Linda Varner - Corporate Groom

With a huff of impatience, Miz Rusty reached out and, placing the tips of her forefingers at the corners of his mouth, attempted to help him smile.

Reo, his knees downright wobbly, grudgingly cooperated.

“Thanks,” Miz Rusty said, for the first time looking as if she might be a bit ruffled by their situation, too. But there was only a second’s awkward silence before she turned to her charges and spoke again. “Why don’t we play a game while we wait to get moving? Would you like that?”

Most of her mesmerized companions nodded. Reo noted that a smile or two seemed genuine now.

“How about I Spy? Do you like that game?”

More nods. More real smiles.

“OK. I’ll go first.” Miz Rusty, who was surely an angel, after all, made a production out of looking all around the elevator. Then she said, “I spy something blue, purple and green, all swirled together.”

In spite of himself, Reo could not resist searching the costumes of the children for those three colors “swirled.” He didn’t find them, but did realize that aside from the soldier, the princess and the ghost, he hadn’t a clue as to what these children were dressed up to be. The brunette named Lauren looked as if she’d just stepped out of a harem—an odd choice of costume for a preschooler in his opinion—while one helmeted boy resembled some sort of spaceman or something.

Clearly, Reo was out of touch with the younger set, but he knew that already—from spending most of yesterday on the telephone trying to talk a top clothing designer and her manufacturer husband into joining Sampson Enterprises. There was money to be made in children’s wear. He wanted a very large piece of that lucrative pie.

“Daruelle’s skirt?” guessed a curly headed moppet with sequins on her dress and rhinestones on her earlobes.

Miz Rusty shook her head and smiled. “No, there’s no green in it.”

“Chris’s helmet?”

“No purple or blue in that.”

“Katy’s skirt?”

Miz Rusty laughed and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “No blue or green in that. Look again. You can’t miss it.”

Reo winced in response to a sudden shrill squeal of discovery. At once the harem girl rushed forward and grabbed a handful of his designer shirt. “I found it! I found it!” she exclaimed as she yanked.

In a heartbeat, Miz Rusty stood so close that Reo could smell her perfume. A wave of intense wanting washed over him as she gently disentangled chubby fingers from the fabric.

“You’re right, Lauren. You win!” Smiling an apology, Miz Rusty smoothed his shirt by patting it flat against his chest from collar to belt. “Sorry,” she mumbled, before turning her back on him and hustling Lauren back to the others, a matter of three steps.

Reo thanked his lucky stars that she hadn’t felt the pounding of his heart through the material. As it was, she could certainly see the pulse dancing in his neck if she so much as glanced his way again. Fortunately, she didn’t.

He looked at his watch. How long had they been suspended in time? Ten minutes? Fifteen? It felt like forever, and not because of these harmless kids. No, it was the strain of resisting their sexy keeper, a woman Reo knew instinctively could bring him to his quaking knees.

“Who wants to be next?”

“Let him,” replied the child named Danielle, pointing to Reo.

“Yeah,” agreed Preston, the soldier.

At once all eyes were on Reo. He felt sweat pop out on his forehead and wished for a cigarette, an amazing development considering he didn’t smoke. But on second thought, maybe it was natural. He did feel a lot like a prisoner facing a very observant firing squad. He could only pray the pleats in his khaki pants would hide his current state of semiarousal for that firing squad’s captivating captain.

“Would you like to play, Mr. um—” Miz Rusty reached out and grasped the clip of the lost-and-found ID badge, protruding from the pocket into which Reo had thoughtlessly tucked it earlier “—Brad Turner of the mail room?” She clipped the badge to his collar with a take-no-piisoners smile.

As disconcerted by Miz Rusty’s proximity as he was insulted by the mistake, Reo didn’t bother to correct her. Instead, he just shook his head. He’d never played I Spy as a child. Why should he risk it now when his wits had apparently failed him?

“Please?”

The whispered entreaty gave him goose bumps. Well hell. “OK. All right.”

Disgruntled, Reo took his sweet time picking out what he spied. Finally he came to a decision.

“I spy something...red.”

Immediately he was bombarded by guesses—someone’s shirt, someone else’s vest, shoes or hat. Each time, Reo shook his head in the negative and instructed them to “guess again.” He took great comfort in the fact that none of his peers or employees were around to see him acting the fool for this woman. They respected him. He didn’t want that to change.

“I know! I know!” It was Princess Amy, hopping from one foot to the other in the glee of discovery. “Miz Rusty’s hair!”

“Right!” Unable to resist, Reo stepped forward and reached over the children’s heads to tug on a long lock of Miz Rusty’s hair, which was as silky soft as he’d imagined. She blushed—a response that flattered her and sent his pulse to triple digits—then slapped his hand away. “Good for you. Now who wants to be next...?”

Instead of the chorus of me’s Reo expected, there was silence that loudly proclaimed impatience to be free.

“No one? Does that mean you want to play a different game?”

How did she manage her enthusiasm? Reo wondered, noting her ever-bright smile. He glanced at his watch.

Fifteen minutes they’d been trapped. Fifteen minutes that must seem like fifteen hours to the children and felt like fifteen days to him.

What the hell is wrong with the electricity?

On that very thought the elevator lurched into motion... for maybe half a second. Then it stopped again, so abruptly that one of the costumed children was tossed to the floor. Reo and Miz Rusty moved to rescue him at the same time, soundly bumping heads in the process.

“Ow!”

“Oops!”

Screams of fright became a chorus of laughter that lightened the mood more than I Spy or any other kid’s game ever could. Ruefully Reo set the downed child, who wore a goalie mask of all things, back on his feet and assessed him for damages. The boy, who Miz Rusty called Matt, seemed OK.

Obviously taking advantage of the moment, Miz Rusty clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Looks like it’s going to be another few minutes before we get out of here, so why don’t we sing for Brad? Do you know any funny songs?”

They certainly did, and in seconds Reo was treated to a seemingly endless ditty about great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts. The children sang with the enthusiasm and volume of youth. And though Reo’s ears soon begged for mercy, he pretended to enjoy the serenade—more uncharacteristic generosity that amazed him. Clearly Miz Rusty’s magic was as potent for thirty-five-year-old businessmen as it was for the under-six set, if in a slightly different way.

When that song finally ended, they sang another. And when it ended, others, until a solid hour had passed. Covertly Reo assessed their situation. Plenty of air. Plenty of light—though it flickered threateningly now and then. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that a maintenance crew labored to put the elevator in motion again. He just hoped it didn’t take much longer. The mood aboard would surely take a turn for the worst—

“Miz Rusty...Miz Rusty...?”

“What is it, Chad?”

Chad, dressed up like some kind of animal, maybe a bear, tugged her down to his level and then whispered loudly in her ear.