12-Alarm Cowboys (4 page)

“You hurry back,” Chris yelled after her.

Like hell she would. Given enough time he’d discover the new whiskey bottle she’d “hidden” behind the cooking oil in the pantry, and he’d be too drunk to carry out his threats by the time she got home. She’d hide another one in plain sight for tomorrow. In fact, she had a better idea. She pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car. She punched the number of one of Chris’s drinking buddies into her cell phone. This call would cost her, but it was worth it if it worked.

“Danny? It’s Brynn. Yeah, I know I don’t call much. Can you blame me, you old horn-dog? Listen, I need a favor—it’s for Chris. I’ve nearly managed to burn the house down twice in three days. I owe him big time for putting up with my shit. I want to make it up to him. Meet me at the liquor store in a half hour. I’m going to buy you a passel of munchies from the market and a bottle of Black Velvet. You pick up Chris afterward and have yourselves a party, you hear? While you’re gone, I’ll get the house back to rights. It smells like a cigarette factory in there.”

She played up her country girl twang and awe-shucks hometown persona, knowing it would work like magic on a guy like Danny who’d never been farther from Chance Creek than Billings. She’d buy five or ten bottles of whatever liquor she could afford and enough food to last them for days. With any luck, Chris wouldn’t come home until his time had run out altogether. As she pulled back out onto the road, she wondered what Netta was doing right now. Her older sister would know how to get herself a job and make herself a life; she’d always been resourceful. First she’d babysat, then she’d worked at a kiosk in the mall. By the time she’d graduated from high school she’d been promoted to assistant manager in the Five and Dime store on Main Street. She’d left home when Brynn was still sixteen and moved into an apartment with a couple of friends. That didn’t leave her much money left over, but she’d been slowly saving up to travel to California when trouble hit. “I don’t care what I do there,” she’d told everyone who would listen. “As long as all that sun shines on me I’d shovel shit for a living.”

So when Brynn packed her on the bus that night she had a fair idea where Netta would end up, and everyone believed her when she told them that Netta had finally saved up enough cash to make her dream come true. Nearly twenty years old when she took off, Netta couldn’t be classified as a missing person, and Brynn knew their parents wouldn’t go after her. She had lied through her teeth to the police, claiming Netta had left town in the afternoon—long before the fire was started. She knew Henry Delaford, the owner of the Five and Dime, would never spill the beans. He wouldn’t want anyone to know where Netta had really been.

“Good for her,” their mother said when Brynn broke the news the next morning. “She saw her chance and she took it.” Brynn caught her unspoken words.
I didn’t, and see where I ended up.

As the months slipped by and Netta didn’t write or phone, her parents grew worried and then angry, but it was too easy for Brynn to convince them Netta had turned her back on her family.

“She always thought she was too good for us,” her father said. “She’ll realize someday we did our best. Then she’ll come back.”

Brynn’s heart ached for all of them.

‡

“N
o more trouble
at the Price place?” Adam asked Chief Brookings when he came on duty late Tuesday afternoon.

Ed shook his head. “Quiet so far, but if the pattern holds we’ll get a call there tonight. What do you think she’s trying to tell us with those smoke signals of hers?”

“I don’t know, but I mean to find out. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Ed leaned against the doorjamb to his office. A large, balding man, he’d worked at the station for over thirty years.

“Why do you think Brynn married Chris?”

Ed made a face. “To get away from that family of hers?”

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

“Something like that. Of course, the question isn’t why she married him. The question is, why does she stay?”

“I asked her that myself the other day. She said she wasn’t staying long.”

Ed pursed his lips. “When do you think she means to fly the coop?”

Adam thought about that. Recalled the blue splotch on her calendar. “Thursday.”

“Thursday?” Ed’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s pretty specific.” He grew thoughtful. “You don’t think she’s practicing to roast him alive, do you?”

“I don’t think that’s Brynn’s style.” She was planning something, though. Adam wished he knew what. He wished she trusted him enough to tell him. Hadn’t he earned that by being here for her all this time—even after she’d married a man she clearly didn’t love?

It struck him again how strange it was that Brynn had married Chris. They’d barely dated before announcing their wedding plans and everyone Adam knew had assumed they’d announce a pregnancy before long. No announcement came. Adam had gone from shocked to devastated to furious and had launched a relationship with Carol Freece that crashed and burned six months later. Meanwhile, Brynn and Chris seemed stuck in a holding pattern. Brynn—who should have headed to college—never progressed beyond her checkout clerk job. She’d never even been promoted to assistant manager. He’d discounted a rumor he’d heard once that she’d been offered promotions plenty of times and had turned them all down. He couldn’t believe such a thing, but now he wondered.

Chris hadn’t done much of anything. His parents had died in an accident when he was a junior in high school, but that didn’t seem to bother him much. He’d dropped out of school and kept on living in the house they’d left him. Once Brynn had moved in and started taking care of all the bills, he acted as if he was still a teenager. As far as Adam knew, Chris worked out at the gym, hung out with his friends, and partied as much as he could—just like he had back in eleventh grade. Adam didn’t understand why Brynn hadn’t left him long ago.

It was nearly seven-thirty before the alarm rang through the fire hall and Ed announced the call was to Brynn’s place.

“Bonfire’s gotten out of control,” he said. Adam was already halfway to the truck. With him came the rest of the crew—Jacob, Daniel Wallace, Ryan Miller, Eli King and Owen Green. He’d worked with these guys for years now; they were his second family. They bickered sometimes, scuffled now and then, but he’d trust his life with any of them and he knew they’d trust theirs with him. He hoped they weren’t growing tired of these calls to Brynn’s. She wouldn’t pull pranks for nothing. She needed them there, even if it wasn’t to put out a fire.

“Once the fire’s under control, I want you to keep Brynn and Chris outside for a few minutes, okay?” he said to Jacob. The tall blond nodded.

“Sure thing. Whatever it takes. You think Brynn’s in some kind of trouble?”

“I think she’s been in trouble for years.”

It had been
a dry spring, so it hadn’t been hard to tip a couple of logs out of the bonfire she’d built and set her lawn on fire. It helped that she’d stacked a pile of even drier wood nearby and doused it with lighter fluid. Chris had shown up this morning hung over and sullen and she’d thought she’d be safe for another day, but by the time she got off work and came home with a couple of marinated steaks he was awake and itching for a fight.

Or itching to get his hands on her.

She’d held him off while she built up the fire and put the grate over it. Thank goodness they didn’t own a gas grill, or her improvised plan wouldn’t have worked. She kept adding stick after stick of wood, grateful Chris had elected to stay inside and watch television while she cooked. When the blaze was high enough, she
accidently
kicked a burning log onto the grass. The dry lawn caught fire quickly, aided by a trail of kerosene. As she watched the wooden post that held her clothes line catch ablaze, she heard the sound of the fire trucks on their way. Mrs. McConnelly, whose backyard bordered theirs, must have seen the flames and called it in.

This fire was fairly impressive, if she did say so herself.

“Thank you, Mrs. McConnelly,” she said beneath her breath. The slider door to the kitchen banged open.

“For God’s sake, Brynn—you trying to burn down the whole neighborhood?” Chris ran past her and began to stomp out the fire with his foot.

“A log fell and it got away from me.” She wondered if Chris bought her dumb act. After nearly five years she was beginning to buy it herself. If she got through this—
when
she got through this—she wondered if she’d ever be able to find the Brynn she used to be, or if that incarnation of her personality was gone forever.

As the firemen jogged around the house with their equipment and started to put the fire out, she searched among them for Adam. The only bright spot in this whole mess was how much she’d gotten to see him this week.

Two more days. Two little, short days. She could do this.

Where was Adam?

She tapped the shoulder of the nearest crew member. “Ryan? You seen Adam anywhere?”

Jacob stepped up, his picture-pretty good looks nearly blinding her. “Hey, Brynn. I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages. You ever hear from that sister of yours? I always wondered if she got her wish and made it to California.”

“She did, as a matter of fact. She loves it there.” Her heart sped up as she wondered if Jacob’s mention of Netta was purely coincidence or something more.

“You two keep in touch, then?”

She glanced around her. Why wasn’t Adam here lecturing her about fire prevention? “Not often. We were never close.” A downright lie.

“What’s she doing out there?”

“Waitressing. Like she always said: it ain’t about the work, it’s about the sunshine.”

“Lots of sunshine in California.” Every time she moved to pass him, Jacob stepped in her way. Brynn narrowed her eyes. Was he keeping her away from the house? Why?

“Excuse me.” She shoved Jacob aside and rushed past him inside. A glance told her Chris was busy arguing with several of the other men, pointing to the steaks. She found Adam in the kitchen staring at her calendar. “What are you doing?”

“Looking around. Something’s going on here. I can’t figure out what quite yet. But I will, Brynn. I promise you.”

She shrugged. “Whatever you say, Adam.” He looked good in his uniform. Masculine. Sexy. She knew if she touched his arm, his muscles would ripple beneath her fingers. Adam had been ripped since high school and she wondered why no woman had ever snared him. Had he just not met the right one?

Was he waiting for someone in particular?

She wished he would wait for her. Just until Thursday night at midnight. Just until this nightmare was over. That was a pipe dream, though. Adam had watched her make a life with Chris. He wouldn’t want her now. She steeled herself to say what had to be said.

“Take your friends and go home. The show’s over.”

“That’s right, Carter. Time to pack up and leave.” Chris came to stand by her. Brynn’s eyebrows pinched together. Damn it, wouldn’t he leave her alone? When she realized Adam was watching her closely, she forced herself to be calm.

Adam leaned forward. “Chris, tell me honestly. Did you set that fire on purpose?”

That got Chris’s back up. “Did you see me out there cooking those steaks? That fire was Brynn’s fault, from start to finish.”

“All right, then. Brynn, I need you to come back to town with me. The chief has some questions to ask you. I think the county sheriff is going to want a word, too.”

Brynn’s eyes widened.
The sheriff?
“Why?”

“Because that’s three fires in less than a week. It’s procedure. Grab your purse and let’s go.”

Chris was fuming. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get home, Brynn. Don’t think I won’t.”

“You’ll be waiting a while,” Adam said and ushered her out the door.

‡

F
ear. That had
been fear in Brynn’s eyes when Chris got close to her and it had made him want to pulverize the man. He thought back to what he’d seen on Brynn’s calendar when he’d removed it from the kitchen wall and tilted it just so in the light—until he could make out the letters that she’d tried to blot out.