She would live, would embrace life, would embrace the city she loved, and maybe if she got lucky, someday she would find someone who could love her the way Jude loved a woman who’d died years ago.
If not, she would still embrace the woman reflected back at her. She wouldn’t hide herself away.
Not because of her mother’s warnings, not because of bad dating experiences, not ever again.
She couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone the way she wanted Jude, but they said time healed all wounds. It looked as if she would be testing that theory.
The first tear rolled down her cheek. She didn’t fight it, knew more were to follow, and they would have, except her phone buzzed.
Was it...? No, it couldn’t be. Neither did she really want it to be. Even if he wanted to continue their affair, she couldn’t. The longer she let this go on, the more difficult recovering would be. She’d done the right thing.
She walked to her purse, pulled out her phone. The hospital. That only meant one thing.
With Charles and Grace’s engagement party, a lot of the ER staff were at the party so staffing was tight. Her phone wouldn’t be rin
ging unless she was needed.
Just as well, a busy night in the emergency room would keep her distracted from her broken heart.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JUDE AND ROGER made their way up a stairwell, one of the few still accessible in the burning apartment complex.
It wasn’t known yet what had started the fire in the older high-rise, but the fire had quickly escalated and now encompassed several floors.
More than a hundred people had been evacuated, but there were many more still missing. How many wasn’t even known at this point. Several had called in to 911 and were trapped on a particular level where part of the floor above had caved in.
A communication center worker had been on the phone with an elderly lady in one of the apartments for about ten minutes prior to losing the connection.
They’d cleared out known victims on lower floors, getting them to the stairwell, then had been informed of the elderly couple and at least one other who were trapped a few floors above them.
Command hadn’t ordered them out yet. “Yet” being the key word because it was coming. Roger and Jude had taken off up the stairwell that so far was still passable. Jude prayed it stayed that way, that they could use it to get the rest of the tenants out.
At least two had died in the fire already. Jude didn’t want there to be a third added to that number and Lord forbid more than that.
But this building had him on high alert. Not that he wasn’t with every fire, but tonight every instinct told him he shouldn’t be there.
Probably his stupid heart whining that he’d walked away from Sarah.
That he’d left with Sarah thinking that he was still in love with Nina.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t in love with Nina.
How freeing it was to think that. To know that.
He was no longer in love with a woman he could never have.
At least, he hoped he wasn’t.
Because the walls Sarah had been throwing between them tonight sure weren’t reassuring. Far, far from it.
How quickly she’d thrown their relationship away.
That bothered him.
But it was his own fault.