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me,” he said.
    Freddy panicked. What should she do now?
    Carpe diem,
her mind shouted again. Heartbeat rising, she started making her way to him, determined another moment would not get away.
    “But I’m sure it was just my imagination,” he continued. “After all these years, if something was going to happen between us, it probably would have by now.”
    Freddy nearly broke an ankle stopping in her tracks. She heard him laugh, his footsteps fading as he walked down the hallway. Her heart thudded to a stop. Now she really knew how he felt when the championship had been snatched out of his hands as she tackled him all those years ago.
    Logan made his way around the gourmet kitchen, opening and closing drawers with absolutely no idea if a flashlight even existed in the mansion. Offering to get one had only been an excuse. The way Freddy looked when the lightning illuminated the room made him feel as though the bolt hit him squarely in the heart. He needed to get out of the room before he did something stupid. Like kiss her.
    He leaned his hip against the granite countertop and let out a long, slow breath, laughing as he did. Imagine that. Him kissing Freddy. She’d probably slap him silly if he tried it.
    Another sudden burst of light washed the room making him think about what a previous bolt of lightning revealed to him upstairs:full lips, closed eyes, all accompanied by a sense of anticipation charging the room. For that one brief moment, it seemed as though Freddy was inviting him to lean forward and make his move.
    But that couldn’t be right.
    Could it?
    He never thought about Freddy as anything more than a good friend. But those few, brief seconds he saw her lips open, awash with the stark white light, she looked both innocent and inviting. He could not take his mind off the way he felt at that moment. The basic and very feral male urge to kiss her came upon him as sudden as the lightning that flashed overhead.
    He gripped the counter with both hands, hoping to channel the raw energy the memory ignited. Was it simply the circumstances making him think of her more like a very appealing woman rather than his friend for those short, fevered moments? Or could he have feelings for her buried under the years of friendship, coming out only now that their sense of familiarity had been tested under unexpected circumstances?
    Still struggling for an answer, he heard the French doors open and turned toward them.
    “Mr. Gabriel?”
    “Yes.” With the dim light outside, Logan could only make out a silhouette.
    A beam of light approached and then ran up the cabinets next to him. “Marty from the crew here. I thought you could use a flashlight. I think lightning hit a transformer. The utility company is on its way.”
    Logan’s eyes adjusted to the added light, and he took the flashlight from Marty’s outstretched hand. “Is Ms. McAllister okay?” Marty asked.
    “She’s upstairs. I told her to stay put until I got back.”
    “The power should be back on within the hour.”
    “Great. I’ll tell her.”
    “Maybe you two should stay together until then,” Marty suggested as he went back outside.
    “Will do.” Logan replied, happy Marty could not possibly see the big smile the suggestion had brought to his face.
    Logan aimed the light ahead of him and walked to the staircase, suddenly hoping the power company was overloaded with outages. Shining the beam on the stairs, he took them two at a time. Another bolt of lightning hit just as he reached the top. The urge to see Freddy bathed in white light again made him almost race toward her suite.
    “Logan, is that you?” he heard her call out when the beam from the flashlight hit the threshold of her door.
    “Yep, unless you’d rather it be one of the crew.”
    “I’ve seen the crew. You’re cuter.” Her voice sounded playful to him.
    “Really now?”
    “Don’t let it go to your head. I didn’t say how much cuter.” She stepped closer to the circle of light.