None other than Caleb Nash was charging toward her on horseback, detective’s badge swinging on a chain around his neck and cowboy hat firmly on his head. Up until then Nina had never really gotten the appeal of cowboys, in the movies or real life, but right then she finally understood the allure. There was just something to be said about a man blazing across the earth with power beneath him and fire in his eyes. Yeah, she understood now.
Caleb was exactly where he belonged, sitting astride one of the most beautiful horses Nina had ever seen with an ease that somehow added to his appeal. When he stopped right next to her, Nina said the first thing that came to her mind.
“I-I thought you might be inside.”
Caleb leaned over and outstretched his hand.
“Get on,” he replied, voice all baritone.
It was all Nina needed to hear. She took his hand, put her foot in the stirrup, and let the man and momentum do the rest. It wasn’t until her backside hit the saddle and her arms were firmly around the detective’s stomach that Nina thought about her fear of horses. But then it was too late. They were cutting through the rest of the field with speed. The movement was jostling—she’d definitely feel it in the morning—but Nina clutched the man at the reins, trying to focus on anything other than the fence they were coming up on way too fast.
Was he going to stop or—?
Nina tucked her head against Caleb’s back and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Hold on,” he yelled into the wind. Like she wasn’t already doing just that.
Nina felt the cowboy readying for the jump before the horse had even lifted off the ground. She clung to Caleb, focusing on the hardness of his chest and stomach instead of the fact that for one terrifying moment they were in the air. It wasn’t until they hit the ground on the other side of the fence and ran a few feet that Nina loosened her death grip a fraction.
She heard the fire before she opened her eyes to see it.
Flames licked the left side of the cabin. From the porch to the roof, red and orange and black swirled together. The fire crackled and roared as it ate up the wood. Glass shattered as the heat hit the window, just out of reach of the flames. Caleb’s body hardened within her arms. He brought the horse to a stop several yards out at the road. Nina held on as he swung his foot over and jumped to the ground. Wordlessly, he reached up and brought her down.
He handed her the reins, his face impassive.
“Stay here,” he ordered, already turning.
“But you can’t—”
He didn’t give her the chance to argue. Caleb ran up to the porch and swung around it in the opposite direction of the fire. He disappeared around the corner.
Nina realized her heart was in her throat. The fire was consuming one side of the house but it wouldn’t be long before it was destroying all of it. Movement flashed in front of the window next to the front door. She clutched the reins. Why had he gone inside?
A loud crack split the air. The left side of the house shuddered. Flames spiked higher in the air as half of the roof crumbled.
“Caleb!”
Nina dropped the reins, hoping the horse wouldn’t go too far if he got spooked, and ran around to the house. The back door was wide open. Smoke had already filled the inside.
“Caleb.” She tried again, taking an uncertain step forward. She couldn’t hear anything else over the fire burrowing into the structure. No one moved.
Terror clawed at Nina’s heart. Then she thought about her mom.
Only one person had been able to help when Marion Drake had been trapped. He had felt the heat, choked on the smoke, but decided not to move. He had watched instead, dooming her mother to a fate she hadn’t deserved.
Nina didn’t know Caleb. Not in any conventional sense, at least. They weren’t friends or lovers. She hadn’t grown up in town. She didn’t know his middle name and he didn’t know that she was allergic to scented fabric softener. She had no idea if he was single; he had no idea that she had broken up with her last boyfriend because he’d wanted to marry her. He wore a cowboy hat and a badge; she hid behind a wall of fallout left over from the trial of her mother’s killer.
Yet it didn’t matter.
Bolstered by thoughts of her mother and two of the bluest eyes she’d seen, Nina covered her mouth and nose with her arm and ran into the cabin.
* * *
CALEB DIDN’T MAKE it into his bedroom before the ceiling over it collapsed. He did, however, make it into the hallway that led there. The house seemed to moan and exhale all at once, unable to fight the pain that the fire was causing. He didn’t have the time to watch through the open door as most of his belongings were crushed by weakened and burned wood. Instead he had to ensure he wasn’t the one crushed next.
He retreated to the next open door. He didn’t use it often but the office was still a room he hoped not to lose. At this rate though, he wasn’t sure it stood a chance. All he could do was get out of the house and hope the fire department was speeding in their direction after Clive called. Caleb didn’t have the time to puzzle out what could have started the fire but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew they were past the point of using the water hose or an extinguisher.
Now the house was on borrowed time.
Just like him.
Caleb spun on his heel as he cleared the office door. He unintentionally sucked in a breath as the small hallway filled with debris. His lungs filled with smoke. It nearly doubled him over as a coughing fit took hold. The house shuddered again.
He moved to the middle of the room, trying to recover.
The only reason he’d come into the cabin in the first place was to make sure his mother wasn’t inside. Like the pop-up surprise of spring cleaning, it wasn’t unheard of for her to walk from the main house to his or Declan’s and let herself in. She called it loving visits from the woman who’d raised them. Caleb called it her ninja training since she was always so sneaky about them.
Which was why he’d been terrified she had somehow started, and then become trapped by, the fire ravaging his home. He’d run into the house yelling for her, relief only partially coming through when no one has responded and he’d seen each room was empty.
Now that he knew she wasn’t inside, his focus needed to shift to escape.
The window looked out to the wraparound porch and the field just beyond. He hurried over to it. He kept it open almost every time he used the office, preferring the smell of grass and daylight over the stuffiness of being confined, and it had a perfect track record for easily flipping open. Caleb pushed up on the glass. This time it wasn’t easy. The window didn’t budge.
Caleb coughed into his arm before he could zero in on what was making the window stick. His eyes were watering something fierce. It took him longer than it should have to figure out what he was looking at.
The windowsill was nailed to the frame.
From the outside.
The reflex to swear was only tamped down by another wave of coughing. The smoke had already been thick when Caleb had run in, now with the structure failing, it was undeniably worse. Never mind the coughing, it was getting hard to breathe.
Caleb backtracked to the armchair in front of his desk. It was what his sister had called a decorative chair, made to be pretty and not so much to be used. He’d thought that was silly but had obliged her. Now he was going to use the unnecessarily heavy piece of furniture to save his life.
He bent over to get purchase on the chair, hoping to use it like a battering ram, when he realized it wouldn’t be that simple. He’d breathed in too much smoke. Now he couldn’t breathe at all. Coughs racked his body. The house moaned again. Glass shattered. Something shifted.
He slumped against the side of the chair, trying to fight through the lightheadedness that bowled him over. All he had to do was pick the chair up and he’d—
“Caleb!”
The voice was competing with the fire but it was undeniably there. Caleb turned around. Through watering eyes he saw two things back-to-back.
There was broken glass on his desk.
Nina was standing on the other side of the window, brandishing a shovel.
“Stand back,” she yelled.
On reflex he turned his head. More glass shattered.
The urge to breathe twisted in his gut. Ached in his chest. Burned in his lungs. His head swam.
A hand grabbed his.
Even through the smoke Caleb was pulled into the dark brown eyes of Nina Drake. She’d not only broken away all of the glass, she’d come in after him too.
It was the shot of adrenaline he needed.
Caleb led her to the window but she pushed him through first. He climbed out onto the porch and took a stuttering breath, trying not to pass out. He waited until she was at his side, tucked Nina under his arm and together they ran straight into the field.
There Caleb’s body decided it had been through enough. His knees buckled and they both went down. Nina did her best to catch them but only managed to put herself beneath him so she was on her backside with him on top. He tried to roll off onto the grass but she held him fast with one arm across his chest.
“You’re—you’re okay,” she said, pushing up so that they were doing the best approximation of sitting they could manage. It took him a moment to realize she was propping him up, her chest against his back, her legs on either side of him. Something hard dug into his back but Caleb couldn’t find the focus to wonder what it was.
Instead he let Nina hold him and together they watched as his home burned.
Chapter Six
The rain came next.
At first Nina didn’t notice it. They just sat there, both trying to breathe again. The heat from the house traveled with ease. It didn’t even seem possible that she’d ever feel the cold again. But then the darkness around them became hard to ignore. The smell of rain became the water that soaked into their clothes.
It wasn’t until Clive and Molly came running around the house yelling that Nina even thought to move. Still, Clive was the one who got the ball rolling. He pulled Caleb to his feet and Molly helped Nina up. The four of them went back to Caleb’s horse and then backtracked farther away from the house. Sirens came quickly after that. The sheriff was the first to arrive, beating them by a few minutes.
Declan Nash jumped out of his truck with his badge shining and his expression hard. He was a tall, solidly built man with a wholly intimidating disposition. When he saw his brother, however, every bit of him sagged with obvious relief. The rain rolled down both of their backs as they shared a heartfelt embrace. Nina kept her spot at Caleb’s shoulder, silent.
They broke the brotherly hug with somber smiles. Both fizzled out quickly. Declan’s voice was laced with disapproval.
“Were you inside? I thought you were with the horses when it happened.”
The sheriff looked his little brother up and down, then glanced at Nina. She tried to remain impassive, not wanting to get any more grief thrown Caleb’s way. Though she was curious about why he’d run inside. Then she felt the weight of what she’d taken from his office before leaving the house hidden beneath her shirt. No one had noticed the slight bulge. She’d wanted to give it to Caleb but until the sheriff had come flying down the road, the detective had been in fervent conversation with Clive and Molly. That conversation had concluded with both leaving, Clive on the horse named Ax and Molly in their car. Nina had decided to wait until she could have a moment alone with the man.
Caleb’s voice had a rasp when he answered. The coughing fits had finally stopped but there was no denying he had been affected. Black smears from the smoke and ashes streaked across their clothes. The rain had washed most of it from their skin.
“I wanted to make sure Mom wasn’t inside. You know how she wanders around here.”
Declan’s face softened. So did Nina. Caleb ran a hand through his hair, shucking off excess water. He’d lost his cowboy hat somewhere along the way.
“I got trapped in there,” he continued. “Nina had to bust out the office window with a shovel and come get me.”
Nina flushed with surprise at the sudden attention. Declan raised an eyebrow. She shrugged.
“Anyone else would have done the same in my place,” she said modestly. Declan flashed a quick smile.
One thing was for certain, the Nash sons sure knew how to own the simple gesture.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said. “It sounds like you saved the day.”
Nina returned the smile. Then it was down to business.
“Declan, we need to talk about the fire,” Caleb said.
There was a line of tension in him that seemed to tighten. He looked over his brother’s shoulder. The fire had destroyed the office. The rain wasn’t coming down hard enough to do any good. They’d been out there for over fifteen minutes and were just now hearing the sirens getting closer. “I don’t think it was an accident,” he continued. “The window in the office was nailed shut.”
Declan reacted immediately. Rage burned behind his eyes. His fists balled.
Nina couldn’t help the twist in her stomach. When she’d realized Caleb was trapped she’d run outside, hoping he had made it into the office before the hallway fell. That relief had been short-lived when she’d seen the nails embedded in the wood...and Caleb hunched over. Grabbing the shovel from the porch and using it to make an exit for him had been a blur.
“I was afraid of that.” The sheriff swore. “I sent Jazz to Mom’s and told them both not to leave until we showed up.”
“We need to make sure every place on this ranch is safe,” Caleb said, determination warring with his rasp. “Molly and Clive have gone back to the stables to keep an eye on the horses.”
“What about the Retreat?” Nina spoke up. It wasn’t just a job, it was her new home.
“I’ll make sure everything is okay,” Declan told them both.
The fire department finally showed up, followed closely by an ambulance. Declan grabbed his brother’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“This sucks,” he said, simply. “But it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
Caleb didn’t nod but he didn’t disagree, either.
The firefighters focused their attention on the fire while the EMT focused her attention on Caleb. She gave him oxygen and Nina a place to escape the rain. She sat on the bench along the wall in the back of the ambulance, watching with a feeling of detachment as the men and women tried to stop the flames. Not that it would matter much. Whatever wasn’t touched by the fire was probably destroyed by smoke and water damage.
Caleb had undoubtedly lost his home.
Nina chanced a glance at the man. Sitting up on the gurney, he had an oxygen mask in one hand and a look of frustration on his face. The EMT shared that frustration. She spoke to him like a mother would a child.
“You need to come to the hospital,” she tried. “Smoke inhalation can be serious, Caleb.”
There was a familiarity in her words. Like most of Overlook, Nina bet she knew the Nash family personally.
“I’m fine, Linda,” he said, still sounding hoarse. “I wasn’t in there that long.”
Linda shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter. By the sound of it you took enough to almost pass out.”
Caleb gave her a look that clearly said he was going to argue until he was blue in the face. Yet all Nina could see was the man in a room filled with smoke. She could still smell it on him. On herself. In the air, mingling with the rain.
She’d only ever seen the aftermath of what a fire like that could do.
If she hadn’t come around to look for him, would he have made it out? Or would he have died like—
“Linda, listen,” he started, his voice taking
on the charming edge of a man who was used to getting his way with women.
Nina didn’t know if it would work on Linda or not.
And she would never find out.
Something inside Nina shifted. She said exactly what was on her mind.
“My mom died from smoke inhalation. We should go to the hospital.”
Caleb’s blue, blue eyes widened. Nina felt a flush of embarrassment at being so blunt, not to mention personal, but stood her ground. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Linda turned back to her patient expectantly. Caleb continued to look at Nina.
The rain picked up. It pounded against the roof in an unforgiving rhythm. The firefighters continued to yell back and forth in the distance, calling out orders as they became drenched. The fire was a constant, menacing roar.
Nina kept one arm over the small bulge in her shirt. Not that Caleb was looking anywhere other than her eyes. His stare was mesmerizing in its own right. She couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to.
Which she didn’t.
She needed him to see what she was feeling. She needed him to understand the grief and anguish that still clung to her heart after all of these years. She needed him to take the trip that her mother had never gotten the chance to take.
She needed him to be okay.
And maybe he saw that in her. After a moment he nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
OVERLOOK HAD A small but well-kept medical center on the south side of town. Nina had been surprised it had one but was grateful. The commute was short and the center wasn’t crowded. They were led through a lobby that contained a handful of people before being sent back to a big room split into sections by faded green plastic curtains. Since she’d also been in the house, she was offered one of the sections while Caleb was given the one next to it.
Like most people, Nina wasn’t a fan of hospitals. She eyed the bed and its paper covering with determination to not sit on either. The nurse promised she’d be right back before repeating the message to Caleb. She also seemed to know him. It made Nina feel like an outsider.
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