Page 35 of The Spark Between Us

“Extracted the driver. Cleared the scene, closed down that stretch of highway, and soaked up as much of the spill as possible with peat moss, vermiculite, and clay. Then we waited for a hazmat team to deal with the larger cleanup.” His voice was deep and commanding, and its powerful rumble sent a straight shot of heat between my thighs. Apparently, authority and skills turned my crank. I looked out the window so he couldn’t see my lust-filled eyes. “Fortunately, it was more of a leak than a spill. When it’s more than twenty-five gallons, we need to report it to the EPA, and if there’s any groundwater contamination, it goes to OSHA...there’s a protocol. But like I said, it wasn’t needed.”

“Wow,” I exhaled, impressed. “That’s a basic day? I pretty much sat at a desk.”

He chuckled, and my skin heated even more. He was so serious most of the time that it felt like a huge win to elicit some laughter. “We have different jobs. Sometimes I sit at a desk, but that’s when it’s quiet, and I can study burn patterns and fire behavior.”

I swiveled in my seat and tucked my legs under me. “Ooh, now you’re talking. Hit me with some science, fireman.” Anything involving new information excited me. But then I spotted something as we drove down First Street that interested me even more. “Ooh! Hold on, can we stop? Or can you drop me here? I need to get something.”

He swerved the truck into a parking lot in front of a Domino’s Pizza and looked around. “What’s here?”

I was already opening the door and hopping out.

“Hang on. Where are you going?” he called after me, exiting the truck.

Walking a few paces ahead of him, I pointed. “Bike shop.” In three strides, he caught up to me and grasped my elbow.

“You couldn’t have just said that? I cut someone off back there. I thought it was an emergency or something.” He waved his hand up and down my body in the universal uncomfortable male sign for feminine issues.

“Well, it kind of is. I may never drive again. I don’t want to rely on Ubers. I’m getting a bike.”

“I can drive you where you need.”

The butterflies in my heart fluttered at the idea. The past few minutes in the car was the most time we’d had together in two weeks, and I liked talking to him. I liked him. But I couldn’t impose like that—it went against my principles of self-sufficiency.

Damn principles of self-sufficiency.

“No. It’s an imposition for you to drive me around.”

He reached past me and pulled the door handle of the shop open. “I don’t mind driving you around.”

I couldn’t look at him. If my eyes took in any part of his face or body, I’d cave and hop in his car, go with him everywhere, even if it was the opposite direction of work. I walked into the shop with bikes lined up in the middle of the floor and a group hanging from the ceiling. “I’m already staying at your place. There’s a limit to what you should have to endure.”

“Will you stop it? I’m not enduring anything.” He sounded aggravated, his tone gruff, a tiny muscle ticking in his jaw. But I was too entranced by the multi-colored bikes to worry about it.

I bypassed the section of mountain bikes and zeroed in on the pastel-colored beach cruisers. Carolwood seemed pretty flat, so maybe I could get away with a bike that didn’t have gears. “Hey.” Braden put a hand on my shoulder.

I wondered if there’d come a day when he could touch me and I wouldn’t feel like he’d cranked the e-stim machine to a hundred. “Yeah?” I turned to see him looking concerned.

His voice was soft, careful. “Why did you said you may never drive again?” I shrugged. “C’mon, don’t think like that. I know car accidents can be traumatic, but you’ll get over it.”

He was being so kind. But PTSD wasn’t really the issue. “Right. I guess.” I looked back at the bikes. “You know, I can buy one and ride back to your house. You don’t have to stay.”

He reached for my face and tilted my chin to look him in the eye. My breath hitched, and my insides melted like a chocolate fountain.

I couldn’t look away. Why would anyone look away . . . ever?

“Sarah, what aren’t you telling me?”

I couldn’t decide whether it frustrated me that he could see through my attempts to be stoic, or whether I loved that he just knew. What a relief not to hold everything in all the time. But . . . what did I have left if I lost my ability to control what people saw?

Not all people. Braden.

I blinked away from him and let my shoulders drop. “Fine. I guess if you’re going to live with me, you might as well know...I’ll probably lose my license.”

I saw the recognition on his face. “You’ve had other accidents?”

“A few. It’s not just that. I have...I don’t know how to describe it. My mind wanders when I drive...Like, a lot. It gets worse with the longer distance or when there’s traffic, and I...”

“Crash into things?”

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