Without a word, Cowboy stalked past me to his truck and shoved his gun under the driver’s seat. Then he returned, lifted me into his strong arms, and carried me toward the ambulance parked nearby.
I opened my eyes, blinking at the bright lights above me, as the oxygen mask made a hissing sound. Inside the ambulance, the paramedic hovered over me, strapping a blood pressure cuff on my right arm.
“Is she going to be okay?” Cowboy asked, his voice thick with fear and strained with worry.
“Let me finish checking her over,” the paramedic replied. “She has some minor cuts and burns, but I think she’ll be all right. The dislocated shoulder probably won’t need surgery since that guy popped it back into place so soon after her fall. She’ll most likely have to wear a sling for a short time, though.”
I tried to speak Cowboy’s name, but my throat was hoarse and too raspy to make out the word. Even though I had an IV hooked into my left arm, the paramedic handed me a bottle of water. “Sip this carefully. Only a little at a time.”
I removed the breathing apparatus from my mouth and took a small drink. I might as well have been trying to ingest dust. The water trickled down my dry throat, and an explosion of deep coughs erupted from my chest. When the eruption went dormant, I tried to speak with my scratchy voice. “Cow…boy…”
“Don’t try to talk, Anna. Lie still and let him help you. You’re safe now. I got to you in time.”
Barely.
“H-how’d you…find me?” I whispered, my voice straining to eke out the last two words.
Cowboy kissed my hand and then rested his forehead on it. “Someone called it in.”
The inflection of his tone led me to believe things were not as simple as he stated. “Someone?” I croaked out.
He smiled warmly at me. “Shhh. Don’t worry about that right now. Just concentrate on getting better.”
I was so tired and felt safe, knowing Cowboy stood sentry at my bedside, so I allowed my eyes to flutter closed while the paramedic continued his medical assessment.
“Darlin’, open your eyes,” Cowboy said, pulling my hand into his. “We need you to stay awake.”
I did as he asked, then gave him a weak smile as I squeezed his fingers to comfort him. Cowboy’s expression was grim as his head dropped between his knees. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time and couldn’t rescue you from the fire.” He shook his head with disgust and sighed. “I shouldn’t have left you alone when I went on that fire call. This is all my fault.”
“Y-you saved me…from my father,” I said softly.
“That I did,” he said, grinning. “Your own real-life Prince Charming, huh? And I didn’t even need a white horse to do it.” Cowboy winked at me, but I detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone.
Something was off with him.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the ambulance for a moment,” the paramedic said, addressing Cowboy. “I need to assess her without her trying to talk any more.”
I tried to sit up, but Cowboy stopped me. “Whoa, tiger. You’re staying firmly planted in this ambulance until you get checked out at the hospital.” I shook my head back and forth and started coughing violently. “It’s okay, darlin’. Let him do his job. I’ll be outside and won’t leave your sight. You’re safe.” Cowboy brushed my cheek with his hand, then kissed me on my forehead.
As he stepped out of the ambulance, there were two sheriff deputies standing just outside the ambulance doors, as if they were guarding us. Several other deputies combed the surrounding area searching for clues, as two paramedics wheeled Dan toward a second ambulance parked next to us. He was grumbling under his breath about kicking the shit out of the “stinkin’ idiot” who tried to burn him alive.
Stinkin’? Since when did Dan refrain from using stronger words than that?
Firefighters hosed down the blaze, even though the entire barn had already caved in. I caught a glimpse of Mandy running past the ambulance in full bunker gear. I wouldn’t have known it was her if she hadn’t been shoving her helmet on her head at the time I’d spotted her.
My gaze shifted as someone stepped into my line of sight. It was the mustache-wielding sheriff who’d pulled his gun out when he arrived. “Ma’am,” the man said, tipping his hat to me. “I’m Sheriff Hunter Wells with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office. Would it be okay if I asked you a few questions?”
I nodded, but Cowboy shook his head. “Anna’s been through enough tonight. Why don’t you go question Stuart Nelson instead?”
“Mr. Nelson answered all of our questions already,” Sheriff Wells said, his eyes zeroing in on me. “We released him ten minutes ago.”
I gasped and shot straight up on the gurney, as if someone had erected a metal spike in my back. “What? You can’t! H-he’s going to—” I coughed so hard, sputtering to get the words out, that my head hurt.
Cowboy climbed into the ambulance, took my hand and squeezed it. “Damn it. Anna, you need to settle down.”
“No, I—” I started coughing again.
His jaw tightened and he glared at the sheriff. “Want to explain why the hell you let the ex-convict go?”
“Sorry, Cowboy, but it looks like Stuart Nelson’s not our guy. We don’t have any evidence to hold him. Not only did he pull Miss Weber to safety by her own admittance, but he also was the one who made the 911 call. I had dispatch compare his cell phone number to the person who called in and it was the same…as he claimed it would be.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t kidnap Anna.”
Sheriff Wells shrugged. “Not sure what he’d gain by calling the cops on himself. Doesn’t seem like something anyone with half a brain would do. Stuart Nelson doesn’t seem to be the likely culprit here. He did, however, give us a lead to follow.”
“What lead?” Cowboy asked.
“Miss Weber, do you own a blue Chevy Cavalier?”
I nodded slowly, unsure as to where Sheriff Wells was going with his question.
“Your fath—I mean, Mr. Nelson—said he arrived at your house just as a blue Cavalier pulled away and followed it out here. Since it was a dead end, he pulled over up the road a little ways and waited to see what you were doing.”
“But I didn’t—”
The sheriff raised his hand to stop me from continuing. “It’s okay, we know that much already.”
Cowboy glared at him. “Stuart Nelson is lying. Anna’s car was still in her driveway when I got back from the fire call. Her vehicle wasn’t stolen.”
“He’s not saying it was stolen. More like ‘temporarily borrowed.’”
I shook my head. “None of this makes any sense. Why would the kidnapper take my car and then return it?”
“We have reason to believe the perpetrator wasn’t aware the old man was in the barn,” Sheriff Wells explained. “Nelson said your vehicle barreled out of here at a high rate of speed. He tried to follow it, but lost it a few miles down the road. Once he made it back to your home and saw your Cavalier sitting in the driveway, he drove back to the barn to find out what you’d been doing out here.”
“And that’s when he found the barn on fire?”
The sheriff nodded. “He called in the fire, then found your friend and moved him to safety. Said he hadn’t even realized there was anyone else inside until the old man told him otherwise. He ran back to the barn and saw you climbing down the ladder.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Cowboy sneered, pulling off his hat and scrubbing a hand through his hair. “So on his word alone, you let the ex-convict go.”
“Didn’t have a choice,” the sheriff said. “We had nothing to tie him to the kidnapping. The only other suspects at this time are—”
“The B-Barlow b-brothers…” I wheezed, then stopped long enough to catch my breath. “It was them? They…did this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, ma’am.”
Cowboy sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’re going to catch whoever’s responsible for this. No one’s going to hurt you ever again.” His cell phone must’ve buzzed because he stood and pulled it from his hip and looked at it. “I have to take this,” he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead before hopping out the ambulance doors.