“Wait—Patrick, you haven’t been—trying to kill the team, have you? Are you the one behind the arson?” Her voice pitched to a low-toned of disbelief. “Did you have something to do with the plane going down? The low fuel tanks?”
“You don’t understand, Gilly.” Patrick had the shotgun leveled at Reuben and looked a millisecond from coming unglued.
Where was Brownie? The question niggled at the back of Reuben’s brain.
“They left Tom there to die. A terrible, horrific death!”
“I know, Patrick,” Gilly pleaded. “I know, but this isn’t—”
“And they deserve to die in the same way!”
Reuben didn’t like the way Patrick’s hands shook. He just needed a second—a moment when Patrick might not be looking at him.
“Please, Patrick, don’t hurt him!” Gilly held up her hands, Reuben’s pack swinging nearly off her shoulder. “He isn’t to blame—”
“He is completely to blame! All of them!”
“Not Hannah. Not CJ. Not Kate or Jed or—”
“Listen, Patrick,” Reuben said quietly. “We both know that Gilly isn’t a part of this. If you need justice, do what you have to, to me, but let Gilly go—”
“I don’t think so, Reuben.”
Patrick started backing toward the door, and Reuben inched forward.
“Get back!” Patrick swung the gun at Gilly. “Both of you. Or I shoot her.”
Reuben went completely still, everything shutting down to a cold halt. He looked at Gilly, the way she paled, the shaking of her hands.
Why hadn’t he listened to Gilly’s warning on the road?
Reuben fought for a breath through his constricting chest, only finding it when Patrick turned the gun back on him.
Gilly, however, was shaking her head in a sort of crazy disbelief. “No!” She took another step toward Patrick. “Please, Pat—”
And that’s when Patrick took his eyes off Reuben.
It was all Reuben needed. He lunged at Patrick, intending to slap the gun away.
The carpet caught him, and he tripped. Patrick turned back, brought the barrel up—
The shot exploded nearly in Reuben’s ear.
Something shattered behind him, heat and searing pain burning in his skull.
Gilly screamed as he fell. Fire lacerated his head, and he slapped his hand to the heat, seeing shades of gray. He landed hard on the floor, dizzy. When he pulled away his hand, it came back slick and hot.
Bloody.
“You shot him! Oh my gosh—you shot him!”
But even as the world tilted, he saw—what? Gilly leaping at Patrick, the bear spray out, full throttle. Patrick threw his hand up to protect his face against the blast, screaming.
Then before Reuben could get up and tackle him—before he could even find his feet—Patrick twisted the gun around and clipped Gilly against the head.
She dropped like a cannonball, the spray canister flying out of her grip.
Patrick stumbled back, coughing, spitting, words issuing from his mouth about Gilly, the lot of them. He made it to the door. “It’s better this way, anyway. Burn both of you—all of you—like they did.”
Then he slammed the door behind him. Locked it from the outside.
“Gilly!” Reuben wanted to get up, but his legs wouldn’t move right—and the entire room was spinning.
He held the floor as it swayed, and tried to make his way to Gilly.
But she’d come to life, pushing herself up, crawling to him.
Patrick had cut her, bloodied her cheek. But she seemed to ignore it, catching Reuben as he tumbled forward.
He closed his eyes, felt like half his skin had peeled from his head, heard ringing in his ears behind her voice and the sound of a zipper.
Then something soft pressed the wound.
He yelped.
“Sorry.”
He butterflied his eyes open and found her peering down at him.
“First aid kit. Good thinking,” he said, his eyes longing to close again. Except her face crumpled, and she looked away, shaking her head.
“Sorry. I won’t cry. I just… won’t.” She closed her eyes, made a noise, as if holding back a wail, then took a deep breath.
“Okay. You’re going to be okay.” She leaned over him, and he was vaguely aware now that his head had landed in her lap, cradled there. She pulled the cotton away and examined his wound.
“It’s deep and long—the bullet grazed your head. Your ear is cut, and I can see your scalp.”
“In other words, it’s just a flesh wound. I’ve had worse.”
She frowned at him, and he agreed it might be the wrong time to pull out his Monty Python quotes.
Instead, he groaned again as she replaced the cotton pad.
And the room started to darken around the edges.
That’s when he smelled it—something rancid, like a skunk had broken loose in the cabin, sprayed the air.
“What’s that smell?”
Gilly seemed bewildered, but looked around, catching on fast. “The bullet hit the wall, destroyed a lamp—”
“It’s propane. It’s flooding the room with gas—and with the lamps lit, the room could ignite. We have to stop the leak.”
“I’ll do it.” But as she got up, he saw her stiffen, her breath catching.
And only then did he see the flicker of flame in the window.
“It’s too late. The front porch is on fire,” she said in a voice he didn’t quite recognize.
That’s where Brownie went. Setting them up, locking them in, and burning them alive. Like his grandson.
“Brownie is our arsonist.”
“And Patrick rigged the plane,” Gilly said, crouching beside him. “He might have even been the one who crashed and stole the drones—he would have certainly known how to refit them for his use. But it doesn’t matter because right now, we have to get out of here.”
He agreed. Only problem was, his legs didn’t want to move. His entire body turned to slush as the room tilted, spun, and made him want to hug the floor.
She tried the door. “It’s locked.”
“Try the back bedroom, see if there’s an escape.”
He lay there like a drunk as she left him. She returned in moments, dropping to her knees, shaking her head.
“No good. The front door is the only one.” She got up then and started for the window, working the latch to open it. “If we can open the window, the gas might evaporate—”
Glass shattered as a shot decimated the window. Gilly screamed, jerked back, grabbed her hand. Blood dripped from it.
“He shot me!”
Reuben pushed himself up, felt like he might vomit on the spot, but grabbed her, pulled her down.
Another shot chipped at the wall in the kitchen.
“They’re not going to let us leave!” Gilly said.
He said nothing, just took her hand, found the glass embedded there. “You’re not shot—just cut.” He eased out the glass then reached for the roll of cotton gauze in the pack. But his hands shook, so she took it and wrapped it around her hand.
The rancid smell had dissipated with the night air, but smoke from the fire began to filter in, hover around the ceiling. And, with the gas lines alive and thick with gas, the place could torch any moment.
“Reuben—I’m...”
He thought she might say scared, but the word that came out was “sorry.”
“You’re sorry? For what?”
“For not having better aim. I thought I got his eyes, but I should have ducked or grabbed the gun or—”
“Gilly. Stop.” He touched her arm. “No. You were awesome. But we have to get out of here—”
“How about the bathroom?”
“Yes!”
He levered himself to all fours, fighting his way across the floor.
The flames crackled into the window, licking the frame, igniting the grimy curtains.
Gilly had a hold on his collar and pulled,
directing him through a door toward the blackness of a bedroom. He hit his head on the jamb to the bathroom.
“There’s no window!” he said.
“No. And no toilet. But there’s washbasin and a tin tub—we could get in it.”
“We’ll never fit, not both of us. But this place has a porch which means—”
“There’s a crawl space under the house!” Gilly said.
He sat on the floor, holding onto the tub as it swayed.
“What now?” she said.
“We gotta…move…this…” He couldn’t think clearly.
“I’ll help you. We’ll do it together.” She got up, wedged her body against the wall, her feet against the tub.
He managed to get to his knees. “I can only do this once, I think.”
And then, with a roar, he ripped the tub from the floor.
Black filled his eyes, the room pitched, and he felt himself falling.
“No! Reuben, stay with me!”
But the floor came too fast, too hard. He crashed onto it, woozy.
When he pushed himself up, he knew he was going to faint.
“Reuben, don’t leave me—”
Gilly climbed over him, kicking at a drainage pipe in the floor. He opened his eyes enough to see it rip free, and with it, a chunk of board. She had her feet braced on either side of him, sawing the pipe back and forth to open a gap.
Then suddenly, he heard a splintering, and she threw the pipe out of the room.
A gap opened up, about the size of his thigh.
But, of course, just about big enough for Gilly.
“Go,” he said, his voice echoing in his head. He added oomph to it when he smelled smoke. “Get out of here!”
“No!” She kicked at the boards.
They didn’t move.
“Please, Gilly, go.”
“I’m not leaving without you!” She was frantic now, jumping on the boards. “Please, please—”
He couldn’t take it. He pushed himself up, grabbed her hand. Pulled her down to meet his face. “I can’t fit through there. The house is going to explode. Go. Now. Save our team.”
Something in his words must have clicked, because she stopped fighting and just stared at him.
Oh, she had gorgeous eyes—many of them—but all of them were a shade of blue, with flecks of green and gold.
He traced her face, memorizing it, and then, because he couldn’t stop himself, he closed the gap and kissed her. Quick and over before she could respond, but mostly because he’d lost his mind on the crawl to the bathroom, and he didn’t know what else to do to say good-bye.
Then he shoved her through the hole, a hand on her shoulder, all the way down, until she crouched in the blackness under the house. He tossed the gear pack down after her. Then he stuck his head down through the hole.
And sure enough, light dented the far edge, a crawl space under the length of the building.
“Go, Gilly!”
And thank God, she did, scrambling toward the light.
He closed his eyes, and breathed in the cool air, letting the oblivion take him.
Our team. Reuben’s words hung in her mind, burning as Gilly scrabbled out from under the back of the house, crouching in the shadows to search for Patrick. Or Brownie.
Her brain still couldn’t wrap around the fact that they’d been—were—trying to kill her.
Them.
Her team.
She wasn’t going to let any more of them die. Starting with Reuben.
No. The sound of Patrick screaming stirred inside of her. She couldn’t believe she’d bear-sprayed him. Or that her crazy idea worked. She’d watched him talk to Reuben, all the while rooting in the pack for the bear spray. Waited for the moment when he turned to her.
Except it hadn’t quite turned out like she’d hoped—Reuben shot, bleeding, passed out with his head stuck in a drainage hole while the cabin burned around him.
The death Patrick hoped he’d have.
The death the Brownings had planned for all of them—first by arson and then by the crashing of her plane. She thought of the ripped chutes from earlier in the season, the ones Kate had found and fixed. She would bet that Patrick had had a hand in damaging them during the off-season.
Gilly gritted her jaw against a rise of fury and scuttled out into the yard, dragging the pack behind her, not sure what to do, but sure of one thing.
Reuben was not going to die.
Halfway to the forest’s edge, she spotted the woodpile. A beaver dam of split firewood, a chopping block, and embedded in it, an ax.
She ran toward it, keeping low, aware of the glow illuminating the night, the flames curling up around the roof.
Dropping the pack, she put her hands on the ax and pulled.
It refused to move, like Excalibur in the rock. She glanced again at the house, then stood up straight and wiggled the ax, fighting for leverage. The ax barely budged.
She could use some of Reuben’s epic strength.
Please, God!
The cry came from inside, but she let it ring out, fill her chest as she heaved upward.
The ax tore free of the wood and landed with a clunk on the wood-chip-covered ground.
She picked it up, ducked, and huddled in the darkness.
Patrick came striding around the house, patrolling for escapees, his gun held loosely in his grip. She suppressed the crazy urge to run out, ax raised, but…
She wasn’t the kind of person who could embed an ax in a person’s body, even if they had just tried to burn her alive.
She hunkered down, barely breathing as he walked past. Waited until he rounded the side of the house—
Then she dashed across the grass, shimmied under the crawl space, dragging the ax with her.
Reuben lay where she’d left him, his head positioned in the hole, breathing in the sweet, albeit dirty, air.
“Rube—wake up.” She patted his cheek. He didn’t twitch.
“Rube!” She patted him again—nothing, and she got desperate.
If he could do it, so could she. After all, his quick peck had shocked her enough for her to freeze, for him to wrestle her through the floorboards and shove her out of danger.
Hers could do the same.
She leaned forward, but instead of a quick kiss, she pressed her lips to his, added passion.
And, just for a second, she lost herself in the fact that for the first time well, ever, she actually wanted to kiss someone. No, not just someone, but Reuben. Strong, capable…sweet Reuben.
It lasted only a second or two, but long enough to stir inside her something she hadn’t realized she possessed…
Sparks. A desire to get free and maybe give him another chance to ask her to dance.
She broke away, her hand on his cheek, and he roused, opened his eyes.
Blinked at her. “Um…”
“Yeah, I know. Now, let’s get you out of here.” She pushed on his shoulders and he groaned, but pulled his head out of the hole.
She shoved her way up and found him sitting on the floor.
Smoke filled the room, and the fact the cabin had yet to blow seemed a miracle from God.
“Look out,” she said, climbing up through the hole. The room was so tiny she had to stand outside the door, but after he moved his feet she managed to bring the ax down on the wood.
It bounced off, barely leaving a dent.
“Oh, boy,” Reuben said. “That’s really pitiful.”
“Hey!”
But he was climbing to his knees, bracing himself on the wall with one hand. With the other he reached out for the ax.
She surrendered it. And in one quick, chilling move, he brought the ax down on the floor, cracking it. Another one-handed swing and he’d doubled the hole.
“C’mon!” She jumped through the hole to the dirt floor and backed up to accommodate Reuben’s girth.
He slid down beside her, so big he had to back his way through the hole. Once in the dirt, his head hit
the floorboards as he groped for purchase, pulling himself along on his stomach.
She scrambled to the edge and put a hand on his shoulder. “Shh.”
They stilled, waiting as Patrick looped once again around the outside. Gilly watched him pass then slid out, checking. “We’re clear.”
Reuben wasn’t a quick man. Strong, yes, solid—but not quick. He lumbered out of the crawl space so slowly she thought he might still be half in by the time Patrick returned.
She grabbed his arm to help, and it slipped out of her grip. So she settled on the scruff of his shirt, pulling him along.
He seemed woozy, his head a bloody mess now, and when he got to his feet, he nearly fell over.
She looped his arm around her shoulder. “Run with me.”
She couldn’t look behind her, just started off in a staggered sprint towards the woods, but she refused to crumble under his weight, gritting her teeth.
They reached the forest line, and she half pushed him into a thicket of brush, falling down beside him. He lay on his back, groaning and she clamped a hand over his mouth, as Patrick circled the house again.
Patrick stopped just feet away from their hiding place, watching the flames lick out through the windows, curl the roof shingles, a dark outline of bitterness against the glow of the fire.
He’d torched his own family cabin with the hope of killing them. She couldn’t imagine a pain, an anger that burrowed that deep.
The house exploded—a massive burst of yellow, white, and orange, ripping through the night, blowing off the roof, turning the house to an inferno. Splinters of wood, glass, and debris rained down into the yard, spilling into the forest.
Gilly ducked her head, and then suddenly, Reuben rolled over, covering her body with his, his arm over her shoulders, his leg across hers, his face next to her own.
He smelled of dirt and blood, sweat and strength, his body a blanket, long and powerful, protecting her.
She searched for the fear, the revulsion that should be radiating out from her core, that should push him away, but felt nothing.
No—she felt something. A lot of something—the crazy urge to roll over, tuck herself in his arms with the hope that she’d stop shaking. Maybe even curl her hands into his shirt, lift her face, let him kiss her again.
This time, a kiss they both might participate in.
Burnin' For You: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 3) Page 12