Burn It Up

by Cara McKenna

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Considering all the dumb-ass shit we got up to when we were kids, the fact that you don’t want to tell me isn’t a good sign.”

  “Trust me—it’s better if you don’t know.”

  Miah was an upstanding, law-abiding sort of man. He wouldn’t rat Casey out to the feds if he knew the truth, but Casey would no doubt lose a chunk of the man’s respect. And he had to admit, that shit mattered to him now.

  “She gonna be okay?” Miah asked, getting to his feet.

  “I think so. Neither of us had promised anything to the other.”

  “That’s something . . . I probably don’t need to tell you, that sucks all the same. She’s a good girl. And she seemed good for you.”

  He nodded, feeling that faint, raw strain rising in his throat—the first warning sign that he just might cry. “Yeah, she was.” And she always would be, even going forward. For as long as she was a part of Casey’s life, she’d make him a better man. He’d always look at her and remind himself to do better, to be worthy of what they’d nearly had, to maybe stand a chance at getting her back someday.

  Big maybe.

  Miah gave him a hard clap on the arm. “Sorry, man. But I’d better go start the day. Maybe we can drink on it, later.”

  Casey nodded, happy to be left alone. He could already feel how pink he’d gone and didn’t relish an audience. He’d spent a lot of years thinking solely of himself. Seemed only fitting that he was on his own now, stuck sitting amid the smoking rubble of his choices, neck-deep in regrets.

  A man makes his own luck, he thought, filling his mug when Miah had gone.

  Only took ten years for mine to finally turn as rotten as I deserve.

  Chapter 23

  Not ready to face Casey alone just yet, Abilene hid in her room for most of the morning, poking around on Craigslist for rentals and finding the results bleak. There was her old room in Mrs. Dennigan’s basement, but it had been cramped after Mercy had arrived, and the whole idea stank of regression, of going backward.

  Apart from that, there was a six-month sublet in a rough section of town—which was saying something in Fortuity—plus some houses for rent, but those were all beyond her budget. She couldn’t help but picture Casey’s roomy space above Wasco’s, with its tall windows, spare bedroom, sunny kitchen, huge living room. She’d fantasized a lot in only the past few days about what she’d do to it if he ever invited her to stay with him. Where she’d put the crib, what color she’d paint the rooms, if his landlady would allow it . . .

  Stupid girl. Since when had her luck changed enough to manifest that kind of happy little dream life?

  My luck has changed, though. Or her choices, to go by Casey’s philosophy. In either case, little by little, since she’d found herself in this town, things had begun looking up. She’d landed a decent job at the diner, and then an even better one at the bar. Made good friends who looked out for her and Mercy. She’d had a taste of romance—only a taste, but sweeter than she’d ever expected. It hurt to lose it, and to realize it wasn’t as perfect as it had felt, but in time it would give her hope, she imagined. There were men out there who’d treat her right, her and Mercy both.

  The one you loved just turned out to be more crooked than you’d let yourself guess, is all. He’d still been good to her, for all his now-glaring faults. He’d seen something in her worth treating well, so maybe another guy would see the same, one day.

  Would Casey have forgiven all the ugly things I’ve done? She might never know. But maybe some other man, some other time in her life, would be able to.

  Just now, it was impossible to imagine anyone lighting her up the way Casey had.

  Outside her room, the old stairs creaked. Her heart was thumping in an instant—as hard as it ever had back when she’d feared James’s intrusion—this time imagining it might be Casey. Come back to—what? Beg for a second chance, and a prescription for penance? For forgiveness? For—

  “Knock-knock,” came Christine’s voice, and Abilene deflated like a pricked balloon.

  “Come in.”

  She poked her head and shoulders in and spoke quietly. “Is she asleep?”

  Mercy had gone down for a nap more than an hour ago. “Not for long. She’ll be hungry soon. You don’t need to whisper.”

  “It’s nearly one. I was going to see if you wanted to come out and watch the eclipse with me.”

  “Oh yes. I would. Let me just get her bundled up and a bottle ready. Ten minutes?”

  Christine nodded. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  She’d miss this family when she moved out, she realized as she roused Mercy and maneuvered her into her little fleece hooded getup. Abilene’s own family had looked picture-perfect growing up, but fractured and broken behind closed doors. The Churches came off as harried and a touch short sometimes, thanks to how hard they worked, but on the inside they were the nicest people you’d want to meet.

  She found Christine in the kitchen, dropping sandwiches into a canvas lunch bag. “Couldn’t remember if you like mayo or mustard,” she said, grabbing a thermos, “so I made one of each.”

  “More of a mayo girl. Texan, after all. We smother everything.”

  Christine laughed. “Suits me fine. I can go either way.”

  And as they locked up and strolled from the farmhouse out toward the bunks and stables and barns, they chatted about the various merits of condiments—such a simple, mundane topic that it felt quenching, comforting, on the heels of the recent drama.

  “Where are all the ranch hands?” she asked. “Miah said they were throwing a picnic.”

  “In the western eight,” Christine said, though Abilene didn’t know what this meant. The westernmost eight acres, maybe? Not far, she imagined, as Three C’s range stretched miles and miles and miles out to the east.

  “We’ll find them, no doubt,” Christine added. “By the rabble, if nothing else.”

  And they did. It looked as though just about everyone had taken their lunch break in accordance with nature—everyone except Don, that was—and at least two dozen workers and half as many horses were scattered around a greenish brown expanse just past the outbuildings, its scrub grass mowed short. Miah’s dog came trotting up to them as they neared, pausing for ear scratches and sniffing opportunities. She was slender, with pointed ears like a German shepherd, but far smaller, with a grayish, mottled coat, and a black patch over one eye.

  “I’ve never seen her so friendly before,” Abilene said. “Usually she’s more robot than dog.”

  “When she’s on duty, yeah,” came a voice behind them—Miah. He was lugging a huge plastic jug with a spigot at the bottom, like sports teams kept their Gatorade in. “But she gets an hour off today, like everybody else.”

  “I’ve never met a dog so well-behaved. The ones I grew up with jumped on people and barked at the littlest things.” Her mom had had two yappy little terriers, and she’d never been real fond of either of them. She’d resented them, in fact. They were annoying and poorly behaved, yet somehow they’d been exempt from all of her father’s militaristic rules regarding manners. Her mom had shielded them from his perfectionism, somehow, in a way she’d never shielded her daughter.

  “Takes a lot of work,” Christine said, patting the dog’s side. “And a good set of genes—heelers are bred to herd sheep and cattle. Miah trained this one, and his dad trained her father and grandfather. It’s in her blood.”

  “Must be in yours, too,” she said to the both of them, and Miah nodded.

  “I was always more of a horse girl,” Christine said. “But you fall in love with a rancher, you’d better fall in love with the ranch.”

  They reached the edge of the gregarious crowd, and Miah wended his way through to heft the jug onto a folding table covered in bags of chips and six-packs of soda cans. Christine had brought a blanket, and she spread it out on the crisp, dry grass. Despite the winter chill, Abilene felt a wash of nostalgia as she lowered her butt
to the ground, remembering a hundred family picnics in Lindsay Park in Bloomville. Those summer memories came with clouds attached, but she reminded herself that she’d forge new ones, this time as a mother, not a child. A different landscape, different faces, different smells on the breeze, but the same sun overhead, the same wide blue sky. She unstrapped Mercy and propped her between her crossed legs. She was still waking, gawking wide-eyed at all the activity.

  A few of the female hands came by to gawk right back. Though they were Abilene’s age, they were probably years from motherhood themselves, and she registered a jab of jealousy. In another life—one she hadn’t screwed up so badly—she might’ve found herself a passion, a trade, a career. A purpose. The pang was brief, though, and shallow. She had her purpose now, she thought, bouncing Mercy by her armpits. Not glamorous, but important. And she was good at it. Far from perfect, but pretty damn good, considering. She sat up a little straighter, proud for a change.

  “Quite the party,” someone called. She and Christine turned to find Casey striding down the slope.

  “If I’d known you were coming I’d have packed another sandwich,” Christine said, and scooted over to make more room on the blanket. She had no clue that he and Abilene had just broken up, of course. For all Abilene knew, Miah’s hopelessly romantic mother was banking on the two of them getting together.

  That ship’s already sailed. And sunk.

  “I hadn’t planned to come back out,” Casey said, “but I stopped by the bar and figured I’d bring Abilene the week’s schedule. And your last paycheck,” he added, meeting her eyes. “I left both on your dresser.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was hesitance tensing his smile, like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome on this blanket, in her estimations.

  For all the heartache, she didn’t mind him joining them. It wasn’t as though her feelings could be flipped on and off like a switch. Her feelings were messy and sticky, and she knew it. They clung like summer heat or winter’s chill, slow to fade.

  Mercy held her arms out to Casey, and a piece of Abilene’s heart broke. Her body wanted that same thing still—to reach out to him, be close to him. Her body hadn’t forgotten what his could do to hers, when they came together.

  Uncertainty passed across Casey’s face as he watched the squirming infant, blue eyes glancing to Abilene’s.

  He’s not a monster, she reminded herself. He was a con man who’d made a lot of selfish decisions for the sake of money, but he wasn’t evil. Reckless and lacking in empathy, perhaps, but not cruel or sadistic. She lifted Mercy and got to her knees, passing her over. Casey’s smile was brief and vulnerable, and he spread his legs and propped the baby between them. He knew most of the ranch hands—many were regulars at the bar—and some came over to say hello, the guys razzing him about the baby, the girls looking more approving, intrigued by the scene.

  The young woman who’d come by the house the other night wrapped in a blanket was among them. She was wearing the hands’ unofficial uniform, boots and jeans and plaid flannel, and she dropped to a crouch next to Casey. Denny, Abilene thought her name was.

  “Good look for you, Grossier,” she said, and gave Mercy’s outstretched, chubby hand a little squeeze. She’d know Mercy wasn’t Casey’s, of course—all of the hands had been given the broad strokes, back when James coming around had still been a danger. “Gonna make a few of these yourself someday?” she teased. “Only in red?”

  “Time’ll tell,” he said. “I’m in no rush.”

  Casey wasn’t flirting back, but Abilene felt her insides curdle all the same. That handsome, charming, funny man had been hers for not even a week. But it would hurt like hell to one day see him flirting with another woman for real. To one day hear that he was seeing someone. To spot him kissing that someone, maybe. The thought alone burned.

  Abilene panned the crowd and found Miah joking with his employees, and felt a deep vein of sympathy open up in her heart for him. Few wounds healed so slowly as love interrupted.

  • • •

  “Two minutes!” somebody yelled from the crowd, and the milling ranch hands began to settle, shielding their eyes with their hands, figuring out which direction to face to best watch the eclipse. The sun was high overhead, just beginning its westward descent.

  One of the hands came around, handing out paper plates with holes pricked in them, for people to watch through. Casey thanked her and took three, passing them around. He also passed Mercy back to Abilene, deciding he wanted no part in accidentally blinding her. Though he missed the warmth and smell of her, both whisked away on the breeze. He wished Christine hadn’t grabbed him when he’d arrived. It was hard being this close to Abilene and knowing he couldn’t touch her. He’d have much preferred to be hanging out with Miah, and for all he knew, she wished the same.

  In a way, he got his wish shortly. Miah jogged over with a plate of his own in hand and plopped down on the blanket’s edge beside his mother. “Here we go! Natural wonder commencing in three, two, one . . .”

  More like half a minute, as it turned out. Abilene turned Mercy to face her middle and they held the plates up to their faces, finding the sun through the pinpricks. At first it was nothing more than a funny little clipping snipped off the lower edge of the sun, as the moon began its trespass. Then more of a bite mark, and the sky grew eerily, unmistakably darker.

  “You think Dad’s secretly watching this?” Miah asked his mom, muffled by the paper plate.

  “If he isn’t he’s the silliest sort of stubborn.”

  “Oooh.” This from Abilene, as the sky took on a reddish cast and the nibbled corner of the sun turned rusty black.

  Casey felt twelve again, or however old he’d been the last time he’d seen a solar eclipse around here. Middle school, easily. All he remembered for sure was that it had been May or June, just a week or two before school let out for the summer. His blood felt restless at the memory, itchy for escape.

  I’ve spent enough of my life running, he reminded himself. And it never got me anyplace worth bragging about.

  As the moon swallowed the sun to the one-quarter mark, the sky went full-on dusky, and he conjured other memories. Like of his dad teaching him and Vince how to hold a magnifying glass on a sunny day, at just the right distance to burn the eyeballs out of the people on the cover of TV Guide. Your typically classy Tom Grossier wisdom, and Casey had to wonder how old he’d been. Four, surely, as his father had left when he was five. Too young, no doubt, though he couldn’t blame any of his pyro crap on the guy’s sketchy life lessons. That shit was in his blood. If there was a gene for it, no doubt that LifeMap analyst could’ve confirmed it for him. Just thinking about those old issues of TV Guide, he could fairly smell the burning paper and ink. Taste the inside of his mouth, as it began, unmistakably, to water.

  Come to think of it, he could smell smoke. Someone must have hauled a grill down. Though what sort, he couldn’t guess—not gas, for sure, and not charcoal either.

  Through the hole, the sun was a white sickle hugging a black hole of nothing, and the sky in his periphery had gone warm gray. He cast his eyes downward and lowered the plate. The horizon glowed a golden white behind the distant eastern mountains, but all else was darkening by the second, eerie and magical.

  But something wasn’t right. The breeze was blowing from behind—from the direction of town, not the picnic. It wasn’t a cookout he was smelling. It was wood, and more. Chemical smoke, like fire lapping at painted boards. A stink he knew well, hard to get out of your clothes. He looked to the northwest, and though the sky was nearing nighttime darkness, he could see it. A plume of thick, dark smoke, coming from the direction of the farmhouse. He shot to his feet.

  “Fire,” he said. Softly at first.

  Only Miah heard it. “What?”

  “Fire,” he repeated, louder. “Fucking hell—fire!”

  Miah was up, squinting into the darkness. It had been a bright day, and no one seemed to have left any lights on in an
y of the buildings. You could just see their outlines against the reddish sky to the west. “Holy shit.”

  “Oh no.” Christine stood, and word was spreading—half the workers had dropped their plates and were getting to their feet. The smoke was growing thick, fast.

  Christine was on her phone, no doubt calling 911.

  “Everybody!” Miah bellowed. “Head south! Take the horses and walk south!” He arched his arms in that direction, ushering them away from the path of the smoke.

  Christine also hurried away, glowing phone pressed to one ear, hand clapped over the other to block out the shouting.

  Up the hill, a light grew in the darkness—orange light.

  “Fuck. Which building is that?” Casey shouted to Miah as he helped Abilene to her feet. “Follow the hands,” he told her. “Keep the baby away from the smoke.”

  Miah squinted. “The stables? Or the barn.”

  They’d better hope it was the barn. Nothing but junk in there, while surely the stables were full of horses, with so many of the hands taking their breaks.

  Footsteps pounded up from behind them—one of the hands emerging from the throng now hurrying south. It was Denny, and her dark eyes were wide, legs pumping.

  “Your dad is in there!” she shouted at Miah.

  “What?”

  “In the junk barn! I passed him earlier, when he was on his way over there.”

  The tractor, Casey thought. He’d said he was going to be working on—

  Miah was already running, and Casey took off as fast as his legs could pump, screaming his friend’s name. He’ll run straight in there if I don’t pin him to the fucking dirt.

  He was fast, but Miah was faster. It was only by the grace of another ranch hand catching hold of Miah’s arms, spinning him around, and onto the ground, that he didn’t go charging straight into the blaze. Casey tackled him, and with the other man’s help, they managed to drag Miah back a few yards. The air between them and the mammoth barn was like a waterfall now, a wavering yellow wall of heat. The only mercy was that it was a calm day, not windy, and that the breeze was headed for the range and not the other buildings. Still, it was dry country. Even a single scrap of airborne detritus could start a massive brush fire.