Page 1 of The Spark Between Us

Chapter One

Sarah

The sparkling redlights all around me would have looked so pretty flickering on a Christmas tree or beaming through a stained-glass window.

But since I was staring at a sea of brake lights on the interstate, I didn’t feel much like caroling. More like yelling obscene things to the drivers next to me and delighting in the fact that they couldn’t hear me.

“Call Tater Tot,” I told my hands-free phone on the dash. My sisters had nicknamed her after the fried potato nuggets our mom served us way too often as kids because that’s how five older siblings tortured the youngest.

I knew Tatum would be at her desk. My other sisters had unpredictable work hours, hobbies, and social lives. For Tatum and I, our jobs filled the roles of work, hobbies, and social lives.

“I detect a pissy tone. Are we having a bad day?” my phone asked in its British baritone. Cheeky little thing. Tatum was developing emotion-recognition software at her tech company and had programmed my phone as a test subject.

“We are having the kind of day when we endeavor to ring our sister, you English twat,” I fired back. But really, I loved the English twat, whom I fondly referred to as Nigel.

“Calling Tater Tot,” he confirmed in a clipped accent. So obedient.

I imagined Nigel sitting beside me when I drove, looking a little like Henry Cavill and beckoning me to take long, sexy walks in the English countryside. “Off we go,” he’d say in his clipped, jolly voice. “Another brilliant day for a sexy shag.”

Nigel’s voice, along with the fantasy of a hot Brit riding me sidesaddle, claimed bragging rights for the longest and most successful of all my relationships. Such was the life of a science professor.

“You’re driving, aren’t you?” Tatum’s quiet laugh and reassuring voice immediately relaxed me.

“Yes, how’d you know?” I fiddled with the air conditioning to notch it down a few degrees.

“Because that’s when you call me. When you’re bored in the car and you know I’m working.” Her sigh didn’t make me feel apologetic. On the contrary, I knew talking to me was sometimes the only break she took in a twelve-hour workday, so I considered it a win-win.

“I’m driving to Carolwood and confirming why I can’t do this commute every day. I just can’t. I shouldn’t. I’m making the right call here, yes?”

I could hear typing in the background. The steady tap-tap indicated either answering emails or writing lines of code. “Yes. It’s the right call, Ms. Magoo.”

My eyesight wasn’t the problem. However, my mind had a tendency to wander, which had resulted in me hitting a few stationary objects—among them a neighbor’s retaining wall, an idling garbage truck, and a mailbox.

It was a quirk. Everyone had quirks. My quirk just happened to result in high insurance rates. Unfortunately, one more slip-up would probably leave me fighting for a window seat on the bus.

The lane to my right started moving, but mine lagged like a bedraggled snail.

So. Annoying.

I hit my steering wheel in frustration, which had the effect of unintentionally honking my horn. The guy in the car in front of me threw up a hand as if to ask what I expected him to do. I waved and gave him a thumbs up.

“You just pissed someone off, didn’t you?” Tatum’s chuckle echoed through my speakerphone.

“Maybe. Is road rage still a thing?” I asked, recalling stories about angry drivers gunning each other down on freeways.

“It is, and you definitely have it, but you’re sort of polite and passive aggressive about it, riding people’s back bumpers then flashing a peace sign like you didn’t mean it.”

“I just don’t want to make anyone mad enough to shoot me.”

Over the past few years, I’d made traffic a non-issue by living a few miles from my job. Some days, I rode my bike. Unfortunately, that was all about to change.

Thanks to a career opportunity I couldn’t pass up, I had two choices: commute an hour to work and risk bodily injury if another mailbox appeared in my path, or relocate to a small town where I knew nobody. I chose door number two.

“Well, this is it, then. My traffic swan song,” I said.

“You already did it? You packed up and everything? Who’s renting your house?” The typing stopped.

“Um, no one.” I’d intended to find a tenant but...“None of the prospects worked out.”

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