A real-estate agent.

He knew this with sudden certainty and shook his head in disgust. The bricks were crumbling. Some were missing. The place could collapse with one good gust of wind.

Who could possibly want to buy it?

And why would anyone go wandering around in it? Muttering to himself, he pounded on the door, waiting to face whatever idiot had decided to go into an unsafe building.

No one answered.

Curious now, Dax walked all the way around the building, calling out as he went, but only silence greeted him. Even the woods seemed empty on this unseasonably warm autumn day.

With a resigned sigh, he moved back around to the front, and examined the weak lock. “Juvenile,” he decided with disgust for whoever the owners were.

With a pathetic barrier like this, they were asking for trouble. It took him less than thirty seconds to break in. The large door creaked noisily as he thrust it open and peered inside. “Hello?”

Complete darkness and a heavy mustiness told him there was little to no cross ventilation, which probably meant no alternative exit.

It was every bit as bad as he’d thought-a hazardous nightmare.

He propped open the front door with a rock and entered. If no one answered in the next minute, he’d go back to his truck for a flashlight, but he figured by now, whoever had been inside would be more than happy to get out.

“County Fire Inspector,” he called loud and clear. “Come out, this place is dangerous.”

A door opened on the far side of the warehouse, and he frowned. “Hey-”

The door slammed. Swearing, he ran toward it, yanked it open.

Stairs.

Far below, he saw the flicker of a light and swore again. “Wait!” He stepped into the stairwell, angry at himself now for not stopping to get his own flashlight, because he couldn’t see a thing. “Stop!”

Those were the last words he uttered before the quake hit, knocking him to his butt on the top steel stair.

Born and raised in Southern California, Dax had experienced many quakes before. He considered himself seasoned. Still, it was unsettling to be leveled flat without warning, his ears echoing with the roar of the earth as it rocked and rolled beneath him.

The shaking went on and on and on, and he lost his bearings completely. He could see nothing, which disoriented him, and he hated that. Beneath him, the stairs rattled and shook violently. He held onto the rail for all he was worth, not even attempting to stand.

“Don’t give,” he begged as he clenched onto the steel for dear life. “Just don’t give, baby.”

At least a six-point-zero, he decided with some detachment, as he waited for the world to right itself again.

But it didn’t. He upgraded mentally to a six-point-five.

He heard a roar, then the crash of tumbling bricks, which was a bad thing.

Very bad.

As he ducked his head to his knees, protecting the back of his neck with his hands, heavy debris tumbled down around him.

A new fear gripped him then-the building couldn’t withstand the movement. The whole thing was going to go and, in the process, so was he.

Dax prayed fervently for the place, mostly the staircase that he sat clinging to, hoping, hoping, hoping, but with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew the ancient building couldn’t hold up to this kind of jarring.

It was going to collapse and there were two floors above him.

Dead meat sitting, that’s what he was.

A metallic taste filled his mouth and he realized he’d bitten his tongue, hard. Half expecting his life to flash before his eyes, Dax was surprised that all he could think of was his family. They wouldn’t know where to find his body, and that would destroy his mother.

His sisters would never be able to set him up again.

Then the bottom dropped out from beneath his world, and he fell.

And fell.

As he did, he heard a scream.

2

DAX LANDED HARD, on his already bruised butt.

The hit jarred him senseless for a moment, and the all-consuming dark further confused him. He remembered the destruction of the stairwell he’d been on and knew that meant big trouble when it came to getting out.

He also remembered the scream.

“Hello! Fire inspector,” he called out roughly. In the blackness, he quickly rose to his knees, then coughed and gagged on a deep breath of dust and dirt.

Not being able to see, he felt disoriented, but his professional training and innate need to help others quickly cleared his head. “Hello?”

“Over here!”

Female. Hell, he thought, scrambling as fast as he could over what felt like mountains of brick and steel. The collapsed stairwell, he realized. “I’m coming!” His lungs burned. “Where are you?”

“Here.” He heard her choke and sputter on the same dirt he’d inhaled. “Here!” she cried louder, just as he reached out and touched her leg.

“Oh!” Clearly startled, she pulled back.

But Dax was determined, and afraid for her. Had any of the falling debris struck her? Gently but firmly, he closed in, and feeling his way, streaked his hands over her.

She made an unintelligible sound.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he carefully and methodically checked her arms, silently cursing his lack of a flashlight. He ran his hands over her legs, during which he had the thought that even a saint-something he most definitely wasn’t-would have recognized what a fine set of legs they were. Long, lean, toned and bare except for a silky pair of stockings.

“Hey, stop that!” Hands slapped at him, and when he got to her hips, she went wild, scooting back and kicking out.

He caught a toe on his chin.

A toe that was covered in a high heel pump, if he wasn’t mistaken. And for the second time in so many minutes, he saw stars. “Stop, I won’t hurt you,” he told her in the same calming, soothing voice he’d used to placate hundreds of victims. No broken bones, thank God.

“Back off then.”

“In a minute.” He gripped her narrow waist in his big hands. “Are your ribs okay?”

“Yes! Now get your paws off me while I find my damn flashlight.” She shifted away from him, and then promptly let out a low, pained gasp at her movement.

Immediately he was there, reaching for her. “Let me,” he demanded quietly, running his hands up her waist, over each individual rib with precision and care. Nothing broken there, except his own breathing because there was something inexplicably erotic about touching a woman he’d never seen. Though he couldn’t see her, he sure could feel her, and she was something; all feminine curves, soft skin and sweet, enticing scent.

He felt her cross her arms over her chest, and as a result, the back of his knuckles brushed against the plumped flesh of her breasts.

At the contact, she made a strangled sound, then shoved him. “Not there!”

Her shoulders seemed fine, if a little petite, so did both arms, but he could feel the telltale stickiness on one of her elbows, which he’d missed before. Maybe it had just started bleeding.

Everything else vanished as his training took over. “You’ve cut yourself.” Concern filled him because they were dirty, with no immediate way out, and he had no first-aid kit. Infection was imminent.

“I’m fine.”

Her fierce independence made her seem all the more vulnerable, and as all victims seemed to do, she tugged at something deep inside him. So did her cool voice, because in direct contrast to that, he could feel her violent trembling. He ripped a strip of material off his T-shirt and tied it around her arm to protect the cut from more dirt.

She was still shaking.

“You okay?” Damn, he wished he could see her. If she went into shock, there was little he could do for her, and the helplessness of it all tore at him.

“I just want out of here,” she said, slightly less icily then before.

“Are you cold? Let me-” He reached for her, but she shifted away.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

It amazed him how calm she sounded. Dax’s sisters were all equally loved, but also equally spoiled rotten. They were never quiet, never calm. And certainly never in control. If a fingernail broke, if it rained on a new hairstyle, if Brad Pitt got married, the world came to an end.

It wasn’t a stretch for Dax to admit that the women he dated-and since women were a weak spot for him, he dated a lot-were much the same.

But this woman in front of him, the one he couldn’t see, could only feel, was an enigma to him.

Again, she pushed away.

He heard her struggle to her feet. “Hey, careful,” he urged.

“I’m not going to faint.”

The disdain in her voice told him what she thought of that particular weakness.

“I’m not,” she added to his silence. “I had a flashlight. I want it now.”

At that queen-to-peasant voice, he had to laugh. “Well, then. By all means, let me help you find it.” Stretching out, he felt his way along the floor, painstakingly searching for the light with his fingers. “You’re a hell of a cool cucumber, you know.”

“It was just an earthquake.”

“Yeah well, that was one hell of an earthquake.”

“Do you always swear?”

“Yes, but I’ll try to control myself.” His back to her, he closed his fingers over the flashlight. Though the bulb flickered and was nearly dead, it came on.

Looking at the situation before him, he let out a slow breath and swore again.

Coming up behind him, she made a sound of impatience. “I thought you were going to control yourself-Oh.” She paused. “This isn’t good.”

“No.” Grim reality settled on his shoulders like a solid weight as he surveyed the situation in the faint light before him. “Not good at all.”