Page 8 of The Spark Between Us

Chapter Three

Sarah

Well,fuck a duck.

If ever there was an inauspicious start to my new life in my temporary home, crashing into a fire truck fit the bill perfectly.

I’d probably lose my license. Or my insurance rates would skyrocket. To say nothing of having my new roommate show up purely by chance, acting helpful and gracious in the middle of my mortification.

Karma, meet Murphy’s Law.

And on top of it, he was a far cry from the pale, doltish government employee I’d been expecting.

Damn Finn, for his vagueness about details. Only an economist—and a guy—would describe a hot firefighter as a city employee.

He might as well have called him a data point.

Braden Michaels was a gorgeous, decadent dessert of a man who seemed to have zero control over his smolder. It emanated from his dark eyes, his lazy smile, and his sharp jawline softened by sexy stubble. I normally didn’t get worked up over attractive men, but it was impossible not to notice this one.

Just try to ignore him, ladies. You’ll fail.

His gaze made me nervous, which didn’t help as I tried to keep myself from passing out. With a mind of its own, my tongue darted out and licked my lips.

Hello? Down, girl.

“So...I guess...nice to see you after all these years?” I cleared my throat and tried not to sound as mortified as I felt. The unsteadiness was new. I never went to pieces in a crisis. I was the one everyone else counted on to stay calm and rational. And I sure as heck never turned to jelly over a man. What? Was? Happening? “I sure know how to make an impression, huh?”

Braden grunted and nodded, turning even more into my image of a libido-driven caveman by the minute. “You hit the truck hard. Were you texting?” He still held one of my boxes in his large, strong hands, which almost distracted me from his frown.

“No, I don’t do that.”

“Good,” he grumbled, looking away.

Is it my imagination, or was he a whole lot nicer before he knew I was his roommate?

The firetruck stood ahead of us, barely a blemish in sight. My shoulders slumped as I looked at my car, crumpled like used tin foil, and my boxes piled in a pyramid on the sidewalk. How would I get to work without a car? Would I even be able to rent one with yet another accident on my record?

Eyes burning, I realized I was truly stuck.

One of the medics had my arm wrapped in a blood pressure cuff and continued the drills to test whether or not I had a concussion.

I felt pretty certain I didn’t, but I knew they wouldn’t take my word for it. “I’m not seeing double. I don’t have ringing in my ears. I don’t feel nauseous.” I knew the signs because I’d had a concussion last year, one more time when I didn’t notice my surroundings.

I’d bent down to pick up some cereal that spilled on the floor in my pantry and stood up quickly, banging my head hard on the door handle. So hard, in fact, that it knocked me out for less than a minute.

Fine, it was more than a minute.

When I came to, I felt awful. Like, drag myself to the bathroom and vomit awful. That was a real concussion. It came with a headache for two days, nausea, dizziness, and vertigo. I’d had the good sense to get checked out by a doctor who did the exact battery of tests performed by the medics.

“I promise you, I’m fine,” I insisted, wanting to retain some control over my circumstances. I hated having five different men assess my condition and debate the reason I’d plowed into a truck. It reminded me of so many science classes where I’d get the right experiment result, and my male classmates would gather, talking over me, certain they could prove me wrong. “Was she drinking?” “Did she have a seizure?” “Is she an awful driver?”

No. It was none of those things. I got distracted. Head in the clouds. Not the first time.

While the rest of the guys prattled on, I noticed Braden stood slightly apart from them, assessing me with his eyes. His cool expression gave no indication what he saw until his voice cut through the chatter from his colleagues. “Leave her alone. Accidents happen.”

As if guided by divine spirit, the men surrounding me stopped talking and quietly returned to the remaining tests on their checklist.

I shot Braden a look of gratitude with my plastered-on smile. “The main thing I’m suffering from is mortification,” I muttered. The burns on my arms hurt more than anything, and I probably had some bruising on my face from the damned airbag. “Also, there has to be a way to make an airbag that can protect a person without kickboxing her head in the process.”

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