Page 2 of Meet Me in Montreal

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Thank you.”

Santino had never seen her before. She must be new. She was smiling at Cap, then Angelo and then at him, suddenly touching her bonnet with a look of embarrassment washing over her face. She plucked at her tank top while his eyes ran down from her luscious breasts to the thin, worn sweatpants hugging her mouthwatering ass and thighs.

“Yeah, it was supposed to be a quick round trip to take out the garbage,” she said with another embarrassed laugh.

“No, you look good,” he said without thinking. “Nah, seriously. You look good. Really good.”

He’d been told he wasn’t college material, but fuck, did he have to sound like he only knew one word?

“Thanks, I guess,” she responded, giving him a suddenly shrewd look. Her gaze went from his eyes to his lips while she rubbed her arm absentmindedly.

“Are you new? Never seen you in here before.”

“I just moved in this week. I guess this is my welcome to the building,” she said wryly, gesturing toward the elevator.

“I know. My grandmother lives here. Greta Donahue in 2H.”

“Oh, I’ve met her. She’s a little feisty lady,” she said pleasantly.

“Yeah. I’m here a lot. So, if you see me around, you know…” He was going to assure her he wasn’t a stalker, but he had a strong feeling that was going to end up a lie. “Anyway, I’m Santino. Everybody calls me Tino, but you can call me whatever you want.”

Her lips pulled at the corner with sarcasm but then she smiled at him, and damn if the moonlight outside didn’t shine a little brighter in the dingy lobby of this one-hundred-year-old broken-down building.

“Okay, Santino. I’m Vanessa.”

Santino was used to being the loud one in an already loud family, the guy who could talk his way in or out of any situation, but with her? He was tongue-tied again.

Vanessa sized him up with those pretty, almond-shaped eyes. Was he imagining heat stirring and flaring in that long gaze? Maybe. She scanned his six-foot-one frame, pausing when he flexed the muscles of his arms and chest in what he hoped looked like a casual stretch while the others talked and packed up their gear.

Women flirted with them all the time on light calls like this, but he’d been warned to keep it professional, and he did. Never flirted back, never let girls pass him a number while on duty. He didn’t even date the nurses at the hospital, the EMS workers, or the few firefighting women at the station.

When he’d taken the oath, his father’s warning had been serious. “Do not ever do anything to tarnish the Donahue name.”

His family, his superiors…with the exception of his sister, Gina, none of them believed he took this job or anything else seriously. His brothers had a running bet, not onifhe’d quit butwhen. There was every expectation he’d take his trust money from their mom’s side of the family and fuck off to go partying for the rest of his life like a useless asshole. He’d spent the last four years trying to prove everybody wrong.

And then there was the thing with Antoinette…

So, despite every instinct demanding that he talk to this woman and ask her out, swear his undying love, and offer to father her children, he reined in his mouth before it got him into trouble.

Angelo nudged him. “Hey, time to go.”

Tipping his helmet to her, Santino said, “Have a good night, miss.”

“Thank you,” she replied with sincere gratitude shining in her eyes.

He smiled at her again and left, trailing after the others in a daze. A seed had been planted inside him, someplace deep in his heart that was suddenly soft and broken open to her and only her.

He was quiet on the way back to the station, enduring the insults and the teasing Angelo and his buddies subjected him to about the bits of conversation they’d overheard.

“What the hell was that?” Angelo asked while they were kicking off their boots.

“Nothing.”

He took off the rest of his gear and escaped upstairs to the bunk room. Sitting down on his assigned bed, he pulled out his phone and pressed the button for Nico’s number. “Yo, Nico.”

It sounded like he was at Sully’s Bar. Over the loud music coming through on his end, Nico shouted, “What’s up?”

Rubbing his hand over his own short, spiky, blond hair, Santino couldn’t stop smiling, excitement bursting in his chest. “I, uh…I think I just met my wife.”

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