Daring Devotion by Elaine Overton Read Free Book Online Page B

floated up the narrow tube, no one noticed the small device in the hand of the heckler, or saw when he pushed a button on the device. All they saw was the red light sail right up to the top of the meter.
    â€œWhat?” Cal turned on the little man once more. “No way! This thing is rigged!”
    The teen just smirked at Cal, before going to collect his prize.
    Cal grabbed Andrea’s hand and quickly moved away. His long legs taking well-spaced strides, forcing her to run along to keep up. “Cal, slow down!”
    He continued to charge across the open field, passing by exhibit after exhibit. “We’re leaving.”
    â€œWhy? I was having a good time.”
    â€œThat stupid game was rigged, Andrea. I don’t care what he says! It was rigged.”
    She pulled back and dug in her heels, and was more surprised than Cal to realize it worked. He’d lost his grip on her hand. Realizing her fingers were slipping through his, he turned in surprise.
    â€œWell, of course it’s rigged! But I don’t see why we have to leave because of it.”
    Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cal realized he was overreacting, but on top of everything else that had been happening lately, getting beat by a rigged game was just too much.
    Ever since the fire in that Hadley building, Cal had felt as if his world was spinning out of control and it was taking everything in him to hold it all together.
    His team members, who had once thought he was indestructible, now gave him strange, questioning looks when they thought he wasn’t watching. Not the least of which, the new guy Jeff, who seemed determined to challenge him at every turn.
    And Andrea…he had no idea how Andrea saw him anymore. Being that she was the one who had to wake him up out of his cold sweats whenever they spent the night together, he could only imagine how many notches he’d gone down in her opinion.
    Knowing that, how was he supposed to tell her about the daymares. He didn’t know what else to call a nightmare that could occur at any time. The hallucinations that came out of nowhere, the dizziness he’d recently begun to experience whenever he went up high; his new fear of loose hoses, defective hoses, defective equipment, the fire-house alarm and anything else that went along with being a firefighter.
    He felt as if some invisible monster was slowly stealing his manhood, a monster that he could not see, or stop. And the worst fear of all was that if anyone ever realized what was really going on, he could lose everything he’d worked for his whole life. Not only his recent promotion, but his whole career, and…Andrea, as well.
    So much pressure had been building up over the past month, and it had all come together in the moment he swung that mallet. Somehow, a small carnival game had come to represent his life, and according to that game, he was weak in both mind and body.
    Andrea could see the conflicting emotions swirling in the depths of his eyes. “Don’t you get it? He needed for someone like you to lose—not just anyone, someone just like you. What did he call you? A mammoth of a man. Then he needed someone like that skinny kid to win. After all, everyone would expect you to win, not the other guy. When you didn’t, it gave them the impression that maybe they could. It was a scam.” Her mouth twisted. “And not a very good one. But people believe what they want to believe.”
    I knew that, Cal thought looking at her. I just didn’t realize you did. His heart was filling up with all the things he felt for this woman. All those feelings that still occasionally caught him by surprise.
    â€œI love you.” Until that moment, Cal had not realized how much he needed her unwavering faith.
    â€œI love you, too,” she said, offhandedly, looking over her shoulder at the concession stand. “Now, can we stay? I’m starving, and there’s a foot-long hot dog over there