she opened it?”
“Unlikely. The mike didn’t pick up any sound to indicate the buckle was being unfastened.”
“Did it pick up anything?”
“Only a phone call from her mother. They’re expecting her for dinner.”
“Maybe I should wait until she goes out.”
“The LLA won’t wait if they find her first.”
“Right. What’s she doing now?”
“Nothing on the mike except some shuffling sounds. Probably trying to find her way around in the dark.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. I’m going in.”
Abbie balanced on one foot to put on her shoe as she peered through the peephole in the door. She tried to make out the features of the man who stood there, but the beam from the emergency light at the end of the corridor didn’t reach this far. All she could see was a tall, broad-shouldered figure with some kind of tool belt strapped around his hips.
“Who is it?” she called through the door.
“I’m with the power company, ma’am.”
She buttoned her blouse and tucked it into her skirt, thankful that she’d finished her shower before the lights had gone out. The bathroom had no window, so it had been pitch-black, but at least there had been enough light from the dusk filtering through the other windows for her to find some clothes. “That was fast,” she said.
“There’s a problem with the wiring in the building. We’ve traced it to a circuit in your apartment. I need to check it out.”
Water dripped from the ends of her hair onto her shoulders. “What?”
“Do you mind letting me in?”
She opened the door to the limit of the security bar. “Do you have any identification?”
There was a rustle of fabric as he reached for something on his chest. “Here’s my I.D. card.”
She squinted at the card, but all she could make out was a pale rectangular blur. “Sorry, I can’t—”
“Hang on.” He took a flashlight from his belt, clicked it on and directed it toward the card. “This should help.”
The suddenly bright beam made her blink. She looked at the printing on the card. Flynn O’Toole. Sure enough, he was an employee of the power company. She glanced at the small color photo in the corner. Her grip on the door tightened.
Who had ID photos that turned out like that? Even the stark head-on flash couldn’t hurt that square jaw and those high cheekbones. A picture like that should be gracing an ad for designer cologne, not an identification card for the electric company. She raised her gaze to his face.
The photo wasn’t that good after all. He looked far better in the flesh.
Good Lord, but he was gorgeous. Not in a pretty, cover-boy way, but like a man. All man. Those deep-set, thick-lashed blue eyes gleamed with quiet male confidence. His nose was bold and straight, his lips framed by twin lines that etched their way down from the hollows of his cheeks. His hair was black, curling over the tips of his ears and the back of his collar in a way that invited a tousling. In his plaid flannel shirt and his snug-fitting jeans, he looked rugged but approachable, a natural-born heartbreaker.
Abbie wanted to slam the door in his face.
“Ma’am? Would you like to call my supervisor? He’ll verify my ID for you.”
“No, I—” She cleared her throat, thankful for the lack of lighting so he might not notice how she was staring. On the other hand, a man who looked like that would be accustomed to attracting plenty of female attention. Yes, he probably reveled in it, drawing women like mindless, doomed moths to a flame.
It was a good thing she was immune to men like that. That was the advantage of being infected before—it served as a vaccination against future bouts of the same affliction. “Are you sure the problem is in my apartment? I haven’t had any trouble with the electricity until now.”
He took a slim, rectangular device from the pocket of his jeans and held it toward her. “The readings I’m getting on this gauge pinpoint your place.”
She made a show of studying the numbers that were flickering across the screen of the instrument, but it could have been a pocket calculator for all she knew. “I see.”
He hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice and bent his head toward her. “Please, ma’am. I’d like to get this job finished and get home. You see, it’s my birthday.”
The door wobbled as she jerked. More water dripped from her hair to her shoulders and trickled down her blouse. “Your birthday?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re not serious.”
“’Fraid so. I hit the big three-oh today.”
“That’s…odd.”
“Sure is, according to my folks. They claimed I’d never make it this far.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“They’re expecting me for dinner tonight, but I have to finish this job before I can leave, so if you don’t mind…”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to return her gaze to his face. He was smiling. A hopeful tilt at the corners of his lips. She could almost hear moth wings sizzling. “I meant I can’t believe it’s your birthday today. It’s mine, too.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Now that’s a coincidence.” The lines beside his mouth curved as two dimples appeared in his cheeks. “What are the odds?”
Yes, indeed. What were the odds? Having a man who looked like Flynn O’Toole show up on her doorstep was unlikely enough, but sharing something as personal as a birthday with him was beyond strange. It bordered on bizarre.
Was this some kind of cosmic joke? she wondered. Was this fate’s way of pointing out the road she’d almost taken, the very thing she used her schedules and her timetables to guard against? Just as she was about to adjust the best-before dates on the plans for her life, instead of Mr. Right, Mr. Flynn O’Toole shows up at her door with his blue eyes and his dimples like some karmic birthday present….
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she thought sternly. He was only here to do his job. He couldn’t help how he looked.
Abbie tucked her hair behind her ears, then wiped her wet fingers on her skirt. “Did you say your parents were expecting you for dinner?”
His budding smile disappeared. “Hey, just because I’m thirty and spending my birthday with my parents is no big deal.”
Her conscience twinged. He couldn’t help how he looked, she repeated
