Bobbie Jo led the way through the hoards of half-naked firemen, while I followed closely behind her, carefully dodging muscular chests and bulging biceps. “Hey, Mandy,” Bobbie Jo said as we approached. “Where’s Cowboy? I figured he’d be here with you guys.”
“He was here earlier, but he left. Said something about having a few women to entertain,” Mandy responded with a wide grin. “By now, I’m pretty sure he’s a little…preoccupied, if you know what I mean.” She shrugged her brows a few times and then gave us a sly wink.
I mentally rolled my eyes.
A few women? My God! How many women does one man need? Then I remembered it was Cowboy we were talking about. Sadly enough, I really wasn’t all that shocked.
Folding my arms, I huffed out an irritated breath.
“Oh, sorry,” Mandy said, cringing as she stared back at me. “Anna, right? So you and Cowboy, huh?”
I choked on my saliva. “Um…w-what?”
Bobbie Jo laughed at my reaction, but Mandy seemed almost surprised by it. “Oh. When I saw you two at the library, you looked rather cozy, and then he mentioned he’d taken you home, so I assumed…”
All the blood in my body rushed to my cheeks. “Oh, God no.” I shook my head, denying the ridiculous charge. “We’re just…friends.”
Mandy didn’t look convinced. In fact, she smiled, as if she were under the distinct impression Cowboy couldn’t possibly be “just friends” with anyone of the female persuasion.
“Heads up,” a man called out. “Hot stuff coming through…and I’m not referring to the chili, ladies.”
I turned to see a beefy fireman carrying a steaming pot toward me. Realizing I stood directly in his path, I muttered a quiet apology and scooted closer to Mandy’s table to let him pass.
He veered around us and stopped at the end of the table, poured the bubbling chili into a metal pan, then covered it with a lid. The moment he glanced up, his eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, shit!”
Everyone around us stopped in their tracks and looked in our direction. Correction: my direction. Their mouths gaped open and their eyes bugged out. I blinked back at them, oblivious as to what caused their reactions, until one of the men pointed just to the right of me and shouted, “Fire!”
I wheeled around and gasped at the sight before me.
A pile of scorched napkins lay scattered across the tabletop while orange flames danced across them like a wanton stripper. Unable to move, I stood there, staring at the one thing I feared most.
Thankfully, Bobbie Jo hooked her arm around my waist and pulled me aside as Mandy shot into action. Wielding a fire extinguisher, she pulled the metal pin and doused the flames, creating a fog around us.
Within seconds, the air cleared and the small fire was out. I’d barely had time to register any of it, and if it wasn’t for the white foam making such a mess of the tabletop, I would’ve thought I had imagined the whole thing.
“You girls okay?” a nearby fireman asked.
Bobbie Jo answered him, but I couldn’t bring myself to respond. The idea of a fire breaking out so close to me had kicked my nerves into high gear. Now that the danger had officially passed, my adrenaline crashed, causing my body to tremble.
“Hey,” Mandy asked, staring at me with wide eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I, uh…yes. It just startled me, that’s all.”
Bobbie Jo stepped around me to take a better look. “What happened? How did the fire start?”
“I don’t know,” Mandy said, gazing at the mess on the table. “I guess the candle under the warming tray must’ve caused it. But I don’t know how the napkins got near the flame. They were in a pile over there just a minute ago.” She indicated a spot on the table right behind where I’d been standing and shrugged. “Maybe the wind blew them across the table.” Then she glanced to me and smiled lightly.
It was a nice gesture on her part. Not only because there wasn’t much of a breeze, but the tent was covered by tarps on three sides, which kept her conjured-up scenario from being a remote possibility. It was much more likely I’d bumped the table in my hurry to move out of the fireman’s path as he carried the chili past us.