applying as a counselor so they could spend their last two weeks together before Jake left for college.
Upon meeting them, all of them were nice, of course. But Cowboy had been the one who stuck out in my mind all these years.
Right after I’d stammered my way through the mortifying introductions, one of the other female volunteers had stopped by with a camera and asked us all to smile for a group photo. Without hesitation, Cowboy had winked at me, slung his heavy arm over my shoulders, pulled me close into his warm body, and grinned devilishly for the camera. That was the moment I’d fallen for Prince Charming himself.
After the photo, when he tried to disengage his arm, his gold watch had caught on my shirt sleeve, lifting it slightly and revealing a small patch of red skin on the inside of my arm. With heated cheeks, I’d quickly yanked my sleeve down and tried to hide it by fidgeting with my clothes. It was too late.
Cowboy had noticed and said, “What’s wrong with your arm? You get into some poison sumac or something?”
When I didn’t respond, he shrugged it off and flirted with the cute blonde behind the camera. I’d wanted to talk to him, make him see me, but hated the idea of drawing attention to myself. So I said nothing.
After that incident, I’d clammed up whenever he was near, which had only been a few more times. I decided avoiding him altogether would be my best option if I wanted to form coherent sentences for the duration of my stay. But that didn’t stop me from spending the next two weeks stealing glances at him from the shadows of my cabin window while every girl at camp threw themselves in his direction.
When camp had come to an end, I’d exchanged information with my new friend, Bobbie Jo, and over the years we’d kept in touch, sending pictures and letters back and forth. That’s how I’d received my own copy of that very photo—the same picture that had sat on my nightstand in a wooden frame for the last ten years.
Ridiculous, I know.
I’d told myself I kept it out where I could see it because it was the only picture I had of Bobbie Jo and I together. But in it, I’d gazed up at Cowboy with wide, admiring eyes and a full-on smile, while he looked straight ahead, unaware of the pitiful, lonely girl at his side. God, I’m pathetic. The arm slung over my shoulders in the photo had meant nothing to him.
Forcing out a deep breath, I slouched against the shelves and shook my head. So what if I felt foolish. Maybe I was a fool. After all, what woman in her right mind would still get butterflies in her stomach from just being near a man she’d had a crush on ten years earlier? Especially when the same man all but accused her of arson.
I sighed. Me, that’s who.
“Do I have bad breath or something?”
I jumped, flailing my arms, then clutched my heaving chest. I wheeled around to see Cowboy leaning lazily against the shelf as he eyed me curiously. “Good Lord. Don’t scare me like that!”
A triumphant grin played on his lips as he stepped closer. In an evasive maneuver, I tried to hurry past him, hoping to escape with my dignity somewhat intact, but he stepped in my path. “Anna, wait. I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
I stopped, but refused to look him in the eye. “What do you want?”
“Well, to start off, I’d like to know what I did to deserve the cold shoulder from you. If I upset you by calling you Sparky last night—”
“No,” I said, glancing down at my feet. “It has nothing to do with that.”
It wasn’t like Cowboy even knew the significance behind the camp nickname the other counselors had teased me with. He hadn’t been there to witness my freak-out the night of the bonfire. Thank goodness.
Instead, he’d been sucking face with Kelly Deter in the woods. With both hands up her skirt, according to her testimony the next day. Bobbie Jo hadn’t been at the bonfire, either. Probably because she’d been doing the same thing with Jake.
“If I offended you last night by asking you to come down to the station…”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t offended. I just found the whole thing unnecessary. I didn’t start the fire.”
“Never said you did.”
“No, but you insinuated I could have, which