A Cowboy for Christmas (Mills & Boon Love Inspired Historical) (Wyoming Legacy - Book 5)

by Lacy Williams

  Ned and Beau must’ve gotten out, must’ve woken the family, because Owen and the twins had formed a bucket brigade from the well to the burning building. Audra drew up bucket after bucket while Belinda watched from the porch.

  Even as he splashed through the muddy river where water had been splashed out of their buckets, Ricky could see it was hopeless.

  The barn was too far gone. With the dry hay in the loft and the aged wood going up too fast, their weak efforts would never stop it.

  The orange light reflected on the twins’ faces as they hauled buckets to the men. They were fighting an enemy they couldn’t possibly win against.

  “What about the horses?” Ricky shouted, grabbing a bucket and plunging it and his hands into the icy water trough. He hesitated, but forced his feet to move toward the barn when he wanted to run the other direction.

  “Got ’em out!” Ned answered as he passed by.

  That was a relief. Daisy would have Prince, even if they had to rebuild the barn.

  Then his heart stopped beating completely. Daisy.

  “Where’s Daisy?” he asked Audra as he returned to the pump for another bucket.

  “On the porch!”

  But the flickering firelight revealed only Belinda. He strained his eyes, trying to see into the shadows around the sides of the house. Or maybe she’d ducked inside for a pot or another bucket for the men.

  “Belinda. Where’s Daisy?” he shouted, abandoning the water line and running toward the porch.

  Belinda was glassy-eyed, seemingly unable to look away from the disaster unfolding in front of them. Finally, she tore her eyes away and met Ricky’s gaze. “What?”

  “Daisy. Where is she?”

  But Belinda looked around, confused, as if she didn’t realize her sister had disappeared.

  And he remembered the puppies, trapped in their stall. Would Matilda have abandoned them? Would Daisy have tried to go after them?

  How could she have gone into the barn without anyone noticing?

  He ran toward the inferno, yelling her name. “Daisy! Are you in there?”

  The men didn’t seem to hear him, shouting orders at each other. A beam crashed somewhere in the back of the barn.

  It was his worst nightmare, revisited.

  His memories overlapped the present. He could see the small cabin, engulfed in flames, hear again the woman’s screams from inside.

  “Daisy!” Ricky shouted, coming so close that his face burned from the heat of the raging fire.

  If she was in there, was there any chance she was still alive?

  Then he thought he heard a return shout.

  There was no choice, no conscious thought. His feet simply took him toward the woman he loved.

  Inside the burning barn.

  Voices yelled behind him as he ran through the fire-surrounded doors.

  But he didn’t heed them. He had to get to Daisy. She couldn’t die, not if he could do something about it.

  *

  Daisy had remembered the puppies as Papa and Ned had ushered the last of the horses from the barn. She’d ducked back inside, coughing as the smoke had filled her lungs. She held her elbow over her mouth and nose as she raced toward the back stall where Ricky had kept the pups confined.

  Smoke swirled above her head, curling between and around the rafters separating the loft from the first level.

  The darkness made it hard to see, and her eyes burned from the noxious odor.

  Something large crashed above her head, jarring the entire building.

  Daisy cried out.

  She finally reached the stall, and Matilda was there, curled around her four pups. The dog whined, tail flapping lightly against the floor. Happy that someone had come to rescue her.

  Daisy dragged back the barrier. “C’mon, girl.”

  But the dog didn’t move. She nudged one of the pups with her snout, as if trying to tell Daisy to get the pups first.

  This was the part Daisy hadn’t thought through very well. If she’d had two arms, she would have gathered the four pups together and grabbed them up.

  With only one arm, how could she manage?

  There was another crash, and Daisy whirled to find that a large beam had dropped, partly blocking her way out. One end of it was visibly burning, fire racing along its length.

  Someone shouted her name from outside the barn. She wasn’t stupid.

  “Help!” she yelled. And then doubled over coughing because the smoke was stealing all the oxygen.

  She couldn’t wait for someone to assist her—and what if she’d imagined the voice anyway? She knelt to the ground, scooting forward on her knees to the pups.

  She scooped one of the pups into the fold of her skirt and prayed that this worked. Another pup joined the first, then the last two, quickly. She gathered the skirt as best she could, containing the squirming, whining pups, and held the fold of fabric tightly, folding it up into a bundle of sorts.

  “C’mon, Matilda!” she ordered, leaving no room in her tone for the dog to do anything but comply.

  And Matilda seemed happy to oblige, racing through the stall doorway, bumping against Daisy’s thigh.

  The smoke had grown thicker, flames licked the roof overhead. There was another crash.

  The whole building creaked, and Daisy tried to run, but she couldn’t breathe. Her head felt stuffed with cotton.

  She attempted to skirt the fallen beam, but fire licked at her back and she couldn’t make the gap that the black dog had just jumped through.

  “Matilda!” a familiar shout, filled with relief, brought her head up.

  Across the beam, she met Ricky’s beloved face. She saw the stark fear in his expression and knew what it must’ve cost him to come into the barn, especially knowing his past.

  Daisy. She saw his mouth move, but couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the fire surrounding them.

  How were they going to get out of here?

  The beam remained in her way, the gap between the flames licking up the beam and the flames crawling up the wall becoming smaller every second.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  “Help me,” she tried to say, but her throat was so dry, and would he hear her anyway?

  But he knew. He took off his coat and tossed it onto the beam, momentarily smothering the flames in just a small area.

  “C’mere!” he shouted.

  She leaned toward him and he met her, clasping her shoulders in his wide, capable hands, and towing her over the beam.

  She still clutched the pups in her skirt, as they ran together toward the barn doors.

  There was another loud crack and an ominous shifting of the building all around them.

  “Go!” Ricky shouted, pushing her through the doorway and out into the cold, fresh air.

  Someone grabbed her and she cried out, stumbling as she was dragged away from the heat and chaos. The puppies wiggled in her skirt, their whines muffled through the fabric.

  The barn groaned and there was a great crash as part of it collapsed.

  “Ricky!” she cried.

  She fought the hands containing her, and Belinda was there, taking the puppies out of the tangle of her skirt.

  She strained her neck to try and see him—and there he was, bent over coughing and hacking, safely away from the fire.

  They’d made it out alive.

  *

  Ricky couldn’t take his eyes off Daisy. She couldn’t stop coughing as Audra dragged her to the porch and forced her to sit on the steps. Belinda was there, sobbing even as she forced a dipper of water into Daisy’s hand.

  Still Daisy coughed.

  His lungs felt singed from the inside out, and he hadn’t been in the burning barn nearly as long as she had. He had grit between his teeth. His eyes watered.

  Her cheeks were smudged with soot, black marks staining her hair and dress.

  How had she survived? Was she in danger from inhaling the smoke?

  She was alive. That was all that
mattered.

  Another section of the barn wall collapsed, sending a shower of sparks into the air like drunken fireflies, tizzying up into the sky.

  He’d done it. This time, he’d saved the woman. Daisy hadn’t died.

  And she’d saved the puppies. She’d done it on her own. She hadn’t been scared, had just done what needed doing.

  Who was he kidding? She didn’t need him.

  But he loved her.

  When he could finally get his weak knees to support him, he made his way over to Owen and Ned, who stared at the almost completely incinerated building. The ground between the house and barn had been soaked from water sloshing out of their buckets and maybe on purpose while he’d been inside the barn.

  “Should I ride to town and fetch the doc for Daisy?” he asked.

  But it was she who answered. “I’ll be all right.” Even those four words cost her, and she collapsed in another fit of coughing.

  He figured if she was talking to him that meant he had the right to sidle up to her and he sat down on his rump in the grass beside the steps.

  “You sure?” he asked. He looked to Audra, who nodded. Daisy was really okay.

  He couldn’t stop the tears that filled his eyes. He pretended they were from the soot and smoke and turned his face away as he tried to blink them out.

  “I couldn’t leave them in there to die,” she whispered.

  He nodded. He still couldn’t look at her because of how things had been left between them and the emotion swelling up in his chest right this moment, but his chest was busting with pride for what she’d done.

  She hadn’t let her arm hold her back. She’d just done what was needed. Gone in and saved those pups.

  He watched Matilda licking the pups and Belinda trying to keep them all cornered up on the porch out of danger of being stepped on.

  Beau approached and Ricky forced his still-shaky legs to support him, with a little help from the railing.

  “Boss wants us to round up the loose horses, if you’re up to it. Put ’em in the closed pasture.”

  He was still more scared than anything else. Adrenaline pulsed through him, and he kept seeing visions of Daisy screaming in the barn as it collapsed on top of her. God had kept that from happening this time, but he imagined he’d be having nightmares for some time to come.

  “The barn is gone,” Beau went on.

  Daisy gasped softly behind him. They all knew what it meant. The destruction of all that hay, the expensive tack, the cost of rebuilding the barn. It was a painful loss for the family.

  “I’m all right.” He’d lost his hat somewhere in the melee and ran a hand through his hair. He looked back at Daisy to find her eyes on him. “You good?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you.”

  He nodded slowly and held her gaze. He didn’t know if she was just talking to him because of what they’d just been through together or if it meant she was on the fence about forgiving him.

  Audra bustled out of the kitchen door, sending a shaft of light over the two of them and breaking the connection.

  “You young men are sopping wet. Here.” She shoved a pile of quilts in Ricky’s direction, and he didn’t have a choice but to take them.

  “They’ll at least keep you a little warm while you round up the horses. Come back to the house when you’re done.”

  It was a nice gesture, especially since he’d lost his coat.

  But he could’ve lost so much more.

  “I’ll be back,” he told Daisy. He wanted to talk, wanted to resolve things between them.

  She nodded, eyes wide and vulnerable on him.

  And he went back to work, riding out into the night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ricky woke in a rush, came aware suddenly that he was facedown on the Richardses’ parlor rug, where he’d all but collapsed after he and Beau had finished rounding up the horses in the middle of the night. After the fire.

  What was that smell? It only took a moment to realize it was him. Not only had he been soaked and sooty, his fear and sweat had left behind a stench that his ma would’ve been appalled at.

  He ached all over, probably the remains of the adrenaline that had crashed through him when he’d had to go into that barn, and riding out half wet without a coat in the cold January night. He figured he’d shivered his muscles sore.

  He was plenty warm now, under the blanket and not too far from the hearth fire.

  He pulled one arm up beneath his body, groaning low at the motion, and pushed himself up.

  What was he supposed to do now? His worldly possessions hadn’t amounted to much. An extra shirt and pair of trousers and a book his sister had given him, but his pack had contained all the cash he’d earned this fall, working for the Richardses. This was the first time he hadn’t gambled or drunk away his earnings, and he’d started to get a nice chunk of cash saved up. Been thinking he might be able to make a start for himself. Or a new family, if Daisy would have him...

  And now it had gone up in flames. Literally.

  “Oh! You’re awake.” Daisy’s soft exclamation had his head turning toward the hall, where she peeked in from the doorway.

  She looked as pretty as he’d ever seen her, fresh-faced, her hair pulled back, eyes shining.

  “Mornin’.” His voice was rough, as rough as the rest of him. He worked himself to sitting up and found that his clothes had dried as stiff as the rest of him. Looking down, he could see they were caked with mud and soot, but he hadn’t had the presence of mind to get out of them last night when he’d come in.

  Besides, what would he change into?

  He smelled like a side of beef come out of a smokehouse and wrinkled his nose.

  Daisy smiled, then attempted to cover it with her hand. “I’ll draw you a bath in the twins’ room. Papa put a change of clothes in there for you.”

  “It’d be quicker to just dunk me in the creek.” Quicker, but much colder.

  “It won’t take long.”

  He stood up, biting back the groan this time since she was watching. “I can do it.”

  “So can I.” There was something more behind her words, a sureness that had settled deep in her eyes. As if she’d come to peace with herself.

  “All right.”

  He waited until she and Belinda had toted the warm water in for him before he gave himself a good scrubbing in the twins’ room and donned some of the boss’s clothes. The shirt was too big around the chest and he had to cinch the pants around his waist with his fist as he padded barefoot back toward the living areas.

  Daisy was in the kitchen, with a tub of steaming water and a scrub board, washing clothes. On second look, the water in the tub had turned gray, probably from all the soot and ashes.

  She looked up when he entered, smiling crookedly at the sight of him in her pa’s britches. She pursed her lips and blew a hank of hair out of her face, her cheeks pink, eyes bright.

  “Sit down, I’ll get your breakfast.”

  Judging by the slant of the light coming in the windows, he’d slept much later than usual.

  She hung the wet linen over the side of the tub, so most of it stayed inside and wouldn’t drip on the floor.

  The very normalcy of the action was in direct contrast to how they’d spent last night. And the empty space outside the window where the barn had stood before.

  It was quiet inside. Everyone else must’ve gone out, or was resting.

  Exhaustion still weighed heavy on him, and he found himself content to just watch her lean down and open the stove, use a towel to take out the plate warming inside. He met her at the table.

  His stomach felt glued to his backbone and the food smelled so good that his saliva glands started working overtime, but he still caught her hand before she walked away.

  “Forgive me if I’m taking liberties, but last night... Knowing you had run into the barn—” Thinking about it again, remembering the gut-wrenching fear he’d felt, brought the terror of last night back and he had t
o swallow hard before he could keep speaking. “I don’t want to go another day—another hour without settling things between us.”

  Her cheeks went pink, but she didn’t pull away. That gave him the courage to keep going.

  “I’m sorry for keeping things from you. And I’m sorry—” He choked up again, had to clear his throat again. “Sorry for what happened months ago. I wish I could take it back.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, head down. He knew he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. But he had to know...

  “Is there any way you can forgive me?”

  *

  Daisy’s heart went out to the man she’d come to love as she looked at the top of his bowed, blond head.

  Last night, when he’d come for her in that burning barn, facing his deepest fear, she was reminded of the man he was. How could she withhold forgiveness from someone who’d seen the error of his ways and changed?

  She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he had ahold of her hand. She squeezed.

  “I forgive you,” she whispered.

  He looked up at her and the desperate relief in his eyes caught her breath in her chest.

  “That’s good,” he said, voice rough. “Real good. ’Cause I’m in love with you.”

  His simple, heartfelt statement and the gentle tug of his hand against hers sent her into his arms. He let her hand go to wrap both arms around her waist and she rested her cheek and hand against his chest.

  “I’m in love with you, too,” she whispered.

  He exhaled deeply through his nose and gathered her even closer, squeezed her even tighter.

  She tipped her chin up and he met her in a fiery kiss. Sparks flew behind her eyes to rival those that had flown up into the sky last night.

  Then he was tucking her back beneath his chin, still clasping her tightly. “I was so scared last night, when I couldn’t find you... I can’t believe you ran back into that barn.”

  “I had to get the puppies out,” she murmured.

  “And you did.” He didn’t sound angry. He almost sounded...proud.