by Cindy Dees
She ran over toward the big loafing shed he kept the entire herd of cattle in when it was wet or windy and turned on the faucet to the garden hose he used to water the cattle. Surely one lousy hose wouldn’t begin to fight the conflagration now engulfing the entire barn!
“Hose us down!” he shouted over the rising roar of the fire.
Who knew a fire could be that loud? She could barely hear him over it.
And then the wisdom of his order hit her. He was making sure neither he nor the horse had any live embers on them that would further burn them. She sprayed him and the horse with the water until both of them were drenched and shivering.
“Water the roof of the loafing barn!” he shouted as he led the trembling horse toward the calving barn.
She pointed the spray at the roof of the next closest barn to the fire, frantically wetting the wood to protect it from flying sparks and embers. She spotted a tiny fire licking at a spot on the roof and sprayed it immediately.
Her back was roasting with the heat, so painfully hot it felt as if her skin was starting to peel off her body. She spared a second to hit herself with the hose, and steam rose from her shirt. She went back to work trying to save the barn.
Wes came over to her and took over the hose.
She ran to the calving barn and turned the water faucet there on, and she sprayed the far side of the loafing barn, as well.
The fire itself rose up a good fifty feet in the air, and a tornado-like vortex of fire whirled up demonically. The heat was unbelievable. She heard cattle bellowing and stomping behind her in the calving barn, terrified. She prayed the calves weren’t being trampled, but there was no help for it. They had to save the barn and prevent the spread of the fire. If the loafing barn went up, it could very well light up the calving barn, too, and then they would start losing cattle.
She couldn’t even bring herself to consider the horrifying possibility of Wes’s prized cows being burned alive.
Three sets of headlights tore across the pasture, and a dozen men spilled out of pickup trucks, John and Miranda Morgan leading the charge. “We saw the fire!” John shouted. “What can we do?”
For a gray-haired guy of at least sixty years, the man could move. He ran up to his son, embracing him fiercely for a second, and then took the hose from Wes’s hands and passed it to one of his men.
Several of John’s ranch hands opened the calving barn and let the terrified cattle streak out into a pasture, well away from the fire, while other ranch hands commenced spraying the wall of the loafing barn that faced the fire with foam from big metal canisters. She assumed it was some kind of fire retardant.
After that was done, a couple of intrepid guys in heavy canvas duster coats climbed a ladder onto the roof of the loafing barn and walked around on it with fire extinguishers.
The hands took turns going up on the roof, spelling each other from the intense heat every five minutes or so.
Miranda served cold water and hot coffee to the men, and Jessica helped her, running back and forth from the house with fresh jugs of water for the men to drink. Grateful to have a job, she ran off and returned over and over, staggering under the weight of a big orange cooler she filled with ice water. She and Miranda passed out cups and the men guzzled water continuously.
Somewhere in the nightmare, Joe Westlake and several of his deputies showed up, and they too pitched in to keep the fire from spreading to the other barns.
The horse barn was a total loss. But as the fire finally began to burn itself out, it became clear that they’d saved all the other barns. No animals or humans had been seriously hurt. There were minor burns here and there where embers had landed on exposed flesh, and the cattle were agitated and restless, refusing to settle down or even to come back into the calving barn to eat.
The men monitored the loafing barn carefully for hours after the main fire had died down to make sure there were no flare-ups. With daybreak came exhaustion, and Jessica sagged over the water jug, her eyes gritty, the taste of smoke thick and acrid on her tongue, her arms so weak she could barely lift them.
Miranda had left sometime before, and she returned now with Willa and the cook, Ella, in tow, with a veritable truckload of food prepared for the men. Everyone grabbed sandwiches and ate in exhausted silence for the most part.
The men finally started to congregate on the front porch of the house. They were filthy, blackened and streaked with sweat and water and grime. They loaded up in trucks and started to head out, back to Runaway Ranch.
John looped an arm around Wes’s shoulders and the two men walked toward her, one the carbon copy of the other. They were much more alike than they were different, at the end of the day, and they shared a common love of their land, their homes and their animals.
Wes disengaged himself from his father’s arms as they approached, and he walked into her arms wordlessly. She hugged him as hard as she could, doing her best to share whatever strength she had left with him.
John said from behind Wes, “The good news is the cattle are fine. Everything else can be rebuilt as long as the herd is safe.”
“Thank goodness you’re safe,” she murmured to Wes. “I died when I saw you run into the fire.”
“I had to save Mac. He saved my life today. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
John rumbled, “What do you mean, he saved your life today? What happened?”
Wes turned wearily to head for the house with her tucked under his arm. “You’d better come inside, Dad. We need to talk.”
The minute John heard about the attempt on Wes’s life, which had been followed immediately by one of his barns going up in flames, John ordered a half dozen of his remaining men to go back to Runaway, get shotguns and ammunition and come back to Outlaw Ranch.
Grim faced, his men complied with alacrity.
Except when the trucks came back a half hour later, Miranda Morgan climbed out of the first one. And, God love her, she was carrying a deadly looking rifle.
Jessica hugged her tightly. “You’re a lifesaver. What would we do without you?”
“I expect you’d all perish, eventually,” Miranda replied tartly. But beneath the woman’s crusty tone, Jessica sensed terror and profound relief that her son was alive and unharmed.
An SUV turned into the drive, and Jessica recognized Joe Westlake’s official sheriff vehicle. He must have gone home, cleaned up and come right back out here, this time in an official capacity. He went straight to the burned-out hull of the barn and began poking around and taking pictures.
“At this rate, all of Sunny Creek will be here soon,” Jessica commented.
Joe said without looking up, “Welcome to a small town. We rally around each other in times of trouble.”
Wes remarked quietly, “I don’t think this was trouble. I think it was arson.”
Jessica stared at him in dismay. “The shooter?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. That whole damned end of the barn went up all at once. The whole thing was engulfed in a matter of minutes. If you hadn’t heard Mac screaming when you did, he would have died.”
“Speaking of your horse,” Miranda said, “let me trailer him over to my barn. We’ll have Doc Hamilton take a look at him. Make sure he doesn’t get sick from inhaling all that smoke.”
“He’s got some bad burns where embers landed on him,” Wes replied.
Miranda smiled. “I’ll treat him like one of my own babies.”
“Oh, Lord. He’ll come back so spoiled he’ll be unridable,” Wes groaned.
Miranda just smiled serenely. She went outside to talk to one of the ranch hands and send him back for a horse trailer.
Jessica turned to Wes. “If Mac was burned, does that mean you were, too? Take off that sweatshirt and let me check you out.”
She didn’t know where he’d gotten the garment from, and she watched in alarm as
Wes winced, pulling it over his head cautiously.
“Uh-huh. As I thought. You’ve got some burns yourself, mister. Any chance I can get you to go to a hospital and get these properly treated?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m fine.”
“Knowing you, you’d throw a piece of duct tape over them and call it a bandage, and then you’d press on with your life,” she accused.
“I would probably use electrical tape, but yeah,” he replied sheepishly.
“Sit down,” she ordered. “And don’t move till I get back.” Jessica fetched the first aid kit and opened it on the kitchen table. She cleaned his burns as gently as she could, but he hissed with pain as antiseptic hit the raw wounds. She smeared them liberally with antibiotic cream, covered them with squares of rayon and then covered them with gauze and medical adhesive tape.
When she was finished, she realized her legs were about to give out from under her and she sank into one of the brand-new kitchen chairs. “You took ten years off my life when you ran into that barn, Wes. Please never scare me like that again. I don’t ever need you to be a hero again.”
He shrugged. “I did what I had to do.”
“What will you do next?”
“I’ll rebuild the barn, I suppose. This time with a metal roof and siding. The good news is I can lay it out more efficiently than the last barn.”
“What about the shooter? What’s to stop him from coming back and torching another barn, this time with livestock in it?”
“My dad is lending me some of his hands to guard the place until we can figure out who’s been shooting at the two of us.”
She sagged with relief. Thank goodness his pride wasn’t so inflexible that he wouldn’t take help from his family. It was one thing to be stubborn and independent. It was another thing entirely to be suicidally pigheaded.
“I want you to leave,” Wes announced.
“No!”
“You’re not safe here. I’m not willing to take chances with your life, Jessica.”
“And I’m not willing to take chances with yours!” she exclaimed. “I’m not leaving your side.”
“It’s not open to debate. I already talked with my father about it, and he agrees with me. You should go stay at Runaway where there are a bunch of people who can protect you.”
“Wes, you’re all the protection I need. I trust you with my life.”
“I’m not doing a hell of a good job keeping you safe so far,” he muttered.
“I would be a nervous wreck without you,” she declared.
“And I’ll be a nervous wreck if you stay.”
“We’re in this together. Let me stand by you and fight with you. I can shoot a gun and handle myself under stress.” His expression remained stubborn. “Please,” she begged. “You and I let circumstances separate us once before, and look how much harm was done and how long it has taken for us to get back together.”
He didn’t budge.
“You need me, Wes. You draw strength and comfort from me, and I do the same from you.”
“She’s got a point,” a new voice said from behind her. Miranda had come inside and stopped just behind Jessica.
“She’s not safe out here—” Wes started.
“No one’s safe living on a ranch in wild country like this. This is a hard life and requires strong women.”
“She’s a city girl. She knows nothing about this life!”
“Don’t sell Jessica short, son. I’ve seen her backbone. She’s got what it takes to stand beside you and make a go of this place. Goodness knows, she’s plenty smart enough to learn how to live and work on a ranch. What would it hurt to let her try?”
“For starters, there’s the whole business of her, oh, I don’t know, dying.”
“She’s not dead yet, and she’s been shot at and survived a fire. Not to mention she managed to talk you into remodeling this ramshackle excuse of a house. Which looks lovely, by the way, dear.”
“Thanks, Miranda,” Jessica replied, pleased.
Wes scowled back and forth between the two women. Perhaps he sensed defeat at hand when both his mother and Jessica ganged up on him. “Fine,” he huffed. “But she’s not setting one foot outside this house without an armed bodyguard. Not until this bastard is caught.”
The front door opened again. This time it was Joe Westlake. “Wes? Can I talk to you outside? There’s something I need to show you.”
Jessica watched the two men’s tall figures move toward the blackened skeleton of the burned barn. Certainty that Joe had found proof of arson coursed through her. For all her brave talk to the contrary, she was not so naive that she wasn’t terrified at the prospect of staying here with Wes.
However, someone was out to harm or kill them. And until that person was caught, neither she nor Wes would be safe anywhere.
Chapter 14
Calving season went into full swing, and perhaps the stress of the fire triggered more of his cows than usual to give birth, but for the next week, Wes was up around the clock babysitting his cows through their first deliveries. Most of them went fine, and a few required visits from Dr. Hamilton to expedite. But so far, Wes had yet to lose a single cow or calf.
It was about damned time a bit of luck went his way.
An official arson investigator came to the ranch and poked around in the remains of the burned barn for about three minutes before confirming Joe’s finding and declaring the fire to have been arson. Not that it was news to him. He’d known the second he’d heard Mac screaming that night that someone had deliberately torched the barn.
He was just grateful that the bastard hadn’t gone after the calving barn, where over half his herd and a half-dozen newborn calves had been housed. Had the arsonist merely been sending a warning by torching the big, mostly deserted barn? Or was it possible the guy had gone after the biggest structure without realizing it wasn’t the most important structure on the ranch? If that was the case, it would mean the arsonist was a city slicker and not a local.
Wes and Joe ended up driving a four-wheeler up into the high pasture and hunting around until they found a pair of trees with bullets buried in their trunks. It took them a couple of hours to find the first distinctive hole in a tree trunk. After that they found the second slug quickly. They dug out the slugs and took a close look at them.
Joe commented, “These look a lot like the rounds we dug out of Jessica’s car.”
“You’ll run them through a forensic comparison, though, won’t you?”
“Dude. They’ll get mailed off to the FBI this very day.”
As Joe bagged and tagged the bullets, noting the time and location where they were found, Wes said, “Those aren’t very deformed, which means they were moving at a slow rate of speed when they impacted the trees.”
“Which means what?” Joe asked.
“They were fired from very near the limit of the weapon’s effective range. The slugs were slowing down. Losing velocity. They traveled a long way and bled off a lot of energy before they reached those trees. They were only buried a half inch or so deep in the wood. Had they been fired from close range, they’d have smashed into the trees and buried themselves four or five inches deep, at least.”
Joe grinned. “You’re good at this stuff. Ever consider a career in law enforcement?”
“Nope. I’m happy to leave the handcuffs and speeding tickets to you, big guy.”
“Aw, the handcuffs can be fun to play with...with the right partner. And you ought to hear the crazy things people say and do to get out of a speeding ticket. I live for those excuses.”
Wes just shook his head. He’d take a nice, quiet life as a rancher any day. Although, it hadn’t been the least bit quiet since Jessica had shown up on his front porch.
* * *
Several times over the next week, his father’s ranch hands, standing guard at
Outlaw Ranch, heard movement in the middle of the night. But when they pursued the source of the intrusion, whatever or whoever it was took off.
Wes continued to argue daily with Jessica to leave Outlaw and, potentially, to leave Montana altogether, until the sheriff and the Morgans caught whoever was attacking them. She refused to budge. She was adamant that any risk he faced was a risk she would face, too. He had to give her credit. She was made of sterner stuff than he would ever have guessed.
Jessica had almost finished the interior of his house, and today the crew had torn the exterior siding off the house, wrapped it in some sort of insulation and was now installing beautiful golden siding—vertical wooden planks that had been stained and coated to maintain their freshly cut color indefinitely.
He barely recognized the house anymore. In a matter of weeks, it had become a gracious and inviting place full of light and color. Everywhere he looked, he saw something pleasing. Who knew how big a difference it would make to his mental state to live in a space that reflected his tastes and made him happy and relaxed.
Or maybe it was Jessica who’d done all of that for his mental state. He never knew where another reminder of her free spirit would show up around the ranch. She named his calves and thought he should massage the cows that were still expecting, and she’d even installed a stereo in the calving barn that played relaxing music for the expectant mothers. There were always wildflowers in a vase on the kitchen table now, and his bathroom and bedsheets smelled of gardenias. She’d invaded his workshop, building new shelves and installing dozens of drawers and bins that neatly held all of his tools and bits of raw wood. She’d even moved in a ridiculously comfortable chair for him to sit in while he carved. He looked up the brand name online and was stunned to discover it was a thousand-dollar-plus ergonomic chair.
She cooked for him and all the guards from Runaway Ranch, laying out huge spreads of tasty food that rivaled his mother’s cooking—which was saying something.
If he didn’t know better, he would say she was settling in beautifully to ranch life. Thing was, he knew in the back of his mind that this wouldn’t last. She was a flight risk. Someday she would tire of playing rancher’s girlfriend, and she would take off. Without warning, she would up and leave, and never look back.