Page 6 of The Spark Between Us

“I didn’t stop here for a lecture. Do you need any help?” I folded my arms and waited for him to let me take over.

“No. You’re off duty. We’ve got this.”

I didn’t want to leave, though, so I conjured reasons why my guys might need me there. “You call an ambulance?”

“What kind of question is that?” Logan glared at me, looking about as vicious as a bunny.

“Well, I don’t hear them,” I said, straining to hear any sign of sirens in the distance.

He pointed. The ambulance was a block away, trying to navigate around the traffic.

“You might ask if we’re okay, seeing as we’re the ones who got hit, asshole,” Mitch said, backing himself out of the Prius. He scrubbed a hand through his brown curls, which he’d slicked back with some kind of product. “Women love to touch it, never gonna cut it,” he said way too often.

“I can see you’re fine enough to run your mouth, so I’m not asking, jerkoff.”

Mitch wasn’t just a firefighter in my unit. He was also my half-brother, courtesy of our dad, who couldn’t keep his pants zipped long enough to stay faithful to one wife, let alone three.

When I was five, my dad left us and married Mitch’s mom. Left her a few years after that. Left his third wife after that.

The walking heartbreak of a man gifted me with a skewed view of commitment, but the silver lining was Mitch, two years younger than me and an inch taller, which he never missed an opportunity to mention.

I clenched my fists, needing someplace to channel my energy when I saw no obvious way to help. Stifling the urge to ask whether they’d turned off the battery to the Prius—they knew what they were doing—my eyes drifted to the mess of a car anyway to check for signs of a leak.

“You love us so much, you come on your day off.” Mitch smacked my shoulder with the back of his hand and took in my outfit. “Loser, you’d rather skip a ride than miss out on any action?” I turned away from his smirk, unwilling to admit he was right.

Wriggling out of my leather jacket, I grabbed some extra medical supplies while a rookie named Cash and one of the medics slid the driver out of the car, laying her on a stretcher on the sidewalk.

The tow truck’s backup signal beeped as it moved, and the woman let out a yelp. “Wait, I’ve got stuff in there I need. You can’t tow it!”

“Oh, hey. There’s a task for you, Michaels. Purse retrieval,” Mitch laughed. The smartass was guaranteeing I’d be filling his running shoes with sand tomorrow.

“Relax and let them check your vital signs. I’ll unload your car,” I called to her, ducking into the backseat. I pushed past clutter and boxes of books to reach the front. Her cellphone sat in a mount on the dashboard. It felt warm from use, but at least she’d been hands-free.

The passenger seat contained banker’s box with a lid. I nudged it out of the seat, and judging by its weight, more books.

People said books made good friends. If it was true, this woman had a lot of people in her corner.

I grabbed her purse off the floor, along with a small daypack and a brown paper lunch bag folded neatly at the top. Then I lugged the heavy box over the center console and out through the back door. When I emerged from the car with the purse and backpack over one shoulder and boxes stacked high, she was sitting up, frowning, eyes narrowed in my direction.

“What are you doing with those?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the boxes in my hands. I almost dropped everything, not because of her glare but because of the arresting blue of her eyes. The pale aqua color reminded me of a beach in the Caribbean Sea where I suddenly, desperately wanted to go. The drinks would have umbrellas, and I’d float on a raft and gaze at that soothing blue for days.

If I took vacations. Which I did not.

“Your car’s not drivable, ma’am. I’m helping you remove your belongings.” I wanted to be polite and not let her vacation eyes, her messy strands of honey-brown hair, or her plush, pink lips distract me from being professional. I swallowed hard and pretended my heartrate hadn’t ticked up a notch.

But those eyes. Pale like aquamarine gemstones, they contained a hundred tiny flashes of color and light. I didn’t want to look away—couldn’t look away.

“But who are you? Where’d you come from?” she asked, pulling me out of my trance.

Oh. Yeah. I probably looked like a random biker who showed up and started manhandling her stuff.

“Technically, I’m off duty, but I’m a firefighter with these guys, ma’am.”

She closed her eyes for a long blink, and shook her head. When she opened them, her lips turned up into a smirk. “Okay, but please don’t call me ma’am. I’m not a ninety-year-old woman.”

“What would you prefer I call you?”

“I dunno. Anything. ‘Damsel in distress’ is better than ma’am.” I took her sass as a good sign. Likely meant the accident hadn’t hurt her too badly.

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