She moved toward him, sidestepping the mess in the aisles. He took one of the shirts from her and ripped it out of the package, then wrapped it around one of the broken chair legs. Next, he tied it with a shoelace and then flicked the lighter on. When it sputtered and went out again, he cursed, cracked open another lighter and poured the fluid on his torch, and lit it again. That did the trick.
In the flare of the torch light, he gave her an almost wicked look. “Now we can get a really good look at each other.”
Her stomach fluttered again.
Logan was handsome, she realized. She’d known that he was clean-cut and well built, and he’d worn a suit when she’d stepped into the elevator with him. She didn’t remembered much more, though, and she’d caught glimpses of him here and there, but not a full-on look. The light flickered, outlining the planes of his face with shadows, but he was gorgeous. He had a perfect, straight nose and a gorgeous pair of full lips framed by dark stubble. His jaw was square and strong, and he had dark, arching brows over equally dark eyes. And those big, broad shoulders. A dark, circular tattoo blotted the skin on one biceps, visible through the wet fabric of a white dress shirt that was untucked from his slacks. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his jacket. Not that it mattered—the disheveled look was working wonders for him.
Logan was handsome, all right. She gave him a weak smile and waved her fingers at him. “Hi there. Long time no see.”
The flickering light made his smile in response seem mysterious. “Hello, Brontë.”
The way he said her name made her shiver, just a little. “You could have looked at me before. It wasn’t totally dark.”
“Yes, but now I get to see everything,” he said, studying her with a long up-and-down look. “Not just shadows and suggestion.”
That very blatant look made her feel fluttery all over again. Frowning, she gestured back at the store shelves behind her, feeling a little flustered and ill at ease. “I’m just going to look for some more stuff.”
They continued to raid the store, rummaging through the mess for supplies. There was a cooler in the window display, so Brontë grabbed it and began to fill it with water bottles and sodas from the broken refrigerated drink case. Some had spilled on the floor, and she fished one out of the water at her feet, grimacing at the grit coating it. “I feel like a looter.”
He was digging behind the counter for something. “You are a looter. You are currently in the act of looting.”
“Gee, thanks. Are we going to get in trouble for this?”
“Brontë, I’m the manager. Just consider the tab on me.”
She picked up a handful of candy bars and tossed them into the cooler. “How long do you think it’ll take for them to get here and save us?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in a hurricane before.”
She hadn’t, either. Brontë chewed on her lip, looking down at the water bottles in the cooler. She counted them. Twelve in there and twenty more still in the case. Handfuls of candy bars. What if that wasn’t enough? “What if we’re here for a week? Or longer?”
He tossed several lighters on the counter and turned, hands on his hips, checking the wall behind him for supplies. “Then we get to know each other really well.”
For some reason, that made her blush all over again. Her mind went in an entirely filthy direction with that one single comment.
Part of her hoped they would be rescued very quickly, and part of her hoped that rescuers took their sweet, sweet time so she’d be forced to be around this delicious, half-naked man for quite a little while.
Something sparkled in one of the windows, and Brontë wandered over, her curiosity getting the better of her. One of the glass cases had jewelry in it—she supposed it was for the kind of tourist who wouldn’t be satisfied with a T-shirt or a postcard. The necklaces in the window were pretty enough, but one in particular caught her eye. It was a string of diamonds that, when worn, would spill delicately over the wearer’s neck as if on an invisible chain. It had a dark gemstone in the center that she couldn’t make out and matching earrings.
“Pretty stuff,” Brontë commented as Logan moved to her side with the torch.
“You like that?” he asked.
She grinned up at him. “What woman wouldn’t? It’s really gorgeous, but it probably costs an arm and a leg.”
“Want me to loot it for you?”
Her stomach dropped. She shook her head, taking a step backward. “Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“It’s expensive, Logan. Don’t be ridiculous.”
He snorted. “The diamonds probably aren’t quality and I doubt that it’s worth the markup, but if you want it, I’ll get it for you.”
“No. We’ll get in trouble.”
“Brontë, there’s no one here. And I’m the . . . manager.” He seemed to pause on the word, as if it were unfamiliar.
“I don’t want it, Logan,” she warned him, feeling anxious. “Looting it is wrong, and you’d be crazy to risk being fired over something like that.”
He laughed. “They can’t fire me, but suit yourself.”
To her relief, he let it drop, and Brontë moved carefully away from the jewelry counter. In her experience, expensive gifts were inevitably the result of lies and betrayal. It made her think of her childhood, and the long weeks during which her father—a traveling salesman—had been gone, and her mother’s anxious waiting for him to return. He’d roll back into town after weeks away, with quickly waved-away excuses and a shower of presents for his wife and daughter. Her dreamy mother had always been flattered by the gifts of jewelry and excited to see her husband return home.
Now, as an adult, Brontë knew better. She knew that her father’s absences hadn’t been due to business as much as they’d been to see another woman, a girlfriend on the side. The presents he’d brought home were apologies more than gifts. She’d learned not to trust impulsive presents, because in Brontë’s eyes they were a way of hiding the truth, a distraction. And for some reason she didn’t want to put Logan into the same category as her smiling, lying father.
They hauled a bag of candy, the cooler of water, and a few other bags of miscellaneous supplies back to the stairwell that they’d established as their base of operations, since it was currently the only place they’d found that was above water. Once back at the stairwell, Brontë grabbed a water bottle, climbed a few steps, and sat drinking her fill. When Logan sat next to her, she passed the water bottle to him, holding the torch while he drank.