by Cat Cahill
Back to the hotel.
Back to Monroe.
Chapter Thirty-two
Monroe halted Pender and wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. It was nearly midnight, and he’d been riding hard since that evening when the last train of the day had brought him to Cañon City. He’d found his horse in the livery along with the most curious news. The livery owner recounted the tale of a young woman who’d impulsively bought his old work horse off him to ride herself southwest fifty miles—alone.
Monroe’s stomach had lurched at the thought. He’d asked the man if the woman fit Emma’s description, and although he knew she would, it didn’t make hearing the confirmation any easier. She had several hours’ lead on him, and his only hope was that she stuck to the main wagon path along the railroad tracks. If she strayed, he may never find her.
He’d made excellent time, and according to the landmarks he could see in the dark, he was but ten miles or so away from the hotel. He leaned forward and patted Pender’s neck, then led him to the creek. He was a good horse, young and strong, otherwise he’d never have made it this far at such a fast pace. Even so, he knew he was pushing the animal’s limits, and he felt terrible about it. “Not too much farther now,” he said as the horse gulped the cool water. Even after he finished drinking, he didn’t try any of his usual antics. Monroe climbed down and drank some himself even as he scoured the area for any signs of Emma.
There was nothing. There’d been nothing for miles. Either she hadn’t left any trace, or she’d drifted off the path. He hoped for the former.
Back on Pender, he pushed the horse to speed again. The night air was oddly warm, air he’d more often felt when working at the ranch out on the plains. Here, it generally cooled at night, even after the hottest day. But he was thankful it was not that heavy, humid air that almost suffocated him in Kentucky.
After about an hour, an orange glow appeared to the south. Monroe ran his hands over his eyes, wiping away the sleep that threatened and the weariness that had overtaken his body. When he opened them again, the glow remained.
Puzzled, he resisted the urge to nudge Pender to go faster. A terrible suspicion crept into his mind.
Impatient, he rode out the remaining miles, the glow intensifying the closer he got, until he was perhaps only a mile away.
Then it became horribly clear.
Flames rose from the roof of his beautiful, nearly finished hotel.
Monroe fought the urge to vomit, and instead pushed the horse faster. Everything he’d worked for, bled for, pushed his body so hard for over the last few months was burning.
His poor horse could not move fast enough. “Sorry, boy.” He leaned forward—anything to close the distance between himself and the fire, and Emma. “I’ll give you the best brushing down of your life later. And all the apples you can eat. Just get me there before it’s all gone.”
Monroe could swear the flames leapt higher the closer he got. Had Emma arrived yet? He could hardly imagine her reaction to the fire. She had so loved the building. The most vivid memory of her jumped into his mind. With awe in her eyes, she’d run her fingers over the woodworking around the powder-room door before she’d been locked in. Fierce pride had risen inside him. It was almost as if she’d been touching him.
He was still a half mile out when he felt the heat. It was a gradual rise in temperature from the already hot night. A quarter of a mile away, he could make out the people. A line of them, stretching around the burning hotel and disappearing into the darkness toward the wagon path that led to the creek.
And the roar. The fire sounded downright angry.
Heat seared his face as he rode up. Monroe reined Pender back, pulling him away from the line and around to the front of the building. The men, some only half-dressed, passed buckets up and down the line—a bucket brigade.
Monroe jumped off his exhausted horse. “You, Carter!” He grabbed a tall, lean boy from the line. Carter had been his youngest hire, straight off the dirt streets of Denver and hoping for more than an existence holding up a barstool like his daddy. “Take Pender to the stable. Brush him down real good and make sure he’s got plenty of feed and water.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Hartley.” The boy took the reins from Monroe. “I’m awful sorry about your hotel.”
“Save the sorry for later.” Monroe clapped him on the back and ran toward the front of the line. Someone was shouting orders—a female voice. Mrs. Ruby, perhaps. He couldn’t imagine the quieter Mrs. McFarland taking charge of a group of men this way. Smoke and exertion made the woman’s voice crack.
The heat of the fire warmed the side of his face as he searched for the person connected to the voice. It wasn’t only men working to save the hotel, but Emma’s friends—the other Gilbert Girls—were all up near the front of the line. Hair coming loose from the braids down their backs and robes knotted over their nightshifts, the girls worked just as fast as his men. He scanned their faces for Emma, but she wasn’t there. She had to be somewhere nearby.
A sweaty, red-faced McFarland, hastily clad in rumpled pants and suspenders over his long johns, directed new arrivals from the camp to the creek. It took a moment before he recognized Monroe.
“What happened?” Monroe demanded, raising his voice in order to be heard over the fire. He shielded his eyes from the scorching flames, not just because of the heat but because he didn’t want to know what had already been destroyed. All he wanted to know was what he could save.
McFarland squinted at Monroe and shook his head, his only reaction to Monroe’s sudden appearance. “Not certain.” He turned to two men who’d just run up from the tent camp. “To the creek, boys. We’re starting another line.” He pointed the newcomers, their faces wide awake despite the late hour, toward the trees. “I don’t know why you’re here, but you picked a good time to return.”
Monroe almost smiled. It wasn’t much of a greeting, but it was better than when he’d left. “Where’s Turner?”
“Haven’t seen him. Haven’t had a moment to look for him.”
“Who’s up front, barking orders?”
McFarland smirked. “Someone else who couldn’t stay away. Get on up there. We need to get this out before the whole thing’s gutted.”
Monroe didn’t waste another second. Weaving around McFarland and the men at the head of the line who tossed bucket after bucket of water onto the fire, he blinked to clear his vision.
“We need a ladder. No, we need several ladders. At least four or five. You there, can you get them? Take a few men with you. It’s imperative we get to the second floor.” The woman’s voice cracked again, and she coughed a little.
That voice . . .
There! Monroe spotted her as four men raced past him toward the camp, presumably for the ladders she’d requested.
“Emma?” Monroe whispered the name to himself. He took a few steps forward. It was her. Her tan and maroon dress drooped strangely around her legs, and her hair had come loose from where some of it was still pinned up. She wore no hat and no gloves. She looked wild. And determined.
Determined to save his hotel.
The second he’d woken from the night he spent slumped on the lobby floor, he knew he was in love with her. But that feeling paled in comparison to what coursed through him now.
It was nothing he’d felt before. It was love, but something even more. He couldn’t describe it. It had been different with Colette. She’d needed protecting outside the world of her family’s ranch. Even though he wanted to protect Emma, she was no wilting flower. Instead, she stood with her hands on her hips, orange flames framing the fierce look on her face as she not only fought to save his hotel, but organized everyone else to save it too.
His strong, independent woman. And he’d let her down. Turned her away. Rejected her. Shame flooded him, and he had to force it from his mind. There would be time aplenty to deal with that later.
“I need someone to organize the men around back!” Emma yelled.
“I�
�ll do it.” Monroe crossed the space between them, the prickly grass crunching under his feet, although he couldn’t hear it over the roar of the flames.
“Monroe.” Her breath caught as she swayed a little. “I . . . I came back . . .”
He quickly grasped her hand. “Later. We’ll have all the time in the world then.”
She smiled at him, her face streaked with sweat and soot. He let go and reached for a bucket near her feet. “Let’s save this hotel.”
He turned then and forced himself to look at everything he’d done over the past few months, eaten alive by a living, breathing monster. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand or else he’d take Emma into his arms and prove to her how sorry he was, right here in front of everyone, while his life’s work burned to the ground behind them.
Gripping the handle between his hands, he let himself take one last look back at Emma. She stared after him, her mouth agape, until a group of men ran up with the ladders she’d asked for. He could swear he caught the hint of lemons even with all the smoke in the air.
He’d underestimated her. He could scarcely believe he was only figuring that out now. Their future was never his decision.
It was hers.
The fire almost growled as something collapsed inside the entry. It jolted him into action, and he raced around the south end of the building.
At least twenty men had begun forming a line behind the hotel. At the head, with a full bucket, was an older, grizzled fellow who normally preferred the bottle to work. But every time Monroe was set to let him go, the man had proved himself in some extraordinary way—noticing when measurements were just a little off, or when someone else had missed a finishing touch that would have been glaringly obvious in the final product.
“Aim for the dining room!” Monroe shouted to him and the other man with buckets at the head of the line. If they moved from right to left—from the dining room toward the middle of the hotel—perhaps he could prevent the fire from restarting where they’d already put it out. He hurried down the row of men. “Move those buckets! The faster we douse it, the quicker it’ll go out.”
After checking that the men at the creek had sufficient buckets and leaving the one he’d brought with them, he ran back to the front of the line. Adrenaline kept him moving, despite an entire day spent in the saddle.
“Right there!” He pointed to where flames licked the furthest dining room window. Someone had already shattered the glass in order to toss water inside. Monroe moved closer. He put up an arm to shield his face. Inch by inch, he stepped nearer to his life’s greatest work. All he wanted was to see inside. To see what remained intact. The chair rail along the wall, perhaps, or the beautiful buffet table they’d so carefully placed near the side of the room, the ornate tables and chairs that had been due to arrive just a few days ago, or the crown molding on the ceiling.
It was no use. The heat singed the hairs on his arms. A lick of flame burst from the window, sending him careening back, but not before it swept across his shirt. Monroe beat at his chest with both hands, putting out the embers that clung to the fabric.
Bucket after bucket, the men at the head of the line tossed water through the open window. Finally, the flames diminished in this one corner of the building. Monroe wasn’t certain how much time had passed. It could have been minutes, or it could have been an hour. Flames still raged throughout the hotel.
“Move to the next window,” Monroe shouted.
The men obliged. Monroe kept them at a steady pace between the hotel and the creek, ensuring the buckets moved as quickly as possible.
They put out the fire in the rear of the dining room, only as flames burst even more heavily from the second floor.
“More ladders!” Monroe yelled to the men in the middle of the line. They ran, and he took their places, passing full buckets up the line and empty ones back down, as they tried to douse the fire that remained in the rear of the hotel’s first floor.
In between passes, Monroe tilted his head back and wiped at his burning eyes. While much of the downstairs was now dark and smoking, the second floor still burned.
It was useless.
No.
He couldn’t give in. Not yet. Not while he was still standing. Not while these men fought. Not while Emma stood her ground up front. The men arrived with the ladders and leaned them up wherever it looked safe enough.
“Here.” The man behind him nudged his arm with a full bucket.
Monroe took it and passed it on.
A drop of water in an ocean of flame.
Chapter Thirty-three
Sweat dripped its way down Emma’s face, down her back, down her front. Never had she been so hot, filthy, or disheveled.
Never had she felt so alive.
Except, she had to admit to herself, when she was with Monroe. But this was different. While spending time with him was exhilarating—heart-pounding, shaky hands, words that tumbled from her mouth at a rate her brain could barely process—and yet so comfortable too, this made her feel . . . strong. Capable. She was fighting a fire, and she was determined to win.
Hands on her hips, she surveyed the line of men and women in front of her. They’d been working nonstop for nearly two hours, when she’d ridden up on that old work horse and had spotted the flames spewing from the first floor. Racing to the camp, she’d yelled until the men came stumbling from their tents. Now, finally, the fire had grown smaller. Thick smoke wafted up from the first floor, making the men on the ladders that were spread across the front of the hotel cough. Most had pulled handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses, but the smoke still snuck through.
“We’re almost there,” she shouted to the line. “Not too much longer now.”
“We’ll do this all night if we have to,” Penny replied, her voice as thick and cracked as Emma’s own.
A fierce pride shot through Emma as she watched Penny and the other girls pass the buckets back and forth. Clad in nightclothes—items they normally would have never dared wear in front of men—the girls hadn’t even hesitated when Emma had run to the house and asked them to join in. Even Millie had joined the group, although she’d held back at first, her eyes wide with fright as she’d taken in the flames.
“What are you doing?”
Emma twisted around, searching for the angry voice. She didn’t have to look long.
Mr. Turner burst through the smoke, his face hard. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the line. “This is my hotel. I demand to know what you’re doing.”
Emma tried to yank her arm away, but he held firm. “I’m saving it, obviously. And it isn’t your hotel.” She wanted to spit in his face, but her throat was so dry that her words would have to suffice.
“It is, now that your suitor is gone. As such, I’m in charge of this operation.”
“Then where have you been? The fire’s been burning for hours!” Emma winced as his fingers dug harder into her arm.
“That ain’t your business. I’m taking charge now.” With that, he let her go and marched back toward the line.
Emma ran after him, her legs jelly but somehow still holding her up.
“Get down off those ladders! Everyone stand back. Put the buckets down,” he ordered as he yanked a full bucket from Millie’s hands. He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Worthless,” he muttered.
Emma didn’t have time to wonder after that remark. What was he doing? If they stopped now, the fire could roar back to life and burn the entire structure to the ground. “But we’ve made such progress,” she said. “We can’t stop now.”
“They can and they will.” He looked out over the line, where people stood silent, buckets in their hands. “The best course is to let this fire burn itself out.”
“No!” Emma ran in front of him. “We need to keep moving. If we give up now, it’ll come back and take the whole building.”
Turner glared at her, then turned to the crowd. “I’m the boss of this operation, not this wo
man. I demand you disperse. Now.”
Emma held his gaze. She was not giving up. Not after how hard they’d all worked to put the fire out. And not for this man, of all people. “They will not.” She paused, narrowing her eyes as she searched his face. The way he shifted and looked at the hotel, his insistence that everyone stop working . . . there was something odd about it all. “Why, you want the hotel to burn, don’t you?”
“You need to shut your mouth. Or else . . .”
He gripped her arm again, harder this time. Emma bit her lip so as not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her wince. “What are you planning to do? Hold me at gunpoint again?” She kept her voice low, the words seething from her mouth.
“If that’s what it takes,” he said, pulling her away from the line and into the smoke.
Emma tugged at her arm, but it was useless.
“You let her go!” a voice shouted through the smoke. Millie appeared, her red hair nearly loose and her face streaked with soot.
Emma barely had time to register Millie’s presence before Turner yanked her even farther into the smoke. Her heart fought wildly and her eyes searched for Millie or anyone else, but the gray haze was too dense. She could barely even see Turner.
He pulled her around to what she thought was the side of the hotel, but perhaps it was down toward the tracks. No, it couldn’t be, or the smoke would have dissipated. It was impossible to tell exactly where they were at all.
“You won’t destroy everything I’ve earned, Miss Daniels.” His words were like the smoke that floated around them, wrapping their way around her mind and her body and suffocating her. “I’ve worked too hard to get this hotel, and I’m not going to let Hartley’s little woman take it from me.”
Emma opened her mouth to speak, but the smoke was too much and she fell into a coughing fit instead.
“Now you’re quiet. I like you better that way.” His face appeared through the smoke that clouded her vision and stung her eyes. “You say too much. You know too much.”
