Flames licked toward the midnight sky as a crew of firefighters worked on putting them out.
My trailer… What the fuck? Why? How?
“Oh my God…Brandy!” My voice sounded far off, like I was stuck underwater. Maverick hadn’t even stopped the truck as I slipped off my seatbelt, opened the passenger door, and launched myself out and towards the commotion.
“Brandy!” I rushed forward, fear eating a hole through my chest. I had to find her.
“Ma’am!” A firefighter stopped me, “Ma’am! What’re you—”
“That’s my trailer! Where’s my dog? My dog! Brandy!”
All that mattered. All I could think of was her. Where was she? Was she okay? Heat licked at me even from a distance, the smell of smoke irritating my lungs.
“We haven’t seen or heard a dog, Ma’am. We checked inside.”
My stomach writhed and twisted, like a snake coiling tighter and tighter and tighter. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think or feel anything other than icy terror. I shivered despite the heat. “She doesn’t do well with strangers, she’s probably hiding! Please, please, sir. I have to go get her! Brandy!”
I pushed past him, but he caught me around the waist.
“Ma’am—Ma’am, calm down. We checked. There ain’t no dog.”
I lost it. Completely and totally lost it.
I started swinging. Flailing. Screaming as tears poured down my cheeks and smoke tore at my raw lungs. No. Brandy wouldn’t leave. She was loyal to a fault, which meant shehadto be in there. She had to.
“Cheyenne, what the hell’s goin’ on?”
That familiar, deep voice cut through the chaos, and my wild gaze found him. He stalked toward me, a look of murder on his face, his dark silhouette reminding me of some fallen angel come to earth.
My chest screamed at me—from the panic and the smoke inhalation—as a raw, broken cry left my lips. “Maverick, it’s Brandy! She’s in there!”
A second firefighter had joined his buddy to keep me at bay as I struggled beneath their grip. If I could. Just. Get. Free.
I knew she was in there. I knew it. I felt it in my bones.
Maverick’s shadowed face met mine, but some unnamed emotion blazed in his eyes as he met my gaze.
And then he raced toward my trailer…
Chapter nine
Burn It Down
Maverick
Every nerve ending inmy body zinged with fear as I saw the flames.
God must’ve had a sick sense of humor. Twenty years to the day, and then this.
Cheyenne jumped out of the truck before I could even slam on the brakes. Panic surged within me, swelling and rising with each breath I sucked down. My lungs stopped working. My body seized up. I didn’t even know how I managed to stop the truck and park it.
Just like that, it was like I was eleven years old again. Fear pinned me in place as I just sat there for a moment staring at the flames. Cheyenne’s screams cut through the night, louder than the roar of the fire.
No one talks about how loud it is. The sound. It ain’t peaceful like when you sit before a fireplace or a bonfire. It’s like the fire…it’s alive. It’s angry. And it wants to consume any and everything.
Cheyenne’s wails—raw and visceral—dragged me from my thoughts, spurring me into action. Just like Ellie Mae’s had all those years ago.
Fuck.
