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.
HOW COULD AN intelligent woman who could save lives not cook a simple piece of toast without burning it?
Okay, Sarah didn’t usually burn her food, but this wasn’t the first time. But she didn’t recall ever doing so to the point that her alarm went crazy.
How did she get the thing to go off?
Pulling the plug on the toaster oven, she closed the door, rushed to where the alarm blared over the doorway. The baggy sleeve of her way oversized sweatshirt flopped as she fanned a dishtowel back and forth, hoping it would clear the smoke and shut the thing up.
“Stop that,” she ordered the shrill bell, dancing around beneath it as she waved the towel with gusto and thought about how much she detested cooking. Almost as much as she detested this horrible alarm. “Stop. Stop. Stop.”
Was she going to have to call Maintenance? Or maybe they just automatically showed up when one of the apartment’s smoke alarms went off?
A loud knock pounded at her apartment door.
Well, that answered that. Maintenance had just shown up.
Which was a good thing since her fanning wasn’t working.
Only when, flustered, she flung her front door open, Maintenance wasn’t who stood there.
The man she’d been thinking about not thinking about stood there, wearing jeans, a plain white V-necked T-shirt, and nothing on his feet.
Good grief. He’d metamorphosed back into a sexy beast.
Not that he hadn’t been sexy at the hospital.
Clearly, he had, because he’d twitterpated her to the point of burning her toast and filling her kitchen with smoke.
His blue gaze raked over her, obviously satisfying any doubts as to whether or not she was okay, and then he grinned. “Miss me?”
Pretending all was fine, that there wasn’t a loud shrill screaming behind her, she wrinkled her nose at him, wishing she had on her glasses to shield herself from his probing gaze. “No.”
Why on earth would he think she had? Before that morning, they’d never even made eye contact, much less spoken to each other.
His eyes danced with humor. “You sure about that?”
Wishing the stupid ear-piercing alarm would go silent so it would quit rattling her brain, she lifted her chin and stared straight into his eyes, thinking it very unfair that a man had his stunning eyes and long lashes. “Positive. Go away.”
He laughed. “That’s not the sound of your smoke alarm beckoning your friendly neighborhood firefighter your way?”
Oh. That’s what he’d meant?
“No.” If she looked sure enough, haughty enough, despite the obvious alarm blasting in the background, he’d take the hint and leave, right?
Nope.
Looking way too comfortable in his perfectly fitting jeans and just right chest-hugging T-shirt, he arched a thick masculine brow.
“Yes,” she corrected, because, really, it wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize that annoying sound. Pretending otherwise just made her look foolish. “It is my smoke alarm, but it’s not supposed to beckon you. Go home.”
He shrugged as if it was no big deal, then asked, “You don’t want me to turn off your alarm?”
“Could you, please?” she heard herself say, moving aside to let him into her apartment as if his
