Solemnly, he shook his head. “I was there when the firefighters pulled their bodies out, one by one. It made me sick. The fast-moving fire had spread before their mom could wake up and carry them to safety. I stood outside that charred trailer and said good-bye to each one of those babies. They never even had a chance at life.”
I studied his face. His eyes were glossy from tears that hadn’t yet fallen. The cool arrogance he normally displayed was long gone, replaced by things I easily recognized. Grief. Sadness. Regret. Maybe we weren’t as different as I thought.
“It’s always tougher when it involves children.”
“Yeah. But it’s worse when you realize that if only you’d had the right tools for the job, they would all still be alive.” He shook his head at the injustice. “That’s only one of two reasons why I joined the fire department, though.”
“What’s the other?”
Cowboy grinned a little. “Danny wanted to be a fireman. That’s all the kid ever talked about.”
My heart squeezed as I smiled warmly at him. Without thinking, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his cheek, surprising the both of us. He stiffened at the unexpected gesture, and I pulled back immediately. But his hand caught me behind my neck, stopping the motion.
His face lingered near mine, and his gaze landed on my mouth as I licked my lips with nervousness. Okay, anticipation. So I wanted to kiss him. Big deal. Who wouldn’t?
But it wasn’t a good idea. And, judging by his expression and the tightening of his grip on the back of my neck, it seemed we were both grappling with the decision to take the innocent kiss on the cheek one step further.
“Anna, I—” He lowered his gaze, his whole body becoming rigid. Cowboy’s eyes widened and his mouth fell dormant.
At first, I wasn’t sure what caused the reaction. Once my gaze followed his, it only took me a fraction of a second to realize what had taken him by surprise. My heart flatlined. My robe had parted on my thighs, baring them, and Cowboy had gotten an eyeful of much more than I’d ever intended for him to see.
Panicking, I grasped the skirt of my robe and covered myself, but his hands shot out and grasped mine. “Don’t.”
Before I could argue with him, Cowboy shoved my hands aside and carefully slid the fabric from my legs, revealing the large, irregular patchwork of ropey pink scars that marred my slim thighs. The unsymmetrical planes of skin were thickened with grotesque, disfiguring reminders of exactly why I avoided fire…and men.
As he focused his attention on my legs, my chest tightened with the strong urge to escape, but I was unable to move. The last person to look so closely at my deformities was the plastic surgeon who’d performed several painful corrective surgeries on me over the years in the form of agonizing skin grafts and laser resurfacing. That was, until I finally refused further treatment.
A tentative touch jarred me from my thoughts as Cowboy’s hand fell lightly upon my right knee. His fingers inched upward, carefully considering the texture of each mark before tracing one blemish to the inside of my leg. His gaze heated as his fingers whispered over my deformed skin. Though there had been some nerve damage, and the skin in that area wasn’t particularly sensitive, the sight of seeing Cowboy’s hand between my legs caused me to tense and a strangled sound bubbled from my throat.
Our eyes met.
His calloused hand flattened, covering my thigh with warmth. He stopped exploring the marks, but didn’t pull back. For a moment, we sat there in a deadlock, his hands on my thighs and neither of us moving. His face tightened with a cornucopia of emotions: anger, protectiveness, understanding, and pity.
I wasn’t sure if I should say anything or not. Thankfully, he made the decision for me by releasing me and lowering his gaze, severing the intense connection between us. “I have to go,” Cowboy volunteered in a hasty voice much deeper than before. “Right now.”