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Everyone hurried, setting up trays, responding to whatever Sarah told them to do. A nurse asked Jude to step back and he did so, knowing he was in the way while holding Keeley’s arm.
Letting the girl’s wrist go left him feeling bereft. As long as he’d been feeling the warmth of her skin, he could tell himself she was going to be okay, that he hadn’t been too late.
* * *
Exhausted, but running on adrenaline, Sarah went to the private waiting area where she’d had a nurse bring Jude hours ago.
The emergency room had calmed down just enough for Sarah to take a much-needed break. She’d suspected her neighbor would still be in the small private lounge, waiting until he was allowed to see the girl in the pediatric intensive care unit where Sarah had transferred her to once she’d established an airway and stabilized the girl.
Thank God she’d gotten the line in on the first try. Keeley’s lung tissue had already swollen and Sarah had felt the extra resistance.
She’d checked on the girl’s mother and younger sister, who’d also been checked into the emergency department. Apparently, they’d gotten out of the fire much earlier than Keeley as their injuries had been minor and they’d arrived by private car.
The young mother had been allowed to see Keeley for a few minutes, then the worn-out woman and her toddler daughter had left the hospital with a friend as her businessman husband spent a lot of time working overseas.
Sarah couldn’t imagine what the mother was going through, to have lost her home, her things, and to have almost lost one of her daughters.
The woman had just left and, although Keeley wasn’t allowed visitors, Sarah planned to let Jude see the girl if he was still there.
A firefighter? Who would have believed the sexy man she lived next door to was an everyday hero who risked his life to save others?
Not her that morning, for sure.
Good grief, he could have been killed.
Paul, one of her favorite paramedics, had later brought in a pedestrian who’d been hit by a taxi. He’d gone on and on about his buddy Jude and what a real-life hero he was.
A real-life hero who was apparently as dog-tired as she was.
Stretched out in a chair, his eyes closed, Sarah took advantage of the opportunity to freely look at him.
As much as was possible for someone as unbelievably handsome as he was, he looked awful. His hair was matted to his head. He reeked of smoke and sweat and dirty man. His heavy overcoat was in the chair next to the one he slept in.
He needed a shower.
Which, of course, brought her brain back to that morning when he’d been squeaky clean and wrapped in a towel.
She closed her eyes.
No. No. No.
She did not want that image in her mind. Not now. Not when she looked at him and saw a man who’d risked his life to save a little girl.
Not when she saw someone who might have substance beneath those chiseled abs.
She didn’t want to like him.
He was a playboy.
Then again, maybe he went through so many women because of not wanting to get into a serious relationship due to his high-risk job.
No, she corrected herself again. No. No. No. She was not going to make excuses for his womanizing ways.
Wasn’t going to happen.
Only then he opened his eyes and caught her staring.
The intensity in his baby blues warned she might make lots of excuses for this man.
