Playing With Fire (Tangled in Texas, #2)(10)

“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.

“Upstairs, we found Chief Swanson’s wife, Janet.” His fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Dead. With her wrists bound behind her back.”

I gasped and covered my mouth. Oh, dear God, the chief didn’t…

It was only the second time he’d looked directly at me since he began the story. “I know what you’re thinking, Anna. It’s the same damn thing everyone thinks. But Chief Swanson didn’t do it. He loved his wife. They’d just gotten back together after being separated for almost six months, and it was the happiest I’d seen him.”

Confused, I lowered my gaze and finally found my voice. “P-people sometimes do…things.”

“Not this,” he said, adamantly shaking his head. “He wouldn’t have hurt Janet like that. Maybe he wasn’t a perfect husband, but the chief and I were good friends. I spent a lot of time with that man. I know he didn’t do it.” He sighed heavily. “Besides, none of it makes any sense. Why would Chief Swanson tie up his wife and leave her upstairs while he doused himself with an accelerant and…”

I wasn’t sure if Cowboy didn’t finish the sentence because he couldn’t say the words or just didn’t want to. Either way, I was relieved. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure it was tough. For you, I mean.”

He nodded and turned onto my road. “The other firefighters are all part of my extended family. It’s like someone telling me that my brother killed himself and his own wife when I know he didn’t.” He released a hard breath. “I just can’t prove it.”

I gaped at him, recalling the book I’d helped him locate. “That’s what Bobbie Jo was talking about earlier?”

“There are no other leads. I have to know what happened that night.”

Up ahead, the small white house I’d rented came into view. I nodded at it. “That’s where I live, the one with the blue shutters.”