by Ali Parker
“All right,” Wyatt said, getting smoothly to his feet.
Jett clapped his mouth shut.
Wyatt held out his hand to me. “Care to dance, Piper?”
“Please,” I said, accepting his hand and letting him lead me out of our tent and into the second one, where a beautiful slow song was being played by the band on stage. There was a violinist, a guitarist, a pianist, and a singer, who was singing a beautiful melody into the microphone.
Wyatt spun me gently into him, wrapped an arm around my waist, and held our hands up in parallel height to his shoulder. I rested my other hand on his chest and leaned in to press my cheek to his vest.
The soft music faded away as I closed my eyes and swayed with Wyatt. He led me through the dance, and I was so secure with him I never opened my eyes. I did as he did, and we glided across the floor with an effortless grace that made it all feel like a dream.
Somewhere, crickets were chirping.
The moment reminded me of the fantasy I’d concocted at the beginning of my stay when I cooked my first meal for Wyatt.
I could see it so clearly again. Me and him, together forever and building a family on his ranch. These people at this party would be my neighbors, my extended family, and we would come to events like this with our children, who would join the others in a wild game of tag throughout the tents.
Maybe we would steal a dance or two like this while they played.
Wyatt rested his chin on my head as another slow song started. I was thankful for that. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to part. If I had my way, we would stay like this forever, and I would never have to think of leaving him to go to another man.
But I did have to leave him. In a week.
A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed a few times to push it back down. I was as equally confused as I was grief stricken.
In the course of three months, I had met and connected with three amazing men. All of them offered something different, and all of them showed me how much they cared about me in return. Somehow, I had to get through nine more after Wyatt, and if they all turned out to be stand-up guys like Joshua, Easton, and Wyatt, I was going to have a hard time coming out the other side of this with a fully functioning heart.
I already felt damaged. I’d left a piece of me behind with the first two men, and somehow, Wyatt had managed to put me back together. But all of his hard work was going to be shattered the moment I left him, and it was only a matter of time before there was nothing left of me to give. And who knew what sort of woman I might be by then?
Hollow. Empty. Broken. Beyond repair. I let out a shaky sigh.
Wyatt ran his hand up my bare back. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. If I tried, I knew I would cry right then and there, and that was not the memory I wanted to have of this evening. Everything was perfect here with him, and I was going to keep it that way. I could look back at these six minutes dancing with him when the going got tough, and perhaps I could sink into the memory and let it warm me up. I was going to need it. I was sure of that.
And nothing was going to ruin this for me.
“Wyatt!”
A yell tore through the music, and the band stopped. Wyatt and I parted as John Doherty came jogging into the tent. The heels of his boots struck the dance floor, and he whirled around, putting his back to us as he lifted a finger and pointed south.
Wyatt and I stepped out of the tent to peer out at the night sky. About five miles down the road, a column of thick black smoke curled upward.
My stomach rolled, and I grabbed Wyatt’s arm. “Is that the ranch?”
Wyatt’s growl was primal and furious, and it scared the hell out of me. “Elias.”
John grabbed Wyatt’s arm and tugged him forward. “Go! I’ll rally those who haven’t had any drinks, and we’ll help you put it out.”
Wyatt turned back toward me and held me by the shoulders. “Piper, I need you to stay here.”
“What? No. I’m coming with—”
“Piper, listen to me. This is dangerous. I don’t want you anywhere near this. Find Clarice. Stay with her. I’ll come back for you.”
I grabbed his sleeve as he pulled away from me. “Wyatt, please, I can help!”
He wrenched himself out of my grip and then he was racing away from the tent and out to the parking lot, leaving me behind to stare at the growing curls of smoke in the sky.
Chapter 21
Wyatt
The smoke was thicker and darker as I tore down Cherry Road with my foot flat on the gas. The truck engine roared as I closed in on the ranch, and the smoke taunted me like a living, spiteful thing.
I didn’t give a damn about the barn, but there would be hell to pay if any of my animals were hurt. Or worse. If I lost one of my mother’s or aunts’ horses in all of this, I was going to fly off the deep end, and there wasn’t a soul alive who would be able to stop me from beating every one of Elias’s teeth out of his skull.
This was too far. Way too fucking far.
I took my speed off as I closed in on the gates at the bottom of the driveway. I turned onto the property and stopped when my headlights lit up the thick chain wrapped around the wrought-iron bars of the gates, holding them closed.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled.
Furious, I punched open the truck door, jumped over the gate, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me up the drive toward the barn. As I ran, I scoured the property for any sign of the Buck brothers, but I didn’t see them or their vehicle anywhere. They’d probably set the fire and fled, chaining the gate closed in their wake to slow me down and give the flames more time to wreak havoc.
I was only twenty yards away now.
Damn this long ass driveway.
Fifteen yards.
I couldn’t see any flames yet, but the thick clouds of smoke rolled out of the window in the hay loft above the barn doors, and more of it poured out through the roof and under the rafters. I knew it was only a matter of time before the fire was in full blaze, and by then, it would be too late to get the animals out.
Ten yards. At least the house and the other buildings weren’t touched. Five.
The heat hit me like a wall. I broke through it, and my eyes burned as I entered the smoke-filled area around the barn.
I skidded to a halt at the barn doors. Inside, I could hear the animals crying and screaming. I tore my vest off, bundled it up, and held it over my mouth and nose before wrenching the doors open.
Smoke poured out thick and heavy. I waved my hand in front of my face to try to clear the air, but it was no use. I squinted and shielded my eyes as I plunged into the darkness of the smoke-filled barn.
The fire had been set at the back. There was no doubt in my mind Elias and Hank were the culprits, and they’d probably thrown a couple matches into the hay pile. Natural tinder. Flames crackled and danced at the back of the barn and reached for the loft up above, where there was yet more hay. Once it reached the second level, the barn would go down in no time.
I had to get all the animals out before that happened. I started with the stables along the right side and pulled open the latches and the doors as I went. The sheep and goats scurried toward the source of fresh air and the doors of the barn and disappeared outside.
The chickens in the coop not far from the blaze bucked and shrieked when I wrenched the chicken wire off the front of the coop so they could all scatter at once. But the stupid things just stood there, heads jerking back and forth as they peered up at me, terrified.
I couldn’t blame them. I was scared too.
“Get out of here!” I roared, sweeping my foot through the coop and nudging them into action. They took off in a cacophony of fluttering wings and fled from the fire.
The horses were shrieking behind me. I trusted the chickens would save themselves as I ran for the first paddock. When I flipped open the latch, the first bout of coughing broke over me. Holding my vest closer to my mouth, I opened the gate a
nd plunged into the stable with Myrna, the oldest of the three horses. She whinnied nervously and reared when I reached for her.
I had to lower the vest so she could see my face.
“Whoa, girl,” I said, my voice raspy from the smoke.
She shifted back and forth but stayed still as I grabbed the rope from the back of the door and looped it over her neck. Then slowly, I led her out of the stable and cast a glance back at the flames. The ceiling was burning.
I returned the vest to my mouth and coughed into it as I opened Millie’s stable next. She didn’t hesitate to trot through the open gate and out through the barn doors into the night. When I gave Myrna a sharp whack on her hindquarters, she took off after Millie, leaving me with two free hands to open the last stable and keep the vest over my mouth to retrieve Marge.
She had always been a skittish horse, and her old age had worsened her nerves.
When I opened the gate, Marge pranced from side to side in a terrified dance. She reared, lifting her hooves up into the air, and came down hard, rocking forward to shove me with her nose into the wooden divider between her and Millie’s stable.
My shoulder caught the wood hard, and I bounced off it, only to find myself pinned between Marge and the divider. She leaned into me, trapping me behind her shoulder, and when she looked back at me, her eyes were wild and rimmed with white.
I dropped my vest and put both hands on her back. I reached up and took a fistful of her mane with one hand. “Marge,” I wheezed as she crushed my lungs. “It’s me, you stupid beast.”
She shook her head as if to shake my hand free of her mane, but I held fast.
“Move your ass,” I managed to say through clenched teeth.
The heat intensified. Marge whinnied fearfully and slid backward, dragging me along the wood at my back. It hurt something fierce, but I knew this wasn’t personal. She was scared and confused and probably disoriented from all the smoke.
A rafter splintered up above the hay pile in the back of the barn. I winced as it came crashing down, and I ducked my head, pressing my cheek flush to Marge’s back as the rafter fell. Sparks and ash and bits of burnt wood blew into the air with the impact, and loose hay that hadn’t burned yet caught fire in the air and spread along the floor outside the stable.
If I didn’t get her out of here soon, she and I were both going to go down in flames.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my chest and the dizziness encroaching upon me from lack of oxygen, I lifted my left knee up into Marge’s ribs and pushed hard. The horse tried to reach her head around to nip at me, but she couldn’t reach and still keep me up against the boards. I pushed harder.
She gave me space enough to suck in a breath. It did no good to help with the dizziness. All I breathed in was a great gulp of smoke. If I didn’t get out of there, I was going to pass out. I had a minute. Maybe less.
I drove my knee up harder into Marge’s ribs. She cried out and skittered to the other side of the stable, dragging me along with her with my fist still in her mane. She twisted around to try to bite me again, but I had already swung my right leg up and over her back. I gripped her mane with both hands and leaned in low, resting my cheek along the side of her neck as I gave her sides a tap with my heels.
Marge backed up.
“No,” I hissed, my voice cracking. “Forward.”
Marge reared to try to shake me off. I held fast and squeezed with my knees. She dropped down again. This time, I drove my heels in hard.
Marge bolted.
I held on tight as her hooves slid across the barn floor and over the burning pieces of hay. Another rafter splintered above and came crashing down behind us as Marge straightened out and carried us out the barn doors, through the billowing smoke, and out into clean, fresh air.
I pulled on her mane to slow her down a bit, and she slowed to a trot. I slid off, and she stayed by my side, apparently having already forgiven me for handling her so roughly in the barn. I rested a hand on her neck and hugged her to me. “Good girl,” I said, patting her cheek. She bobbed her head and closed her eyes. I imagined they must have burned something fierce after all that time in the smoke.
Millie and Myrna were up by the house, a fair distance from the blaze. The chickens, all ten of them by the looks of things, had scattered across the field near the bunkhouse, along with the sheep and goats.
It was becoming harder and harder to catch my breath. My lungs burned, and my throat felt like I’d just eaten something that was on fire. A bout of coughing gripped me, and I leaned into Marge, who held her ground for me as I pressed my forehead to the side of her neck to steady myself. I stroked her cheek the whole while.
“You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” a deep, familiar male voice piped up from behind me.
Marge did a little hop step in place as I turned to find Elias and Hank Buck standing a mere fifteen feet away with smug smiles on their faces.
“We thought you were a goner,” Hank said. “You were in there a long time.”
I tried to stifle the coughs that shook me, but it was no use. Marge pulled away, and I let her go. Both men watched me try to get myself under control, and I hated the looks of sheer pleasure in their eyes.
“If only Pa could see us now, hey, Elias?” Hank asked, nudging his brother in the ribs.
Elias chuckled. “Oh yeah. He’d be proud as hell.” He raised his voice and spoke directly to me. “This is what you get, Brewer. We’re settling the score for our Pa after what your father did to him.”
“My father did nothing,” I rasped.
Elias took a few menacing steps forward. “Your father put our Pa in jail.”
“Because he was a piece of shit, just like his sons,” I spat.
“Don’t say a word about our father.” Hank glowered, stepping up beside his brother.
“Or what? You’ll burn my fucking barn down?”
Hank shot Elias a look. “We could drag his ass into the barn and let him burn, you know? Nobody would ever know. He’s a noble prick. They’d assume he died trying to save his horses.”
Elias grinned. “That, they would. And his pretty lady friend, what was her name?”
“Piper,” Hank said.
“Yes, Piper.” Elias looked me over, and his smile stretched his cheeks. “Well, she’ll wish she never set foot on this Godforsaken ranch. Won’t she?”
Hank snickered. And then they moved in on me.
Chapter 22
Piper
Boone skidded along the back of Dodge’s truck and launched himself up to the passenger door. I was right on his ass, and when I opened the back door, he reeled on me, teeth bared in a snarl that looked completely foreign on his face.
I recoiled from him.
“Piper, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, trying to sound a little more confident than I felt in the face of his anger.
He looked like he might implode. “No.”
“Yes,” I said firmly.
Dodge was already in the front seat. “Just get in the fucking truck! Both of you!”
Boone’s mouth twitched, but he did as he was told, and I climbed up into the back. Dodge was peeling out of the parking area before I had my seatbelt on, and I tipped sideways in the backseat as the two men seethed up front.
“I can’t believe they would go this far,” Dodge said.
“Fuckers took advantage,” Boone said. “They knew all of us would be here.”
Dodge was gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles were white. “And the dumbass probably ran right into the fire.”
“Sorry?” I stuttered in the backseat.
Boone looked over his shoulder at me as we tore out onto Cherry Road. The back end of the truck skidded out, and I gripped the back of Dodge’s seat to hold myself in place. He stepped on the gas, and we accelerated so quickly that the force of it pushed me into the seat.
“Wyatt would have gone in for the animals,”
Boone said.
My heart hammered a mile a minute in my chest.
Of course he would have. He wasn’t the sort of man to just stand by. But I hadn’t thought about that until this moment. I’d assumed, naively, that he’d raced back to put the fire out. But he wouldn’t see to that until he had his animals out and safe. Then he’d worry about putting the blaze out. If he hadn’t burned alive already.
“Oh God,” I breathed.
“Don’t throw up,” Dodge said, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.
I closed my eyes and took deep, steadying breaths. They did nothing to ease my terror, but they did help a bit with the nausea. But only a bit.
The tires rumbled down the road, and Dodge hit the brakes hard when we approached the ranch. We came to a sliding stop, and the truck drifted sideways when he turned to pull into the drive, where we came to an abrupt stop by Wyatt’s truck, which was still running with the driver’s side door open.
“What the hell?” Boone seethed as he wrenched open his door. He went to the gate and lifted a heavy chain bolting it closed. “We go the rest of the way on foot!”
“You heard him, Piper,” Dodge said. “On foot. Or you stay in the truck.”
I opened my door and slid out. “You’re not keeping me away from this.”
“Are you going to be able to run in that dress?” he asked.
I looked down at the long, slinky skirt I wore. I picked it up and gathered it in my right hand. “Let’s go.”
The two ranch hands hopped the gate. Neither of them stopped to help me, which I was glad for. Wyatt needed them more than I did.
I climbed over the gate and nearly pitched face first in the dirt on the other side. I managed to make it over in one piece, and I started hauling ass after Dodge and Boone, who had already covered a good amount of ground. My high heels didn’t slow me down as much as I thought they would, and I ran like I had never run before. Somehow, I managed to keep up with the ranch hands.