Roxanne St. Claire - Like a Hurricane

His wit seemed to have lost its luster with her. No smile brightened her face and she kept her eyes averted. “It has its strong points, believe me.”

He stifled a laugh. “Name one.”

“I could name several. It’s authentic and…and historic.”

Instead of laughing, he shot a pointed glance at the elevator. “More like awful and ancient.”

“The rooms are delightful.”

“The building is dilapidated.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, a move that had to be illegal in some states. “There are claw-foot bathtubs.”

“With the original plumbing,” he added with a wink.

“Windows that open to the sea.”

“Which is a good thing.” This time, he did laugh, fighting the urge to tap the irresistible cleft in her chin. “Because there’s no air-conditioning.”

She scowled at him, the loss of her smile like the sun dipping behind a cloud.

“You obviously like the place,” he said hastily. “Or you work here.”

“Both.”

Ah, so that was why all the loyalty. An employee might be just the ticket to give him the inside dirt on the property…and the owner. Maybe he could soften her up and get the real scoop on Nick Whitaker’s insurance scam over dinner. And breakfast.

“But you didn’t answer my question.” The note of accusation was back in her voice. “What are you doing up here? This floor is unoccupied and for service personnel only.”

He didn’t want to lie, but if she worked here, she’d figure out immediately that he was with the company looking to purchase the property. That would surely color her information.

“I got lost. My room’s on the second floor and I took the stairs too far.”

She frowned and regarded him. “You’re a guest?”

He would register as soon as they got downstairs. Then he wouldn’t be lying. He’d been planning to stay on another Jorgensen property anyway, and had to be up before dawn to get to another job site in Minneapolis. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Well, I hope you have a nice stay.” She bent over to slip her feet into the sandals, denying him the chance to see if that information elicited even a hint of disappointment. “Be sure to catch the beach,” she said, still working the strap of her shoe. “It’s one of the most beautiful views you’ll see while you’re here.”

The image of her gorgeous legs hanging from the ceiling flashed in his mind. “Oh, I’ve seen some incredible sights already.”

She stared up at him, those blue-green eyes questioning and daring and laughing all at the same time. Time stopped. Atoms froze. A weird tingling sensation went zinging through his gut. The gut that he always trusted. The gut that he knew would tell him the instant he finally met…

The one.

Quinn McGrath never ignored his gut.

“But maybe you could show me the beach,” he said softly, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “Are you free for dinner?”

Then she treated him to a sly smile that did really dangerous things to his heart and the other part that hadn’t yet settled down. Before she could answer, the elevator clunked and the doors rumbled closed behind her.

“My bag!” She spun around and made a quick pass at the doors, but they closed too fast. “Oh—” She swallowed what was surely another creative curse, then hit the wood with one ineffective punch before turning to him. “You didn’t happen to leave the stairwell door open, did you?”

He shook his head. “Don’t tell me. The key is in your bag.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. “All right. I won’t tell you the key is in my bag.”

“Isn’t there another way down?”

“Can you scale the balconies of a three-story building?”

Actually, he could, but the possibility of being stuck with a barefoot contessa on the abandoned floor of a hotel seemed far more enticing.

“Won’t anyone come looking for you?” he asked.

She sighed. “There aren’t many people working tonight. But we can hope someone will catch the elevator and send it back.”

“But how will anyone know we’re up here?”

“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked, hope brightening her face.

He pictured it resting on the passenger seat of his rental car. “Sorry, I don’t.”

“Then come here.” His heart tightened at the invitation, which he accepted by stepping next to her, teased by a whiff of her rose-scented fragrance. “We’re stuck with the low-tech method,” she said. “The sound might carry down the elevator shaft.”

With balled fists, she raised her hands to the wooden elevator doors and shot him a long and meaningful glance. “What are you waiting for? Let’s bang.”

He almost choked. “Precisely what I had in mind.”

“Help! We’re stuck!”

Nicole Whitaker rammed her entire body weight against the wooden doors with way more force than required. Not only was the body-slam their only chance of being heard—it had worked about three weeks ago when she was stuck on the first floor—but the movement had the added benefit of relieving some of the tension that had coiled her entire being into a knot of raw desire. The sheer presence of the man wound her so tight that any second she could just snap. One more sexy smile and quick one-liner and she might literally come undone. Right into his solid mass of heart-stopping male muscle.

“Help!” She shouldered the door and the pencil tumbled out of her hair.

At his laugh, she froze, mid-slam. “Do you think this is funny?”

She tried to glare at him, if only to hide the fact that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. How mortifying that this guest—one that somehow had gotten by her that day—would think her resort was a dump.

“I can’t help it.” He shrugged, his bottomless brown eyes sparkling. “You’re really amusing.”

Amusing. Oh yeah. A veritable comedy act swinging half-naked from the ceiling. The thought of how far up her skirt had risen coiled her up inside again. What a way to greet a guest.

Thank God she’d cancelled the meeting that the bank was forcing her to have with some real estate mogul from New York. That’s all the great-and-powerful Quinn McGrath of Jorgensen Development Corporation would need to see. The elevator dead as a doornail and one of her two—no, make that three—paying guests walking around calling the place awful and dilapidated.

And just how did this guy manage to register and not send Sally Chambers flying into Nicole’s office with a report that a six-foot-two god had checked in for a night?

She bit her lip and rested her head against the warm wood of the door, trying to regain the equilibrium that vanished every time she looked at him. She couldn’t let him know she was the owner of the dump. It was just too embarrassing.

Oh, God, what a day. A day? What a year. Life had spun completely out of control well over fourteen months earlier when Hurricane Dante spent six destructive hours as a guest on St. Joseph’s Island. The storm’s category-three winds weren’t deadly, but just potent enough to rip the charm right out of Mar Brisas. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds, and one grossly worded insurance policy had left the resort her great-grandfather had designed and built on its last gasping breath after a glorious sixty-year life.

“Surely someone will come up here tonight,” he said as he gave the door far too light a tap and tilted his head toward the other end of the hall. A gorgeous, sexy, come-hither tilt. “The workers left their stuff out.”

“Uh, I don’t think so.” Workers? Hah. He was looking at the workers. With only a tiny percentage of the insurance money ever paid after the storm, the task of repairing Mar Brisas fell on the owner’s proud, but poor, shoulders. So poor, in fact, that she’d agreed to meet with a potential buyer. But so proud that she’d chickened out before he could show up. “Trust me, Mac, not a lot of people frequent the third floor. We could be here awhile.”