Tempting The Beauty Queen. Carolyn Hector
client in a few minutes and Kenzie intended to be here. Funny how he didn’t mention it earlier. She understood the position of a city manager needing to bring in business, but at what cost? Buildings in Southwood were historic. Some of them were built before the Civil War. And he’d scheduled a meeting, knowing she was taking the month of June. “Spiteful bastard,” Kenzie mumbled to herself. Her ex had sworn he would not let their past interfere with working together when he was hired as city manager.
A car sounded off at the end of the street and a couple of high school kids in two different pickup trucks were mock sword fighting with each other. Idle hands, Kenzie thought with an exacerbated sigh. When the drivers spotted Kenzie they honked again and waved. More than likely they were up to something mischievous in the post office. Kids loved to run around in there, regardless of the danger signs. Speaking of which, Ramon didn’t need to be in the building playing around, either. Kenzie reached down and picked up her box of cupcakes and headed inside. Ramon needed to leave.
“Ramon?” Kenzie called out his name. Her voice echoed off the empty walls. An old counter filled with dust split the center of the room. The inside windows were boarded up with old newspapers. Sun damage had destroyed the dates of when the papers were put up.
Footsteps sounded off down the hall just beyond the counter. From old pictures, Kenzie knew there was an elevator. The four-story building was also a playground on Halloween. Kids loved to tell ghost stories about using the elevators and getting stuck between floors, but there was no electricity in the building so Kenzie never believed them.
“Ramon.” She said his name once more.
“Are you following me?” Ramon’s voice sounded through the dark hallway.
“What are you doing in here?” She followed the sound of his baritone voice and swore his footsteps moved quicker and farther away. “Stop playing around in here.”
She finally caught up with him. Sun leaked through the paled paper on the back windows and backlit him. Ramon stood in the elevator car, his back against the wall and his arms folded. He could have easily been a model in an ad for sexiness.
“What?” Ramon asked.
Kenzie placed her hands on her hips and stamped her foot. She hadn’t meant to, but she did. “Get out of here.”
“Are you going to make me?” Ramon offered a cocky half grin and stretched out his arms toward her.
In an attempt to back away, Kenzie slipped on her heels but caught herself in the elevator doors and kept herself from falling. Ramon didn’t have the decency to hide his laugh. “You’re a jerk.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “Why are you following me?”
“I am not,” Kenzie said standing her ground. Her eyes caught the debris on the ground by her foot and as she glanced up the air in front of her began to snow. Snow? A loud rumble above her head sounded off. The moment she craned her neck upward something pulled on her blouse and her body was jerked forward into the elevator. Thunder was followed by a hail of ceiling tiles behind her. Ramon wrapped his arms around her body and turned his back to the falling debris.
Nestled against his chest, Kenzie stood still until the deafening sound stopped. She should have been frightened but she wasn’t. With Ramon’s arms secured around her frame she remained safe.
Ramon leaned backward and tipped her chin up. “Are you okay?”
Lost in his almond-shaped, dark brown eyes, Kenzie nodded her head. “I think so. What happened?”
“The avalanche was the floor collapsing just outside the doors.”
Kenzie peered around his arms. The doors were closed. A light flickered but she didn’t know how. The building had no electricity. Then she realized Ramon held his cell phone over her head. She blinked.
“We’re trapped,” she said rather than asked. The silence was proof. The doors were closed from the fall. They were safe from the falling debris but they were trapped. Kenzie peered again at the doors, which now, in her mind, seemed closer than before. Her eyes traveled up toward the ceiling of the elevator...the low ceiling, which grew lower by the second.
“Hey now,” Ramon cooed, placing his hand on her backside. “Breathe with me.”
“I am breathing.”
“Your breathing is erratic,” he pointed out, pressing his hand with the cell phone against her breast. “Your heart rate is accelerating.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kenzie said with a dry laugh. She pushed his warm hand away from her breast. Her nipples hardened with his touch. Amazing how her body could flip from a mild panic attack to sheer desire. Damn him. “I get claustrophobic sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Ramon chuckled.
“Yeah, well, just when I’m stressed and nearly lose my life,” she snapped.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“What?”
“I just pulled you from danger.”
Kenzie backed away from him. The cool bar on the wall braced her backside. “And I am pretty sure you popped one of my buttons off my blouse.”
Ramon held the light toward her chest to see. As if naked and exposed, Kenzie crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll let the second floor collapse on you.”
“Technically the third floor.”
“What?”
“Why would you walk into a building you know nothing about?” Kenzie shook her head back and forth. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. You know, if you weren’t such a baby and running from me every time you see me...”
“I don’t run from you.”
Kenzie scoffed at him for interrupting her. “Face it, Ramon. You’re scared of a woman like me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Ramon clipped. “I have something to do in here.”
“Like what?”
“I have a meeting with Alexander Ward.”
Dread washed over her. Thank God for the darkness. Heat crept across her face. She was sure a red tint would cover her freckles right about now. “You’re the one he wants to sell to?”
“If the price is right.” Ramon sighed. “And if I can make sure I follow some rules.”
So Alexander had listened to Kenzie’s advice on restoring the old buildings. The fact didn’t ease her irritation. “So you’re just going to buy up every important building in my life.”
“Here we go,” groaned Ramon.
“Here we go nothing, Ramon.” Kenzie bared her teeth in the dark. “You bought my family’s historic home.”
“I bought a business, Kenzie.”
When she heard the tone of his voice Kenzie’s hands went to her hips. “Are you mocking me?”
“No, I am stating a fact. I am a businessman. It goes with the territory and let’s face it, you weren’t in the position to buy the place.”
Though his words were true, it didn’t take the sting out of hearing them. It didn’t take the threat of tears rimming her eyes when Maggie once pointed out that Kenzie didn’t have...what was it she said? A pot to piss in to buy the place. Kenzie credited the plantation home for having sparked her love of history. She delved into the Swayne family tree and its contribution to Southwood. The Swayne family had lived there before the Civil War and harvested a pecan farm. Folklore said the family gave up the home in order to save the farm, which worked in their favor. To this day Swayne Pecans was the highest quality pecan seller in the States; it was passed on from generation to generation and still run today by her father, Mitchell Swayne, and his brothers. Technically she’d never lived