Blame It On Christmas. Janice Maynard

keys.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They told me this thing isn’t operational.” He stepped forward cautiously. “Stand back. I’ll grab the handle.” That part was easy. Unfortunately, when he threw all his weight into it, nothing moved. “Damn.”

      He heard a rustle as Mazie shifted closer. “Isn’t there a light?”

      “Yeah.” Reaching blindly, he slid his hand along the wall until he found the switch. The fluorescent bulb flickered, but came on.

      Mazie stared at him, eyes huge. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to close it.”

      “I know you didn’t.” His heart raced. Aside from the uncomfortable situation, he didn’t want to get too close to Mazie. The two of them. In the dark. Very bad idea. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be fine.” He tried the handle a second time. Nothing budged. He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call somebody.”

      He stared at the ominous words on the screen.

       No service.

      Of course there was no service. The vault was constructed of steel-reinforced concrete, designed to keep out intruders. And the building itself was of an era when walls were built several feet thick. The nearby coffee shop he frequented had terrible cell service because it also was housed in a historic structure.

      “So you really don’t have keys?” Mazie gnawed her lower lip, her arms wrapped around her waist.

      “I have keys to the building. Not the safe.”

      “Someone will notice we’re missing,” she said. “Gina, anyway. She and I text twenty times a day. What about you? Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

      “I called your brother.”

      Mazie frowned. “Jonathan? Why?”

      J.B. grimaced. “Because he knew I was having a hard time convincing you to sell. I told him you had agreed to at least consider this Queen Street property as an alternative.”

      “I see.” She stared at him. “How often do you and my brother talk about me?”

      “Almost never. Why would we?”

      Mazie shrugged. “Maybe Jonathan will want to know whether or not you convinced me.”

      “If he calls, it will just go to voice mail. He’ll assume I’m busy and leave a message.”

      “Well, that sucks.” She exhaled sharply and kicked the wall. “You realize that if we die here, I’m going to haunt you for eternity.”

      “How can you haunt me if I’m dead, too?” He swiped a hand across his forehead, feeling the cold sweat. Her nonsense was a welcome distraction. He would focus on the woman in touching distance.

      “Please don’t ruin my fantasy,” she said. “It’s all I’ve got at the moment.” She wrinkled her nose. “We don’t even have a chair.”

      J.B. felt the walls move inward. He dragged in a lungful of air, but it was strangely devoid of oxygen. “Fine,” he stuttered. “Feel free to haunt me.”

       Three

      For the first time, Mazie noticed that J.B. seemed decidedly tense.

      “Are you okay?” she asked, moving closer and putting a hand on his forehead.

      She almost expected to find him burning up with fever, but he was cool as the proverbial cucumber. To her alarm, he didn’t move away from her touch or offer even a token protest, and he didn’t make some smart-ass remark.

      “I’m fine,” he said.

      “You’re definitely not fine.”

      She got in front of him and put both hands on his face. “Tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.”

      His entire body was rigid.

      He swallowed, the muscles in his throat rippling visibly. “I’m a tad claustrophobic. I might need you to hold me.”

      Fat chance. Her heart stumbled at his teasing. And then she remembered. When J.B. was eight years old, he’d been playing in a junkyard with some friends and had accidentally gotten closed up in an old refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek. He had nearly died.

      The incident traumatized him, understandably so. His parents had hired a therapist who came weekly to their house for over a year, but some deep wounds were hard to shake.

      She stroked his hair, telling herself she was being kind and not reveling in the chance to touch him. “We’re going to be okay. And I’m here, J.B. Take off your jacket. Let’s sit down.”

      At first she wasn’t sure he even processed what she was saying. But after a moment, he nodded, removed his sport coat, and slid down the wall until he sat on his butt with his legs outstretched. He sighed deeply. “I’m not going to flake out on you,” he muttered.

      “I never thought you would.” She joined him, but it was far less graceful. Her skirt was unforgiving. She shimmied it up her thighs and managed to sit down without exposing too much.

      For an eternity, it seemed, they said nothing. J.B.’s hands rested on his thighs, fists clenched. He was breathing too fast.

      Mazie was no shrink. But even she knew he needed to get his mind on something else besides their predicament. “How are your parents?” she asked.

      J.B. snorted and shot her a sideways glance. “Really, Mazie? I’m having an embarrassingly public meltdown, and that’s the best you can do?”

      “You’re not having a meltdown,” she said. “You’re fine.”

      Maybe if she said it convincingly enough, he would believe her. They were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip with less than twelve inches separating them. It was the closest she had been to J.B. in forever. Close enough for her to catch an intoxicating whiff of his aftershave mixed with the entirely ordinary and yet exhilarating man smell of him.

      He was big and strong and darkly masculine. Her stomach quivered. This was exactly why she normally kept her distance.

      J.B. was dangerous.

      When she glanced toward the ceiling, she saw tiny air vents up above. They were in no danger of suffocating. Even so, J.B.’s response was understandable. Her skin crawled, too, at the thought of being stuck here for hours.

      J.B. was expending every ounce of concentration on not surrendering to the phobia. So any chitchat or small talk would have to be initiated by her. The trouble was, she knew J.B. too well, and not well enough.

      Charleston wasn’t that big a place. Anytime there was a charity gala or a gallery showing or a theater opening, Charleston’s elite gathered. Over the years, Mazie had seen J.B. in formal wear on dozens of occasions, usually with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Not ever the same woman, but still...

      Because he and Jonathan were best buds, she had also seen J.B. half-naked on the deck of a sailboat and at the basketball court and by the beach. If she really applied herself to the task, she could probably come up with a million and one times she had been in the same vicinity as J.B. and yet never exchanged two words with him.

      That was her choice. And probably his. He had been inexplicably cruel to her at a vulnerable point in her life, and she had hated him ever since.

      Now here they were. Stuck. Indefinitely.

      The tile floor underneath her butt was cold and hard. She drew her knees up to her chest and circled them with her arms. J.B. was right beside her. It wasn’t like he was going to look up her skirt.

      She sighed. “You doin’ okay, stud?” His shallow breathing was audible.

      “Peachy.”