A Firefighter In Her Stocking

“They’re not bright and upstanding citizens.”

“For all you know about them, they could be.”

“I know they spent the night with a man who used them so that checks bright right off their list of attributes.”

“Sex for mutual pleasure isn’t my using them any more than it is their using me.”

“So it’s a case of mutual using and that somehow makes it okay? Keep fooling yourself if you want, but there are some of us smart enough to know better.”

He was standing so close to her now that he was looking straight down into her eyes, was tempted to remove her glasses so he could more fully see into their depths.

“I suppose a really pessimistic, prudish person might see mutual pleasure that way.” He egged her on, liking the spark his words elicited.

“And who are you? Mr. Optimism? Going around spreading happiness and cheer?” she scoffed with an exaggerated eye roll. “More like spreading something else with how many different women I’ve seen come out of your apartment.”

His lips twitched. “You keeping tabs?”

“Hardly, but I’m not blind.”

Arguable with those ugly glasses she wore.

“For the record, I’m not spreading anything.” He wanted the record straight. He wouldn’t let himself delve into why it mattered, but he needed her to know the truth. “I’m a safety kind of guy. Always.”

“Who runs into burning buildings when everyone else is running out? Yeah, try selling me another one.”

“Someone has to do it.”

Her chin tilted upward and her gaze didn’t waver behind the thick glasses. “Good thing there’s you.”

“Yeah, good thing.”

* * *

A bone-weary Sarah ninja-ed down the hallway and stealthily let herself into her apartment, pausing in her open doorway to glance at Jude’s closed door.

So much had happened since that morning when he’d been standing in that doorway.

He’d been flirting with her at the hospital.

She should have checked him for hypoxemia-induced psychosis related to smoke inhalation.

Because no way was he in his right mind.

Or maybe it was her who wasn’t in her right mind.

Maybe she’d accidentally inhaled some anesthesia or hallucinogenic medication that was messing with her head.

Something was messing with her head.

More like someone.

Because Jude’s teasing and hot looks refused to leave her mind even long after he’d left the hospital.

For the rest of her shift and an hour into the next when she’d stayed to help catch up the overload of patients, she’d battled with the facts that Jude was a womanizer, an incurable flirt, heroic when he’d rushed into a burning building to save Keeley, and sweet when he’d waited at the hospital.

Heroic. Sweet. Not adjectives she’d have ever thought she’d attach to the incorrigible towel-wearing man from that morning.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced toward his closed apartment door again. Was he home?

Should she check on him, make sure he was all right, that the smoke truly hadn’t gotten to him, that he’d rehydrated well?

Then again, he might not be alone and the absolute last thing she wanted was to see Jude Davenport with another woman twice in the same day.

Especially after he’d so blatantly flirted with her.

Especially after, despite her best attempts not to, she’d so blatantly liked his flirting.

So, her neighbor had a few redeeming qualities.

That didn’t mean they should become friends or have anything to do with one another.

They shouldn’t.

Best thing she could do was forget today had even happened and stay far, far away from the man at all costs.

Determined that she was going to do exactly that, Sarah quietly closed her apartment door.

She was going to shower, eat whatever she could find and quickly prepare, sleep, and not think about her neighbor.

* * *

After he’d left the hospital, Jude had returned to the fire hall, showered, filled out appropriate paperwork, then come home to make himself something to eat.

He’d had plans with friends, but had opted to cancel, deciding he’d rather have a simple meal at home, a glass of wine, relax, and enjoy his apartment’s amazing view of the city he loved so much.

Jude enjoyed cooking, enjoyed throwing ingredients together that pleased his senses and filled his stomach. He’d never been formally trained, but was pretty good. Even Nina had thought so.

Nina. She’d snuck into his thoughts too often today. Why?

Then again, thinking he could go to the hospital where Charles worked and not think of his cousin’s late wife was foolish. After all, hadn’t Jude introduced the woman he had been in love with to his cousin and she’d fallen head over heels for the emergency room doctor instead?

That Nina had fallen for Charles, rather than Jude, had never sat well, had ruined his friendship with Nina and left him on edge around his cousin. That feeling hadn’t gone away after Nina and Charles had married. If anything, it had gotten worse.

Nina trying to repair the damage to their friendship hadn’t helped. Feeling betrayed, angry, Jude had refused to have anything to do with her. They’d fought and never spoken again.

Nina’s heartbreaking death due to complications from giving birth to twins had left an inconsolable hole in Jude’s heart that bled anew every time he saw Charles so he avoided him. Grief, guilt, anger, so many emotions ran rampant when his past collided with the present. Thankfully, he’d not bumped into his cousin during the hours he’d been at the hospital waiting on news of Keeley.

Which brought his mind back to who he had bumped into at the hospital.

His uptight neighbor.

Confusing, plain Jane Sarah Grayson who wasn’t really so plain beneath her attempts to appear to be.

An emergency room doctor.

Like Charles.

Pulling the baking dish out of his oven with a potholder, Jude lifted the lid and made a small slice into the chicken. Almost done. Another fifteen minutes or so and it would be perfect.

Restless from thoughts of Nina, of his intriguing neighbor, from life, Jude walked into his living room, meaning to stand at his floor-to-ceiling glass windows to stare out at the New York City skyline.

Instead, he frowned and strained to figure out what the noise was that he could barely make out.

Then it hit him.

A smoke alarm was going off in the unit next to his.

Sarah’s apartment.

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