"Annabel, is it?" Patsy's smile was shrewd and knowing. "Sure and she's wormed her way in good an' proper, hasn't she?"
"Do I interfere in your romances?" Cole snapped, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could call them back. But it was too late for that, of course.
"Oh, ho!" Patsy chortled. "So ye admit ye've fallen head over heels for the lass!"
"I'm admitting no such thing!" Cole snatched his cap off his head in frustration. "I just . . . I'm fond of her, I suppose, but I only met her today. . . You can't seriously think that I would be so foolish . . ."
Patsy folded his arms across his chest and said smugly, "For every man in the world, there's a woman who doesn't have t' do a blessed thing except look at him to make him lose his senses. All ye have to do is be around her, even for a minute, and ye can't think straight anymore. You're lost, lad. 'Tis hopeless."
"That's insane. What about you? You're usually courting a dozen women at the same time. Are you saying that you're immune to this mysterious power you seem to think females have?"
Patsy laughed. "Immune? Saints above, lad, I'm an Irishman! I'm the most vulnerable of all."
Cole stared at his friend and fellow fireman. "You mean you're genuinely in love with all those women you've got on your string?"
. "Of course I am! How do ye think I was able to recognize the symptoms so easy in you?"
Cole took a step back, thunderstruck. In love with Annabel Lowell? He couldn't be! He had known her less than twelve hours. In order to accept what Patsy O'Flaherty was saying, he would have to believe in something as nebulous and improbable as love at first sight. Such things simply didn't happen.
Did they?
Cole was saved from having to answer that question by the sudden, shrill sound of the fire bell going off. Without even thinking, he and Patsy dropped everything and turned to grab their gear.
Chapter 7
Annabel stretched luxuriously. She knew she ought to get up, but it felt so good to simply lie here on her belly and feel the smooth, clean sheets sliding over her bare skin. She usually slept in a nightshirt or pajamas, but this morning she was nude. She couldn't quite remember why she didn't have any clothes on, but it felt so good she didn't care. She would stay here for a while longer before getting up and going to work . . .
Wait a minute. Something was wrong. She rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes.
What she saw wasn't at all what she'd been expecting.
Instead of the tile ceiling of her apartment, she saw wallpaper above her, and in the center of it wasn't a regular light fixture but some sort of chandelier. Catching her breath, Annabel bolted upright and cast a wild-eyed gaze around the room. At first glance, nothing was familiar about it, not the four-poster bed or the dressing table or the old-fashioned wardrobe or the rug on the floor.
Then memories of the night before came flooding back. So it hadn't all been a crazy dream after all. She was still in 1906, staying in a house belonging to a man named Cole Brady.
Unless . . . she was still dreaming . . .
"Ow!"
When she pinched herself, it hurt just as it should have. She rubbed at the sore spot on her arm.
She had dozed off the night before not knowing what to hope for. A part of her expected that she would wake up back in her own time. It was difficult to believe that anybody could travel ninety-odd years back into the past; it seemed just as far-fetched that they would stay there.
But she had felt an instinctive liking for Cole Brady. She had liked him a lot, in fact, and it was more than just physical attraction, although that was a definite factor. She wanted to get to know him better.
But what about the earthquake?
With a shake of her head, Annabel pushed that thought out of her brain. There was nothing she could do about that, no way to stop it from occurring. And unless she racked her brain to remember Earl's historical lectures, she couldn't even be sure when it was going to happen. In a way, she realized, she was just like every other Californian: She knew a big earthquake was coming, she just didn't know when.
So for now, she wasn't going to worry about it. She had more important things to be concerned with, such as figuring out how she was going to fit into this time period, for as long as she was here.
She heard a heavy thump from downstairs.
Annabel caught her breath at the sound. Her gaze darted to the window. Enough light was coming in through the gauzy curtains that she knew it was morning. Exactly how late she had slept she couldn't tell, and there was no clock in the room.
But someone was definitely downstairs, because she heard another thump a few seconds after the first one.
Cole was back. That was the most reasonable explanation, she told herself. He had said the evening before that he was going to stay at the fire station overnight. He had probably come home when the sun came up. Either that, or the noise could have come from the cook or the housekeeper, if either or both of them had already reported for work.