Page 22 of The Spark Between Us

Chapter Six

Braden

I slept like the dead.That rarely happened. Usually, some errant thought woke me and kept running in a loop through my barely conscious brain until I gave up and went to my gym. But this morning, I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed.

Sarah’s door remained closed, so I quietly padded past it and headed for the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine. Did I wake you?” Sarah sounded chipper, holding a cup of coffee with both hands, her elbows on the concrete slab kitchen counter in front of her. She didn’t turn around when I walked up behind her, but she must have heard me coming.

My answer got caught in my throat as soon as I got close enough to see her tank tops and booty shorts. Women didn’t wear those in my kitchen, mainly because women didn’t spend the night.

Sarah’s legs dangled beneath her chair, and I intentionally glanced away. Even without looking directly at them, I could see they were toned and long. I made a mental note to keep the heat turned low in the house so she’d be forced to wear pants all the time. And maybe a parka.

Moving around the island into the kitchen allowed me to see her face and blocked the mostly bare rest of her body from view. Her smile was easy and free, like she didn’t have any place to be all day, even though I knew she had to be at the lab in a little over an hour. She sat with her back ramrod straight in a tall chair with an untouched slice of toast in front of her.

“Nah, I’ve been up for a while, working,” I said. It wasn’t the whole truth. I had been up for a while, but I’d mostly been staring at the ceiling.

Distracted by what I could see of her breasts through the flimsy material of her tank top, I didn’t realize Sarah was talking to me until I noticed her silent stare. “Um, sorry. Just got lost in my head for a second.”

She moved her eyes from her coffee to my face holding her head stiffly. “Say no more. Happens to me on the daily. I was just asking if you wanted some coffee. I used your French press. Hope that’s okay.”

I nodded, and she shifted her gaze to a second mug she’d already taken out. I filled it with coffee. “Of course it’s okay. This is your home for the next six months. Please. Do whatever you normally do at home.”

“Great. Well, normally, I walk around topless.”

And I spit my fucking coffee all over the floor.

Then I caught her smirk. And a laugh. “Sorry. You just seemed so serious. I was trying to lighten the mood. You not a morning person? Apologies if you’re not. I’m good in the mornings but I’m kind of a basket case after nine o’clock at night.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her. “Nine? So last night wasn’t a one-off?”

She shrugged. “Last night, I was tired and sore from getting attacked by an overzealous airbag.”

Rolling my eyes, I walked past her and grabbed a kitchen towel. “Hardly overzealous. If not for that airbag, we’d still be extracting your teeth from the steering wheel.”

I caught her grimace as I mopped the coffee from the front of my shirt. “That’s a horrible image. Okay, fine. Thank you, aggressive airbag, for saving me from having to wear braces into my forties.”

She was too much—still in denial that she’d been in a bad accident. “So what time do you need to be at work? I have to go in, catch up on paperwork. If you’re going soon, I can drive you.”

Her eyes closed in a long blink. “That’s right. I don’t have a car. All morning I’ve been picturing the drive between here and the lab, walking myself down the route, and I don’t even have a car.” Her face fell in disappointment and it made my heart ache. She shook her head and gave herself a pep talk. “It’s gonna be fine, Sar. Just...focus on work.”

Her eyes met mine, and she looked so vulnerable it didn’t feel right to abandon her gaze.

Absently, she twisted her watch, a digital gadgety-looking thing that she probably used to time the degradation of radioactive isotopes or something. Yeah, I might have done a little research last night about physics and why she’d been brought out to Lawrence Livermore Lab.

It turned out she was a pretty big deal in the physics world—super smart, working on ground-breaking research that people like Elon Musk wanted to get their hands on, and now she was s in charge of a giant project.

I noticed that she lifted her arm to eye level to see the watch instead of looking down at it. When she lowered her arm, she cringed a tiny bit. I’d worried it would happen.

“I’ll go get dressed. I can be ready in ten. Is that good?” she asked.

I hitched a thumb over my shoulder to indicate she should head upstairs. “Perfect. I’ll run you over, then I’ll work out and grab a shower before work.” I had no reason to tell her those things. She probably didn’t give a shit about my workout and shower schedule, but I was testing her, seeing if she’d hop off the barstool and follow me.

She didn’t move. I looked at her again, noticing how stiffly she sat, the unnatural straightness of her neck.

As another test, I walked slightly to the side while talking. “How are you feeling today? Any stiffness?” Her eyes tracked my movements, but she didn’t turn her head.

“Good. All good.” I moved even farther from her line of sight, and her eyes followed as far as they could until she wasn’t looking at me anymore.

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