Playing With Fire (Tangled in Texas, #2)(82)
“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.”
“Sweetheart, his brother died. I don’t think he’s going to give a damn what hour it is when I call—”
A high-pitched alarm rang out, and my body jolted.
Cowboy unraveled his naked body from mine and sat upright, grabbing his pager from the nightstand and turning it off. He lifted his cell phone, read the screen, and quietly cursed under his breath. With the sheet still covering my waist, I sat up and leaned into his shirtless back. “What is it?”
“There’s a structure fire on the south side of town.”
“Oh,” I said solemnly. An involuntary shiver ran through me at the thought of him leaving me here alone.
He must’ve felt it because he said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going.”
I didn’t know which was worse: him putting off work commitments to make sure I was all right or me needing him to so I could breathe normally. I sighed. “You can’t not go. You have a job to do.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“I’ll be okay,” I promised.
He groaned. “Then I’ll get Jake to come over here and keep an eye on things until I get back.”
“No, they have a new baby. I don’t want you to wake up Emily and Lily by calling him in the middle of the night. Just go. I’ll be all right. If nothing else, I’ll stay awake until you get back.”
“You sure?”
Though my heart raced and my thoughts ran wild, I managed to provide a convincing smile. “Yes, I’m sure. I may be a coward, but I can’t keep you from helping other people. Now go. The sooner you leave, the faster you’ll get to come back.”
Cowboy slid off the bed and yanked on his jeans. He grabbed his shirt and hat and started to walk away, but then turned and came back. He clamped one brawny arm around my waist and lifted me high enough so that his mouth secured itself over mine. After a long, searing kiss, he pulled back and gave me a reassuring smile. “Well, I think you’re brave. Especially since, if you’d turned me down one more time yesterday, I was planning to wring your pretty little neck.” He winked at me, kissed the tip of my nose, and headed for the door. “When I get back, we’ll talk about your sleeping disorder.”
I hopped out of bed and raced into the living room, not bothering to turn on any lights. Didn’t matter, though. The glow from the computer screen in the other room gave off enough light to see Cowboy tearing off the top sheet of the notepad on my desk.
“I don’t have a sleeping disorder.”
He glared at me. “Darlin’, I’d love nothing more than to stand here and argue with you, but I have to go. We’ll argue when I get back. That way we can make up,” he said, shrugging his brows. Cowboy pecked me on the cheek and held up the piece of paper with Ned Swanson’s phone number written on it. “Thanks for this. I’ll call him on the way to the fire.” Cowboy headed for the door and called out, “I’ll be back soon. Lock the door behind me.”
The moment he walked out, I shut the front door behind him and flipped the deadbolt to the lock position. I walked toward the couch to grab the remote, planning to watch some TV until he returned.
But as I reached for it, the floor creaked behind me and fireworks exploded behind my eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
My eyes flickered open.
I blinked a few times to clear my blurry vision, until I finally made out a faint glow of light. My head pounded, but when I tried to reach up and touch it, I realized I couldn’t. My arms seemed somehow stuck behind my back. At first I thought I was paralyzed, but as I wriggled around, I felt the scratchy rope binding me twist painfully tighter.
Someone tied me up?
That knowledge sent a surge of fear running through me. I glanced around, searching for my captor, but all I could determine was that I was lying in a musty, hay-filled stall of an old, dilapidated barn, and there was no one in sight. As far as I could tell, I was completely alone.