Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Hudson

I grabbed my neighbor by the shoulders and steadied her until she found her footing. The flashing lights were disorienting. "You all right?" I raised my voice above the din of the alarm.

"Yes." She placed the meowing pet carrier on the floor and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a shaking hand. "Thank you for catching me, Your Gr—Mr. Talbott." She picked up the cat and stumbled along the evacuation route toward the stairs.

I hurried after her, ready to catch her again if necessary. "You know who I am?"

"Hudson Talbott." Her voice wavered, and she cleared her throat. "Number thirty-five, currently the starting goalie for the San Jose Blazers." Her cheeks flushed pink. "Uh, yeah. I know you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Call me Hudson."

We hustled along the hallway. "Whitney Addison," she said, breathless .

"Let me help you with that." I took the carrier from her trembling hand. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Her throat worked as she swallowed, and she grimaced as if she tasted something bad. "I will be. Let's get out of here. That will help."

I opened the fire door for her, and she slipped through. We made it to the stairs with a stream of neighbors, descended a floor, and emerged from the shady parking garage into a sunny day. The weather was mild for the last week in March, almost the end of hockey's regular season.

Firetrucks screamed down the street, their red lights swirling. They pulled up to the red curb, and the sirens died. The maintenance crew met the fire personnel and conferred, gesturing toward the building. A couple of firefighters grabbed extinguishers off the truck and ran inside.

Whitney and I found an out-of-the-way place on the sidewalk and stood beside each other, watching the activity. I placed the carrier on the ground. "Must not be too serious if they're only going in with extinguishers."

A long sigh escaped her. "That's a relief for everyone involved." She kneeled and peered into the crate. "You okay, Mr. Darcy?" she cooed.

I crouched down. The cat was curled into a ball, shivering. I wasn't a cat person, but even I felt sorry for him.

She poked a finger through the grate and petted his fur. "He's terrified, but there's nothing I can do for him now."

We stood, and the difference in our heights became obvious. Whitney was probably about five-feet, five-inches, yet her head barely reached my shoulders. Long strands of wavy brunette hair rippled in the breeze, blowing back from her fair face.

Warm brown eyes studied me through her eyeglasses. "We might be next-door neighbors, but I don't see you very often. "

"I'm on road trips for half the season."

She nodded. "You're settling in as starting goalie. Congrats on the shutout against Detroit."

"Thanks." Three days and one more win later, I still rode the high from that shutout. For an older goalie traded to the Blazers as the back-up, that game had been the chance to prove myself as the starting goalie. We were so close to clinching a playoff spot. I fisted my hands. I had to continue playing at that level.

The alarm cut off abruptly, the sudden silence a balm. And being outside seemed to help Whitney—she'd stopped shaking.

A maintenance crew member strode over to the crowd and raised his voice. "It was just a small kitchen fire. The fire is out, and the building is safe. You can return to your apartments."

The crowd murmured their relief, and I picked up Mr. Darcy. Whitney and I made our way inside and up the stairs with the rest of our neighbors.

I carried the cat to her apartment. She punched in her keypad code and held the door open for me. "You can set him down anywhere."

I moved past the kitchen and into the living room and set him on a rug littered with cat toys. "Should I release him?"

She looked up from removing a prescription bottle out of her purse. "Please." She placed the bottle on the kitchen island.

Not my business.

I opened the door of the carrier, and the feline streaked into the bedroom, claws scrabbling when he hit the hardwood floor. Whitney only had the one bedroom, as opposed to my two.

Whitney pulled a blue teacup from her purse and strode to a bookshelf beside her couch. She gently placed the cup on a shelf by itself. She fiddled with it to position it just…so.

I walked over and examined it without touching. It didn't have a handle. "What's that?"

"It's a flow blue tea bowl from the 1820s." She ran a finger around the rim.

I raised an eyebrow. "And you had to take it with you? You know you're supposed to leave everything behind and get out as soon as possible."

"My grandmother bought it for me in London." Whitney turned to me, her voice wistful. "I couldn't leave it behind."

I nodded. That I could understand. I couldn't leave my 87-year-old grandfather behind when I came to San Jose last summer, and I moved him into the assisted living community where he'd have company and help while I was on the road.

Gramps. Sure, the wives and girlfriends of the other players looked out for him, but my comp seat beside him remained open.

In stark contrast to the solitary teacup sitting on the shelf, the rest of the bookshelf was packed with books. They were crammed in haphazardly, some stacked on top of others and spilling onto the floor. Among them all, there were two shelves dedicated solely to books by Whitney St. James. "I enjoyed your book-reading the other day."

Her eyes lit up. "Thanks! I was surprised to see you there—what a small world. Was that your grandfather?"

I nodded. Gramps hadn't gotten a chance to meet her, and I knew he would love to. I couldn't deny him anything. "Are you a Blazers fan?"

She laughed. "You couldn't tell by my fangirling?"

I hesitated, afraid my life was about to change dramatically with this one question. "Would you like a comp ticket to tomorrow night's game?"

"I'd love one!" She bounced on her toes.

I nodded. "The ticket will be at Will Call for you."

And I hoped my grandfather wouldn't read too much into it.