Fireworks Read online

  Fireworks

  Lindsey Gray

  Dedication

  To all my family and friends who have supported me and my words even when I didn’t. Your encouragement keeps the words flowing.

  Summary

  Sophie McKibbin finds herself back in Sam Crawford’s life after ten years. Unfortunately, Sam is dating Lola, Sophie’s high school nemesis. Lola dumps Sam the day before he was supposed to introduce his mystery girlfriend to his family over the Fourth of July holiday. With the looming fear of disappointing his mother once again and his long held feelings for Sophie, he asks her to take Lola’s place. With family feuds, an old flame, and feelings that have been locked away for a decade, there is bound to be some fireworks.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Prologue

  “Can I have one?”

  Sam Crawford pulled his head out of his parents’ refrigerator at the sound of the voice he’d been hearing in his dreams for months.

  He wiggled the ice-cold bottle of beer at her before shutting the refrigerator door. “You mean one of these?”

  Sam popped off the top, took a long pull from the beer bottle, and sighed in relief. A satisfied grin graced his lips as he watched her Adam’s apple bob.

  “You know what I want,” she answered in a breathy whisper.

  He came to stand right in front of her, mere inches separating his thumping heart from hers. “I seem to remember my driver’s license says I’m twenty-one, while yours reads sixteen.”

  “Come on, Sam.” She ran her fingertip down the side of the bottle clearing away a line of condensation. “Just one.”

  She looked up at him through her dark lashes in a plea for his permission.

  “Sophie,” he grunted in frustration. The little minx had him in a constant state of arousal whenever she was near. Sam could see a thirst in her eyes for more than just the beer in his hand. “How about a sip?”

  She nodded and he brought it to her lips. One small sip, followed by a swallow and a soft moan had his restraint weakening.

  She’s only sixteen. She’s only sixteen, Sam chanted over and over in his mind.

  “Delicious.” Sophie licked her lips and curved them up into a smile.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “I am?”

  Sam could see the heat rise to her cheeks at his slip of the tongue. “You know you are, but …”

  She backed away knowing what would follow. It had happened so many times before, yet every time he let himself take it a bit farther.

  “But I’m sixteen.” Sophie sighed in disappointment.

  “Yes.” He turned his head away from her and took another long drink to calm himself.

  “I won’t be sixteen forever, you know.” She took the bottle from his hand and placed it on the counter. “The five year difference won’t mean a thing when I’m twenty.”

  “A few years.” Sam nodded as if to tell her he would wait. For her, he felt he could.

  “Oh, Sophie. How nice to see you again.”

  Sophie and Sam jumped apart as his mother entered the kitchen. “You too, Mrs. Crawford.”

  “Are you and Caroline working on another project?”

  “No, just hanging out. I was getting a drink.” It was clear the woman of the house intimidated Sophie.

  Sam reached into the refrigerator and pulled a soda out for Sophie. When he offered it to her, she accepted it.

  “You’re all set then.” Mrs. Crawford pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “My daughter is probably wondering what is taking you so long.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sophie turned and looked back at Sam. “Thanks for the drink.”

  The wink following her comment assured Sam that she wasn’t talking about the soda.

  When Sophie was out of earshot, the torment began.

  “I cannot believe that after everything I have said that you are blatantly flirting with your sister’s friend. Again!” Sam’s mother clenched her teeth in obvious aggravation.

  “It’s harmless. She knows that.” He picked up his beer and took another sip to distract himself.

  “She might, but do you?” Mrs. Crawford walked over to the counter beside the refrigerator and pulled a drawing pad out from a stack of books. She flipped open the cover to reveal a portrait of Sophie drawn by Sam’s own hand.

  “Where did you get that?” Sam reached for the pad, but she was quick to pull it away.

  “It doesn’t matter. This obsession you have has got to stop! She’s just a girl for pity sake.” His mother flipped through the pad, finding page after page full of drawings of Sophie.

  “I know the age difference is something now, but in a few years —”

  She cut Sam off short. “It will always matter. Your degree will be finished in two months. After that, you will be moving to Boston to obtain your master’s degree.”

  He hadn’t decided if he would take his education further. The Bachelor’s in Hospital Administration was his back up. Art was what he wanted to pursue.

  “I haven’t decided on Boston yet. You know that.”

  Mrs. Crawford narrowed her eyes and began speaking in an eerie tone. “You will go to Boston and you will complete your master’s degree or you will be cut off without a cent.”

  “You can’t do that.” Sam was visibly shaken by her threat.

  “I can and I will. This obsession with Sophie McKibbin ends today. If you ever make offerings to her other than friendship, you will not see one more dime from your father or I.”

  Sam nodded without a word. He complied that day with the hope that someday Sophie would be in his life again when there wasn’t a damn thing his mother could do about it.

  Chapter One

  “You’re thirty-one years old. It’s high time you settle down and give me some grandbabies.”

  “Mom.” Sam rolled his eyes and leaned back in his leather desk chair.

  “Don’t give me that tone, Samuel. I have to meet this girl you’re involved with before you combine the Crawford genes with hers.” Her huff was more than audible from the other end of the phone.

  Could a huff be ear piercing? It definitely made his ears ring.

  “And what is with this whole nonsense with not even telling us the girl’s name? Honestly, Sam, why?”

  He took a deep breath. “She has family in Halston. I don’t want you bombarding them for details before you have a chance to meet her properly. It’s the same for me; her family doesn’t know my name, either. We’ve only been seeing each other a couple of months. Give us a chance to figure us out before bringing the Crawford genes into the picture.”

  “This is just ridiculous.” His mother added another huff for good measure.

  “Mom, I need to get back to work. Give everyone my love.”

  “Fine, but I’m still upset with you. Can I at least know what she looks like?”

  Sam thought about it for a moment before he let go of two very small details. “She has long brown hair and blue eyes. That is all you’re getting from me.”

  “I guess that will be enough.”

  He rolled his eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time since the conversation started. “See you soon.”

  The call to his mother, Virginia, was supposed to be a quick hello before he started his shift as the evening administrator at Lakeland Children’s Hospital. As it turned out,
his mother had made it into an interrogation over his love life.

  Sam and Lola Denison had been dating a few months, and neither was ready to face the wrath of either of their mothers when the news of their relationship came out. Virginia Crawford and Lola’s mother were on the church council together in their hometown of Halston, Kansas, an affluent suburb of Kansas City. They had a fallout, something to do with Mrs. Denison stealing his mother’s cobbler recipe then passed it off as her own at one of the church bazaars. Sam and Lola decided they’d wait to do the family introductions until they were further on in their relationship.

  Lola was fun and outgoing. She was getting her Master’s in Child Psychology through the University of Kansas. They met the previous fall while she was doing a clinical rotation on the general pediatric floor. She was only twenty-five. Between the difference in their age and their mothers’ hatred for one another, they hadn’t properly met in Halston. Sam thought it thrilling at first, rebelling against the perfect Virginia Crawford. Now that his mother was becoming more insistent on meeting Lola, his stomach was in knots. He thought it very well had to be caused by the ‘passing on the family genes’ comment.

  Sam knew thirty-one was a little old to still be unmarried, but his mother had set goals for him from a young age, and he hadn’t faltered from her plan. He graduated from college, went on to get his master’s degree, and then built up experience in the field. Sam landed, what his mother believed, was a dream job the previous summer — not his dream, but hers.

  Sam walked to the cafeteria. In order to make it through the night, he’d need coffee. He acknowledged staff along the way, nodding to them when convenient.

  The one thing he loved about living in a large metropolis like Kansas City was that there was a Starbucks on every corner, even inside the hospital. Sam was waiting patiently for the barista to make his drink with two extra shots of espresso when he heard the tinkling laughter of two nurses ordering their own coffees.

  He turned to see what all the fuss was about. The tall, dark haired nurse was showing the slightly shorter, brunette friend something on her cell phone.

  “Two venti cafe mochas, please,” the tall one ordered.

  “Venti, Lexi? I’m going to have such a sugar high by the time I get to the bottom of the cup.” The other one laughed.

  Sam noticed something familiar about the brunette nurse at that moment and her voice confirmed it. For years, he’d dreamed of long, wavy brown hair, a pair of bright blue eyes, and heart shaped lips. Sam couldn’t believe it’d been almost ten years since he last saw her in his parents’ kitchen. There was no thought in what he did next, he acted on pure instinct.

  “Why, if it isn’t little Miss Sophie McKibbin.”

  Sophie turned her head in his direction, and a soft smile spread across her lips when she giggled. “Mr. Sam Crawford. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Lexi looked between the smiling pair with confusion. “Someone fill me in, please?”

  “Sorry, Lexi. Sam, this is my best friend and roommate Lexi Carter. Lexi, this is Sam Crawford. He’s from Halston, too, and happens to be the brother of my cousin’s wife,” Sophie explained.

  “Well, that explains the greeting. I guess the two of you didn’t know you worked in the same hospital?” Lexi asked.

  Sophie looked at him in surprise. “You work here?”

  Sam rubbed the back of his neck nervously. He never imagined he would be so uncomfortable in Sophie’s presence, but she’d grown even more beautiful since he last saw her.

  “Yes. I’m one of the evening hospital administrators. I’m assuming you two are part of our top notch nursing staff?”

  “Yes, in the intensive care unit,” Sophie responded.

  “You must be the team Dr. Thomas has been bragging about.” Sam was stuck smiling as he gazed into her crystal-blue eyes. “We should all go out for a drink sometime.”

  “Sounds great,” Sophie replied.

  Sam dug his business card out of his pocket and wrote on the back. “This is my office number, but my cell is on the back.”

  “Thanks.” Sophie’s cheeks reddened as she took the card from him.

  “See you later.” He lifted his coffee cup to the two before he left the cafeteria.

  Lexi grasped Sophie by the elbow and forced her into a nearby booth. “I need details. Who is that sex-on-a-stick, and why have I never met him before?”

  Sophie shook her head as memories of a younger Sam flooded her mind. The years had been very kind to him in her opinion. He was over six feet tall, with what appeared to be a lean yet muscled body. His light brown hair looked like it needed a trim, but was incredibly sexy at the same time. Like her own were, his eyes were blue, yet they seemed hold a sparkle she’d never seen before when he smiled.

  “His younger sister and I were friends in high school. Sam was in college at that time, so I didn’t see much of him, but when I did …” Sophie got a faraway look in her eyes.

  “You liked him!” Lexi smacked Sophie’s hand that lay on the table between them.

  “Yep, I fell hard. I admit there was a bit of flirting, but nothing ever came of it.” Sophie ran her fingertips over her warm cheeks. “I thought I might see him a bit more once Caroline and my cousin, Drew, started dating, but he was working somewhere out east. Then I started dating Josh, and you know how that turned out.” Her relationship with Josh Reynolds had been a complete disaster, dictating how she had spent the last several years of her life.

  “It’s time to get back on the horse, so to speak. I’m sure that cowboy wouldn’t mind a ride.”

  Sophie laughed, but deep down in the dirty recesses of her mind, she could picture it happening.

  Chapter Two

  A few hours later, Sam thought over his encounter with Sophie. He’d been trying to relax while sketching a picture of the new Sophie when his pager went off. He picked it up off his desk to look at the page.

  “Shit!” Sam jumped out of his chair, grabbed his cell phone and began running down the hallway. He caught up with the nursing house supervisor at the elevator bay. “Hey, Kate. You know what’s going on?”

  They stepped onto the elevator.

  “Yeah, thirteen-month-old with head trauma. When I checked earlier, they thought he was turning a corner.”

  Sam shook his head. This was the part of his job he hated, but because of hospital policy, he had to check on all codes.

  They got to the intensive care unit and went to the bedside where the doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists tried to revive the little boy. Kate and Sam escorted his grieving parents to the waiting room where the Chaplain was waiting. On his way out, he noticed Sophie administering medications and thought it must be her patient.

  After another twenty minutes and a few final tests, the attending doctor, Dr. Thomas, called the time of death. Sam’s heart lurched to his throat as it always did when a patient didn’t make it. Death was hard under any circumstances, but the death of a child was downright horrible.

  Once they removed all the tubing and cleaned the little boy up, the staff left his parents to spend a few moments to say goodbye.

  The team walked into the lounge, and the moment the door was closed, the female respiratory therapist turned to Sophie and began sobbing. Dr. Thomas patted her back as he spoke.

  “I know how we all fought to save little Nathan, but unfortunately there was just too much damage. I’m sure the family is grateful for what time we were able to give them. Sophie, you did an excellent job. The second you noticed a change you were on top of it.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Thomas,” she replied with a shaky lilt to her voice.

  “It’s almost shift change. Let’s finish our paperwork and charting so we can go get some rest.” Dr. Thomas gave everyone a weak smile.

  Kate turned to Sam and they went over the hospital procedures they knew by heart at that point.

  As Sophie was walking out of the room, Kate said, “You did great on your first code, Sophie.”

/>   “Thanks, Kate.” She looked up at Sam before wiping a tear from her cheek. “I need to finish up before the coroner gets here.”

  Sophie left the lounge looking defeated.

  “Ugh.” Kate sat down at the table. “It never gets any easier. She’s seen so much.”

  “I thought you said it was her first code?” Sam sat down in a chair next to Kate.

  “Here, yes, but Sophie spent eighteen months working at a pediatric clinic in Africa. She told me after so many deaths there she stopped counting.”

  “Wow, Africa? She’s done so much for someone so young.”

  “Noticed that, huh?” Kate quipped.

  Sam tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, well, we both grew up in Halston together. She’s a bit younger than me, and until earlier today, I hadn’t seen her in quite a while.”

  “She’s twenty-six. Actually, she worked at the clinic with Dr. Thomas before she went to Africa. When Sophie came back, he had taken the job here at the hospital and recommended she give this place a try.”

  “You don’t think this will shake her at all?” A wave of panic swept through Sam at the thought of not being able to see her.

  “No, Sophie’s a tough cookie with a big heart. I think she’ll be around for a while.”

  Relief took place of the panic before he pulled himself together to finish his work for the night.

  “Sam?”

  He turned to find Sophie standing beside a small, bright blue car in the hospital parking lot. “Hi, Sophie. Heading out?”

  “Yep. You?”

  “Yeah.” They stood there for a few seconds just looking at each other. He could tell by the way she fidgeted that she wanted to say something else, but held back. He took the courage and broke the ice. “I’m still too keyed up to sleep and missed dinner. Would you like to get something to eat with me?”

  Sophie smiled and nodded. “How about I meet you at the diner two blocks down?”