Giving Off Sparks

by Sami Lee

  If you stop seeing him, you’ve already lost him. So don’t lose him, you nitwit.

  Sierra’s grin spread from ear to ear. She hopped down the stairs two at a time, every limb feeling lighter than air. She could do this. She could have something real and fabulous with Rob, like he’d been telling her all along. From their first night, there’d been a connection, and telling herself a million times it was merely physical wouldn’t make it true.

  She was madly in love with him. That’s why she’d spent every minute of the past weekend on the verge of tears, not because she was afraid of the love, but because she was afraid of not having love in her life because she’d decided to push it away.

  No more, Sierra thought as she rounded the fence and entered Rob’s yard.

  “Hey, Sierra,” Leo Chatfield greeted as he climbed out of the driver’s side of the car. “How was the move?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Leo and Rob often car pooled when they worked the same shifts, but Sierra wondered why Leo was the one driving. “Don’t tell me you boys stopped at the pub on the way home.”

  “Nah. Curly had a little accident, can’t use his right hand at the moment.

  Sierra blinked. “What?”

  “The big man had to go to the emergency room. Captain insisted.”

  Sierra stood stock still, Leo’s words reverberating in her head. Every syllable hit her like a bullet to the stomach em-er-gen-cy room, bang bang bang bang bang. Eddie had died in the emergency room. They’d called her, but by the time she’d gotten there, it had been too late. She’d never even gotten to say goodbye.

  Even though she’d seen Rob in the car when it had driven past, Sierra had the crazy notion that he was still there at the hospital, in the dreaded emergency room. Bleeding. Going into shock. Seizing on the table. Dying with nobody there to hold his hand. Leaving her, just like Eddie had.

  Her heart seized. The panic clawed at her throat, stealing her ability to speak, to breathe. The memories had never been far from her mind in the last eighteen months…at least not until the past week, when she’d allowed Rob to start making her forget how horrible they were. He made her feel safe, protected. As though the harsh realities of life couldn’t hurt her as long as she was with him.

  But that was all a lie. Safety was an illusion. How had she allowed herself to forget that?

  Rob unfolded himself from the vehicle and beamed his handsome smile at her. “Hey, honey. Were you waiting for me?”

  He walked toward her. He lifted his arms as thought to fold her in one of his big, warm hugs, and Sierra saw the bandage swathing his right hand. She stared at it, took a reflexive step back.

  “Oh, right, this.” Rob gestured to his hand with a chagrinned expression. “I was moving a steel girder out of the way and it ripped my glove. I got the ol’ cut-and-burn combo going on here.”

  Sierra stared at him, not quite understanding. Was he making a joke? About being cut and burned? Her voice, when she could finally speak, was oddly flat. “Leo said you had to go to the emergency room.”

  “Just a precaution. They stitched me up, gave me some really good painkillers.” Rob grinned. “Actually I’m feeling a little woozy. I might need you to help me get undressed.”

  “Ah geez,” Leo complained. “If you two are going to get lovey-dovey, I’m going inside. Nice to see you again, Sierra.”

  Sierra might have said a distracted goodbye to Leo, but she couldn’t be sure. She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Her limbs, her organs, felt cold and numb, immobile while her brain was screaming at her to run, to get away as fast as she could. Rob had been hurt. A minor injury, but it was like she was right back where she’d been eighteen months ago. Terrified. Irrational. Flayed open with a sense of impending loss.

  She’d been wrong. Loving someone wasn’t worth the risk of going through losing them. There was no way she’d live through it a second time.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  She turned away from his soft concerned eyes. “I have to go. I came to say goodbye.” Her tone still had that odd flat quality.

  “You’re not staying until tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Beside her, Sierra sensed the sudden stillness of Rob’s body. He’d turned to stone, like she had. On the outside at least. She wondered if his insides were working better than hers. Very quietly, he asked, “You mean goodbye for good. Don’t you?”

  Sierra tried to swallow over the lump in her throat. “Yes.”

  It was the hardest word she’d ever said.

  There was another tense pause. Then, “I thought we were past this.”

  “Past what?”

  “This crap about us not seeing each other anymore.”

  Sierra swung around to face him, a sudden flash of heat unfreezing her body. “I never lied to you. I always told you—”

  “That you wouldn’t date a fireman. I know what you said and I know it’s a bullshit excuse.”

  “Bullshit or not, it’s my decision.”

  He took a step toward her. For the first time, she felt crowded by his big body in a way that wasn’t comfortable.

  “Is it because I don’t earn enough money?”

  Sierra was appalled. “No!”

  “What other reason could there possibly be? I’ve asked you and asked you, but you won’t talk to me. You shut me down every time. So I’m left to guess.” Rob crossed his arms over his chest. “So tell me the damn truth. Am I too blue collar for your taste?”

  “Of course not. I can’t date you because your job is too dangerous, you nincompoop.” She pointed an accusing finger at his right hand. “You get hurt, and you don’t even seem to take it seriously.”

  “This?” Rob held up his hand, his expression perplexed. “This is nothing.”

  “See what I mean? It’s not nothing. It’s proof you’re going to die one day.”

  Rob stared at her. “We’re all going to die one day.”

  “I swear to God.” Sierra dropped her head back and stared at the wide blue sky. “If I ever get involved again, let alone engaged, it’s going to be to a tax lawyer or an IT guy. Someone who works in an office all day and never comes home with a freaking cut-and-burn combo.”

  “I’m sure IT work has its own dangers,” Rob said sardonically. Then his gaze sharpened on her face. “Wait…you were engaged before?”

  It suddenly occurred to Sierra she didn’t have to talk about his. She’d said goodbye to Rob, face-to-face. She’d done the minimum required. It’s not like she was breaking any promises. She’d been honest with him from the start, and he would just have to accept it.

  “Goodbye, Rob.”

  Turning on her heel, she walked hastily out of the yard and back into Cheryl’s. She should have known Rob would follow her. He wasn’t pushy, but he wasn’t a pushover either. He’d spent the entire previous weekend making love to her in so many ways and positions Sierra couldn’t see straight when he was done. He’d held her close and rubbed her feet and scrubbed her back in the bathtub while they’d listened to Adele crooning from the stereo. He’d made life with him seem like a fantasy.

  She’d been so turned inside out she’d almost forgotten what was important—protecting herself.

  When she got to the staircase, he was right behind her. “Answer me, Sierra. Were you engaged before?”

  She saw no reason to deny it. “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  She hesitated over the truth. After eighteen months, it was still hard to say. It still felt like ripping off a Band-Aid every time. It’s why she’d never been able to confide in Rob about Eddie. She knew he’d see her pain and try to comfort her through it. But nobody could comfort the part of her soul that had died with Eddie. “It ended.”

  “How?”

  Sierra’s feet slammed on the wooden stairs as she climbed them. “Just leave it.”

  “No. You were obviously capable of commitment at some point. I want to know what happened to make you cha
nge. What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing!” Sierra stopped halfway up staircase and whirled on Rob. That he would accuse Eddie of hurting her was the last straw. She struck him in the chest as though to shove him away. Too bad Rob was like a giant immovable object. “He died, okay?”

  Rob’s face paled. “Oh, shit. God, I didn’t guess.”

  “How could you?” It wasn’t like twenty-two-year-old men died routinely. It took a dangerous situation, a dangerous job to fell someone like Eddie Vargas. Someone like Rob McConnell. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it did.”

  She saw when Rob started to comprehend the situation, or at least part of it. His face changed, showing how the pieces were clicking into place in his mind. “Was he a firefighter?”

  “Eddie was a cop. Just a regular guy out doing his duty—his duty to protect the public at his own expense if necessary. At my expense.” Sierra pressed her hand over her heart, the heart that had been irreparably damaged one year and six months prior to this moment. “He died trying to stop a convenience-store robbery. He was shot.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey.” His voice was rough around the edges, as though her pain had somehow transferred to him. He ascended another step so he was closer to her. “But that’s not the same. My job’s not the same.”

  “You protect people at your own expense if necessary, don’t you? You walk into situations other people run away from, and you laugh off getting hurt, like you think it couldn’t happen to you. But it can. It can and it just might.”

  “You’re going to live every day afraid of what might happen?” Rob challenged. “That’s no kind of life.”

  Tina had told her something very similar more than once, and Sierra had the good sense to admit to herself she was probably right. But good sense didn’t count for much when it came up against stark fear. Sierra backed up a step, reestablishing the distance between her and Rob, a man who represented the worst kind of temptation. A temptation to forget what she knew—that love, when it was ripped away, hurt worse than anything else there was.

  Dying inside but dry eyed, Sierra set her jaw and returned his gaze. “It’s the kind of life I want. It’s my choice.”

  They stood there staring at each other for a drawn-out moment. All around them, the sounds of afternoon in the suburbs whirled—cars pulling into driveways, kids playing in yards—but the silence between them was heavier than all of it. It seemed to thrum with a sound all its own, the sound of something crashing to the ground before it had ever been built.

  Eventually, Rob broke eye contact. He looked down at the spot where his good hand gripped the bannister. The sight of him lowering his head in a gesture of defeat filled Sierra with regret and shame. Her heart ached, but she told herself to stand firm. She didn’t have any other choice.

  “All right,” he said at last, and it was like someone had ripped out half his voice box. He looked up and she saw desolation in his eyes. “If this is what you want, I can’t fight you. I can’t guarantee you that I won’t be hurt in the line of duty any more than I can bring your fiancé back to life. I don’t want to hurt you or make you sick with worry all the time because of what I do. I’ll let you go, Sierra. You win.”

  As he turned away and descended the stairs, Sierra didn’t feel like she’d won. She felt like she’d lost everything.

  Including hope.

  Chapter 8

  If Sierra didn’t know better, she’d be convinced she had the flu. She was tired and achy and would have loved nothing better than to hole up in bed and sleep her days away. As she had nary a sniffle, she couldn’t in good conscience call in sick. So she trudged into work for the next two days, doing the minimum required to keep from being ordered into her supervisor’s office for a diminished-work-performance meeting and trying to deny the real reason she felt so poorly.

  She didn’t have the flu, she had MissingRobMcConnellitis.

  “Sierra, you look awful.” said the third person that day as Sierra walked back to her desk from the photocopy room. “You should go home if you’re coming down with something.”

  Sierra sent Barbara, a woman in her fifties who was paranoid about germs, a look. “I’m not sick, Barbara.”

  “It’s going around, you know.” Barbara wrapped her jacket tighter around her thin frame, as though the act could ward off potential infection. “You can’t be too careful.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Sierra said and continued the journey to her desk.

  Five minutes after the exchange with Barbara, Sierra’s supervisor, Richard Herriot, leaned over her cubicle wall. “Are you okay, Sierra? You haven’t looked well the last couple of days.”

  “I’m fine.” Well, not fine exactly, but I’m not contagious.

  “You sure? You have plenty of sick leave owing if you need to take it. And you know department policy.”

  “Of course. ‘Coming down with a chill? Don’t make others ill’,” Sierra quoted the poster that was prominently displayed in several locations around the office. “I’d never want to make anyone else sick, Richard. I swear I don’t have the flu.”

  Sierra moved a pile of files from one side of her desk to the other. The resulting shift in the air must have unsettled some dust, because she promptly sneezed.

  Twice.

  Richard tilted his balding head and gave her an I-told-you-so look. In the adjoining cubicle, Barbara stood and scowled at Sierra, her death grip on her jacket growing even tighter.

  Oh hell. I don’t need this. She sighed. “Perhaps I’ll leave early, just in case.”

  “Good idea,” Richard said. “And if you’re still sniffling tomorrow, don’t come in.”

  Sierra might have argued that two dust-related sneezes hardly counted as chronic sniffling, but Richard had already moved on. Barbara still glared at her suspiciously from over her cubicle wall, so Sierra made a show of picking up her bag and shutting off her computer. “I’ll see you later, Barbara.”

  The woman finally looked satisfied. “Take care of yourself. Lemon and honey tea and horseradish tablets. That’s the best thing for it.”

  You can cure a broken heart with horseradish tablets? I’ll have to alert the media. Sierra offered Barbara a smile as she left, feeling bad for her churlish thoughts. It wasn’t Barbara’s fault she’d stuffed up and let a perfectly decent man slip through her fingers.

  Perfectly decent, my ass. He is plain perfect and you know it.

  The thought haunted her as she drove home. Rob’s face was in her mind’s eye, not the street signs and traffic lights. Rob smiling at her, his brown eyes sparkling as she’d never thought brown eyes could. Rob groaning with disappointment as she beat him on the PlayStation. Rob kissing her, touching her, making her feel special, precious. Making her feel like his.

  Rob coming home with an injury that could have been so much worse.

  Maybe it is worse. The cut could have gotten infected for all you know. Did they give him his tetanus shots?

  As she pulled into the parking garage below her apartment block, a chill swept through her. There was no way for her to know if Rob had recovered well. What if he was sick? Maybe there’d been nerve damage that the doctors hadn’t picked up in the emergency room. The possibilities made Sierra’s stomach roil as she rode up to her floor in the elevator. But there was no way for her to find answers, because she’d ejected Rob from her life. She could hardly call and ask him how he was.

  “Idiot,” Sierra muttered as the lift doors opened and she got out. “Stupid head,” she groused as she opened her apartment door. She tossed her handbag on her new armchair and huffed out a breath. “Why couldn’t you just take a risk, moron?”

  Every time she thought about how dangerous Rob’s job was, panic made her throat close over. The fear was still there, as insurmountable as ever. The fear of history repeating itself.

  The fear was still there, even though Rob wasn’t.

  Dear God. Was she going to worry about him even in absentia?

  As she
was facing this horrifying possibility, Sierra’s phone rang. Glad of the distraction, she pulled the mobile out of her bag and answered it even though she didn’t recognize the number.

  “Sierra speaking.”

  “Hi, Sierra. It’s Leo.” Sierra stood in the living room, too stunned to respond. Eventually, Leo clarified. “You know, Rob’s mate? They mostly call me Chats.”

  “I know who you are.” Everything about Rob, including the names of his mates, was etched in Sierra’s brain. “I’m just surprised to hear from you.”

  “I bet. Do you have a moment to talk?”

  “About what?” Terror took her in its hold. “Oh, God. Rob. Is he okay?”

  “Depends what you mean by okay.”

  Sierra’s heart turned leaden. “Leo, if something else has happened to him, tell me. You tell me right now. Or I swear, I’ll come over there and—”

  “Hey, whoa. Don’t panic. Physically, he’s fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I was there when Blue reamed him out for drinking milk out of the carton this morning. I’m sure.”

  “Oh. Good. Thank you.” Sierra let out a huge breath and sat on the couch. “I thought he had tetanus.”

  Leo laughed. “I’m pretty sure he’s had all his shots. Doesn’t mean he’s perfectly healthy, Sierra. You really did a number on him.”

  “I…” Sierra wanted to deny it, but she felt too guilty and horrible to defend herself. “He’s sad?”

  “He’s Captain Misery Guts, and Blue and I have decided we have to act. That’s where you come in. You need to sort this out. ASAP, or Blue’s going to kick Rob out on his ass.”

  “He wouldn’t!” Sierra was appalled. “What kind of friend would he be then?”

  “You’d have to ask Blue that. But for now you’re talking to me, and I’m calling to tell you that you need to get your head on straight.”