Setting Off Sparks (Jupiter Point Book 4)

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Of course not.”

  “There you go. No date. Just flan.” He sighed and shifted his position, making his muscles flex under his olive skin. “So who do you date, Lisa Peretti? No patients, no strangers in lookout towers. Who’s left?”

  “Well…” She hesitated, wondering if this was too personal a direction to go in. “Actually, I haven’t dated much. I’ve been mainly focused on my nursing career.”

  “Huh. What are you, late-twenties? Mid-twenties?”

  “I’m twenty-eight. I’ve been busy with school, the ER, and so forth. It’s a draining profession.” Getting defensive, she dug her fingers too deeply into his muscles. “Sorry.”

  “I can take it as long as you keep distracting me. Keep talking. What inspired you to become a nurse?”

  She gave a maniacal laugh. “So I can have big strong firemen at my mercy, bwahaha.”

  He snorted. “Seriously. I want to know.”

  “Well…” She thought back on her time in the ER, all the highs and the lows—and her breaking point. “As a nurse, you’re the person who’s there when people are going through some of the scariest times in their lives. They’re in a crisis and they’re terrified. They’re at their most vulnerable. And to know that I have the skills to help, even if I can’t cure whatever they have, just to be there for them, it’s very satisfying.”

  “Then you’re just like firemen. You run into the crisis, not away. Fires for us, medical disasters for you nurses. We’re just alike, underneath.”

  She laughed. “I never thought of it that way.”

  They fell silent as she worked on the lower perimeter of his scar mass, where it impacted his hip.

  “But now you’re not working in the ER anymore. What happened?” he asked.

  “Oh…” Better keep this answer vague. “I needed a break. It’s emotionally overwhelming. Right now, I have one patient and that’s all I can handle. Well, two, I suppose, counting you.”

  He tilted his head to smile at her, but she gently pressed it back to the mat. “So you’re a beautiful, intelligent, kind-of-secretive, badass ER nurse with divorced parents who spends all her time at work and never dates. It’s all starting to make sense now.”

  “It is?”

  “Yup. You have intimacy issues. Textbook case.”

  She laughed out loud. “Thanks for the diagnosis. Aren’t you supposed to be the patient in this scenario?”

  “I am. I’m very patient. I’m patiently figuring you out, piece by piece. You care about people, or you wouldn’t be working in a healing profession. But you like to keep them at a distance. You have that electric fence around you for a reason.”

  “Right, better watch out or you’ll get zapped,” she teased.

  “You think I’m afraid of getting zapped? I’m not.” He twitched his shoulder to draw attention to his burns. “Big tough fireman, remember?”

  She was having a hard time forgetting, with all his chiseled muscles and scarred skin.

  “You’ll see, one of these days you’ll turn off the electric fence and invite me over for flan,” Finn said.

  “Not a chance. There’s no space. I live in a motorhome.” She sucked in a breath, stunned by how easily that secret had slipped out. Not even Molly knew about her motorhome.

  “A motorhome?” He rolled over onto his back and snagged her wrist in mid-stroke. “You fascinate me, Lisa. Why are you so fascinating?” Her eyes widened. She was still on her knees, leaning over him. Electric attraction sizzled between them. Her ponytail slid off her shoulder and brushed his chest. Even that contact gave her a jolt, as if she had nerve endings in the strands of her hair.

  “I’m not fascinating. I’m perfectly ordinary.”

  “Not to me.” His intense gaze captured her and refused to let her go. “I want to know everything about you. What you think, what you feel, how you feel, how you taste.”

  He tugged her closer. A drumbeat of desire pulsed between her thighs. Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.

  “I’m insanely attracted to you, Lisa. And unless I’m crazy, you’re attracted to me too.”

  She bit her lip. Too bad she was such a bad liar. If she tried to deny it, he’d know in a flash. He could already read her so well. “Yes,” she admitted. “Fine, I’m attracted to you. You’re attractive. There’s chemistry. Sparks. And of course I feel them. I’m a nurse, not a nun.”

  He studied her face intently. “Then what are you afraid of? It’s not the scars. They don’t bother you. We’re not in some kind of real professional setting with rules. No one’s going to care if we kiss.”

  If we kiss.

  The idea set off wild sparks in every direction. Kiss Finn? Oh yes. Her body was practically throwing a party at the thought. Her nipples tightened, liquid heat spread through her lower body. She imagined his sexy mouth pressed against hers, his scruff scraping against her soft skin. Her tongue tingled. She pressed it to the roof of her mouth.

  This was crazy. She shook her head to break the spell.

  Then her practical side took over. Kissing Finn would be just like kissing anyone else. Anti-climactic. After all, kissing was tricky. It was so easy to overdo it. To be honest, kissing had never lived up to her expectations. Not once. In her opinion, it was an extremely overrated activity.

  Yes, that was it! The answer came like a flashing neon sign. If she kissed Finn, she could shake this silly attraction-slash-crush she was developing. If he was at all slobbery or overeager or clumsy with his kiss, she’d be over him—just like that.

  And really, the chances were good that she’d find something to object to. The last time she’d kissed someone—a doctor she’d dated briefly—all kinds of thoughts had wandered through her head. I don’t like how his teeth feel. Did I get Mrs. Carter her meds yet? What’s the world record for longest kiss? What about shortest? Can we go for that?

  Kissing Finn was the perfect solution.

  “What’s going on in that brain of yours?” Finn asked, amusement curving his lips. She took in the scruff around his mouth. It would probably scrape her skin and break the mood. He still looked tired from his redeye flight. This was the perfect moment; the kiss would suck, and she could forget about Finn.

  “I was just…thinking…” Instead of finishing her sentence, she drew in a long breath and dove in. Bad kiss coming up.

  Her lips met his. His breath is so sweet. That was her first thought. And then, Sweet mercy, that feels good.

  And then, Oh crap. Big miscalculation.

  It took him no time to catch up with her. He went from surprise to kissing the hell out of her in about half a second. He took charge of the kiss immediately, his lips warm and firm. His tongue urged her lips apart, gently touched hers, drew her in, intoxicated her with every smooth sweep and tug. His hands came to her head and held her still. She melted into his grip, feeling all hesitation and tension drain away. She closed her eyes and lost track of where she was.

  Finn kissed like a champion, as if he’d been born and bred for it, as if he could read her mind and know exactly what would feel best. He kissed as if they had all the time in the world, as if nothing mattered except the two of them, right now.

  It felt as if she were flying through a velvet-dark sky lit up with sparks. She could soar forever like this, coasting on wings of pleasure.

  Then it shifted, the kiss going deeper, as if Finn was telling her a story in this other language, the language of lips clinging, of hands kneading, of erections rising.

  Erections.

  Sharp excitement seized her as the ridge of his arousal pressed against her thighs. Her wet, trembling thighs. Oh my God. She could come right here against him, with all their clothes still on. And she wanted that, so badly.

  What the hell?

  She ripped herself away from the kiss and realized she was now straddling him. When had that happened? She’d been kneeling next to him when the kiss began. Now she was riding him like a rodeo queen.

  “Oh my God.” She scram
bled off his body. He groaned and scrubbed a hand across his face. His erection made a steeple in his boxer briefs. She held a hand up to block the sight so she didn’t get any more crazy ideas. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It wasn’t? But you kissed me.”

  “I know I did. I kissed you on purpose, but you weren’t supposed to be so good at it.” She glared at him accusingly. “It was supposed to be a bad kiss. The kind of kiss I’d never want to repeat.”

  His bewildered look dissolved into laughter. “Maybe you should have clued me in to the bad-kiss thing. I would have done my best, because I always give one thousand percent when it comes to kissing.”

  “I noticed. Damn you.” Her hair had come loose from its ponytail. Viciously, she swept it back into place and twisted her hair tie around it. “You’re an amazing kisser. And I know exactly why. Because you’ve done it so much. You’re a player, just like I thought. Of course you wouldn’t be a bad kisser. You’re the Mighty Finn. I don’t even want to think about what sex with you would be like.”

  “It would be a disaster, I’m sure,” he said dryly. “Incredibly good, and a total disaster.”

  “Exactly.”

  She shoved her salves back into her bag. Now that she was coming back to her senses, she had the need to get out, to get back to her own place, her own little haven in the woods.

  “So that’s it? Kissing and leaving?”

  The Blush marched across her face like a blow torch. “I’m sorry I kissed you. That was completely unprofessional of me. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  She focused on packing up her bag while he got up from the yoga mat. She couldn’t handle the sight of his body anymore.

  “Maybe it was a good kiss because we’re good together,” he said softly.

  She rolled up the yoga mat willy-nilly, so it ended in a lopsided shamble instead of her usual tidy roll. “Don’t say that. This can’t happen. I don’t even know how long I’m going to be here.”

  He tugged his shirt over his head. She gave him one last look, scorching the image of him into her brain. Strong thighs emerging from his tight briefs, t-shirt clinging to his torso, scruff darkening his jaw. Eyes burning with frustration.

  “And there goes that electric fence. Zap.”

  She shouldered her tote bag and hurried toward the front door. “Oh, wait.” She turned back and pulled a sheaf of papers from her bag. “I printed out some exercises for you. Just in case you see good results from what we did today.”

  He took the pages and leafed through them. “I’d say the results so far are interesting and definitely deserve further exploration. But that’s just me.”

  She had no answer for that, and since his magnetism was drawing her like gravity, she escaped out the door before she gave in to temptation again.

  With her entire body still tingling, she dashed across the open lawn to the driveway where she’d left her car. Finn had it all wrong. If anyone had gotten “zapped,” it was her.

  12

  After that session with Lisa, Finn buried his frustration by throwing himself even harder into his training. Every morning at dawn, he went running along the cliff trail with Rollo. Then he met Tim Peavy at the gym, where they lifted weights for a couple of hours. In the afternoons, he and Josh took his dog Snowball to the beach. While Snowball chased the foamy waves up and down the sand, Finn plunged into the waves and swam at least a mile out, until the ocean salt nearly brined his skin.

  None of his nonstop training made him forget Lisa’s cool hands or her hot kiss. Even while battling the surf, he remembered the slippery glide of the salve she’d used, or the heady scent of it. Lavender, maybe, and something like cedar. Soothing and relaxing—nothing like that kiss. That was pure passion. The sparks had ignited in a flash, as soon as she’d touched her lips to his.

  And she’d initiated the kiss. Not him. Hallelujah. Now he knew he wasn’t the only one feeling this attraction.

  He’d been drawn to her since the first moment he saw her. Even before, really. That photo at the tower had first caught his eye. But now that he’d tasted her full lips, felt the passion behind her practical exterior, he wanted her even more. With one kiss, she’d turned everything upside down. She challenged him, threw him off-balance.

  And pushed him away.

  She hadn’t given him her number, and she didn’t call him. Was she even thinking about him? She must be. That kiss had been too incendiary to forget. Jupiter Point only had a few campgrounds, so he could probably find her motorhome. But that seemed too stalker-ish.

  The hotshots put in two more days of work at the airstrip. Finn and Josh nailed down the new roofing metal while Rollo, Tim and Brianna painted inside.

  Lisa was a no-show. Somehow, he didn’t think it was a coincidence. He’d gotten too close, so she’d stepped back into her safety zone.

  At the beginning of March, Sean came back from his honeymoon. The hotshot crew sprang their big surprise on him on a crisp morning soon after that. At first Finn hesitated to join them, but Josh and Rollo insisted. They all drove together in the Ford Super Duty, tools loaded in the back. To keep up the pretense, Finn and Josh spent the entire drive complaining and groaning about all the work ahead of them.

  “You ought to junk the whole place,” Josh said. “There ain’t enough paint in the world to make it sellable.”

  “Yeah, just turn it into a skateboard park. Or use it for paintball,” Finn agreed. “No point in wasting our time.”

  Sean scowled at them from the front seat. “Damn, I miss Italy.”

  In the driver’s seat, Rollo shrugged his massive shoulders. “Guess the honeymoon’s over, bro. Back to reality.”

  Then they made the turn into the airstrip parking lot. The new roof metal glinted in the sun, and the fresh blue exterior paint gleamed. Sean’s jaw literally dropped.

  “Holy fucking shit. It’s done. What the fuck happened?”

  Finn and Josh bumped fists, while Rollo grinned so widely his face looked like it might split.

  “It’s a little something called a wedding present,” said Josh, cackling gleefully.

  “You guys did this?” Sean jumped out of the Ford and planted his fists on his hips. “I can’t believe it. It’s done!”

  “Brianna helped too, and so did Lisa Peretti. Merry even put in some time. Suzanne sent sandwiches.” Josh stood next to him and bumped his shoulder. “You did register for a new airstrip, right?”

  “We can always get you one of those awesome fondue makers instead,” Finn added, joining the others. “Or a KitchenAid. Those things rock.”

  “No. Nope.” Sean shook his head. “It’s the perfect gift. I can’t believe you guys. This is above and beyond.”

  “What else are brothers for?” Josh clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Through thick and thin, right?”

  “Right.” Sean fixed his gaze on the building as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Or maybe so no one could see the emotion on his face. “I can’t wait to show Evie. This is something else. Beers are on me, guys. Barstow’s Brews, who’s in?”

  Josh shook his head. “Sorry, got a birthing class.”

  Finn snorted, earning a glare from Josh. Birthing classes were no laughing matter, apparently.

  “I can’t either, bro,” Rollo said. “My sister Sidney’s coming out for spring break and I have to pick her up at the airport tonight.”

  So much for that, thought Finn. No way would Sean want to go with just him. He turned to get back in the Super Duty, but Sean stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “How about you, Finn? Grab a beer?”

  Shock kept him from answering right away. The guys all waited as he tried to get his mouth to move. “Sure. I’m in.”

  “All right.” Sean glanced at the other two hotshots. “I’ll catch you two another time. When you aren’t birthing or babysitting. You know, when you’re men again.”

  “Low blow, bridegroom. Low blow.”

  “I heard you’ve been training
pretty hard,” Sean said as they nursed their mugs of Guinness in a dark corner of Barstow’s.

  “Yeah.” Finn drew in a deep breath and steeled himself. “I want on the crew, Sean. I need to get back to work, back on the line.”

  “You do, huh? Screenwriting didn’t work out so well?”

  Finn laughed. He’d taken a crack at the Miracle in Big Canyon screenplay and basically sucked at it. He’d spent several months holed up in Rollo’s guesthouse sweating it out over his computer before throwing in the towel. “I gave it a try. Writing’s a lot harder than it seems. I’ll take a Pulaski over a laptop any day.”

  “How are you doing physically?”

  Finn took a swallow of the smoky dark ale. “There’s still some pain. But it doesn’t hold me back. I’m still doing my rehab PT and I got some extra exercises from Lisa.”

  “Lisa?”

  “Lisa Peretti. Molly’s caregiver.”

  “Oh right. The hot brunette. The one who’s about to leave.”

  Finn nearly spewed his Guinness over the table. “What?”

  “The McGraws mostly needed her during the wedding and the honeymoon. Now that Evie’s back, she’ll probably move on.”

  “Probably. So it’s not for sure?” Maybe patience was the wrong approach, if that meant Lisa slipped away while he wasn’t looking.

  “You should ask Evie. Or, you know, Lisa.”

  Finn scowled at his Guinness. Sure, he could ask Lisa. If she ever bothered to hand over her phone number. Would she really leave town without saying goodbye? Why not? All they’d done was kiss. She didn’t owe him anything.

  If she left, he’d probably never see her again. Maybe it was time to find out which campground she lived in and go pound on her door.

  “Why, are you interested? Good luck with that. Evie says she’s kind of cagey. Never talks about herself. Didn’t even give a home address. But she’s great with Molly, so they let it go.”

  “She doesn’t have an address because she lives—” He broke off. Maybe Lisa didn’t want people to know about her motorhome. “Forget it.”