Playing With Fire

by Alison Bliss

  “But you weren’t at the bonfire,” I said, shaking my head furiously. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “I was on my way when I heard a commotion and ran to see what happened. I thought one of the kids had gotten hurt, but it was you. You were lying on the ground with all the kids standing around you as one of the other female counselors yelled for help. I picked you up and carried you to the nurse’s station, then waited outside until I heard you were going to be okay. They’d told me you had a panic attack and fainted.”

  “Y-you carried me…” My heart squeezed and my eyes filled with blinding tears. I turned away from him. “I never knew. By the next morning, word had gotten around about what had happened and a few of the other counselors had started calling me ‘Sparky.’ I didn’t want to be reminded of how I’d panicked and fainted in front of everyone when they’d lit the bonfire, so I packed my things and left.”

  “I know. I went to see you the following night to make sure you were okay, but Bobbie Jo told me you were already gone.” He paused, then his tone laced with anger. “Guess that’s what you do, though. You leave without saying good-bye.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said solemnly. His boots clomped on the floor, the sound growing softer with distance as he made his way to the door.

  Tears leaked down my face. I knew if I spoke again my shaky voice would tell him everything he needed to know. But despite everything I’d said, I wanted him. Now more than ever. He’d given me his trust. Maybe it was about time I did the same.

  “I’m not,” I whispered.

  He must’ve stopped at the door because suddenly I couldn’t hear his footfalls anymore. “Not what?”

  It was a pivotal moment, dependent entirely on what words came out of my mouth next. Because if things went wrong… But I couldn’t bear to let him think he hadn’t been good enough for me. Even a guy with Cowboy’s reputation deserved better than that. “I-I’m not okay.”

  “Anna…?” His voice registered concern.

  I walked over to the counter and picked up the letter, not sure if I was doing the right thing. But now that I’d set the ball in motion, I couldn’t seem to stop it. I turned and moved slowly toward him, clenching the letter tightly in my grip. Once he knew everything, there would be no going back.

  His eyes flickered with confusion as I handed him the letter. “Who’s it from? The Barlows?”

  “Read it.”

  He did as I asked and then glanced up at me. “Is this who you’re running from?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re afraid he might come after you?”

  “I know he’ll come after me. He always has. Even in my dreams he won’t rest until he finds me.”

  Cowboy’s eyes darkened with fury. “You know I won’t let him hurt you, don’t you?”

  “That’s the thing. You won’t be able to stop him. No one can.”

  “Who is he?” he demanded. “Your ex-boyfriend or something?”

  “No. H-he’s my father.”

  Cowboy’s eyes widened. “Why would your own father try to kill you?”

  “Because my testimony is what kept him in prison for the past twenty-two years. He murdered my mother.”

  “I thought your mom died in a fire. You said she was cooking dinner and went to answer the door. She told you to stay in the kitchen, but you didn’t…”

  I closed my eyes briefly. “That’s true,” I said, feeling the full weight of the guilt I’d held onto for years. “But what I didn’t tell you was what happened after she opened the door and found my father on the other side.” I rubbed my palms over my face and sniffled.

  “Tell me.”

  “I could hear them arguing, yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, from the kitchen. He told her he wasn’t going to let her keep his daughter away from him and that he was taking me home. Then, he must’ve pushed his way inside because my mom started screaming even louder for him to get out. The moment he hollered my name and demanded for me to come to him, I hid inside the pantry.”

  “You were scared of him?”

  I nodded. “My parents divorced when I was six. I don’t remember much of it, though. But Mom had warned me he wasn’t a good man. He only wanted to take me away from her in order to punish her for leaving him. He hunted us down everywhere we went. That’s why we moved around so much when I was younger. To keep him from finding us.”

  “Is that why you don’t share the same last name?”

  “Weber is my mother’s maiden name. She didn’t want me to have any connection to that man.”

  “Did he find you…in the pantry, I mean?”

  I shook my head. “They came into the kitchen. Mom was crying, begging for him not to take her little girl away, but he ignored her and continued calling out my name. It was like he didn’t even care about my mother. He just wanted to hurt her.” Pain and anger surged inside of me at the injustice of it all. “Had I just left with him, she would still be alive.”

  Cowboy’s eyes softened. “Sweetheart, you don’t know that.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t know for certain. But I believe it’s true.” A lone tear ran down my cheek. “There was a scuffle. Glass shattered and my father cursed, then my mother released the most agonizing sound I’d ever heard. Moments later, everything went silent.”

  I shivered as my mind pulled me back in time and stuffed me back into my six-year-old body. Alone and trembling, I’d sat on the floor of the dark pantry with my arms curled around my knees until smoke eventually seeped under the door. I recalled the terror and confusion, the choking and gasping for breath, the way my eyes and throat burned. I made the decision to open the pantry door and face the awful truth about what had happened.

  “By the time I opened the door, the kitchen was engulfed with fire and smoke. I could barely see anything as I tried to find a way out. Only when I tripped over something, did I realize what—or rather who—it was.” I cringed at my own words.

  Cowboy shook his head. “Anna, stop. You don’t have to tell me any more.”

  I nodded. Of course I didn’t. Because a fireman like Cowboy knew exactly what it was like to find someone in that capacity. A gruesome body, covered in flames and melting skin, lying in a fetal position, lacking any hair, and the smell of burned flesh in the air. With one look, he would have known my mother was past saving.

  But I was only six.

  “I tried to get to her…so I could help her,” I admitted, barely able to hear myself over the visions of fire roaring in my head. “I tried to crawl toward her, but I never made it. A wooden beam in the ceiling had burned through and fallen on top of me, pinning my waist to the floor.”

  Cowboy’s eyes narrowed and he breathed out through his nose. “That’s how you got your scars?”

  I nodded slowly. “I don’t know how long I was trapped under it because I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was being carried out by a fireman wearing a black helmet. I panicked and fought him, so he held me tighter and hummed to me all the way out to the ambulance. I guess I was in shock because I was pretty calm up until they rushed past me pushing a gurney with my mother wearing an oxygen mask.”

  “Jesus. She was alive?”

  “Barely. I heard them say her pulse was weak and thready and that her throat was swelling shut. They were rushing her to the ambulance to intubate her. At the time, I didn’t know what that even meant. I went wild trying to get up and go to her, but the paramedics gave me something to calm me down—a sedative, I suppose—and as I faded away, the last thing I remember was the fireman sitting next to me, humming a tune to keep me from being afraid.”

  “Chief Swanson?”

  “Yes. I didn’t learn his name until months later when he was called to testify in court. I wasn’t allowed to be there, but my stepdad mentioned his name and said he was the one who carried me out of the house. Before they had discovered me in the kitchen, they found my father in the living room and pu
lled him out. He was arrested on the spot after neighbors confirmed he showed up at our house right before all the yelling started and the fire broke out. He never admitted what he’d done. Denied it, even after they charged him with murder. My mom died en route to the hospital.”

  “Did you see him in court?”

  “No. Since I was a minor, the judge allowed my testimony to be recorded and shown to the jury in a closed courtroom. I was so badly burned that I was still in the hospital months later having multiple skin grafts when the jury finally found him guilty. Every day since, I have lived in fear he would be paroled and come after me. Now it’s happening. He’s not going to stop until he kills me, too.”

  “Anna, listen to me,” Cowboy said, grasping my arms. “I’m not going to let that happen. You don’t have to go anywhere. I can protect you from him.”

  I wanted to let him convince me to stay, but I couldn’t put him in that kind of danger. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask me. You’re my woman, remember? It’s my job,” he said, dutifully. He smiled, obviously trying to settle my nerves. “Besides, you have enough FBI agents surrounding you here that you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “You mean Jake?”

  “Jake isn’t the only FBI agent around here. Hank is a retired FBI director, and Junior used to do some contract work for the Feds. And even though Ox, Judd, and I aren’t FBI, we learned from the best. Your fath—Stuart Nelson—will have to go through all of us to get to you. Just tell me you’ll stay.”

  “I can’t do that. I always wanted to be surrounded by people who cared about me, and now that I am, I can’t risk their lives by putting them in danger,” I said, letting my head fall. “It’s best if I just disappear.”

  He lifted my chin to gaze deep into my eyes. “That isn’t what’s best for everyone.”

  With my emotions running so high, I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly. But his words filled me with a renewed sense of hope. All the years I’d spent running from my past had finally caught up to me. Would I be able to let all the fear go for Cowboy? For myself? I had to try, didn’t I?

  “Okay, I’ll stay.”

  Cowboy drew me a warm bubble bath and made me some herbal tea to help soothe my frazzled nerves. When I was done, I started to dry myself off, but he grabbed the towel from me and took care of it himself. Afterward, he helped me into my flannel pajamas and then led me to the bedroom. He was pampering me, and I let him, because it felt good to have someone else to lean on for a change. No one had ever taken care of me that way before.

  He held the covers up as I slid underneath, then lay down behind me, encompassing me with his warm body. It made me feel better, safer even, but it wasn’t enough. The mental images I’d stirred up by talking about my past wouldn’t stop replaying vividly in my mind. I needed him to make me forget completely, to make me forgo this feeling of doom hovering all around me.

  “Cowboy, I…I need you.”

  “I’m right here, baby.” He pressed his lips to my temple and held me firmer in his strong arms. “I’ve got you. No one is going to hurt you.”

  “No, I mean I need you…inside me.”

  I knew he wasn’t sexually aroused. I could feel every bit of pelvic region pressing into my bottom through my flannel pajamas. He didn’t have any problem sleeping in the nude, but I wasn’t at the same comfort level. Yet the moment I spoke those words aloud, something must’ve stirred inside him. A long, hard ridge suddenly rested uncomfortably against me.

  “Are you sure? We don’t have to—”

  “I need you,” I whispered again.

  His body shifted away from me a little and I considered it a sign that he was going to reject me, until the end table’s drawer opened and then shut. The telling sound of a foil packet crinkled as he ripped it open. He seemed to understand what I was asking him for because, seconds later, he shoved me forward, settling me on my stomach, as he positioned himself between my legs.

  He wasn’t gentle. Which is exactly what I wanted. I needed him to claim me in a primal way, to disintegrate the images from inside of my head, as he screwed me senseless. Cowboy lifted my hips, yanked my pajama bottoms down to my knees, and plunged inside of me from behind. I whimpered, but my mind focused solely on him.

  Gripping my hips with both hands, he grunted and groaned as he pulled almost all the way out and thrust himself back in once again. I gasped from the raw power of his body slamming against mine. Suddenly, he stopped. Reaching around to find my clit, he applied just the right amount of pressure, which had me panting and hurtling toward a mind-numbing orgasm. But I bucked back into him, rocking hard onto his member. More than anything, I needed to feel him deep within me.

  “Christ, darlin’, you’re going to make me come if you keep doing that.”

  Continuing to work my hips over his length, I gave as good as I got. The pace was frantic as he took me from behind, jarring my body forward and repeatedly jerking me back onto his length. The orgasm swept over me in much the same way, coming fast and furious, as Cowboy’s own climax peaked. Not giving me one second to catch my breath, he rode me hard all the way to the end until he collapsed over me, breathing heavily onto my back.

  After a few minutes, he rolled off me in a way mimicking an alligator’s death roll and lay there, spent. “If we keep this up, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the death of me.”

  I winced, remembering the danger I was putting him in by staying.

  God, I hoped not.

  The moment Cowboy began breathing heavy, suggesting he was asleep, I eased away from him and slipped out of the room. I didn’t want him to know I was still battling insomnia, so I closed the bedroom door to keep the light on the computer from waking him. At least one of us should be able to sleep.

  I spent some time mulling over a few promising websites and then settled on one to use for my research before I continued my search for Ned Swanson. An hour passed by with no new information. Same name. Wrong man. Each and every time.

  My eyes grew weary and my body slumped in defeat with every click. So when I found a wedding photo labeled “The Swanson Brothers,” I wasn’t expecting much to come of it. I clicked on the thumbnail picture to blow it up to a sizeable proportion and took a closer look.

  My heart stopped.

  In the photo, a young Chief Swanson wore a black tuxedo and chuckled as he sprayed another man with a bottle of champagne. The other male also wore a tux and ducked to avoid the drops of liquid raining down on him. Unfortunately, his hand blocked out most of his face. Didn’t matter, though. This was definitely Chief Swanson’s brother, Ned.

  Elated by my find, I zoomed in on the photo until I could make out the name on the building in the background. Baytown Community Center. I finally had a clue. Hoping to find an old address of his in the nearby Texas town, I typed the city name into a search engine, along with his, and gave it a go.

  Within moments, my breath shuddered out of me.

  The search results listed Ned Swanson as a current resident of Baytown, Texas. It couldn’t be true. How could he have lived so close to his brother all these years without Chief Swanson knowing? It had to be an old address or something. But as I continued to scroll, I managed to retrieve a listed phone number…one that had been updated a week ago.

  “I found him?” I said out loud to myself. “Oh my God! I found him!”

  Quickly, I scrawled the number on the notepad next to me like the information would somehow disappear from the computer screen if I didn’t write it down elsewhere. Then I hurried to the bedroom to tell Cowboy the great news. But when I creaked the door open, he stirred and released a low pitiful groan. It was as if it pained him to rouse his tired body even in the slightest way.

  Guilt washed over me.

  Just because I couldn’t sleep didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to get some rest. Especially after he’d spent the entire evening pampering and caring for me. With all the extra duties he performed as acting chief,
he probably wasn’t getting as much sleep as he needed to sustain his schedule. And with his investigation into the fire and the stress from the chief’s death, it wouldn’t be fair to disturb him or rob him of any more of it.

  The good news could wait until morning.

  I barely finished the thought when Cowboy rolled over, idly rubbing his hand over my side of the bed. The very idea that he was subconsciously seeking me out in his sleep made me smile. So I crawled carefully back into bed with him, slid under the sheet, and snuggled into his hard, masculine body.

  “Mmm,” he moaned, pulling me tighter against his warm chest and making me shiver. “Are you cold?” His raspy voice sounded thick, heavy with sleep.

  “A little.”

  He angled away from me, letting his large hand move around to my waist to the front, then dipped his fingers beneath the waistband of my pajama bottoms. “Want me to warm you up?”

  Holy hell. This man and his insatiable libido.

  But remembering the news I hadn’t yet shared with him, I grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Wait a minute,” I said, while wondering why the hell the news couldn’t hold out a little longer. “I have something to share with you.”

  His lips traveled up my neck and he nuzzled my ear. “Oh, yeah?”

  “I found Chief Swanson’s brother. Even got his phone number for you.”

  Cowboy yanked his head up and blinked at me. “What? When did you—”

  “After you dozed off. I’ve been searching for him for over a week. But tonight when I couldn’t sleep, I got back up and spent some time online doing research.”

  He frowned at that. “Anna, I’m glad you found him, but we need to talk about this sleep disorder you have.”

  “I don’t have a sleeping disorder.”

  The look on his face told me he wasn’t buying it. “Where’s the number?”

  “It’s on my desk. I scribbled it on the notepad next to the keyboard. Why?”

  “I need to call him.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t call him at this hour.”