I shivered as my mind pulled me back in time and stuffed me back into my six-year-old body. Alone and trembling, I’d sat on the floor of the dark pantry with my arms curled around my knees until smoke eventually seeped under the door. I recalled the terror and confusion, the choking and gasping for breath, the way my eyes and throat burned. I made the decision to open the pantry door and face the awful truth about what had happened.

“By the time I opened the door, the kitchen was engulfed with fire and smoke. I could barely see anything as I tried to find a way out. Only when I tripped over something, did I realize what—or rather who—it was.” I cringed at my own words.

Cowboy shook his head. “Anna, stop. You don’t have to tell me any more.”

I nodded. Of course I didn’t. Because a fireman like Cowboy knew exactly what it was like to find someone in that capacity. A gruesome body, covered in flames and melting skin, lying in a fetal position, lacking any hair, and the smell of burned flesh in the air. With one look, he would have known my mother was past saving.

But I was only six.

“I tried to get to her…so I could help her,” I admitted, barely able to hear myself over the visions of fire roaring in my head. “I tried to crawl toward her, but I never made it. A wooden beam in the ceiling had burned through and fallen on top of me, pinning my waist to the floor.”

Cowboy’s eyes narrowed and he breathed out through his nose. “That’s how you got your scars?”

I nodded slowly. “I don’t know how long I was trapped under it because I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was being carried out by a fireman wearing a black helmet. I panicked and fought him, so he held me tighter and hummed to me all the way out to the ambulance. I guess I was in shock because I was pretty calm up until they rushed past me pushing a gurney with my mother wearing an oxygen mask.”

“Jesus. She was alive?”

“Barely. I heard them say her pulse was weak and thready and that her throat was swelling shut. They were rushing her to the ambulance to intubate her. At the time, I didn’t know what that even meant. I went wild trying to get up and go to her, but the paramedics gave me something to calm me down—a sedative, I suppose—and as I faded away, the last thing I remember was the fireman sitting next to me, humming a tune to keep me from being afraid.”

“Chief Swanson?”

“Yes. I didn’t learn his name until months later when he was called to testify in court. I wasn’t allowed to be there, but my stepdad mentioned his name and said he was the one who carried me out of the house. Before they had discovered me in the kitchen, they found my father in the living room and pulled him out. He was arrested on the spot after neighbors confirmed he showed up at our house right before all the yelling started and the fire broke out. He never admitted what he’d done. Denied it, even after they charged him with murder. My mom died en route to the hospital.”

“Did you see him in court?”

“No. Since I was a minor, the judge allowed my testimony to be recorded and shown to the jury in a closed courtroom. I was so badly burned that I was still in the hospital months later having multiple skin grafts when the jury finally found him guilty. Every day since, I have lived in fear he would be paroled and come after me. Now it’s happening. He’s not going to stop until he kills me, too.”

“Anna, listen to me,” Cowboy said, grasping my arms. “I’m not going to let that happen. You don’t have to go anywhere. I can protect you from him.”

I wanted to let him convince me to stay, but I couldn’t put him in that kind of danger. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask me. You’re my woman, remember? It’s my job,” he said, dutifully. He smiled, obviously trying to settle my nerves. “Besides, you have enough FBI agents surrounding you here that you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You mean Jake?”

“Jake isn’t the only FBI agent around here. Hank is a retired FBI director, and Junior used to do some contract work for the Feds. And even though Ox, Judd, and I aren’t FBI, we learned from the best. Your fath—Stuart Nelson—will have to go through all of us to get to you. Just tell me you’ll stay.”

“I can’t do that. I always wanted to be surrounded by people who cared about me, and now that I am, I can’t risk their lives by putting them in danger,” I said, letting my head fall. “It’s best if I just disappear.”

He lifted my chin to gaze deep into my eyes. “That isn’t what’s best for everyone.”

With my emotions running so high, I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly. But his words filled me with a renewed sense of hope. All the years I’d spent running from my past had finally caught up to me. Would I be able to let all the fear go for Cowboy? For myself? I had to try, didn’t I?

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

Cowboy drew me a warm bubble bath and made me some herbal tea to help soothe my frazzled nerves. When I was done, I started to dry myself off, but he grabbed the towel from me and took care of it himself. Afterward, he helped me into my flannel pajamas and then led me to the bedroom. He was pampering me, and I let him, because it felt good to have someone else to lean on for a change. No one had ever taken care of me that way before.

He held the covers up as I slid underneath, then lay down behind me, encompassing me with his warm body. It made me feel better, safer even, but it wasn’t enough. The mental images I’d stirred up by talking about my past wouldn’t stop replaying vividly in my mind. I needed him to make me forget completely, to make me forgo this feeling of doom hovering all around me.

“Cowboy, I…I need you.”

“I’m right here, baby.” He pressed his lips to my temple and held me firmer in his strong arms. “I’ve got you. No one is going to hurt you.”

“No, I mean I need you…inside me.”

I knew he wasn’t sexually aroused. I could feel every bit of pelvic region pressing into my bottom through my flannel pajamas. He didn’t have any problem sleeping in the nude, but I wasn’t at the same comfort level. Yet the moment I spoke those words aloud, something must’ve stirred inside him. A long, hard ridge suddenly rested uncomfortably against me.

“Are you sure? We don’t have to—”

“I need you,” I whispered again.

His body shifted away from me a little and I considered it a sign that he was going to reject me, until the end table’s drawer opened and then shut. The telling sound of a foil packet crinkled as he ripped it open. He seemed to understand what I was asking him for because, seconds later, he shoved me forward, settling me on my stomach, as he positioned himself between my legs.

He wasn’t gentle. Which is exactly what I wanted. I needed him to claim me in a primal way, to disintegrate the images from inside of my head, as he screwed me senseless. Cowboy lifted my hips, yanked my pajama bottoms down to my knees, and plunged inside of me from behind. I whimpered, but my mind focused solely on him.

Gripping my hips with both hands, he grunted and groaned as he pulled almost all the way out and thrust himself back in once again. I gasped from the raw power of his body slamming against mine. Suddenly, he stopped. Reaching around to find my clit, he applied just the right amount of pressure, which had me panting and hurtling toward a mind-numbing orgasm. But I bucked back into him, rocking hard onto his member. More than anything, I needed to feel him deep within me.

“Christ, darlin’, you’re going to make me come if you keep doing that.”

Continuing to work my hips over his length, I gave as good as I got. The pace was frantic as he took me from behind, jarring my body forward and repeatedly jerking me back onto his length. The orgasm swept over me in much the same way, coming fast and furious, as Cowboy’s own climax peaked. Not giving me one second to catch my breath, he rode me hard all the way to the end until he collapsed over me, breathing heavily onto my back.