrust, she finally reached out and slid her palm into his. She took a step toward him. “It’s been a stressful day. Normally, I’m not a basket case like this. I just … really do have a thing about elevators.”

“Fair enough.” John pulled her up beside him, then stooped down to create the same step-up with his fingers. “I’ve decided I’ve got a thing about this particular elevator myself. There’s something wrong with the wiring for parts of it to work and parts of it to stop cold like this. I think I’ll be calling KCFD to make an inspection of the place. In the meantime, I say let’s get out of here.”

“Okay.”

She braced one hand on John’s shoulder and he lifted her. As she crawled out onto the carpeted floor, she started to slide back and John’s hands automatically latched on to … those curves. The flare of her hips and rounded arc of her bottom were an easy grab. And a nice, firm fit.

John swallowed hard and shook his head. He had no grounds to fault the boy for bad timing.

“Sorry,” he apologized, giving her a second boost. His hands and eyes had already lingered longer than an impersonal firefighter’s should. But the lady cop broke the contact just about as soon as the nerve endings in the tips of his fingers sparked to life at the warmth and suppleness they detected beneath her crisp navy blue trousers.

The view was over and gone within another second, and Sergeant Maggie rolled to safety on the floor above him. John eased a tight breath out between his lips. Something dormant inside him had unexpectantly awakened. Was it just the fact that he hadn’t touched a woman for two years? Hugs with his sister and handshakes with doctors and therapists hadn’t zinged through him and thrown him off-kilter like this. And prickly redheads had never been his type.

He supposed he should be pleased to discover that life-threatening injuries and months of recovery hadn’t destroyed the baser urges heating his blood right now. But he was just beginning to get comfortable with being closed-off and antisocial. Just a few minutes ago, working his way up to normal civility had been a stretch. And now he was wondering if that whole sexual lightning bolt had been a fluke or if he was going to have to curb his natural instincts to maintain a “just friends” relationship with his new neighbor.

Busy sorting through his observations and emotions, and putting them away in various mental compartments, he was startled to see the long, freckled arm poking back into the elevator. “Come on,” Sergeant Maggie ordered. “Your turn.”

Her tone was much more authoritative and coplike coming from the free air of the seventh floor than it had been in the tight confines of the elevator. Intriguing. Maybe he ought to latch onto that chilly timbre instead of remembering how she’d filled up his hands if he wanted to keep a polite distance from her.

He chinned himself up on the edge of the outside door track, then reached for her hand. With a surprisingly firm grip, she gave him the extra momentum he needed to hoist himself out onto the floor. Allowing himself a moment to catch his breath, John rolled onto his back. “Thanks, Sarge …”

But the prickly redhead was already slipping her son’s backpack onto his slim shoulders and urging him to their front door. Nope, he didn’t need to worry about hormones going on alert, being confused about social expectations of him or trying to be casual friends at all. Sergeant Maggie’s quick retreat spoke volumes about how the two of them were going to get along.