Page 6 of Spark
“I don’t know,” Erin says.
“Do you happen to know her last name?”
Erin shakes her head, her lips pressed together, clearly suppressing a grin.
“Will she be volunteering at the parking lot all day?”
“No, it’s busiest in the mornings with hikers wanting to get an early start.”
“Okay, so where is she in the afternoons?” I ask, struggling not to bark at her to just fucking tell me.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why, the fuck not?” I snap.
Arching her eyebrows, she silently reprimands me.
“Sorry,” I exhale, rubbing my fingers over my forehead. “I was hoping to speak to her about something,” I lie, not wanting to admit that since the moment I laid eyes on Verity, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her, and that not knowing where she is is driving me a little crazy.
“She is one of our morning volunteers,” Erin says coldly.
“Oh. And you don’t know where she lives? Or if she works in the afternoons?” I question.
“No. I don’t.”
Biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself from demanding to know if the volunteers fill out paperwork with their details on, I nod. “Thanks, Erin,” I say as cordially as I can muster, then turn and leave.
The sidewalk is heaving with people when I step out of the air-conditioned store and into the bright sunshine. Without consciously doing it, I scan the faces of the people passing me by, searching for her, but without her cap on, I’m not sure I’d even recognize her.
I don’t understand how I can be so consumed by someone whose full face I haven’t even seen, but she’s all I can think about. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard about the Barnetts’ family legacy and how they knew at first sight that their wives were meant to be theirs.
Every Barnett, both male and female, honestly believes that’s how they ended up together, and almost all of my teammatesthink that the legacy has somehow moved on to us. But I’ve always assumed it was bullshit. Until now.
I don’t think that Verity is destined to be my wife or something, but I’ve never felt such an intense and instantaneous urge to get to know everything about someone the way I did when I saw her this morning.
Verity means something, I’m just not sure what. Maybe she’s meant to be mine, or maybe we’ve met in the past, and that instant recognition has sparked the need to learn more. Or maybe something about her is calling to something in me, and our paths are intended to cross.
Whatever it is, I need to see her again. I need to figure out what this means and why my skin feels like it’s itching to be close to her.
I spend longer than I’m willing to admit walking the streets of Rockhead Peak, hoping to find her in the faces of the people I pass. But by the time my stomach starts to growl, I feel like I’ve seen every single person in this town apart from her.
Crossing the street, I take a seat at a table on the sidewalk outside a new sandwich shop that opened a few weeks ago. I’ve only been once before, but the roast beef sub I ordered was the best I’ve eaten in years, and I’m not sad to try it again.
When the server arrives, I order a sub with fries and an iced tea, then sit back, trying and failing to find her in the crowds of tourists. While I haven’t lived in Rockhead Peak long enough to consider myself a local, I am friends with the Barnetts, who’ve all been here their entire lives. I think there are fewer people in town that they don’t know than the ones they do, so by association, the rest of the jumpers and I have been accepted into the community much more quickly than we would have if we’d not been befriended by them.
“Hey Warrick,” someone says, and I turn my head to find Granger and Alice Barnett standing behind me, pushing a double stroller.
“Hey guys,” I greet them.
“Do you mind if we join you? Alice is craving the meatball sub they serve here,” Granger says, one arm wrapped protectively around his wife’s back, the other holding the handle of the stroller tightly.
“Sure,” I say, gesturing to the empty seats at the four-top table I’m sitting at.
Pulling out Alice’s chair first, Granger guides her into it before positioning his chair as close as he can get to it, then wheeling the stroller close beside him.
Glancing beneath the sun shield, I spot their oldest child Fox fast asleep next to his younger brother Bear.
“So how are you doing, Warrick?” Granger asks.
