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He’d noticed her buried beneath her coat, scarf, and hat. The memory of how his eyes had glinted when he’d looked at hers that morning assured that.
He’d immediately recognized her at the hospital. Sans hat, coat, and scarf, even.
Sure, he had seen her in the apartment hallway a few times, but he’d never looked at her prior to that morning, and when he had looked, he’d noticed.
Despite all the reasons he shouldn’t have—like that she’d been hidden beneath a dozen, figurative and literal, layers and that he’d been with another woman.
“You’re a complicated man, Jude.”
He laughed. “Me? Complicated? I’m the least complicated Davenport you’ll ever meet.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. You have so many aspects to how you really are you make my head spin.”
That was why she felt a little dizzy when looking at him, thinking of him. There couldn’t be any other reason.
“What you see is what you get,” he pointed out, as if that somehow made his claim true.
She knew better.
“Every time I see you, I see something different.”
That seemed to intrigue him. “In what way?”
“For instance, right now, you are the very opposite from the man who stayed at the hospital with Keeley.”
With a look of disappointment, he shook his head in denial. “I’m exactly the same man who stayed with Keeley. What’s ‘very opposite’ is what’s on the outside.”
“Explain,” she said, hoping he would because she knew his doing so would give her insight he rarely revealed.
“What you see on the outside tonight is what you lump into being a Davenport. That’s not who I am.”
“You’re not a Davenport?”
“By blood, yes, but I’m not like my family.”
“In what ways?” Because she’d swear he was a lot like her boss. A good man, only Jude was a whole lot sexier than his handsome cousin could ever hope to be.
“I don’t fit in with them, Sarah. Neither do I want to.”
“More of a ‘march to the beat of your own drum’ kind of man?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. From an early age, I knew I wasn’t going to grow up to make the family proud.”
Which sounded odd to Sarah because he was a man who risked his life on a regular basis. Surely that he was so heroic made his family proud?
“Tell me about growing up as a Davenport,” she said, because she wanted to know everything there was about him, to understand why he didn’t think he belonged in his prestigious family.
He shrugged. “Not much to tell that you couldn’t read in the papers or assume about the kid of a wealthy family. I went to all the right schools, did all the socially expected things of the wealthy, and was fairly miserable.”
“A poor little rich kid kind of thing?”
He snorted. “I guess. But don’t feel sorry for me. My parents loved me. Still do. They’re just waiting on me to get my wild ways out of my system and take my right place within the family.”
“Which is?”
“Not being a firefighter.”
“Is that why you do it?”
