Playing With Fire (Tangled in Texas, #2)(85)

I climbed down, executing a slow, careful descent, but it didn’t matter. About a quarter of the way down, an eerily familiar voice yelled out my name. I faltered and my foot slipped. The wooden step broke beneath my weight, and I plummeted at least fifteen feet to the ground.

The sudden impact knocked the wind from my lungs, and an intense pain rocketed through my shoulder, radiating down my outstretched limb. I tried to cry out, but no air passed my lips. In silent agony, I cradled my injured shoulder to steady it and gasped for oxygen while the excruciating pain echoed through my arm. I couldn’t move it.

But no matter how significant the blinding pain shooting through my system was, it didn’t have anything on the crazy tricks it played on my fading consciousness. While I lay there on the ground, unable to move, a hazy figure came into view and hovered over me like an ominous dark cloud.

And I caught a glimpse of his face. “D-Dad?”

Then I swirled into darkness.



I couldn’t breathe.

Choking and gasping, I awoke to something digging painfully into my stomach, expelling what little fresh air I managed to gulp in. My memory flashed back to the burning barn, but the searing pain in my left shoulder fast forwarded to the part where I fell off the ladder.

Then my head lolled, swinging back and forth in the air freely like a pendulum as something moved beneath me. Correction: as someone carried me. My eyes shot open to see the back of a man’s legs as his work boots kicked up dust with every step. Realizing I was upside down, my head spun and my stomach churned.

Each step he took sent a spike of pain into my throbbing arm. A man had thrown me over his shoulder and carried me away from the blazing building. But why? Where was he taking me? And who was this—no, I knew who he was.

My father, Stuart Nelson.

I struggled against him. I wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with why he suddenly stopped in his tracks, but he bent and laid me down in the middle of a dirt driveway. He didn’t hesitate to grab my incapacitated arm and flex my elbow out further. I cried out from the extreme amount of white-hot pain that shot through me.

My eyes glazed with tears and short breaths wheezed from my lungs, but I wasn’t capable of fighting him off. Thankfully, as he rotated my arm and applied some pressure behind it, something in my shoulder popped back into place. The lingering pain was nothing compared to the immediate relief I found.

“Anna…? Baby girl, can you hear me?”

That voice… It had to be a hallucination. I couldn’t fathom that the man who killed my mother was referring to me in terms of endearment. As if he hadn’t ripped my heart out of my chest twenty-two years ago when he burned my mother alive and left me to live with the mental and physical scars his actions had caused.

Wailing sirens sounded in the distance and, out of my peripheral vision, I saw a speeding truck with flashing red lights barreling up the secluded road leading to the abandoned barn. Someone was coming to help me. That’s when I realized Dan was missing. Was he okay? Had my father killed him to…get to me? A sense of dread washed over me. Oh God, no! Please let him be okay.

Anger, bright and hot, flashed through me.

As my father leaned over me, brushing my hair from my eyes, I shoved my foot into his chest and kicked out, catching him off guard and knocking him backward. I flipped over to scramble to my feet, but he quickly regained his balance and grabbed me by my ankle before I had the chance. “Anna, wait!” he growled.

Panting, I spun around and tried to hit him with my good arm, but he caught my wrist mid-swing. Those small efforts left me winded, but I had to do everything in my power to get away from him.

“Stop fighting me and let me help you.”

I battled weakly against his grip as the roaring truck skidded to a halt only yards away from where my father held me captive in his tight grasp. The driver’s door flew open and Cowboy leaped out, pistol in hand. “Let her go,” he said firmly, lifting his arm and aiming the gun at my father’s head to punctuate his demand.

Stuart glared at him. “You’re making a big mistake.”

Cowboy’s eyes narrowed and his jaw twitched as he cocked the hammer back. “No, you made the f*cking mistake by coming after her. Now step away from her, or it won’t be your last.” His even tone had a convincing edge to it.

My father released my arm and stepped back.

I scrambled to my shaky feet and stumbled toward Cowboy, who met me halfway. Out of breath, I fell just as he reached me. Wrapping his free arm around me, he tried to hoist me back up, but in my breathless state, I collapsed onto the ground and coughed violently.

He knelt beside me, keeping his gun trained on my father. “You okay, darlin’?” His voice was thick with fear and strained with worry. Tears of relief overwhelmed me, but I managed to nod. He pulled me tight against his chest and I moaned at the pain radiating up my arm. Loosening his grip, he looked me over, frowning. “Whose blood is that?” he asked, eyeing the dried red streaks running down my arm.

“Mine,” I wheezed out.

Cowboy’s eyes took on a wild, untamed glaze and shifted back to Stuart. “You sonofabitch!” His index finger curled around the trigger.

“No, d-don’t,” I whispered, my scratchy voice sounding strange even to me.

“Damn it, Anna! He tried to kill you.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Stuart said calmly.