Page 34 of The Spark Between Us

“Hey.” He reached behind to where a second cup sat on the hood and handed it to me. “Do you like iced tea?”

I licked my lips, suddenly feeling parched by his heat. “Oh, who doesn’t? Thank you.”

“Lots of people, actually. Especially the super-sweet kind I like. I took a gamble.”

I grinned and stirred the tea with the straw. “I have a massive sweet tooth.” I took a sip. “Oh, this is heaven.” Braden smiled and opened the door for me.

I hopped up the step and onto the seat before he could reach out to help me. If the mere sight of him had my internal body temperature shooting up to scorching levels, I couldn’t risk what grabbing his hand might do. I busied myself pulling on my seatbelt, so he pushed the door closed and went around to the driver’s side.

“How was work?” he asked, pressing the keyless ignition button and ignoring the rear camera, instead putting a hand on the headrest behind me and turning to navigate the exit from his parking spot. I caught a woodsy whiff of pine and sweat and felt myself inhaling deeper before he plucked his hand away and dropped it to his thigh. With an elbow propped on the open window ledge, he steered with one hand, piloting the massive truck away from the lab and toward town.

“So great,” I said, unable to take my eyes off his hand or his leg, which flexed as he moved it from the gas pedal to the brake. His hand looked capable of things I’d never had the audacity to imagine happening to my body—soft touches in places that would make me melt and sigh and swoon.

I stifled a shudder at how quickly my mind drifted there and quickly covered with work talk. “My team’s really gelling. We all complement each other well.”

“Good to hear.”

“How about you? Rescue any cats from trees today?”

He smirked but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Your impression of my job comes right out of a picture book, doesn’t it?”

“No, but the cat thing goes along with me imaging you in scenarios that aren’t dangerous. I can get pretty far denying reality and living in my head. A girl needs to sleep at night, after all.” I couldn’t explain it. I barely knew the man, but some part of me had felt protective of him from the moment we’d met. His gruff moments hid a softer side that I sensed had gotten bruised along the way.

He turned down a leafy street we hadn’t gone down before, and he cast a glance my way. “Tell me about that. I know Finn’s got a caretaking gene, but he’s the oldest male, so it kind of makes sense. Where does your protectiveness come from?”

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Probably same place as his. I was the oldest kid in the house when my dad died and everything fell apart. I had to keep everyone on track—my sisters, even my mom. Guess the habit stuck.” It was a simplified explanation, but for most people a satisfactory one.

“And you like to be in control,” he said, not looking at me. When I eyed him, I saw his smirk. “Is that why you control the narrative, make it up if you have to?”

I felt myself flinch.

I hadn’t expected him to zero in on my exact psyche, at least not so quickly. I inhaled slowly to slow the panicky thumping of my pulse that resulted from having my motives laid bare. Normally, it was a side of myself I protected by deflecting or laughing off an observation.

“You got me. Probably comes from watching cancer take my dad and not being able to do anything about it. So having a plan makes me feel like I’m in control in a world where things don’t make sense—probably why I chose a field where I study the laws of the universe.” I shook my head at the realization. I hadn’t quite put it into words before.

Braden looked into the distance and chewed his lip. “I understand that. But I hope you allow yourself to experience the magic sometimes, you know? Sometimes the unexpected yields the most beauty.”

I patted his leg, ready to wrap up the navel-gazing. “That’s a beautiful thought, Yoda, but not for me. I like to know what to expect. It calms me. Unforeseen dangerous situations do not make me happy. So can you please humor me and stay out of trouble?”

He nodded, the corner of his mouth ticking up. “Understood. Only cats in trees. No unnecessary risk.”

“All I’m asking.”

In my cartoon firefighter episode, Braden would hoist himself from a lower branch to a higher one, his biceps making the tree look like an unworthy opponent. Then he’d scoop the cat into his arms and carefully climb down without a hint of sweat from the exertion. “You have to admit, my cat-rescuing version has its perks. You could end up with a kitten playmate for Bella.”

We turned down a residential street with houses like Braden’s neighborhood. It felt like he was taking a longer route than usual. I didn’t mind the extra time chatting in the truck.

“Bella would eat a cat.”

“Oh. Okay, no cats.”

He rolled his neck and tapped a finger lightly on the steering wheel. “Your version wasn’t so far off from my day today. Wildfire season’s just starting, so most of our calls were for pretty basic stuff.”

“What’s ‘pretty basic’ to you? Leaping from a flaming six-story building into a tiny net?”

“Funny. No, we had some small calls—smoke alarm in an office building, kitchen fire. Then we got called to a highway incident with a sixteen-wheeler that hit the center divider and flipped. That got a bit gnarly. Truck was carrying butane gas, and it started to leak, so there was an explosion risk.”

“No, no, no danger.” I put my hands over my ears. Then I took them off. “Okay, my curiosity won out. What did you do with a flipped truck full of gas?”

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