The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  Bax had already guessed that fulfillment she should have experienced with a man would be new to her. He was pleased, knowing that he was the one to give it to her. But the muscle contractions surrounding him in her wet, warm flesh took every other thought from his head except finding his own release. He’d held back to make sure he satisfied her first because he knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain control any longer than that. Now with her writhing and sobbing beneath him, he held her tighter and sank deeper into her and the completion he needed.

  Sweat-soaked and exhausted, they both lay boneless and relaxed.

  He kissed her again. “Are you okay? No aches or pains?”

  She said nothing but smiled at him with a dreamy languor that told him what he wanted to know. He sighed and rolled them to their sides, still joined.

  An hour later, Bax slept on his stomach while Amy lay with her head propped on her hand and studied him in the waning daylight. The scars that she had glimpsed just one time now were fully visible. She traced around them with a light fingertip. They obviously had faded over the years, so she could only guess how horrific they must have looked early on, because they were very vivid even now. She wondered how on earth he’d survived them. He had another on the back of his shoulder; it must be the one he’d suffered first. It made her heart ache to think of everything he’d been through, but it also swelled with love for him. She’d told him the truth when she’d said she had never cared as much about anyone as she did him. But no other man had shown her the kind of devotion and genuine love that he did. He had become her heartbeat.

  Of course she’d adored her mother, and losing her at such a young age had been devastating. But somewhere along the way, a piece of her she’d needed to make her a complete person seemed to have gotten lost. Certainly time and experience had done their job on her, but it was Bax who’d really given it back to her. She no longer automatically thought of herself first. Just when that had changed, she wasn’t sure.

  She did know that she liked this new Amy much better.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Because they woke and made love twice more in the moonlit darkness, Amy and Bax were still asleep the next morning when a loud, persistent knock sounded on their hotel door.

  “God, what? Is the place on fire?” Bax groaned. He lay naked under the sheet, wrapped around Amy, who at some point had slipped into her white batiste nightgown. Groping for the alarm clock on the nightstand, he looked at it. “Nine fifteen? If someone has rethought that idea of a shivaree, there’s going to be a big problem.”

  More pounding. “Bax!” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

  “What is that?” Amy asked, pushing at her hair.

  “Damn it,” he groused, and disentangled himself from her arms and legs. “Who the hell would do this to a man the day after his wedding?” He pushed away the sheet and grabbed the bedspread from the floor. During the night it had slid off, and now he wrapped it around his waist, holding it in place with one hand at his side. It trailed behind him like a coronation robe, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You look so elegant, Your Majesty.”

  He gave her a dry look and trudged to the door. “Can’t a man have twenty-four hours with his new bride?” he barked at the wood panel before he opened it a crack.

  He saw Horace Cookson, Powell Springs’s mayor, standing in the hall. He was dressed in overalls and a plain cotton shirt. Obviously, he’d been working on his farm, not in his office. It was Sunday, after all. “Bax, I’m sorry as hell to interrupt, I truly am. But there’s an emergency at the Becker place.”

  “What, today? Horace, Whit was out there just yesterday. I think he’s got it taken care of.”

  “No, he’s out there again—now. He’s been injured, and Luke and Emily Becker are being held hostage in their own house. There’s no one left to ask.”

  Bax stared at him. “How do you know all this?”

  “Emily managed to call Birdeen just before the men got into the house. Then Birdeen heard a commotion and the line went dead. Frankly, I don’t know what the situation is right now.”

  “How many men?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe two or three.”

  “Where is Whit? In the house? Outside?”

  “Outside I think, but I’m not sure.”

  Bax raked his free hand through his hair. “All right. But I can’t manage this alone. I need to deputize men to go with me, starting with you.”

  “Me! Bax, I’m not so young anymore.”

  He ignored the protest. “And you’re going to round up Cole, Tanner, and anyone else you can think of. We need a raid. Oh, and get Virgil Tilly too. This affects him as much as anyone else. I don’t care if he has to close up, because if he won’t come along, I’ll close him up for good!”

  Horace seemed to be trying to edge away, having delivered his message. “Well, okay, but—”

  “Look, Horace, I need help with this and you have thirty minutes to get this done. Meet me at the office in half an hour, and I don’t want to hear any more yeah, buts. I need help, and I’m only one man. We’re all spread thin. Now get going and I’ll see you there.”

  Amy had crept out of bed to stand against the wall beside the doorframe, unseen by the mayor. Bax felt her presence there before he closed the door.

  “I can’t help it. I have to go.”

  Amy nodded but her heart sank under the weight of an old companion—fear. Not for herself, but for her husband. She gripped his forearm. “Bax, please, I know you have to do this, but if no one shows up to help you, please, I’m begging you, don’t go alone. There can’t be any sort of raid with just one person.”

  He took her into his embrace, kissed her forehead, and sighed. “I’m sorry, honey. I never imagined this might happen. I’ve been thinking for a while that we just don’t have enough men. We ought to at least have reserve personnel. The town is growing and this part of the county is wide and empty. We can’t be everywhere. Either the smaller towns like Fairdale and Twelve Mile need to add their own staff or we need to expand. But none of that is going to happen today.” He hugged her extra tight. “Right now, I’ve got to leave. You can wait for me here if you want, or you can go home.”

  “I’ll go home. I don’t want to sit here by myself, not knowing anything.” She picked up her veil from the chair where she’d left it yesterday. “I’ll call Em too. She’s probably crazy with worry.”

  He released her and walked back into the bedroom where he’d left his everyday clothes in his kit bag. At least the suite had its own bathroom so they didn’t have to make trips down the hall.

  Amy watched him go, thinking no man wearing a bedspread ever looked so gallant.

  Bax walked Amy home under a clear sky that promised to turn hot later in the day. Their parting was emotional and heart wrenching. He had expected to spend this morning eating breakfast with his new wife in the hotel dining room and carrying her across the threshold of the house—and beyond. Instead, he left her on the front porch with a knot in his throat and a rock in his stomach, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time he saw her.

  She flung herself into his arms with a choked-back sob. “You have to come back to me! I’m going to be selfish again. I want my husband home and in one safe piece.”

  He buried his face against her shoulder for a moment, inhaling the scent of her and swallowing hard to stop the tears that threatened him. He wanted the same thing she did. “I’ll be back. I swear it,” he promised, his voice cracking. “Hang on to that. I’ll be back.” Then he pulled her arms loose and turned to go, jogging to the office every step of the way.

  Now, twenty minutes after they hurried out of the New Cascades, he had buckled his gun belt, pinned on his badge, and he paced the office floor, waiting for someone to show up. Periodically he checked the gun cabinet out of nervous anticipation. He’d taken out a shotgun
and a rifle, not knowing which he’d need. He couldn’t arm everyone but there were a couple of sidearms to spare. He was in a bind because Whit had the Model T and unless someone with a vehicle showed up soon, he’d have to borrow Whit’s horse. That wasn’t practical in this case, and in fact, was becoming less practical with every passing year. And he had no details about the situation beyond what sketchy information Horace had given him.

  Just as he was about to get Birdeen on the telephone and try to track down the man, he heard cars pull up outside. Rushing to the window, he saw Cole and Jessica, in their truck. She carried her doctor’s bag and he had a rifle. Bax was very pleased to see Paul McCoy and his three boys in the bed, all armed. Tanner had come, too, in the 1917 Corbitt truck he’d recently acquired. Horace and Virgil were in the back of the Corbitt. They were the weak links in the chain, and Bax wasn’t sure how much help they’d be, but a show of numbers was important.

  He met them all outside. “Thanks, everyone, for coming. Tanner, I need you to be my ride. Doc Jess, I imagine you know you’ll keep a very safe distance, but we might need you.”

  “That’s my intention,” she replied, catching a disapproving look from Cole. “Yes, I already know you didn’t want me to come along.”

  “What’s going on, Bax?” Paul asked. “Is this the same skunk you and Whit smoked out of my barn?”

  “No, he’s in jail in Portland. I don’t know who these guys are but Whit and I tore down a still we found on Luke Becker’s land a while back. It might be whoever put it up to begin with.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know why you wanted me along,” Virgil groused. Neither did Bax—the man couldn’t even manage a barroom scrape in his own saloon. But he thought that Virgil Tilly owed Whit this gesture for letting him keep the saloon.

  “It’s not a work detail or a chain gang, Virgil. It’s called helping your neighbor,” Cole threw in, as if reading Bax’s thoughts. “None of us are here as punishment—what the hell is wrong with you? Whit has let you stay in business all this time when he could have forced you to sell ice cream to old ladies and kids. Now he needs us.”

  “Do you have a plan for this?” Virgil asked. It sounded like an accusation.

  No, but Bax wished he did. This wasn’t like organizing an assault against a known enemy in an identifiable uniform. He had no surveillance or intelligence to work from. This was a different kind of battle. “I’m making it up as I go along. If I thought it would do any good, I’d make Granny Mae come with us. She played a part in this too, even though she didn’t mean to.”

  “Oh, Bax, you know she feels horrible about that,” Doc Jess said.

  “Yeah, but it sure didn’t help things. Anyway, that doesn’t matter now. We’ve got to go rescue the Beckers and find Whit. And hope everything turns out well. I haven’t even been married for twenty-four hours. I’d like to see my wife again.”

  There was a general shuffling of feet and murmurs of agreement.

  “And Horace, you and I are going to have a talk when this is all over.”

  The mayor looked alarmed. “Wha—me! Why?”

  “We need you to talk to the county about getting more help for us.”

  With a quick speech, he deputized all of them, which he stressed was a temporary situation. “All right, people. Saddle up and let’s get this done.”

  They all piled back into the vehicles and headed east toward Fairdale. Tanner’s truck led the way since this was Bax’s party.

  When they pulled into the long road that led to the Beckers’ place, Bax said, “Keep your eyes open for Whit. He might be out here somewhere.” At last they spotted the county car parked where the road met the weeds, but no one was inside. “Wait a minute.”

  Bax jumped out and looked in the window. Nothing. Then he came around to the passenger side and found Whit, gray-faced on the ground beside the door. He was alive and conscious, but something was wrong. Bax crouched beside him. “Whit! Are you shot?”

  “No, burned. But I’m glad to see that help is here.”

  Bax motioned to Jessica, who took a quick look around before jumping out to join them. Cole was right behind her.

  “What happened?” Bax asked.

  “Luke called me and said he thought it was the same bastards who were here before. I came out to run them off, but they started shooting. They didn’t hit me, but I fired back and hit their boiler. It exploded and hot mash came flying toward me. They just laughed.”

  Bax cringed and watched while Jessica cut holes in his clothes to look at the burns. “You think they’re in the house?”

  “Yeah. They went running down that hill and headed straight for the back door. It wouldn’t be hard to overpower two older people who aren’t expecting that kind of trouble.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Two, I’m pretty sure. But I didn’t get a good enough look to tell you much about them. They’ve got to be cleared out. They can’t keep squatting here and harassing these people.”

  “Horace says Birdeen got a call from Mrs. Becker and that there was some scuffle in the house, then she got cut off.”

  “Maybe, I wasn’t sure. I was out here.”

  “What do you think?” Bax asked Jess.

  “Looks like second-degree burns at most, but they’re bad enough,” she replied, distracted and harried. “I need to get him to my office so I can get a better look and start treatment.”

  “You’ll have to take him back in the county car. Do you think you can manage on your own?”

  “I’ll manage. I’ve done harder things and you all need to stay here.”

  “I could go with you,” Virgil piped up.

  “Tilly, I can take out your appendix but I can’t put a spine in your back, even if you come to my office. You’ll have to find one of your own,” she snapped. Cole and Bax looked at each other over her head and laughed, even though there wasn’t much funny about the situation.

  Virgil slumped in his seat, wearing an expression of injured dignity.

  “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she.” Cole murmured.

  “Okay, can you two give me a hand here?” she asked.

  “I can walk, Doc Jess,” Whit protested.

  “Your spine works just great, Whit. A little help won’t be a bad thing.” She turned to Bax. “I’m going to stop and pick up Em and Amy, and take them back to the office. That’s where we’ll all be, so if you should call, get us there. Otherwise, you two”—she nodded at Bax and her own husband—“meet us there.”

  Bax and Cole both looked around to make sure no one was pointing a gun at them, then boosted Whit into the backseat.

  They and the McCoy men directed her in backing up so she could use the two trucks as shields until she could get turned around and headed back down the road.

  Once she was safely on her way, they faced their next task. “How should we go about this?” Cole asked, as if wondering out loud.

  Paul McCoy and his sons joined the conference. “If there’s just the two of ’em, they can’t cover every window and door. There are more of us than them. We could distract ’em by trying to talk them out, while some of us check for unlocked sashes and try the doors.”

  “Sounds as good as anything else,” Cole said, and Bax agreed. “But I think we ought to get only a little closer with the trucks and not park them in plain sight. And be careful—remember there are two old people in there who won’t be able to move as fast as everyone else.”

  Everyone agreed with that.

  They piled back into the vehicles and drove to a bend in the road heavy with shrubs and blackberry brambles, just beyond which was the house. A lot of whispering and hand signals passed between the men, and they moved forward into an uncertain situation.

  Amy did her best to stay busy but she wandered to the front and back windows so often she accomplished almost noth
ing. She was standing in the kitchen, trying to decide if she should bake a cake or bread when she heard a car horn out front. Running to the door, she saw the county car and her heart leaped in her chest until she realized her sister was driving and someone was in the backseat.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. She grabbed the house key from its hook next to the telephone in the kitchen, then hurried out the front door, slamming it behind her.

  When she got closer and saw Whit, a flash of raw panic burned through her. “Where’s Bax?” she yelled.

  “Get in,” Jess called back. “He’s still with everyone else at the Beckers’ place, but Whit’s hurt. We’ve got to stop and pick up Em.”

  “Whit, is it serious in Fairdale?” Amy asked, getting into the car before turning around completely in her seat. All she saw were holes cut here and there in his clothes and some angry-looking blisters on his face and neck.

  “If it’s all the same to you, Amy, I’d rather explain this just once more. Can we wait till we pick up Em?”

  “Oh, of course, I’m so sorry!” She turned around again, grateful that he didn’t seem to be seriously hurt and wishing that he’d brought Bax with him. Would these problems never end?

  When they got to Whit’s house, a tidy little white house with a yard full of flowers and a neatly trimmed lawn—a sure sign of a woman’s touch since Amy last saw his place—his wife came running out of the house, much the way Amy had.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Em screeched and hurried to the car, her red hair flying behind her. “Whitney!” She almost pulled off the backseat door to get to him, then climbed onto the seat on her knees.