Free Playing With Fire by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

ONE
    M y boss, Carol, was already at her desk when I opened our office door. I paused before entering. Crap, I thought. I’d only had a few hours of sleep the night before, and I knew it showed. Carol would undoubtedly grill me for details about my evening with Trevor. The thing is, I had spent most of the night with Matt instead.
    Carol sat back, looking amused with me. Her black blazer was a bit too small and pulled at the shoulders. She was chubby from years of sitting at her laptop. “Claire, you have someone waiting for you,” she told me.
    I turned to see Trevor Bragg leaning against my desk. His muscled arms were crossed. I could see the ridges of his stomach muscles under his T-shirt. The guy was a hunk, really fit. But then, he had to be. He was a firefighter.
    I suddenly wished I had taken more care getting dressed that morning. I had woken up late and grabbed the first clean outfit I could find, a blue T-shirt and jeans.
    “Oh, Trevor,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to the restaurant last night.”
    “Didn’t you two have a date?” Carol asked.
    “I never made it,” I told her. “Something came up.”
    “Something always comes up,” said Trevor. “Doesn’t it, Claire?”
    I felt my face heat up in embarrassment. He was right, of course. I had stood Trevor up three dates in a row. Each time, I’d had to cover some news story.
    I work as a reporter and photographer at the Black Lake Times , a weekly newspaper. Our town is so small that Carol and I are the only writers for the paper. I rarely get a full day off.
    “Trevor, I meant to call—” I started, but he held up his hand to stop me.
    “The chief told me how you saved the Miller girl last night,” he said. “I ran into him when I picked up my morning coffee.”
    He meant Jim Wallis, our town fire chief and a family friend.
    Trevor pushed himself up from my desk. “Jim said you had some kind of vision that led you to find Amber in the woods,” he said.
    He stepped so close to me I could smell him. Boy, did he smell good, and not just of shampoo. He smelled like a man . The night before, I was ready to tell him that we were over. Now all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him.
    Trevor clearly wasn’t in the mood. “I also heard you and Matt Holden were pretty cozy over at Big Al’s burger joint last night,” he said.
    Matt was the search-and-rescue manager for our area. He had headed up the search for Amber Miller the night before. After I tracked down Amber, Matt saw me in a different light. He was interested in me now in a way he hadn’t been before. I wasn’t about to tell Trevor that.
    “We were hungry after the search.”
    “You were at Big Al’s until two o’clock in the morning.”
    “Matt and I were talking, that’s all,” I told Trevor. “He wanted to know about my vision, how it worked.”
    “Me too,” said Carol. “You’ve got the town buzzing. Everyone at Tommy’s Café was talking about you this morning.”
    Tommy’s Café is the hangout for cops in our town. Fire Chief Wallis was there most mornings. Matt was often there too. If I wanted to find news, Tommy’s Café was the place to go. I had avoided the café that morning, however. I knew I would be the topic of gossip.
    “I hear you knew Doug Connor had kidnapped Amber before anyone else,” Carol said. “Did you really see all that in a vision?”
    “Yeah, but my vision didn’t tell me Doug would throw my camera bag into a gulley.” I was still mad about that. My wallet was in there.
    Carol raised her eyebrows to me, asking me to explain.
    “I don’t know how visions work,” I told her. “Last night was the first time I had one.”
    “Your mom has them all the time, though, right? Or she thinks she does.”
    I felt my face flush in embarrassment. Mom had claimed she had visions for years. I had thought she was a flake. The whole town thought she was a little nutty. Now I was sure they thought I was crazy