collapsed and neither one of them survived? He should have gotten help before going back in to look for him, and protected himself somehow.
She stood there with various horrible scenarios running through her mind, each worse than the last, making her feel a little woozy. After several minutes ticked by she decided, nearly hyperventilating, that she had to tell someone so that he wouldn’t be in there alone, knocked unconscious by a slab of concrete or buried under a shower of rubble, and just as she was about to rush to one of the fire trucks, an even more dusty Mateo trudged up out of the wreckage. A small dog was tucked into the crook of his elbow like a football, and Miranda wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or yell at him.
She planted her hands on her hips and sucked in a shaky breath. “Are you out of your mind? You had me worried to death!”
“Unnecessary. But when a beautiful woman worries about me, it’s appreciated nonetheless.” He held up what she could now see was a rather chubby dachshund that was probably brown, though it was hard to tell for sure. “Benny likes it, too, don’t you, buddy?” Mateo scratched beneath the dog’s chin, who managed to feebly wag his tail despite his ordeal.
Miranda smoothed her hand across the pup’s back, smearing the dust around, and her fear and desire to yell at Mateo faded into a smile of her own. “He’s so cute. John will be very glad. How in the world did you find him?”
He stuck two fingers into his mouth, and the shrill whistle was so loud it made Benny squirm and Miranda cover her ears.
“Oh, my gosh! That would make me run instead of come to you. And you do realize your hands are filthy.”
“Eating a little dirt is good for one’s immune system, which you surely know, Dr. Davenport.”
“Yes. Well, I already ate my quota of dirt for the day.” Aware of a ridiculous desire to just stand there and talk with him for hours, filthy and cold or not, she managed to remember that she had to see if the hospital had a big patient load after the collapse. “Gotta go. You want me to find John and tell him? What are you going to do with the dog?”
“Take him home. I’ll call the hospital and have them tell John, and he can find someone to come pick him up.”
“That’s...nice of you.” In spite of her best intentions, her eyes kept wandering from the dog to Mateo’s naked chest beneath his coat, remembering how his skin and body had felt, and she decided she’d better get out of there before he could see exactly what she was thinking. “Well...”
Fixated as she was on his handsome face and beautiful physique, she didn’t even hear the chime of her cellphone announcing a text until his finger pointed to her purse. “That your phone?”
“Oh! Yes. Thanks.” Lord, had he noticed her distractedly, ridiculously, staring at his body? Again? She quickly fished in her bag and read the message. “The hospital says they don’t need me. That there aren’t too many injured, they’re sure it wasn’t a terrorist event, and everything’s under control. So that’s good news.”
“It is.”
She lifted her eyes to his brown ones, and something about the way he was looking at her made her chest suddenly feel oddly buoyant. The thought of going to her apartment and being all alone for the rest of the day pushed that air right back out, but she shook it off. When she wasn’t working, didn’t she spend most of her time alone anyway?
“Well, good luck with the dog and all.” She cleared her throat. “See you at the hospital sometime.”
She turned away from that mesmerizing brown gaze and started walking, then realized she’d have to rethink her route, since the subway she usually rode might be out of commission. She pulled up the subway updates on her phone to check which ones were running and which weren’t, when a large, dirty hand rested on her forearm to stop her in her tracks.
“So where are you going?” Mateo asked.
“Brooklyn. My subway might be open but if not, I’ll just take a taxi.”
“In this mess? It’ll take you hours.”
And wasn’t that the truth? The clogged-up traffic looked even worse than when she’d left the taxi. “Then I’ll go to the hospital after all.”
“Do you have a friend or boyfriend who lives close enough to walk to their place?”
“No boyfriend, and most of my family live on the Upper East Side.”
“I live just a couple of blocks from here. You might as well come with me and Benny and get cleaned up there. I probably have pants that’ll fit you that you could wear home.”
She’d hardly be surprised if a man as hunky as Mateo Alves had clothes women had left at his place, but she wasn’t about to wear any of them. “Thanks, but no. I’ll be fine.”
“Suit yourself. Walking ten blocks to the hospital, covered with dirt, wearing a torn coat and pants with one bare leg exposed in this cold, is going to feel very uncomfortable.” An indifferent shrug made her wonder why he was even asking. “And if you can ride the subway, people will think you’re homeless and want to sit far away from the strangely dusty woman with ripped clothes. Or offer you money.”
She had to laugh at that, but as she looked down at herself, she realized he was right. Not to mention that her leg already felt a little numb from the cold wind. And what if she ran into someone she knew, or a former patient, and had to answer a gazillion questions and have people think she was crazy to run into a collapsed tunnel, just like Mateo had?
She thought about how her sister Penny always accused her of doing everything in her life as safely as possible, and today she’d proved that wasn’t always true. And taking Mateo up on his offer would definitely not be the quiet, boring route either, would it?
“Fine.” Her pulse quickened as she agreed. “I appreciate it.”
“I have a secret reason for asking, you realize.”
Her heart lurched at the wicked glint that suddenly appeared in his eyes, and a whole lot of possibilities swirled through her head. Was she out of her mind to actually go with him? Her eyes glued to his, she breathlessly asked, “What?”
“Benny can’t be returned in his current condition.” He held out the little dog. “I’m hoping you’ll take him in the shower with you to get him washed up as well.”
* * *
Miranda felt warm from head to toe as she shoved her arms into the oversized white robe Mateo had given her before her shower. She had a bad feeling that the heat pumping from her pores was from more than just the hot shower. That it might have something to do with feeling embarrassed that she was naked in Mateo Alves’s bathroom, and that she’d been thinking thoughts that should not have formed in her brain at all.
Thoughts of Mateo coming into the small space while she was in the shower, which of course would be horrifying and creepy in real life. But in her fantasy world, safe behind a locked bathroom door? Very, very exciting. And what woman wouldn’t think about that for at least a second, when the man was the most gorgeous male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on?
Not to mention that there was something about him that made her feel utterly safe. Had even felt absurdly safe in that tunnel with debris showering down on
