married cast a shadow on their vow. Surely neither of them could possibly make the fall into love. Not when they kept their eyes open and their hearts closed.
Yep, heart firmly closed. They were safe that way, totally and completely safe.
TWENTY-FOUR exhausting hours later, again just before dawn, Nicole dragged her sorry, aching body back up the three flights of stairs to her loft apartment.
It was dark again, or still. It seemed she lived in the dark.
Work had been especially brutal. An unexpected heavy fog had created a pile-up on Highway 5 South. As a result of the forty-two car accident, she’d been in emergency surgery all day, without a break to so much as sneeze. She’d removed two spleens, pinned four legs, reset more shattered ribs than she could remember, and had delivered twins in an emergency caesarian.
Then she’d been asked to stay another shift, and after a quick nap when she’d dreamed of being chased by a white wedding dress and cake-where had
Now all she wanted was food, a shower and a bed, and not necessarily in that order. She had her Taco Bell bag clutched to her chest, her mouth watering in anticipation of the four regular tacos and extra-large soda. Not the usual breakfast of champions, but food was food and she’d been craving spicy since her second surgery.
And then after the food…oblivion. At least until she had to be back at the hospital again, which happened to be that afternoon for a staff meeting, and then to cover someone else’s shift that night. She already had four surgeries lined up, ready to go.
Had she remembered to grab the hot sauce? She hoped so, she was pretty certain her kitchen-if you could call the hole in the wall that-didn’t have any food in it except for something that had gone green a week ago, and-
“You little buggering piece of sh-” A rustling sound, followed by the squeal of metal on metal, blocked out the rest of that shocking statement made in a deep, Irish brogue. “I’m going to…damn me again, you worked at the last job, so bloody hell if you won’t work here…”
This was spoken so calmly, so confidently in that accent, it took a moment to decipher that the man was making some sort of threat.
Fine. Nicole was in the mood to kick some ass, as long as her Taco Bell didn’t get crushed. Once in a while, having an IQ higher than her weight had some benefits. During med school she’d needed an outlet for all the technical work so she’d taken karate. Like everything she set her mind to, she’d excelled.
Bring it on. She took a defensive stance, then dropped it to set her food down on the top step. No need to risk breakfast. She moved up the last step. There was nothing on this level but her loft and the attic. Nothing but the narrow hallway, which at the moment had a man lying full-length in it. His arms were outstretched, and he held some sort of measuring tool along the scarred wooden planks, swearing the air blue in the most interesting of Irish lilts.
Nicole had to laugh. Or she would have, if she could have taken her eyes off that long, lean, hard male body stretched out so enticingly on the floor in front of her. He had legs from here to Timbuktu, covered in Levi’s that most effectively accented the muscles in his thighs and calves.
And then there was his butt, which was very lovingly cupped in that worn denim. His shirt had ridden up, showing a good amount of tanned, damp skin stretched taut over the rippling sinew of his lower back. The rest of it wasn’t bad either, smooth and sleek in the plain light-blue T-shirt that invited her to Bite Me in bold black letters.
In spite of the scare he’d given her, she grinned. Bite Me was her official motto. “Um…excuse me.”
His arms, stretched over his head, didn’t drop the strange gadget in his hands, which was sending out red lighted bleeps. In fact he didn’t do anything but sigh. “Be a luv,” he said in a voice deep and husky as sin but suddenly utterly devoid of the accent. “And hand me my notes?”
Nicole, still in her defensive stance, craned her neck and saw a small notepad at his hip. It looked as if it had been roughly stuffed in and out of a pocket on a regular basis.
Apparently she hesitated a hair too long, because he pushed up to his elbows and turned his head, giving her a glimpse of jet-black hair cut so short it stuck up in spikes, hitting her with the lightest, most crystal-clear blue eyes she’d ever seen.
He took one look at her with her fists still up, her legs slightly bent and let out another sigh, rubbing his jaw. “We going to duke it out over a notepad then?”
She dropped her fists to her sides, and, keeping her eyes on the most gorgeous stranger she’d ever seen, she bent for her Taco Bell bag. “Who are you and why were you swearing in my hallway?”
“Heard that, did you?” He flashed a grin. “I don’t suppose you’d not repeat any of it to the owner? She specifically said no swearing in her hallways.”
Hmm. Nicole was surprised Taylor hadn’t put this man under lock and key in her bedroom, given her fondness for horizontal gymnastics, and the fact that sexuality rolled off this man in waves.
With one smooth motion, he came to his feet, startling her anew because, granted, she was on the shrimpy side of average height, but he and his hard-as-granite body had to top six feet by several inches.
Which meant her head, if she lifted her nose to nosebleed height, maybe came to his broad shoulder. Between their height discrepancy and her sudden, startling attraction to him, she felt defensive. She hated feeling defensive. It tended to put her on the offensive. Taking one step back, she balanced her weight on the balls of her feet, once again ready for anything.
“Wouldn’t have used that language if I’d have heard you coming.” A bit chagrined now, he cocked his head and scratched his jaw, which, judging by the dark shadow there, he hadn’t shaved in a few days. “Went and startled you, I see.”
She narrowed her eyes. Yep, his accent was gone, but there was something stilted about how he sounded now, as if he were hiding something.
She knew well enough about hiding secrets, but didn’t like it when others did the same. “Answer my questions, please.”
As she’d raised an accusatory finger directed toward his very fine chest, he lifted his hands in surrender. “No need to shoot, I’m just the architect. Ty Patrick O’Grady at your service.”
“You’re the…architect.”
“For the building here. It’s going to be renovated.” As if to prove he was harmless-harmless, ha!-he propped up the wall with his shoulder and gave her a disarming little half smile that sent sparks of awareness shivering down her spine. “Needs an architect before anything else, you know,” he said. “Turns out this place is a historical monument, and is in desperate need of some serious structural repair.”
As the place was smack dab in the middle of elegant, sophisticated South Village, where the rich came to play, and everyone else came to pretend to be rich, Nicole decided she could buy that. Especially since this particular building was the current eyesore of the entire block.
Taylor had been having one expert or another through here for weeks in anticipation of a major renovation. “So you’re working up a bid for the owner? Suzanne?” she asked, watching him carefully.
Now he smiled, slow and sure. “No, not Suzanne.
A peewee? He’d just called her a peewee? She’d give him peewee.
He lifted one jet-black brow at the narrowing of her eyes, and dared to smile at her obvious temper. “Want to see my ID or are you just going to clobber me with that lovely smelling Taco Bell bag?”
“What happened to your accent?”
His face went curiously blank. “What accent?”
“You had an Irish accent. Are you an immigrant?”
“Yep, just got off the boat from Australia, mate.” He grinned. “Or maybe that was…” His accent went from Aussie to Austrian in a heartbeat. “From another continent entirely.”
A smart-ass. “It’s awfully late to be working on a bid.”
“You mean early, don’t you?”
That might be; she had no idea whether she was coming or going. “Whichever. Why are you here now?”
“I’m what you’d call a busy man…now, darlin’, you’ve got me so flustered, I’ve gone and missed your name.”
