Crossing Nevada

by Jeannie Watt

  Blossom whined and nosed her cheek when she got into the car.

  “I know the feeling,” Tess said, ruffling the dog’s fur before she started the car. She’d been in town for all of twenty minutes and she felt like she’d been put through an emotional wringer. So much for normal. But it was her first outing. Surely things would get easier with practice.

  The town was small, about ten thousand people, and it didn’t take long to drive the length of the main street. There were the usual chain businesses and fast food establishments, as well as a few smaller stores. A Western supply store, a coffee shop, a bakery. She needed a grocery store and found one in a small strip mall at the very edge of town, where the trees disappeared and the desert began.

  Tess pulled into a parking spot in front of a tiny clothing store and sat in her car for a moment, gathering strength. The dress hanging in the window in front of her caught her eye. It was simple. Stylish. Something she would have worn not that long ago. Not that long, but in some ways a lifetime.

  Tess touched her cheek, hesitated for a brief moment, then pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car, automatically pulling the cloche down. People walked in and out of the store as she approached, her sunglasses still on, her eyes down. They don’t care about you.

  Half an hour later she wheeled an overloaded cart out to her car and opened the trunk. No one had given her more than a passing glance, but she felt emotionally drained. She also had another half hour to kill. Tess slammed the trunk down and was about to get into her car, when she decided that instead she’d check out the hobby shop next to the clothing store where she was parked.

  There were only two people in the store, an elderly man and woman looking at yarn, but Tess immediately went down an aisle. Jewelry-making supplies. She stopped for a moment, studying the long strings of bead of various colors. This had possibilities.

  And then she spotted the bolts of fabric on long tables at the back of the store. One of the lengths of fabric matched the dress she’d seen in the clothing store window next door. Tess reached out and ran her hand over the geometric-printed jersey.

  “That’s lovely fabric,” a woman said from behind her. Tess turned toward the woman standing a table away, tidying up the bolts. “Can I help you find anything in particular?”

  “Uh, no,” Tess said. Now that the woman was looking at her, she felt the usual urge to run. “I’m just checking out possible crafts.”

  “We have a lovely hobby kit section up front,” she said.

  “Thank you. I’ll take a look.”

  The lady went back to her folding and Tess returned to the front of the store. She spent a few minutes looking over the kits, none of which appealed to her the way the fabric had, and then quietly left the store for the safety of her car. Enough dillydallying around. She headed back to the vet clinic.

  “No fracture,” Dr. Hyatt said after the tech ushered Tess back into the clinic area where Mac was lying on a table obviously woozy from a sedative. His front leg was wrapped with gauze and covered with some kind of pink stretchy wrap.

  “Then...”

  “It’s a soft tissue injury and perhaps a pulled tendon. I wrapped his leg so he stays off it.”

  Sam gave her instructions on how to care for Mac’s leg, told her to give the wrap at least a week before taking it off, although, he warned, Mac may remove it himself. Sam wanted to see the dog again in two weeks if he didn’t improve.

  Tess thanked him, paid cash for the visit and then waited for the receipt the girl insisted on writing while Sam carried the still woozy dog out to her car.

  Wind whipped her hair as she left the clinic and walked over to her car where Blossom was now riding shotgun. Low dark clouds hung on the horizon in the direction she’d be driving. Another storm. Great. Tess was beginning to hate storms.

  Despite the clouds, this one seemed to be mainly wind, which buffeted her car for most of the drive home, finally easing up about ten miles from Barlow Ridge. Tess’s knuckles ached from clutching the steering wheel so tightly. It had been one hell of a nerve-racking day—to the point that she might actually sleep tonight from sheer mental exhaustion.

  It was close to seven when she crossed the cattle guard that marked the city limit of Barlow Ridge. When she stopped at the first of the two four-way stops, she noticed an odd orange glow on the far side of town, like a sunset on the wrong side of the valley. Tess frowned as she stopped at the second four-way, then her stomach tightened as she realized just what that glow was.

  Fire.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “DAD!” EMMA SKIDDED into the office where Zach was tallying up the monthly expenses. “The mean lady’s barn is on fire!”

  Both Zach’s pager and his phone went off before she’d finished speaking. He automatically turned off the pager as he picked up the phone, which showed the number of Irv Barnes, the rural fire chief.

  “The Anderson barn is on fire,” Irv said as Zach brought the phone to his ear. “Can you get over there and make sure the home owner isn’t doing anything stupid while we gear up?”

  “Okay. See you in a few.” Zach pocketed the phone without another word and headed through the living room.

  “It was the lightning, don’t you think?” Emma said, still trailing behind Zach as he went to the enclosed porch to put on his fire gear, which consisted of most of his regular gear and his oldest boots.

  “Probably,” he said, tugging at the laces of his left boot to tighten them before tying the knot. A storm had passed over. There’d been some thunder, but he hadn’t seen any lightning.

  “Dad, there’s a fire!” Lizzie said as she clattered down the stairs to the living room.

  “He knows,” Emma answered impatiently.

  Zach left the house with both girls following him. Emma wanted desperately to be a firefighter and he knew what was coming next.

  “Dad...?”

  “Sorry, Em.”

  “But I can sit in the truck. I just want to watch.”

  “No.” Zach pulled on his coat as he headed out the door. Benny wanted in on the action, too, and Zach had to kick him out of the back of the truck before he left. He could see the collie sitting forlornly in the road, with Emma beside him, one hand on top of the dog’s head. Zach pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Beth Ann.

  “What’s up, Zach?” She sounded distracted and he figured she’d probably been studying or she would have noticed the black smoke billowing up from across the road.

  “There’s a fire at the Anderson place,” Zach said as he drove by her trailer house. “Would you please make sure Emma doesn’t drift down the driveway too far?”

  “What’s on fire? The house?”

  “Barn. Gotta go.”

  Flames shot out of the top of the old wooden structure as Zach’s truck bounced across the county road and onto Tess O’Neil’s driveway. Was she home? Fighting the fire with a garden hose? He knew from his trainings that too many people got injured fighting their own fires or trying to rescue things from a burning building. Not that Tess would have much to rescue from the old barn unless she’d stored her own belongings in there, which seemed unlikely considering the size of the house.

  Zach pulled his truck off the side of the driveway, in the grassy median between gravel and fence line, leaving plenty of room for the fire trucks to pass. The windows of the house were dark—however, it was likely she’d already lost power, since the lines ran to
the barn and then the house.

  The headlights of the first fire truck appeared on the county road about a half mile away as Zach ran from his truck to the house and pounded on the door. No answer, but according to Len, the UPS man, this woman rarely answered her door—although she’d opened it for him the time he’d come to talk about the pasture lease, and then shut it in his face—which still pissed him off.

  The killer dogs weren’t barking, though, and who in their right mind didn’t answer the door when their barn was on fire? Unless she was sleeping. Or not in her right mind. Something was very off about Tess O’Neil.

  The fire truck pulled into the driveway and Irv jumped out. Wes Crane and Tom McKirk parked their pickups behind Zach’s, and then the second engine turned the corner into the driveway. And right on the tail of the second engine was the small car that Zach recognized as Tess O’Neil’s. At least they now knew where she was.

  “That’s the property owner,” Zach told Irv.

  “Talk to her,” Irv said as he started connecting the couplings.

  “Sure,” Zach replied, so looking forward to the prospect.

  The car stopped dead in the center of the road, but Tess didn’t get out of it. One of the dogs was with her, sitting in the passenger seat, and as Zach approached the car the other dog sat up in the backseat. Damn but they were fierce-looking beasts.

  Tess hadn’t noticed him as he’d walked around the back of her car and she jumped a mile when he knocked on her window. Even in the dim dashboard light he could make out the look of utter terror on her face as she jerked around to meet his eyes through the glass. Shit. He hoped she didn’t go into shock.

  He had to knock again before she rolled down the window. She wore a hat, which pushed her dark hair down onto her cheeks, but because her left side was closest to him, Zach could still see parts of the jagged scar extending from her eye to her jawline, marring the beautiful lines of her face. But beauty, he reminded himself, was only skin deep, a tenet this woman seemed very intent on proving.

  “How’d it start?” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been breathing the smoke.

  “Lightning is my best guess.”

  Tess’s chin jerked up. “I didn’t see any lightning while driving home.” Her words sounded like an accusation and Zach wasn’t in the mood for more craziness.

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any.” He glanced at the flames over the top of her car. “It’d be best if you weren’t here while we deal with this.”

  She blinked at him. “Where can I go?”

  If it was anyone else, he would have sent them to his place. But not her. Not the woman who’d purposely frightened his kid.

  “The café. It’s almost closing time, but they’ll let you stay there. The fire chief’s wife runs the place.”

  She didn’t seem to grasp what he was saying, or so he assumed from the slow way she shook her head as she stared at the flames again. “Will the house catch fire?”

  “The wind isn’t bad, so hopefully not.” Not unless a spark or two floated over to that dry cedar shake roof.

  Her face grew incredibly pale and again he wondered about shock. “Can I get some stuff?”

  “No.”

  Her mouth fell open. “But—”

  Come on, lady. “No.”

  “Fine.” She snapped the word out, reaching for the gearshift. Zach stepped back, assuming she’d peel out or do something equally dramatic, but instead she rolled forward and carefully executed a three-point turn a few yards up the road.

  Zach jogged back across the road toward the fire engine but shot a glance toward the end of the driveway in time to see that Tess had turned her car toward the mountain instead of toward town.

  What was with this woman?

  * * *

  LIGHTNING.

  If she’d been in any other situation, if she hadn’t known about Eddie torching at least one house as a warning, Tess would have had less of a problem believing her barn had been struck by lightning. But right now she didn’t know what to think. Hell, she barely could think, which sucked after she’d spent the afternoon consciously trying to look at her situation rationally instead of through the filter of fear.

  Tess drove about half a mile up the county road toward the mountain, then turned around and parked. She wasn’t going to sit in a café and wonder what was happening at her place. She was going to sit on the opposite side of the field and watch.

  Was Eddie, or one of his cronies, also watching?

  Stop it...

  Not every bad thing in her life was caused by Eddie. Just a lot of them.

  Tess gritted her teeth as she turned off the lights and the ignition. And then she hit the automatic door lock.

  Now that she was a distance away, she could understand why her neighbor hadn’t wanted her to go in the house. As the wind picked up, the flames licked closer and the dark smoke billowed directly over the two-story frame structure. A few sparks on that shake roof and her house would be a goner, too.

  Please don’t let that happen.

  Tess closed her eyes for a brief moment as she said a prayer, letting her head rest against the back of the seat.

  So was this just a run of bad luck? A lightning strike? A warning?

  There was no way she was going to find out tonight.

  Mac sat up in the backseat and Tess realized she probably should let the dogs out to do their business. Cautiously she checked her surroundings, even though it was impossible to see much in the dark, then unlocked the doors and got out of her vehicle. She stood for a moment in the road, watching the fire trucks spray water on her house and barn, before opening the back door. Mac jumped out, landing awkwardly due to his wrapped front leg. Blossom scrambled over the seat and joined him in the road. For a moment all three of them stood facing the fire, then the dogs went to the edge of the road, snuffled around a bit, peed. When they finished, Tess opened the door and they got back into the car without her saying a word. She followed, once again locking the doors, and then she sat. Watched and waited. Almost an hour later, when one of the fire trucks finally pulled away from the orange glowing heap that had once been her barn, Tess started the car and slowly drove back to her place.

  When she pulled to the side of the road into one of the spots vacated by a large pickup that was just leaving, Zach Nolan once again approached her car, crossing the road with long, easy strides.

  He must have been put in charge of her, Tess thought darkly as she opened the door and got out of her car, wrinkling her nose as the smell of acrid smoke hit her nostrils.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said as soon as he was a few feet away. He had dark smears of greasy dirt across his cheek and forehead, and his eyes were red-rimmed from smoke. She could only imagine what his clothes were going to smell like when he got home.

  “Do what you want.” He spoke indifferently, his expression cold and distant. His attitude shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

  Well, what did she expect after the way she’d treated him? A big hug?

  Tess ran a hand over her upper arm. “I can go into my house?” Because she needed to be in her house. Now. Locked away and safe. Not that she’d sleep, but she’d have some walls around her.

  “I’m not going to stop you,” he said. “Someone will stay here until morning to keep an eye on things. There were a bunch of old tires stored in the barn and they’re going to smolder for a while.”

  “Will it be you?” she as
ked. “Staying, I mean.”

  A spark flashed in his eyes, belying his cold tone when he said, “Should it be?”

  “No.” She had no idea why she’d asked. Maybe because they’d actually spoken a few times and she didn’t know the other men who might stay. “It’s just that...you live close.”

  “It won’t be me.” He started toward his truck without another word.

  “Excuse me, Ms. O’Neil.” Tess jumped at the unexpected voice from behind her, then turned to find a husky gray-haired man ten or fifteen years older than Zach approaching her. “I’m Irv Barnes, the fire chief.” He wiped his hand on his pants, took a look at his grimy palm, then dropped it back to his side without offering it to her.

  The fire chief—someone who could possibly give her some answers. Tess gave a brief nod of acknowledgment, then said, “Do you think the fire was caused by lightning?”

  Irv’s eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch closer at her brusque question. “We don’t know yet.”

  “Zach said it was lightning.”

  Irv nodded slowly, but he didn’t say that he agreed. “The fire marshal will come out tomorrow and take a look.”

  “So until then—”

  “We don’t know,” he said.

  Tess hesitated very briefly before she asked, “Could it have been set on purpose?”

  “We don’t know,” Irv repeated.

  Tess didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “No theories?”

  “None I care to share. After the fire marshal makes his report, you can contact your insurance company and send a copy in order to make a claim for both the barn and the damage to the house.”

  “The house?” That was when Tess noticed the dark singe marks up the side of her house, illuminated by the headlights of the small yellow fire engine. Damn. Maybe it had been a good thing her neighbor hadn’t let her go inside. “I almost lost my home,” she said.