Page 10 of Spark of Attraction

Dad raised a graying eyebrow. “Your mother and I could tell you were both eyeing each other in high school. Isn’t that why her brother made you promise to leave her alone?”

I could feel the blood rush into my cheeks. “You knew about that?”

“Chantel found out about it when she asked Josh to take her to the prom. He said he wasn’t allowed to go out with her any more than you were allowed to go out with his sister.”

Even now, my older sister Chantel referred to Josh as GingerNuts with the occasional Satan’s Stepchild thrown in, and treated him like an annoying little brother. So why had she asked him to the prom? More importantly, why hadn’t either of them told me?

“You had a crush on her. Don’t try to deny it. We could all see it,” Dad continued as if dismissing my attempt to distract him. “And you definitely were protective of her. Don’t you remember when she was being hassled at the town fair that summer before you graduated? How you stepped in and made that guy—what was his name?—back off?”

“Jerry McDonald,” I supplied automatically.

One of Dad’s eyebrows hitched up and his lips quirked into a smile too. “Interesting how quickly you came up with his name.”

“He was a douche.” He’d hassled Ellie before the fair that whole year but kept his distance once I’d stepped in, then he’d moved away after high school so he wasn’t a problem anymore. I shook it off. “Ellie’s still getting her feet under her. I don’t think I should be making any moves on her for a while. She’s probably not ready.” Except for that kiss.

Dad hitched one hip on the edge of my counter and stared past me, his lips pursing in a way that I’d always interpreted as his I need to word this right look or sparks are going to fly look. “Your mother and I like Ellie. She’s good people. She’d be good for you, and you’d be good for her.”

“I made a promise, remember? You always told me that a man’s word was worth nothing if he broke it.”

“It was a promise you made in high school. And I think Ellie has more say in who she dates, and might take exception to her brother’s interference. If he causes problems, your mother or I can say something to Maureen”—Ellie’s and Josh’s mother—“if you want.”

I stopped myself from cringing. That was definitely not a conversation I wanted my father to have in my defense.

“Is that really why you didn’t ask Ellie to the prom senior year?” he continued.

I nodded.

“You could have asked her to her prom senior year.”

I shook my head. “That was the year the school said only students could be invited, remember? That no outsiders could be attend?” Even though I was a former student, I was one of those who would not be allowed entrance. That unpopular opinion had caused quite an uproar in my old high school, enough that the principal had been replaced the next year. “Then Ellie moved to Kingston for university and I was apprenticing here.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “And by the time she’d graduated, you’d moved in with Natalie.”

Nat and I had lasted six years before she’d taken a job in Calgary and left me. By then Ellie was married to Hauser. “So?”

Dad drummed his fingers on my desk, stared at something on the far wall and took a deep breath before looking at me again. “We liked Natalie. Don’t get me wrong. She was a nice girl. But we never got the feeling either of you were all-in in that relationship. In fact, your mother figures you two lasted three years longer than you should have.”

“What the freak, Dad!” I jumped to my feet. “I loved Natalie. I wouldn’t have moved in with her if I thought we’d fail.”

They say hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that, and only after I looked back on our relationship did I realize the signs that we’d fail had been there from the start. Natalie had wanted to live in a city that didn’t fall asleep for six months of the year, a city that had more restaurant and theatre choices. To her, anywhere was more exciting than Port Paxton. Even before we’d moved in together, she’d begged me to move to Toronto and finish my apprenticeship there. But I love living in a village that comes to life every spring as the tourists descend upon us, then returns to its slower pace once the leaves fall and the locals are left to their interests. A town where my family still lives, my friends …well, some of them were still nearby. Plus, I didn’t want to end up working for a larger company, in a city where the average blue-collar worker couldn’t afford to buy a house anymore.

It had taken us too long to admit neither of us was happy with the status quo before Natalie had moved out, moved on. Leaving me to feel like I’d let everyone down, not just Natalie, and myself but my family, too. “We’re not all destined to be with the same person our entire lives, like you and Mom.”

“Hear me out.” My dad is the calmest guy I’ve ever met. But this was the dad giving me his I’m your dad and I need you to listen because I love you and want the best for you tone, one I’d long ago learned to listen to. “I’m not saying you didn’t treat Natalie right. I think you think you loved her, and she thought she loved you. Or at least you both convinced yourselves you did.” He tapped my notebook. “But I find it interesting that the very first week Ellie’s returned, she’s already contacted you.”

“I’m an electrician, Dad,” I said dryly. “When she had an electrical problem, she phoned the only electrician she knows. That’s all that’s happening here.”

Except for that kiss. Damn it, why did I keep coming back to that?

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Dad stood with the old man groan he’d started to make the last few years. “What I’m saying, son, is if your mother’s right and you’re still carrying a torch for Ellie, go after her. Find out now if she’s the one for you. Don’t let her slip through your fingers this time.”

I found myself staring at my notebook long after he’d left. There were other electricians Ellie could have called. As a one-man outfit, Walsh Electrical isn’t at the top of the list when you search for an electrician, alphabetically or otherwise. So how had she gotten my number if she hadn’t kept track of me over the years? Joshua hadn’t known she’d had an electrical issue until I phoned him, so he hadn’t given Ellie my number that morning. So why had Ellie phoned me?

Like my father, I found that interesting.

If I did get together with Ellie, long term or short, I’d lose Josh’s friendship, but I hated that walking away from Ellie would cost me a possible future with her. Dad was right. Even if we didn’t have a future, didn’t we owe it to ourselves to find out?

If Ellie and I took this to the next level, metaphorically and literally, I had no doubt I’d fall in love with her. Again. But would she fall in love with me or would she use me for sex and then dispose of me like a smelly work sock with a hole in the heel?

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