Page 4 of Fear of Flames
Crouching down, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, remembering the dinner they’d shared only hours ago. The stories they’d told about her mom and about Michelle’s childhood. Dad was a retired policeman who could talk for hours. He had enough stories to fill volumes of tomes.
Michelle couldn’t possibly comprehend why anyone—much less a fellow law enforcement officer—would want him dead.
Lost in the cyclone of her thoughts as second-story beams continued to crash to the ground, the sense of isolation consumed Michelle’s being. No mother. No father. No transportation. No way to retreat to her life.
That loneliness enveloped her, muting the world around her.
She didn’t hear or sense another person, not until a gloved large hand grasped her arm in a vise grip and lifted her to standing.
Her nearly frozen muscles protested as Michelle gasped, stood, and turned, meeting the dark stare of a stranger. Even with her height of five feet, seven inches, this man towered over her. His intense gaze brought back the surging circulation the cold had waned. She wanted to protest his breach of her personal space. However, as she took him in, from his hair covered by a stocking cap to the heavy coat over his massive body, any words she could think to form were muted.
“You’re coming with me.” His harsh baritone command came in vaper-filled clouds and echoed through her consciousness.
Michelle tried to wrench her arm loose as her words returned. “No. Let go of me. I don’t know you. I’ll scream for help.” As soon as the last sentence left her lips, she knew it was an empty threat. Assuming the sheriff and other man were gone, there was no one who would hear.
The man lowered his mouth to her ear. “You have about twenty minutes before Sheriff Perkins and Deputy Skiles return with the firefighters and more deputies. It won’t take him long to determine you’re the one who set Denny’s house on fire.”
Michelle shook her head. That’s impossible. She’d never do such a thing. “I didn’t.” Emotion and memories bubbled in her throat as she gave up the fight to retrieve her arm from this giant of a man. Instead, she went slack, confessing what she’d seen. “He’s dead. Dad. I saw him. Someone shot him.”
The man leaned even closer, his warm breath scurrying over her exposed flesh. “And you’re next if you don’t come with me.”
Michelle lifted her face, studying the unfamiliar man before her. “Who are you?”
“Right now, I’m your only hope. You’re on your own now, and Daddy’s not around to make these charges go away.”
Michelle’s lips opened in a gasp. How could this man know her history? “He never made?—”
The grip of her arm grew tighter and his words more forceful. “Save your story. The priority right now is to get out of here.”
Michelle looked down at her nightgown—actually, one of her father’s old shirts and significantly insufficient for covering her body. “I can’t leave like this.”
Letting go of her arm, the man tugged on the front of his coat, unsnapping button after button and revealing a dark hoodie beneath. In a fluid motion, he pulled the coat from his arms and shoulders and wrapped it around Michelle’s body. The sudden burst of warmth and masculine scent was a heavenly escape until her blood’s circulation sped faster, bringing life and pain to temporarily frozen nerve endings.
Pulling her long copper-colored braid out from beneath the coat, she asked again, “Who are you?”
Chapter
Two
Wordlessly, the man led Michelle away from the fire. In what direction she didn’t know. Everything was mixed up in her mind. Iron Falls was the nearby town, small and seemingly friendly. Her father’s property was on the outskirts, still considered Iron Falls yet miles from human neighbors. Elk, bears, wolves, and foxes roamed these wooded acres and open fields.
As her circulation hastened, the pain in her feet intensified to the point that each step was agony. “Please, my feet.”
The man looked down, seeing her bare feet in the snow. With a shake of his head, he scooped Michelle from the ground, cradling her against his chest as if she weighed nothing when she knew that wasn’t the case.
Those childish thoughts she’d entertained back at the site of the blaze returned. No longer a woman in her late twenties, Michelle was a child, cradled by her dad. Trauma seized her thoughts. She rested her face against the stranger’s soft hoodie as heat radiated from his chest, and the scent of burning wood filled her senses.
There was no reason to trust this man.
Were there reasons not to trust him?
In his embrace, as if in the eye of a storm, a sense of security soothed the recent trauma.
In his arms, she was carried.
How far did they travel?
How long had they been trekking through the snow?
