A Firefighter in Her Stocking

“What?” He sounded truly surprised. “I thought you would have done so first thing.”

“I just walked in the door from work,” she reminded him, pulling off her shoes and tucking her feet up under her on the sofa.

“Busy day?”

“I work in the emergency department at Manhattan Mercy. Every day is a busy day.”

“Touché.”

“Speaking of which, are you related to my boss?” She’d almost asked Charles today, but hadn’t wanted to risk his asking why she wanted to know. She could have just said she lived next door to Jude, but she’d been afraid Charles might see things she didn’t want seen.

There was a moment of silence, then Jude said, “He’s my cousin.”

Jude hadn’t asked who she meant, which meant he’d already made the connection. Of course he had. He’d seen her at the hospital where his family was practically royalty.

“I thought you must be related. Your eye color is so similar to his. You should have told me. Might have helped your cause to mention your relationship to Charles. I’d be hard-pressed to name a man I admire more.”

There was another brief silence, then, rather than take advantage of the opening she’d given him, he ignored her compliments about his cousin and said, “Try on your dress, Sarah.”

She frowned at her phone.

“Why are you changing the subject? I adore Charles. If I had family of the caliber of Charles Davenport I’d make sure the whole world knew we were related.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re a Davenport the whole world tends to know a lot about you, whether you want them to or not.” His voice had lost its happy edge and had taken on a dark one.

Apparently, Jude did not want to discuss his family with her. Fine. So they weren’t that kind of dating. Not the kind that shared about their family and met each other’s families and were invited to family functions.

Well, that was good to know. Helped her keep things in perspective.

Not that she wasn’t planning to do that already.

She knew they were only temporary.

“I’m not going to try on my dress until after I’ve taken a shower.” Maybe because she had hospital grime on her. Maybe because she was feeling contrary. “And then, I still might not tonight.”

Her bets were leaning toward the latter.

“If you don’t then I’ll question if you’re female.”

The teasing tone she was used to was back and a tightness inside her unwound.

“I’m definitely female. Been that way my whole life,” she assured him, glad that the dark edge had left his voice as quickly as it had appeared. “But whether the dress fits or not really isn’t relevant, because even if it’s a perfect fit, I’m not sure I’ll wear it. It’s not my usual style.”

* * *

The dress was a perfect fit and Sarah was wearing it.

At the moment.

She’d contemplated changing a dozen times. Every time she’d walked to her closet and tried to come up with something else to wear to her Broadway show date, she’d not seen anything to tempt her to change.

Instead her gaze would fall on the black dress she’d worn the last time she’d planned to go to see Phantom of the Opera and an uneasy feeling would twist her gut.

Maybe she should have spent the day shopping.

Instead, she’d done laundry, cleaned her apartment, bought groceries. All the things she typically did on her day off even when she didn’t have a date with her hunky neighbor.

Her very handsome neighbor whom she’d not seen since he’d kissed her goodnight two nights ago.