by Dana Mentink
Dory clambered down the drainpipe through a haze of smoke. She half ran, half staggered. “Someone please help.” Rocky seized her by the arms. His eyes were wide with fear.
“I got the phone message. Where’s Chad?”
She coughed with such violence she could not answer. A rescue engine roared up. Two firefighters leaped out and hooked up to a nearby hydrant. An ambulance screamed in behind them.
“He’s...” She started coughing again.
Rocky’s fingers dug into her arms. “Where, Dory?”
Desperately, she jabbed a finger upward. “Attic.”
Rocky let her go so suddenly she fell to one knee. He ran toward the office building. As he got close, an arriving police officer snatched at his arm. “You can’t go in there, sir.”
“My boy’s trapped inside,” Rocky thundered, but the cop held him tight.
The firefighters dragged a hose closer to the building. She could not see flames, but smoke was still billowing into the air. Her mouth and nose burned.
Chad. Chad. His name echoed with every thrum of her pulse along with her hurtful words. Ivy and I don’t need you. The lancing pain in her heart proved the words to be false. At that moment, she craved nothing else but to see Chad walking away from that burning building, safe and sound.
Rocky was still shouting at the police officer and struggling to free himself when Tom appeared and sprinted up to them.
Rocky shot him a desperate look. “Chad’s in the attic. Trapped.”
Tom didn’t hesitate. He raced past the officer and charged through the back office door, heedless of shouted orders from the cop and the firefighters.
Dory’s head felt like it would explode. How long did it take to die of smoke inhalation? Terror coursed through her like the water gunning through the fire hose. The firefighters followed the path Tom had taken, spraying water as they went. Seconds turned into minutes. Rocky had gone still now, but his arm where she touched him was tense as strung wire.
“They’ll get him out,” she said. “They’ll save him.”
He didn’t look at her, just stared into the drifting smoke. Time stood still, and Dory realized she was holding her breath.
“I shouldn’t have left him,” she whispered to no one. Chad had known he’d never be able to squeeze through the attic window. Maybe if they’d stayed downstairs, worked harder at battering the door...
Her father pulled up in his car, bounded from the driver’s side and ran to her. “I heard the sirens and turned around. What happened?”
“Someone trapped us in the storage room and started a fire. I got out through the attic, but Chad couldn’t fit. He’s...” She started to cry, tears streaming down her cheeks. He folded her in his arms.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be if Chad died in that smoke. You’re a great mom, Dory. Now go. He was proud of her and she wanted desperately to tell him how much that meant to her. He could not be gone. It could not be possible.
Her father tensed. Jerking her head up, she saw Tom emerging from the blackness carrying Chad over his shoulder.
A scream sprang from her lips and she ran to them. Rocky and Pete followed. Tom’s face was covered in soot as he set Chad down on the far end of the lot. She knelt next to him, stroking his sooty face. “Chad...” was all she could get out.
His eyes were closed, but he was breathing. “Dear God, thank You that he’s alive,” she gasped.
“We need help here,” her father shouted, and a paramedic hustled over.
“You’re going to make it, Chad. Can you hear me?” Dory said. The medic immediately slipped an oxygen mask over Chad’s mouth and nose.
Rocky clasped Tom’s arm. “You okay?”
Tom coughed and nodded. “Yeah. Fire wasn’t too big yet. Lots of smoke. Someone poured kerosene on the carpet and set fire to it. Wedged the door.”
Dory tried to control her sobbing. “How did you get it unstuck?”
“I didn’t.” He grinned and held up a nail. “Fortunately, I had a nail in my pocket from working on the barn. Used it to pop the door off its hinges. Chad was already down in the storage room, so I scooped him up and got out of there.”
Dory threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight. “Thank you so much, Tom.”
He shifted uncomfortably and she let him go.
“Nothing to it,” he said.
She got on her knees again and brushed the debris from Chad’s hair, stroking his cheek. “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered through her tears. “As soon as you open your eyes.”
A medic urged her away while he tended to Chad.
The officer came over and introduced himself. “Did you hear anyone in the building before the fire?”
“No,” she said, waving away the paramedic who wanted to check her out. “We were looking at a file and someone pulled the door closed and shoved something under the door, but we didn’t see who it was.”
“Motive?”
Pete grunted. “Whoever didn’t want you two looking into my file.”
“Blaze,” Tom said through gritted teeth.
The cop frowned. “Why would he set a fire? Most people have their information backed up on computers, so he wouldn’t be destroying anything that can’t be accessed another way, right?”
“That’s right. Police have copies of our notes,” her father said sheepishly, “even if I haven’t gotten around to scanning them all into the computer.”
Dory knew from Tom’s face that he shared her thought. The fire might not have been about destroying evidence.
“Blaze doesn’t want anyone messing up his plans,” Tom said. “He works through intimidation.”
Dory recalled his getting the picture of Ivy. “True,” she said. “He wants to scare us off looking into the boat accident again.”
Tom shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s working. Angela is plenty scared. She called Pete to help her look through the evidence. If Blaze did plot the sinking...”
The cop had paused his pencil. “Hold on a minute. I’m gonna need to be brought up to speed here.”
Dory briefly explained while the officer’s eyes grew wider. He dutifully wrote down the details and promised to relay the information to Danny Patron.
Dory stayed by Chad’s side, as did Rocky, as Chad was loaded into the ambulance to be transported to the hospital. Seeing him lying there, still and quiet, was so unnatural. She fought hard against a new wave of tears.
Tom shook his head. “Came over figuring I was going to keep Rocky out of trouble. Didn’t figure on a burning building. Keep me updated about Chad, will you? I’ll go inform Gus and Ginny. Better to tell them in person, I think, instead of a phone call.”
“Of course we will.” Dory didn’t try to hug him again, but she clasped his calloused hand. “Thank you, Tom.”
He climbed into the ranch truck.
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” her father said, “and you’re going to get checked out while you’re there.”
She nodded, burning with eagerness to get to Chad.
Her father chewed his lip as they drove, a sure tell that he was twisting the matter over in his mind just like she was.
“Let’s try to keep things factual. The arsonist could have been following you—that’s the most obvious conclusion—and saw an opportunity to scare you.”
“Or the arsonist knew about the files and figured we’d be coming here sooner or later, and watched for an opportunity. You were assisting the DA in the case. That’s a matter of public record. Anyone could look it up.”
He inclined his head. “Humor me. Who was involved back then who’s in the picture now, too? And who could have known you were on your way here?”
She counted off the names of all the people who came to mind. “Any co
ps and reporters who were involved, of course. The ranch hands and Chad’s adopted family. And Blaze, Rocky, Tom, Angela.”
He thought it over. “Seems like we can expunge Tom from the list since he just put his life at risk to save Chad. So that leaves Blaze and Angela. Their stories contradict each other. One of them, or both of them, is lying.”
Both of them. That was an angle that hadn’t occurred to her. “Could they possibly be working together?” She put the scenario together. “They plotted to kill Mary so the inheritance would all go to Angela and she would give him a cut of the bigger pie, not just his trust fund payout. Surely that’s far-fetched. They both loved Mary, didn’t they?”
Pete sighed. “Dory, I’ve seen people do terrible things for money. It wouldn’t be the first time someone murdered a family member out of greed.”
Her head throbbed and she leaned back against the seat. What had she started by reopening the Blaze Turner case? Would any more lives be sacrificed before the truth was out?
She closed her eyes against the memory of Chad motionless in that stretcher.
The case had to be closed before it got any worse.
* * *
Chad was awakened by unfamiliar voices, soft clangs and beeps. He strained to hear the horses whinnying, Meatball and Jingles barking their joyful greeting. Gradually he ascertained that he was in the hospital. Worse yet, he was wearing a ridiculous green gown with an oxygen mask over his face. The fire. He pulled off the mask and sat up so quickly his head spun. “Dory?”
“Right here.”
Her hair was wet from a recent shower and she was wearing clean clothes, but when she bent so he could see her, he got a whiff of smoke. Or maybe it was coming from him. Didn’t matter. She was unhurt, as far as he could see. He let out a deep breath that made his lungs ache. “You hurt?”
“No, thanks to you.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek that temporarily made him forget his thundering headache.
“How’d I get out?”
She smiled, showing that delicate cheek dimple. “I’d like to report that you battered the door down and manfully charged through the flames, but actually, Tom Rourke went in and popped off the door hinges and carried you out. You’d already climbed back down to the storage room before you passed out.”
He groaned. “I owe him one.”
“I do, too.”
He blinked at her.
Her cheeks turned pink. “He saved Ivy’s daddy. I’ll always owe him for that.”
Ivy’s daddy. He let that roll around in his soul. He was somebody’s daddy. The responsibility of it made him quiver inside.
Her eyes darkened and the cheeky grin disappeared. “Chad, I shouldn’t have said we don’t need you. It’s not true.”
His heart beat faster as she leaned close. He wished she would touch his face, kiss him again. The craving to be connected to her in some way floored him. When she was close, it felt as though they were meant to be that way. Together.
“Ivy needs you in her life.”
His heart rate slowed. Ivy, but not you. He felt an odd mixture of pleasure and pain that made him wonder what he had wished her to say. That she wanted him back? Not gonna happen. Life isn’t a fairy tale. A coughing spell saved him from having to wrangle any more conversation.
Dory handed him a cup of water and guided the straw to his lips. “She’s waiting downstairs to see you, by the way. Grandma brought her.”
“Ivy? Here?” His stomach flipped. “I don’t want her to see me wearing this getup.”
“That is a standard-issue hospital gown.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I could offer to iron it for you.”
It was a long-standing joke between them. Dory was clueless about ironing, yet she’d offered to press his best shirt for a church Christmas party the year after they’d graduated high school. Distracted by a phone call, she’d burned a hole clear through the front. He’d gone to the party in a borrowed shirt instead.
At least it doesn’t have wrinkles, he’d said before she’d burst into hysterical tears.
Chad drank more water. “You would really tease a guy who was nearly cooked like a rotisserie chicken?”
“Absolutely.”
He chuckled. “That’s the Dory I know and love.” As the last word left his mouth, his skin went clammy. “I just meant...”
“I know.” She went to the window and fussed with the blinds. “The doctor said you might be able to go home this afternoon.”
“No ‘might’ about it. I’m going home. I want to hear exactly what Danny Patron knows about Blaze’s whereabouts. And further...” He’d just flipped the covers back when Sarah knocked on the door.
“Someone’s here to see you, Mr. Jaggert.” She guided Ivy in.
Like a shot, Chad was back under the covers. Ivy stood there in a pink dress, her hair done up in pigtails. Each pigtail had a colored elastic holding it in place. She was as fresh and perfect as a spring blossom.
And here he was, stinking of smoke, a day’s worth of stubble on his chin, without even a stitch of his own clothing on. Some father figure. He struggled to sit up as Dory kissed Ivy and lifted her onto one hip.
The girl solemnly surveyed the hospital room, and with a lurch he realized she shared his way of taking it all in, getting the lay of the land, before she spoke. Like father, like daughter. He nearly gaped at the flat-out wonder of it.
He had to clear his throat twice before his voice started working. “Hello, Ivy. I, uh... Thanks for coming to see me. I’m going home soon. Any minute now, actually.”
She nodded and handed him a clay pot that held a tender green shoot. “It’s gonna be a pumpkin. You could grow it on your ranch with the other ones.”
He blinked and accepted the pot, examining it carefully. “Well, that’s a fine thing. I haven’t had time to plant much this year. I’m sure Aunt Ginny would let me settle it in the garden.”
“Her.”
“Huh?”
“The plant is a girl. Her name is Polly.”
After a long moment, he recovered. “Oh, right. Polly the Pumpkin.”
“Can I come and see Meatball? Mommy says he’s a real funny puppy.”
The ranch? Could she? He was suddenly engulfed with a burning desire to show his daughter all the wondrous things that he loved most deeply at the Roughwater. Waves that kissed the shore. Cliffs that divided green grassland from the beach. The way the sun turned the land from gold to green and signaled the wildflowers to open their fancy faces.
“You are welcome there anytime,” he said. “Lots to see. Horses and cattle and dogs.” For the first time in his life, he was babbling. He made a mental note to quit already when her next sentence floored them both.
“Can I call you Daddy?”
“What?” He and Dory spoke at the same time. His eyes, he was sure, were bulging out of their sockets.
“Why do you ask, honey?” Dory said in a voice so calm she could have been discussing dinner plans.
“I heard Grandma tell Grandpa that Mr. Chad was my daddy.” The girl’s gaze lingered on Chad and he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Dory settled a glance on him that seemed to put everything in order. There will be no more deception, he read in her expression. Dory did not need him as a partner, but his child did. It would be enough.
Dory smiled at him. “What do you think, Mr. Chad?”
Swallowing the lump in his ravaged throat, he looked at his daughter. “Yes, Ivy. I would be pleased if you would like to call me Daddy.”
FIFTEEN
Dory shored up her resolve as she drove Chad back to the ranch shortly after two to gather her belongings from the saddlery. Things were moving altogether too fast. Ivy now knew Chad was her father, and Dory had been pressured into agreeing that Ivy would visit the ranch. Her daughter’s reaction was a foregone conclusion. She would fall deepl
y in love with the place and the people as soon as she set one tiny foot on the Roughwater. And then what would happen to their plans to move to Arizona? The new school she’d chosen so carefully, the small apartment near her mother and father’s place?
Though part of Dory was happy, thrilled that Chad and Rocky would be a part of Ivy’s life, she wasn’t prepared for the tidal wave that threatened with having Chad around on a permanent basis. He unsettled her, threw her off balance, and she’d worked too hard to let anything chip away at her confidence.
He wants to be close because of Ivy. That’s all. What’s wrong with that?
Nothing. God wanted families to be together. So why the fluttering cascade of tension in her stomach? It was time for some good old-fashioned common sense. Best to work the case from her home base, help her father recover salvageable files from the burned office and follow the plans she’d made for their future in Arizona. She could keep a close eye out for Blaze or Angela or whoever else was involved, and distance herself from the confusing emotional morass until she figured out how to integrate a long-distance father into Ivy’s life.
She was working up the courage to tell Chad about her decision as they pulled up the ranch drive, but he had his own agenda.
“I’m going to check on the horses. I’ll find you in the saddlery after. We can try to dig up your father’s digital files on the case and put our heads together about what we remember.”
“But, Chad...”
He was already out of the truck. He’d made it two steps when he froze and raced back, reaching into the front seat for the plant.
“Almost forgot Polly.” His grin was equal parts chagrin and wonder.
And that was it. Everything went quivery inside her. That grin, that smile, that softness, melted her heart like the countless marshmallows they’d toasted over campfires on the beach. Chad Jaggert, the boy she’d fallen for madly as a teen, was now a man who still owned her heart. She ached to embrace him, to span his wide shoulders with her arms and press her face into the familiar hollow of his neck. She did not know how it was possible, after he’d discarded her and they’d started up new lives. Maybe her heart would always be linked to his, though hers beat with tenderness and his was fueled by duty and responsibility. Try as she might, she could not deny Chad’s power over her...but she could still escape it.