by Alison Bliss
That’s when I recognized a familiar face behind the counter.
Mandy stood on the far side of the booth, beneath the tent, wearing the same shirtless outfit as the men, although a bikini top had been added to her ensemble. Not that the two little black triangles covered much more than her suspenders did.
She stood in front of a folding table lined with several stainless steel chafing dishes and used a ladle to transfer chili into small Styrofoam cups on a tray. She glanced up and smiled, then motioned for us to come around and join her inside the tent.
Bobbie Jo led the way through the hoards of half-naked firemen, while I followed closely behind her, carefully dodging muscular chests and bulging biceps. “Hey, Mandy,” Bobbie Jo said as we approached. “Where’s Cowboy? I figured he’d be here with you guys.”
“He was here earlier, but he left. Said something about having a few women to entertain,” Mandy responded with a wide grin. “By now, I’m pretty sure he’s a little…preoccupied, if you know what I mean.” She shrugged her brows a few times and then gave us a sly wink.
I mentally rolled my eyes.
A few women? My God! How many women does one man need? Then I remembered it was Cowboy we were talking about. Sadly enough, I really wasn’t all that shocked.
Folding my arms, I huffed out an irritated breath.
“Oh, sorry,” Mandy said, cringing as she stared back at me. “Anna, right? So you and Cowboy, huh?”
I choked on my saliva. “Um…w-what?”
Bobbie Jo laughed at my reaction, but Mandy seemed almost surprised by it. “Oh. When I saw you two at the library, you looked rather cozy, and then he mentioned he’d taken you home, so I assumed…”
All the blood in my body rushed to my cheeks. “Oh, God no.” I shook my head, denying the ridiculous charge. “We’re just…friends.”
Mandy didn’t look convinced. In fact, she smiled, as if she were under the distinct impression Cowboy couldn’t possibly be “just friends” with anyone of the female persuasion.
“Heads up,” a man called out. “Hot stuff coming through…and I’m not referring to the chili, ladies.”
I turned to see a beefy fireman carrying a steaming pot toward me. Realizing I stood directly in his path, I muttered a quiet apology and scooted closer to Mandy’s table to let him pass.
He veered around us and stopped at the end of the table, poured the bubbling chili into a metal pan, then covered it with a lid. The moment he glanced up, his eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, shit!”
Everyone around us stopped in their tracks and looked in our direction. Correction: my direction. Their mouths gaped open and their eyes bugged out. I blinked back at them, oblivious as to what caused their reactions, until one of the men pointed just to the right of me and shouted, “Fire!”
I wheeled around and gasped at the sight before me.
A pile of scorched napkins lay scattered across the tabletop while orange flames danced across them like a wanton stripper. Unable to move, I stood there, staring at the one thing I feared most.
Thankfully, Bobbie Jo hooked her arm around my waist and pulled me aside as Mandy shot into action. Wielding a fire extinguisher, she pulled the metal pin and doused the flames, creating a fog around us.
Within seconds, the air cleared and the small fire was out. I’d barely had time to register any of it, and if it wasn’t for the white foam making such a mess of the tabletop, I would’ve thought I had imagined the whole thing.
“You girls okay?” a nearby fireman asked.
Bobbie Jo answered him, but I couldn’t bring myself to respond. The idea of a fire breaking out so close to me had kicked my nerves into high gear. Now that the danger had officially passed, my adrenaline crashed, causing my body to tremble.
“Hey,” Mandy asked, staring at me with wide eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I, uh…yes. It just startled me, that’s all.”
Bobbie Jo stepped around me to take a better look. “What happened? How did the fire start?”
“I don’t know,” Mandy said, gazing at the mess on the table. “I guess the candle under the warming tray must’ve caused it. But I don’t know how the napkins got near the flame. They were in a pile over there just a minute ago.” She indicated a spot on the table right behind where I’d been standing and shrugged. “Maybe the wind blew them across the table.” Then she glanced to me and smiled lightly.
It was a nice gesture on her part. Not only because there wasn’t much of a breeze, but the tent was covered by tarps on three sides, which kept her conjured-up scenario from being a remote possibility. It was much more likely I’d bumped the table in my hurry to move out of the fireman’s path as he carried the chili past us.
But had I?
I couldn’t remember doing so, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. “I’m sorry if I did anything to knock those over.”
“Well, we don’t know what actually happened, so I wouldn’t worry about it,” Mandy said, waving it off with her hand. “Besides, what better place to start a fire than in front of a bunch of firefighters?”
After a few more minutes—and another apology—Bobbie Jo and I moved on and found some new entertainment. We rode the Ferris wheel and the Tilt-a-Whirl, as well as a few other carnival rides, which was something I’d never done before. Then we sat at a picnic table and shared a hot funnel cake covered in powdered sugar. Once that was devoured, I bought a paper cone of pink cotton candy and munched on it while we played a game of Ring Toss.
As I polished off the last of the cotton candy, I scanned the area for the nearest trash can and stepped away to throw out the leftover paper cone. When I returned, she grinned at me. “What?”
“I don’t know how you can be so skinny the way you eat,” Bobbie Jo said as we meandered past the beer tent. “Where did you even put that?” She placed her hand on her stomach and feigned looking ill. “After all the chili-tasting and the funnel cake, I feel sick just thinking about eating anything else.”
I shrugged. “It really wasn’t all that much if you figure one skein of cotton candy is only about forty-two grams of sugar. It’s mostly air, really.”
Bobbie Jo smiled and shook her head. “Only you would know how many grams of sugar are in cotton candy. You’re like a walking encyclopedia.” Then something caught her eye over my shoulder. “Oh, hey, there’s Cowboy! Let’s go say hello.”
She didn’t see it, but I cringed. “Um, okay.”
We made our way through the crowd until we reached a booth where Cowboy sat with a large group of men. As we approached from the side, an extremely impatient hoard of women blocked the front of the table, all jockeying to be the next in line. They were giggly and several were trying to push their way to the front. Since all of these guys had their shirts on, I couldn’t imagine what they could be selling that was so popular with the ladies. Then I glanced to the wall behind Cowboy and my mouth went dry.
A huge banner that read Liberty County Bachelors displayed thirteen calendar-sized portraits—twelve individuals and one group shot. The men in each individual photo were good-looking and had terrific bodies, but none of them were wearing much more than a pair of briefs, at best. And although I told my eyes not to, they zoomed straight to the month of May.
I had expected his to be red-hot and possibly a little brazen. But in the picture, Cowboy was facing forward in a standing position, wearing that sexy little smirk he was so well-known for, with his white Stetson covering his…obvious nakedness. Nothing I found appalling, indecent, or shameful. Until I realized both of his hands were behind his head. Oh, my Lord.
An overwhelming urge to examine the photograph up close consumed me. I squeezed my thighs together, but an immensely pleasurable ache hit me low and deep, taking me by surprise, and leaving me feeling empty and frustrated.
I seldom thought about sex. But his provocative stance brought it forefront in my mind, thrusting me out of my comfort zone. No doubt, my cheeks bloomed furiously with my discomfort.
Eventually, I scanned the other pictures, noting that none of the other men had taken their sexiness to the limit the way Cowboy had. Leave it to him to be the outrageous and wicked one in the bunch.
“Hey, ladies,” he said with a grin. “Did you come to get a calendar? At the rate they’re going, we’re going to be sold out before the end of the night.”
Bobbie Jo looked at me. “I haven’t bought one yet. Do you mind hanging out for a few minutes? The line looks pretty long.”
“No, that’s fine,” I told her, keeping my eyes from returning to Cowboy’s picture in an effort to regain my poise. “I’ll just check out one of the nearby rides while I’m waiting for you.”
“You should buy a calendar, too, Anna,” Cowboy said, giving me a wink. “I’ll even sign it for you real quick before I go on my break.”
The cockiness oozed from him. I doubted the man could even help it. But I didn’t want a sexy man calendar. What I wanted was to forget I ever saw so much of his muscular frame lacking in the clothing department.
That’s all I needed. To spend every waking minute staring at his naked form on my wall. “No, thank you.” I turned to Bobbie Jo, putting my back to him. “I’ll be back soon,” I promised her.
“Okay,” she said, though her tone said otherwise. She gave me a strange look as I meandered away.
I made my way over to a ride called The Swizzler and waited in line until the operator took the three tickets I held out. If I had to wait for Bobbie Jo to indulge in her single woman fantasies, then I was going to enjoy myself in the meantime. Besides, this ride looked like a fun one.
Once the worker allowed my group through the gate, most of them scattered in different directions. I walked across a metal platform to an unoccupied red bucket on the far end. My flat heels clacked across the metal grating until I stepped into the bucket and sat in the middle of the spacious seat meant for three. There was a lap bar, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to do anything with it, so I waited. The operator of the ride had started walking on the opposite side, checking each bucket’s safety equipment, and would eventually get to me.
But while I sat there alone, I caught sight of Cowboy leaping over the ride’s fence and climbing onto the metal arm of the machine my bucket was attached to. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
“Just thought you’d like some company,” he said, hopping down into my bucket and squeezing into the seat next to me. He made himself comfortable by throwing his arm along the bench behind me.
No way. Being in such close quarters with Cowboy was a delicious kind of torture, but one I could do without. I started to rise, but Cowboy pulled the lap bar toward us which automatically locked into place, forcing me to stay put. “What did you do that for? I was going to leave.”
He smirked. “I know.”
“You do realize I can just ask the operator to let me out, right?”
Cowboy stretched his legs out in front of him and smiled confidently. “Yeah, but you won’t.”
“You seem awfully sure about that,” I challenged.
“Oh, come on. You wouldn’t want to hold the ride up for the next kids in line, would you?”
My eyes cut to the line forming once again at the entrance, filling with children who were patiently waiting their turn with excitement in their eyes. I huffed under my breath and scooted away from him. “Fine. But stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.”
Cowboy grinned again. “You haven’t ever ridden The Swizzler, have you?”
Before I could answer him, the operator stopped by our bucket and tugged on the bar to make sure it was in place. “All right guys, we’re ready to rock and roll,” the man said as he made his way back to the control box.
Loud rock music blared from the speakers as the buckets started to move. They traveled slowly in a zigzag pattern at first until it built speed and momentum. With all the wind blowing, I was glad my hair was held back with a clip and not whipping wildly around my face.
But the one thing I hadn’t anticipated was gravity. Each time the bucket swung to the outside of the ride’s loop, my rear end slid on the cold metal seat closer and closer to Cowboy. I held a death grip on the bar to keep myself in place, but it was no use. Several laps in, my hips were pushed all the way up against his and the force of the ride’s movement kept me welded to him.
At one point my hand even ended up on his chest to keep my face from pressing closer to his. He grasped my hand and held it lightly in his as I fought to keep myself from ending up in his lap.
He leaned closer and whispered into my ear, “Stop fighting it and just have fun already.”
I sighed. It was no use, anyway, so I did what he suggested.
Even with my body pushing into his, I found that I was enjoying the rush of wind on my face and the exhilaration of the twists and turns. The rock music reverberated loudly into my chest as the bucket zigged and zagged in different directions, like we were being slingshot from one side of the ride to the other over and over again in some weird yet consistent pattern.
The unexpected thrill of speed and gravity had me smiling uncontrollably, but the excitement of being shoved forcibly into Cowboy’s hard body for the duration of the ride was a buzz-worthy event in itself. He smiled and lowered his brawny arm from the back of the seat to behind me where it came to rest on my hip. I was essentially being cradled in his rugged arms…and I liked it. Maybe a little too much.
Our bodies generated heat, while the friction hardened my aching nipples. They poked through my blouse. I knew I should put some distance between us, but his glittering green eyes held mine, keeping me in place. The fast ride invigorated me, but Cowboy’s incredible smile made me dizzy.
As the machine finally slowed, so did my heart rate. That’s when all of my senses returned, and I fully realized the intimate position Cowboy and I were maintaining.
Startled by the pleasure I felt, I pushed away from him so abruptly that he frowned at me. “What’s the problem?” he asked as the ride came to a full stop and the lap bar automatically disengaged.
“Don’t you have to get back to peddling your calendars?” I asked softly, wondering how the hell he managed to get past my defenses. I stood up and stepped shakily out of the bucket, still feeling a little wobbly from the ride. Or maybe it was from the way he had held me.
Cowboy followed me, but I kept going, pretending he was no longer there. Once we made it outside the exit gate, he grasped my arm gently to stop me from walking away. “Anna, why do you keep running away from me?”
Because I have to. “I’m not,” I said, shaking my head in denial. “The ride is over and I’m moving on to the next one. But since I know you have to get back, don’t let me stop you. Please tell Bobbie Jo I’ll check on her soon.”
With that, I turned and speed-walked away. I was in such a hurry to get away from him that I didn’t even pay any attention to which direction I had gone. I’d somehow ended up on the backside of the gaming booths where the carnies had parked their big trucks and travel trailers.
The area was much darker and I had to be careful not to trip over the large electrical cables that powered all of the rides and were running across the trail. I thought about turning back, but I was too afraid Cowboy would still be there, so I kept moving forward, looking for a path that would cut through the booths and take me back to the other side.
I caught sight of a glowing light up ahead and quickened my steps, hoping I’d run into someone who could tell me how to get back to where I came from. But when I rounded the bend, I found it wasn’t a light at all. It was a stack of wooden pallets…one that happened to be covered in flames.
I skidded to a stop. The fire wasn’t large and looked to be contained, but my chest still tightened as turmoil sloshed through my veins. My heart rate accelerated, and my pulse roared in my ears. Every fiber of my being wanted me to turn around and run in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t. I remembered how those all-too-familiar flames had ruined my life
by taking something precious from me. I couldn’t—no, I wouldn’t—allow it to happen anymore. I welded myself in place.
Focus, Anna. I could beat this.
As I watched the orange tendrils lick at the sides of the wood and grow higher and higher, I became mesmerized by the dancing flames, and the urge to get a closer look came over me. Slowly, I placed one foot in front of the other until I was standing directly in front of the terrifying demon I’d feared so long.
I wanted to see inside the flames. Needed to understand how it worked in order to rid myself of my fear once and for all. But the heat from the fire was too hot to get any closer. Then the wind suddenly shifted and smoke surrounded me. My eyes watered and I choked on the toxic fumes. I barely registered the sound of my name as Cowboy appeared through the haze of black smoke.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, scowling at me. “Move!”
But I couldn’t. My sweat-dampened palms reached for him, but my feet weren’t cooperating. He grabbed my arms as I clutched at his shirt, trying to hold myself up and keep from passing out from the amount of smoke I’d inhaled. “I…c-can’t,” I coughed out, feeling weaker by the second.
His firefighter training must’ve kicked in, because his face changed from a perplexed, what-the-hell expression to a look of sheer determination and confidence.
Without hesitation, he snaked his arm around my back and lifted my wobbly legs out from under me, drawing me tight against his hard chest. My face buried into his warm neck, and my fingers dug into his broad shoulders as he carried me out of the smoke.
I gasped in a breath of clean air, and coughed it right back out. My throat burned a little from the effort. Cowboy kept moving with me in his arms until he had toted me twenty yards away, where some of the carnival workers had gathered and a fire truck had just pulled in. I remembered seeing it parked near the firemen’s chili booth, and figured someone had probably notified them of the fire around the same time I’d stumbled upon it.
In full bunker gear, Mandy stepped out of the passenger seat. Her eyes widened, as if she hadn’t expected to see me standing there. “Something wrong with her feet, Captain, or did you just feel like playing hero?”