Spark Of Desire (22 page)

Kevin laughed. “You fell down a mountain?”

“It wasn’t a mountain, just a tall hill. There are a series of passage tombs on the ridge. You know, those heaps of rock with the cross-shaped chambers inside. Like Newgrange.”

He nodded, his eyes focused on her as if nothing else mattered. It was a nice place to be.

“I was trying to take a picture of the landscape below, and I took one step too far forward trying to focus.” She shrugged. “I only tumbled about twenty feet.”

Kevin chuckled. “Maybe I can’t spring for first aid supplies, if you’re that clumsy.”

“I am not that clumsy when I’m not trying to focus a camera on a landscape.”

He threw a pillow at her. “I don’t know, that was a pretty beautiful slide you took a bit ago in the street.”

“You two look comfortable.” Jack opened the screen door. “Nice leg. Nice scrape too.”

“She fell.”

“So I gathered from the bricks pulled up in the middle of the street.”

Jessica cringed. “I pulled up bricks in the street?” She limped to the window and looked out. Three or four bricks were piled haphazardly where she’d fallen. “I better go fix that.”

“Jack can take care of it.” Kevin stood up.

“Jack can?” Jack asked.

“While you’re holding down the fort,” Kevin said. He sat up, setting aside his glass without taking his eyes from Jack’s. “I’m going to drive Jessica home so she doesn’t have to walk on that leg.”

Kevin and Jack stared at each other like they were communicating silently. The telepathy stretched out between them until Jessica wondered if there had been a breakdown. Jack sighed. “I guess Jack will take care of it.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Kevin grinned. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I just have to get my car keys and we can go.”

Jack stared up the stairs. “And he thought I was a pain,” he grumbled. Jessica only had a second to consider what that might mean before he’d turned to her. “So you’re coming to the wedding with Kevin.”

“I guess so.” Jessica flexed her hand. It had started to feel stiff, and she needed something to focus on.

“It’s going to be a pretty low-key deal. Kate wanted to get the paperwork in order before the school year started, and she knew what she wanted. She was supposed to get married a couple of years ago, but he died.”

“I know. From the paper.” She gestured over her shoulder as if the newspaper in question were behind her on the couch.

“It was pretty sensational when it happened.” Jack looked at the floor. “So…” he began, but Kevin came down the stairs.

“Ready?” he asked.

Jessica wished Kevin had spent a few more minutes looking for his keys so she’d know what Jack had been about to say. He probably wanted to ask why she wanted to be a firefighter or why she hadn’t joined before now. Something mundane. Or he might have been about to tell her something important. Jack smiled and turned toward the front door. She followed Kevin to his car and let him open the door for her. Jack was kneeling in the street fixing the bricks when they pulled out.

Chapter 11

Kevin parked in the garage. He wished she hadn’t stopped him in the bathroom, but he couldn’t fault her for it. He’d told her they had to wait. Lew and Dan’s cars sat in the street, so the gang was accounted for. As he walked through the front door, he saw Bobbie park down the block.

“Hey,” Lew said as soon as he walked in. “I hear Jessica took a spill.”

“She just tripped. No big deal.” Kevin put his keys on the table.

“Seemed fine when I got here.” Jack walked out of the kitchen. He was carrying a bowl of pretzels which he must have broken out himself. Kate was turning him into a regular hausfrau.

“She was telling me about Ireland.”

“I know, I stood on the porch and listened for a minute before I came in.” Jack smirked and headed through the archway to the dining room table. “I got everything set up here, and I fixed the road too. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

The screen door closed behind Kevin. He turned around. Bobbie looked at him and then at the floor. “Hey, guys.”

“Bobbie!” Dan jumped out of the chair. “Come to lose your shirt again?”

“Ha ha,” she said. “I’ve been busy.”

“You haven’t shown up at the gym either,” Kevin pointed out.

“I said I was busy,” she snapped.

Kevin tried not to flinch away from her. He glanced at the other guys to see if he was imagining her hostility. They were also exchanging baffled looks.

“Are we going to play cards or are we going to stand around all night?” She started toward the dining room table.

Dan sucked a breath through his teeth as she passed him.

She spun around. “What?”

“Nothing. Let’s play.” Dan stood up, trying to stay out of her range as much as possible without alerting her.

They gathered around, dumping their change on the table with Dan at one end, Kevin at the other, Jack in front of the door to the kitchen and Bobbie and Lew under the window. Jack dealt first and no one spoke, even to joke about the deal.

“How’s Jessica doing?” Bobbie asked, arranging her hand and not looking at any of the guys.

“Fine,” Kevin said. He looked at the cards in his hand. Mismatched garbage.

“She fell today,” Lew added.

Kevin glared at him. Bobbie turned to Lew. “What happened?”

“Jack said Kevin said she tripped over the bricks on the street. She pulled up a couple.” Lew set his cards face down on the table. “You have any beer, Kevin?”

“Fridge.”

“So she’s okay?” Bobbie turned to Kevin. “You should be more careful.”

“I should?”

“Yes, you should. She might get hurt.” Bobbie focused on her cards again. “Jack, you deal nothing but crap.”

“Of course it is, it’s my good marked deck,” Jack said. He used the joke once every poker night. Normally they laughed to be nice, but not tonight.

“Do you think she’ll pass the test?” Bobbie asked, not looking up from her cards.

“Sure. At the rate she’s going, she should rank pretty high.”

“Of course,” Bobbie mumbled. “Everybody going to the wedding? Who gets Leia this time?”

“Not me.” Dan rocked back on his chair. “I found a date. I’m clear.”

Lew walked in. “I’m bringing
my
sister. Is Leia really that bad?”

“Much, much worse,” Jack said to his cards.

“What about you?” Bobbie turned to Kevin.

“I’m taking Jessica. It’s a good chance for her to meet everybody.” He swallowed. “Anybody else want a beer?”

The others shook their heads.

“Whose turn is it? What’s the bet?” Bobbie demanded.

“We haven’t anted yet, motor mouth,” Dan quipped.

Bobbie fixed him with a glare that made him shift in his seat. “Then ante,” she snarled. Dan tossed a nickel toward the middle of the table. It rolled across and fell on the floor.

Kevin returned to the table.

“So she’s doing great, then,” Bobbie said.

Kevin looked around the table. The kitchen wasn’t far enough way for him to have missed any of the conversation. Jack looked at him and shook his head. “She’s, ah, she’s doing fine.”

Bobbie nodded. “What about you two?”

“Us two who?” Kevin put his cards on the table face down before his shaking hands dropped them.

“You and Jessica. That’s why I haven’t been around lately. Watching the sparks fly between the two of you is kind of nauseating after a while.”

Kevin picked up his beer can and drank about half of it, trying to sort out a response. Nothing good came to mind. “Bobbie, what are you talking about?”

Dan leaned on his elbows with his cards face down in front of him. “Yes, Bobbie, what are you talking about?”

Kevin braced himself not to cringe. He couldn’t be sure what Bobbie knew, but whatever it was, Dan would love to hear it. Then he would love to tell everyone he could get his hands on. Dan and discretion were only passing acquaintances.

“Oh come on, Dan. There’s nothing to know. Bobbie’s just jerking Kevin around.” Jack stared at her across the table, flicking a nickel toward her. “Aren’t you, Bobbie?”

Bobbie stood up. “I left something in the oven. I gotta go. Tell Kate I can’t make it to the wedding.” She walked out without picking up her money.

“My, wasn’t that interesting?” Dan said. “Kevin, would you like to elucidate?”

“Elucidate?” Jack repeated.

“I told you. I’ve got a word-a-day calendar this year.”

Lew flipped over Bobbie’s cards. “She had a natural flush,” he pointed out.

“Lucky at cards, unlucky at love.” Dan studied Kevin across the table. “Isn’t that the saying?”

“I thought it was cold hands, warm heart,” Lew said. He held up his cards. “Get it? Cold hand—warm heart?”

Kevin sighed. Overall, the day had been good. He’d enjoyed some peaceful time with Jessica. She’d made a rational decision when he hadn’t been able to. Jack had averted both Dan and Bobbie for him. Other than Bobbie acting like a nut case, he’d done well. He stood up. “I’ll call her house. See if I can find out what’s wrong.”

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Jack grumbled, gathering up the cards.

* * * *

Jessica struggled to balance two large boxes of empty plastic security keepers as she walked away from the registers. Kevin was due to pick her up any minute, and Mindi hadn’t shown up to replace her yet.

Kevin had been acting strange for the last three weeks. Ever since he asked her to the wedding, in fact. Like he was on his best behavior. He was trying so hard, it made her nervous.

Why was he bothering? What did he hope to gain? At his party he’d made it clear that he was attracted to her, but they couldn’t do anything about it until after the exam. In his bathroom the day she fell, she’d made it pretty clear she could wait until after the exam. She still felt certain he wouldn’t be interested any more after the exam, but she’d made her decision. There had to be other men she would be just as attracted to out there somewhere, even though she hadn’t found any in years of determined searching.

Unless she’d read that wrong, too. Maybe he would sustain an interest after she didn’t need him anymore.

She couldn’t hang her heart on that idea. It would be all too easy to find herself attached to him only to have him dump her. Starting off on a new career, surrounded by men she was just meeting while living with them one day out of every three, single, and carrying a reputation she didn’t want.

Then there was Bobbie. She’d thought she had an ally, but she’d always sensed something odd about Bobbie’s relationship to Kevin. Bobbie had always acted high-strung around Kevin. Jessica thought she might be enamored of him, but she never said anything, and he didn’t seem to pay her any more attention than he paid to any of his male friends. Two weeks ago, Jessica had gotten tired of waiting for Bobbie to not return her phone calls and had gone to Bobbie’s station. She’d been greeted enthusiastically by the men and evasively by Bobbie. The whole trip had solved nothing, but it gave her another shot at the tools and a chance to talk to their captain. He didn’t have a copy of her application like Kevin’s captain had.

Jessica stopped at the office door and looked at the keypad at the door. If she put down the boxes to punch in the numbers, she would have to pick them up again. Picking them up required a very unladylike maneuver in a dress. Of course, attempting to type in the code while balancing the boxes increased her likelihood of dumping one or both boxes, scattering the contents and requiring a similar unladylike maneuver to gather them up and get them into the office. Unless she put the boxes on the floor, opened the door and kicked the boxes into the office, around the corner and to her desk. That idea had a little merit even though it wasn’t very professional. She wondered why she never thought twice about kicking and dragging things in jeans, but she felt obligated to attempt to be graceful in a dress.

“Need a hand?”