Page 2 of Spark of Attraction

Although I’d avoided facing Ellie, I finally turned, forcing myself not to react to her outfit.

Her hair, which had been visible-from-the-space-station orange in high school, had darkened to a reddish brown. She’d pulled it into something my sister called a messy bun. I wasn’t sure if it was messy because she’d deliberately styled it that way or if she’d slept in it and hadn’t brushed her hair yet. The manufacturer’s tag that should be at the back of her neck sat at the notch of her collarbone, the seams visible along the shoulders and down the sleeves. Her multicolored pants were also inside out. I considered the plausible reasons for her outfit.

“Have you been having any other electrical issues? Do I need to check out the lights in your bedroom?”

She narrowed her eyes at me and scowled. “My bedroom is just fine, thank you.”

Shit. “I’m not planning to…” I swallowed the first word that jumped onto my tongue and substituted, “get into your bed.” I waved my hand at her outfit. “I figured you couldn’t see when you were getting dressed. If your lights aren’t working upstairs, I can look at them, too.”

Ellie glanced down and shrieked the word I’d self-censored, then raced out of the kitchen, papering her path with more f-bombs and a few s-bombs too. Her rapid thump-thump-thump up the stairs and along the hallway traced her path. The dishes in the cabinet behind me rattled as she slammed shut the door directly above the kitchen.

Before I’d stuck my size-ten steel-toed boot in my mouth, I’d intended to ask her where I’d find the fuse box. Without being able to ask her, I figured the basement was a safe place to start.

Hauser House had been built in the days when they laid stone walls with slate slabs over packed earth. A single incandescent bulb swung from the middle of the room, casting long shadows over everything. Creepy. But going into people’s basements, whether modernly finished or ancient pits like this one, was part of my job. To be honest, it wasn’t the worst basement I’d been in. That honor belonged to my grandparent’s old farmhouse, which may be why I have a fear of old basements even now.

Luckily, the basement was empty, so I didn’t have to move piles of furniture or boxes to get to the fuse box tucked behind a newish gas furnace. Since the light didn’t reach this corner, I shone my flashlight over the fuse panel.

After assuring myself that Ellie had turned off the main power, I leaned in closer, examined the fuses, and removed several, muttering, “What the fuck?”

I doubted old Mrs. Hauser, the previous owner, had screwed in these fuses. From what Joshua had told me, she’d been an old lady who hadn’t been able to manage stairs for years. Which meant someone else had put the entire house at risk. Perhaps it had been Ellie’s dead husband or maybe old Mrs. Hauser had hired some handyman who didn’t give a fuck what amperage he used. Whoever had done it, if I met them, I’d sound them with my damned threading driver.

“What’s wrong?”

I jumped because I hadn’t heard Ellie’s approach. How long had she been standing there? Had I voiced my threat aloud?

She descended the rest of the stairs, her lips pressed together in an expression totally different from any I’d been familiar with back in high school. Hesitant. Insecure? The high school Ellie I’d known had been confident, outgoing. Bubbly and chatty, always smiling. Someone had burst her bubble, changed her. Would her husband’s death have done that? Or had something happened to her that had deflated her self-confidence?

High school Ellie wore pink sweatshirts with teddy bears on them, soft comfortable jeans if she was in school, or when at home, fuzzy pants, equally inscribed with teddies or bunnies, and her feet encased in fuzzy slippers complete with floppy bunny ears. Grown-up Ellie wore a dark-green t-shirt with a graphic that said “If Only Sarcasm Burned Calories” beneath a thick pink sweater that looked hand-knitted, neon purple yoga pants which clung to her curves, and—I bit back my urge to laugh—fuzzy pink slippers complete with bunny ears.

It took all my effort not to gather her in my arms and cuddle her. Tell her everything would be all right.

For a brief period in high school, I had seriously considered dating her. After a debate about the wisdom of dating my best friend’s sister, I’d given in to temptation and kissed her once, planning to ask her to be my date at my prom. Two days later, her brother made me promise to never approach Ellie for the rest of my life. A blood oath too, not a simple pinky swear. I don’t know if he’d seen us or if Ellie had confessed that I’d kissed her, but I’d had to make a choice between my best friend and his sister.

The ancient bro code won, and I’d stayed home instead of attending my prom.

In return, I’d demanded Josh make the same promise not to pursue my older sister Chantel, not that it was any hardship on his part because he and Chantel couldn’t stand each other, and at the time, I suspected Chantel preferred her own gender over guys. Something she later confirmed when she brought home her college girlfriend and announced they were a couple.

But now here I was, over twenty years later, and those old feelings stirred up again, making me imagine Ellie in my bed. Me in her bed. Us getting down and dirty on the stairs. On the kitchen table. Me on top of her, her on top of me.

I faced the fuse box and, discreetly—I hoped—adjusted the fabric constricting my chubby.

However, I suspected Josh would still hold me to my promise. Plus, there was the whole dead husband issue. So no matter how attractive I found her, no matter how much I wanted to remove the scrunchie and watch her hair tumble about her shoulders, or how much I wanted to trace my tongue across her freckles and taste her delicious lips, Eleanor Mason was, and would always be, forbidden fruit.

When I faced her again, I blew out a breath, reminded myself of the promise I’d made, and swung the beam from my flashlight onto the fuse box again.

I tapped one of the dusty gray wires coming out of the box. “This is aluminum wiring. They used it back in the 70s when copper got crazy expensive.” I then explained how aluminum wire contracted and expanded, causing arcing like she’d witnessed. “I can go through your outlets today and make sure everything’s tight to prevent future arcing. Your outlets will need to be checked regularly, too. But Ell…” I tapped the fuse box. “This unit needs to be replaced. And soon.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s your definition of soon? This week? This summer? This year?”

“It’s not an immediate problem, but I’ve been in more than one house where this exact fuse box has caught fire. I’m not trying to pressure you, but I don’t want you to put it off too long.”

She frowned, but nodded.

Hating to pile problems on her, but needing to address the issue, I held up one of several fuses I’d removed. “This is an easier and less expensive fix. These are 40-amp fuses, and the wiring in that outlet is for 15 amps.”

Like many of my clients, Ellie’s eyes clouded in confusion. “Isn’t forty amps better than fifteen?”

A common misconception and her question made me wonder if she had been the one to use the wrong amperage. “Think of it like the fuse is a big pressure sprayer that pushes out water at 40 pounds of pressure, but the hose—the wire—can only handle 15 pounds pressure. Then you turned on two different devices that draw full power and the wire couldn’t handle it.”

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