Then I jumped.
“Anna…? You okay?”
Oh, for goodness sakes. This wasn’t happening. I twisted my head to see Cowboy’s smiling face staring back at me. I cracked open the window. “Um, I’m fine, thanks.”
His smile faded. “Really? Because you don’t look fine. You look like you have a flat. Want me to change the tire for you?”
God. He’s going to think I’m an idiot. I rolled the window back up, then reached over and unlocked the door before shoving it open and crawling out. “I don’t have a spare. Well, I do…but I took it out of my trunk last Saturday.”
His brows gathered over the bridge of his nose and he frowned. “Why would you do something like that?”
Not appreciating the condescending tone, Cowboy. “If you must know,” I said, “I went to the flea market over the weekend to pick up some used books. There wasn’t going to be enough room in the trunk for all the boxes, so I removed the spare before I left and forgot to put it back in.”
“Where is it now?”
“It’s lying on the ground next to my front porch. I figured I didn’t need it and I was right…er, until now.”
Cowboy shook his head and sighed in blatant disapproval. “You always need a spare.”
Yeah, no kidding. “Yes, I guess you could say I learned my lesson. Thanks for not rubbing it in,” I said.
A tiny smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Oh, yeah? What would you like for me to do? Leave you out here all alone in the boonies so some weird fella in a hockey mask can slice ya to bits?”
Guess I wasn’t the only one who thought like that. I smiled lightly. “Well, okay, when you put it that way.”
I reached inside the car, grabbed my keys, my cell phone, and my purse, then hit the door lock button before swinging it shut. As I turned to face him, I caught the scowl Cowboy was wearing. “What now?”
“You didn’t have to lock it.”
“Yes, I did. I didn’t want to come back tomorrow to find my radio had been stolen.”
“Way out here? What do you take us country boys for…a bunch of hoodlums?”
I blinked at him in confusion. “But you were the one who just said you weren’t going to leave me out here so a guy in a hockey mask could slice me into pieces.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t say he was going to steal the radio out of your car first. Christ, woman, give us a little bit of credit.”
I didn’t have much of an argument for that logic, so I bit my tongue.
He led the way around the back of my Cavalier to the passenger side of his much larger, jacked-up red Chevy. He opened the door and spent a moment clearing off the seat before turning back to me.
I started past him toward the cab, but Cowboy unexpectedly stopped me in my tracks by planting two large hands on either side of my waist. Caught off guard, I stood there staring up at him with wide, unblinking eyes, unsure as to what the hell he was doing. And from the way he hesitated himself, I wasn’t sure if he knew, either.
The movement had brought his face close to mine, so close I felt his breath caressing my lips. The warmth of his fingers seared through the thin fabric of my skirt, but it was no match for the heated look he gave me. Moonlit eyes stared at me, twinkling with what seemed to be a mischievous thought, judging by the way the corner of his mouth lifted.
Was he thinking about kissing me?
Before I could contemplate the idea any further, Cowboy lifted me easily into the truck with one quick, smooth motion. Guess not. An unexpected surge of disappointment ran through me. But why? It wasn’t like I wanted him to kiss me. Liar. The thought flashed through my mind so quickly it annoyed me. “I’m not an invalid, you know. I could have climbed in without assistance.”
His hands, still on my waist, tightened their grip. “The last thing I needed was you lifting that skirt of yours to climb in while I was standing behind you.” His eyes smoldered and his tone deepened. “Otherwise, you’d have something much bigger to worry about than whether or not someone took your radio.”
His potent words delivered a pulsing ache straight to my nether regions, and the hot tang of desire bubbled in my throat. I swallowed hard as I buckled up, but didn’t dare let out a breath until he shut the passenger door and strolled around to the driver’s side. Once settled into his seat, Cowboy strapped himself in, and put the truck into gear without looking over at me.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“County Road 1500. It’s not too far out of your way, is it?”
“Nope. No problem. I pass right by there on my way home. If you want help with your tire in the morning, I could always swing by and—”
“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly. “I’ll manage. Thanks, anyway.”
“Suit yourself. But just in case, take this,” he said, grabbing a business card from his console and pressing it into my palm. “My cell number is at the bottom.” He cocked his left arm over the steering wheel and raised one brow. “So are you going to tell me what freaked you out earlier?”
Not no, but hell no. I bit into my bottom lip, then said, “It was nothing.”
He measured me with his eyes, then grinned. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He checked his rearview mirror and eased onto the highway. No doubt his bullshit meter had just rocketed sky-high.
The awkward silence that followed made me self-conscious. What the heck were we supposed to talk about now? The weather? Politics or religion? My lack of a brain every time I was around him? God, what’s the matter with me?
“Um, Bobbie Jo mentioned that you made captain at the fire department a while back,” I said, using his promotion as an icebreaker. “Congratulations.”
I expected him to smile, but instead, his brows furrowed, and large grooves formed in his forehead. He kept his eyes on the road. “Three months ago, to be exact.”
He hesitated, as if he were contemplating not saying more, then continued anyway. “But I’ve had to take on the role of acting chief because the man who promoted me, Chief Swanson, died in a fire the same night. Guess you could say I haven’t felt much like celebrating.”
My stomach clenched into a knot and my heart shriveled as a dull ache crept inside my chest. It was as if someone fisted my heart in their hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear that.” And I meant it.
“Chief Swanson threw me a promotion party that afternoon. Then sometime before midnight, several 911 calls came in reporting a structure fire at his home address.”
I didn’t even try to speak. My throat had caved in, my natural physical reaction each time anyone mentioned anything about a blaze. What would I say—I don’t want to know? No. That would be too harsh. Instead, I closed my eyes and hoped like hell nothing else tumbled out of his mouth.
“One of them was a neighbor who’d seen smoke coming from the rear section of the home. Engine one—the truck I was in—was the first one on the scene. We—” Cowboy stopped talking, so I opened my eyes and glanced at him. He ran a hand over his distraught face, as if he were mentally reliving the moment. “We tried to enter the house to search for survivors and fight the fire from the interior, but the flames had already spread into the walls and roof.”
Why was he telling me this? According to him, I was nothing more than a stranger, even if I had technically met him before. So why ramble on and disclose things that were obviously so upsetting and personal to him?
“The conditions forced us back outside, where we stayed until the fire had been declared fully contained. Three hours passed before the fire marshal allowed us to search inside. Downstairs, we found the corpse of…a man.”
Jesus, please stop. I wanted to tell him not to go on, that I’d heard enough, but my thick tongue wouldn’t work, so I sat there cringing while he kept on talking.