12-Alarm Cowboys (2 page)

Come Hell or High Water
by Sabrina York

Cora Seton

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Copyright © 2015 Cora Seton

Published by One Acre Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

After the Fire
is a stand-alone novella set in the fictional town of Chance Creek, Montana. If you like
After the Fire
, you’ll love my other works set in Chance Creek.

The Cowboys of Chance Creek Series

The Cowboy Inherits a Bride (Volume 0)

The Cowboy’s E-mail Order Bride (Volume 1)

The Cowboy Wins a Bride (Volume 2)

The Cowboy Imports a Bride (Volume 3)

The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire (Volume 4)

The Sheriff Catches a Bride (Volume 5)

The Cowboy Lassos a Bride (Volume 6)

The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Volume 7)

The Cowboy Earns a Bride (Volume 8)

The Heroes of Chance Creek Series

The Navy SEAL’s E-mail Order Bride (Volume 1)

The Soldier’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 2)

The Marine’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 3)

The Navy SEAL’s Christmas Bride (Volume 4)

The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 5)

The SEALs of Chance Creek Series

A SEAL’s Oath

A SEAL’s Vow

A SEAL’s Pledge

A SEAL’s Consent

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“I
t was just
a grease fire! You all didn’t need to come out here.”

Adam Carter flipped up the plastic shield of his firefighting helmet and stared down at the pretty blonde who stared back up at him angrily. The rest of his response team milled around them, making sure they’d fully extinguished the fire in Brynn Price’s kitchen.

Brynn was as feisty as she’d ever been in high school, back when she’d been Brynn Nelson. As beautiful, too. She’d grown into her blue eyes, pert nose and shapely body. Her legs had always seemed a mile long. That hadn’t changed.

Dressed in cut-off jean shorts, a strappy t-shirt and slate-blue cowboy boots, she could be Miss July on a feed-store calendar. But Brynn was smart as a whip too, which is why he didn’t know why she stuck with Chris Price, the orneriest two-timing cheat there ever was in Chance Creek. Or why she still worked at the grocery store in town instead of going to college and getting ahead in the world. He’d stayed in town, too, of course—working on the ranch with the rest of his family like he’d always known he would. Firefighting provided all the excitement he needed and he loved Montana too much to move away.

“Any time your neighbors report smoke pouring from your windows, I’ll be here. You can count on that.” It was his job to put out fires in Chance Creek, after all—a job he took even more seriously than ranching. He’d always taken Brynn’s safety seriously, too. Ever since she’d gone on exactly one date with him back in their school days and recounted all the accidents she’d ever been in.

Her list was long. Too long, although several of the accidents sounded more like negligence on the part of her parents than true bad luck. He knew Lorenna and James Nelson. They worked hard and attended the same church his parents did, but Lorenna liked her wine a little too much, James liked his whiskey—and loved flooring the gas pedal on his old Chevy. Brynn had the scars to prove it. So had her sister, Netta, before she left town five years ago and never came back.

On that one and only date he’d kissed the scar on Brynn’s hairline where she’d hit the windshield one winter night in eighth grade. Her family’s story was that a deer had bounded in front of the family truck, but Brynn confided there’d been no deer, just James driving too fast and losing control.

He’d kissed the scar on her wrist from when her mother stormed out of the living room during a fight with James, pushed Brynn out of the way and Brynn had tripped, putting her hand through the glass coffee table. And the one on her knee from when a guest dropped a steak knife on her at a rowdy Fourth of July backyard barbeque.

“Stick with me and I’ll keep you safe,” he’d promised her and kissed her on the mouth with all the passion and sophistication of a sixteen year old, hating the idea that she’d been hurt so many times. She’d kissed him back and his heart had beat double-time. He’d thought he’d finally come into his own: he was going to be Brynn Nelson’s boyfriend. The boyfriend of the prettiest, smartest girl in town.

“No one can keep me safe,” she’d said when they finally pulled apart. “Don’t bother trying.”

She’d never gone out with him again. And he’d asked her plenty of times.

He came back to the present and looked around the smoky room. Despite the fan belts sitting on the counter and a pair of Chris’s dirty coveralls thrown over a chair, the place was spotless. Brynn liked things clean—always had. He suspected it was the way she’d kept her family’s chaotic drama at bay. A calendar hung on the wall, open to June, the current month. The upper half featured a tractor. On the lower half, someone had drawn an X through each day that had passed. He narrowed his eyes when he took in the blank days ahead. The following Thursday stood out because there was a blue splotch on it—someone had begun to write something in, then crossed it out with a ballpoint pen. An appointment? A birthday?

Not Brynn’s. Hers was September twenty-fifth.

“Well, you’ve done your boy scout duty.” She scowled at him. “Run along, now.” Behind her, Chris wandered into the kitchen. He was long and lean, his muscles cut from time in the gym and—Adam suspected—steroids, but his gut was beginning to bulge in a way that hinted at the beer belly to come. Adam assumed alcohol and steroids weren’t the only substances Chris used on a regular basis. Chris was mixed up in all kinds of things Adam didn’t condone.

Adam didn’t budge. He wasn’t sixteen years old anymore. Back then he’d been too much in awe of pretty Brynn Nelson to contradict her. He would have given all he had to try to protect her, but in the end she’d been right; no one could keep her safe because she was her own worst enemy. Instead of choosing to be with a man who would cherish her, she’d left her parents’ rough and tumble household to marry Chris, who drank, took drugs, played the field and didn’t lift a finger to help pay the bills. Brynn didn’t belong with Chris, but she thought she did. She thought Chris was all she deserved.

She thought wrong.

“I’m afraid I have to ask you a few questions. Just like last time.”

“I’ll answer the questions.” Chris elbowed Brynn out of the way and looked Adam up and down belligerently.

Adam wrinkled his nose. “How much have you had to drink, Chris?”

Chris pulled a flask of whiskey out of his back pocket and took a swig. Held it out to Adam. “A lot.”

Brynn made a disgusted sound. “Put that away, Chris.”

“I can’t drink on duty,” Adam said. “Another time.”

“Your loss. Fire away with those questions.” Chris laughed at his own joke. “Fire away…that’s a good one.”

“Yeah, that’s funny.” Brynn turned to go.

“Brynn, you stay a minute. I need to talk to you, too.”

She folded her arms over her chest and waited. Adam knew that behind her anger was shame. He’d seen her act the same way when her parents attended school events already well into their cups. Fiercely loyal to her family, she wouldn’t say a word as they stumbled into the school auditorium late, laughed too loud, and embarrassed her in front of her friends. Now she was re-enacting the pattern with Chris. Adam burned to take her away from all of this. Why had she only given him one chance when she was content to give Chris a hundred?

“What was going on when the fire started?”

“It was a grease fire! What do you think was going on?” When Adam merely cocked an eyebrow, Brynn went on. She spoke slowly, as if he was too idiotic to follow her words. “We were cooking dinner. Bacon. For BLT’s.”

“Were you watching the stove?”

Brynn looked away. Adam narrowed his eyes. Now they were getting somewhere. Brynn tended to be as careful as the people around her were reckless. She wouldn’t leave a hot stove without a reason.

“Did something distract you?”

Two spots of color blazed high in her cheeks. Chris began to chuckle, an unpleasant sound. “Tell the man, darling. What distracted you?”

Adam suddenly wished he hadn’t questioned them together. Something was going on here. Something not right.

Chris moved behind Brynn and wrapped his arms around her possessively, his hands resting on her waist. “You were showing me a good time, weren’t you honey?” His fingers splayed over her hips and he pulled her back against him. “She’s a lousy cook,” he said to Adam, then let her go and slapped her hard on the ass. “But she’s good where it counts. Real good.” He stepped back. “I think we’re done with those questions. You boys have a nice night.”

If Brynn hadn’t been standing there, imploring him with her eyes not to react, he would have decked Chris and kept on punching him until the man was nothing but pulp. He knew that would only make things worse for Brynn, though. As it was, her color was high, her eyes bright with shame. His fingers clenched but he knew this wasn’t the way to help her.

He was going to help her, though. Whether she wanted him to or not.

Jacob Monk cleared his throat behind him and Adam remembered he and Brynn weren’t the only ones in the room. Chris had humiliated his wife in front of everyone, the bastard. “We’re all set here.”