* * *
Danny whirled and gasped, surprise banging up against the oh, hell, no of realizing that she had an audience. And then, a nanosecond later, a flush seared her skin as she recognized the figure in the doorway. “Sam!”
It was a very different version of the man she had met the other day, though, and not just because of what she knew about him now. Clean-shaven, with a high-tech-looking sledgehammer over his shoulder and the burned-out archway framing his body, he looked taller than she remembered, his T-shirt stretching across his chest to hint at rangy muscles. But while he might be trying to pull off the hey, howdy, glad to see you again, she could see the sympathy in those intelligent gray eyes.
She didn’t remember what she had said just now—she’d been so caught up in the violent satisfaction of battering at the kitchen cabinets until her bad wrist was damn near on fire. Whatever she’d said, though, he had definitely heard. And between the way their first encounter had played out and now this, he probably thought she was completely mental.
Flushing harder beneath the mask and goggles, she said, “I didn’t realize you were there.” Which scored about a million on the one-to-obvious scale. “I don’t know what you heard, but . . .” She shrugged. “I’m not as nuts as I look. I swear.”
He studied her for a moment with those granite-gray eyes that seemed to go right through her. Then, instead of saying anything, he lowered the futuristic-looking tool from his shoulder and held it out to her, handle first. The gleaming metal had a foam-wrapped grip, thin shaft, and complicated articulation where the head attached.
She frowned at it. “I’ve got a hammer.”
“This one’s better.” He closed the distance between them, snagged her sledgehammer easily from where it was wedged into the side of a cabinet, and pressed the pimped-out replacement into her hand. “You can leave it in the back of my truck when you’re done. Green Ford with ‘Babcock Gems’ on the door.” With that, he sauntered out, carrying her sledgehammer by two fingers, like it weighed little more than a stick of gum.
Danny blinked after him, thinking she should go after him and make him trade back—she had been doing fine on her own, and she didn’t need him coming in and trying to fix things for her. But even through the heavy work gloves, the spongy grip felt good against her palms and her wrist suddenly didn’t hurt so much. So instead of chasing him down she adjusted her respirator and looked for a target.
The cabinet in the corner was about ready to fall. Growling, she lined up and swung. The lighter, faster sledgehammer blurred through the air, shattered the door, carved through the bottom shelf, and buried itself in the Formica with a shuddering impact that sent her reeling, not because of bad reverb, but because she couldn’t believe she had just done all that. She gaped—first at the cabinet that looked like someone had wrapped it around a tree at high speed, and then at the caved-in counter and the robot-leg sledgehammer that should’ve come with a warning label, like LAST USED BY THOR. “Wow!”
A strange sort of fight-or-flight buzz kicked in—battle lust, maybe, or hysteria—and she wrestled the sledgehammer free. Not thinking of Brandon now, she lined up again on the mangled cabinet and swung again. And again. Three blows and it was off the wall, a fourth and it was squashed roadkill-flat and her pulse was pounding, her blood singing through her veins like she had just made an impossible summit. Jumping up on top of the pile, she did a little boogie-woogie dance. Then, hefting the SuperSledge, she headed for what was left of the kitchen’s center island, which she had avoided so far because it was sturdily built and not that badly burned.
“Out with the old and in with the new!” she announced. And swung with all her might.
* * *
By the time the volunteers called it quits and straggled over to the picnic tables, the snacks had been demolished except for a couple of bruised apples and a radioactive-green, fruit-laden Jell-O mold that had survived the midsummer heat with terrifying tenacity. There was plenty of soda and beer, though, and pizza on the way, so the workers who didn’t need to be anywhere grabbed cold ones and found places to sit, most of them covering up groans and muttering about how ranching was damn hard work, but demolition and cleanup used a different set of muscles.
Feeling just fine—prospecting and demo weren’t that far apart in the swing-and-smash department—Sam spooned some of the Jell-O thing into a bowl and went in search of Axyl and the others. He found them leaning against a plastic-wrapped pallet of construction material and dropped down, discovering that the shingles made a far more comfortable backrest than he would’ve expected. “You guys have fun Dumpster diving?” he said to Midas and Murphy, who had been going through the demolition mess, separating the recyclables and hazardous materials from the stuff that would have to go to the landfill.
“Loads and loads,” said Midas. “Literally.”
Murph eyed Sam’s Jell-O. “My great-aunt used to make that stuff. In fact, she might have made that batch. You never know—it’s like the Christmas Fruitcake Phenomenon. There’s really only six of them, and they rotate throughout the world forever in a cosmic cycle of regifting.”
At Axyl’s guffaw, Sam shrugged. “I figure someone brought it. I didn’t want it to just sit there and make her feel bad.” He felt pretty safe assuming it was a her—no guy in his right mind was floating fruit in Jell-O unless there was alcohol involved. “Besides, me striking the first blow might encourage the others to dig in.”
“It might also encourage the Jell-O-and-fruit pusher to bring another one tomorrow,” Murph said darkly. “Or maybe drop it off at your place.”
“If that happens, I’ll be sure to leave it in the break room so we can share.”
“Only if you want to find it in your bed. Or worse.”
“I’d better not see green Jell-O on the next supply list,” Sam warned.
“You’d prefer orange? Maybe cherry?”
“I’d prefer a long-legged blonde who’s looking for a good time, but she’s not going on the list, either.”
“Baloney,” Axyl said to his beer. “I saw you with the brunette. Krista’s friend. What’s her name—Annie?”
“Danny. And it’s not like that.” Or maybe it was. Sam hadn’t entirely figured it out. He didn’t usually go for women with loner tendencies or a ton of baggage—mostly because he had plenty of his own—but there was something about her that had stuck in his head, under his skin.
“Uh-huh. So how did she get hold of your sledge?”
Murph’s head came up. “You let her use the Terminator?”
“Folks,” Gabe Sears called, saving Sam from having to explain why he’d handed over one of his favorite prototypes without a second thought. The rail-thin farmer, wearing denim and a Rockies cap over hair that seemed shot through with new streaks of gray, climbed up on one of the picnic tables. He offered a helping hand as Winny—plump and pretty, with her face scrubbed free of the soot the rest of her was wearing—came up beside him. Then, as the crowd quieted, he said, “I’m, um . . . I’m not much for public speaking. But Winny and the kids and I want you to know how much it means to us that you all came out here today. It . . . ah . . .” He cleared his throat. “It’s a hard thing for a man not to be able to do for his own.”
Squeezing his hand, Winny said to the crowd, “A week ago, we didn’t think we were going to be able to rebuild, at least not right away. In fact, we didn’t know what we were going to do. Now, though . . .” She looked around at the blasted landscape, but the way her shoulders squared and her chin came up made it seem like she wasn’t seeing the devastation so much as the progress. “Now we’ve got hope. And hope is a powerful thing. So thank you for that. Thanks to each and every one of you, from the bottoms of our hearts.”
A sudden fanfare blared from a car horn, an engine revved, and, as if ushered in by some cosmic director—cue the mayor!—the loudspeaker-topped truck flew up the driveway, bounced acro
ss the burned-out lawn, and skidded to a stop near the picnic tables. The driver’s window buzzed down, and Mayor Teppitt leaned across her assistant to holler, “Hey, there! Who wants pizza?”
That got some whoops and laughter, and Gabe slung his arm around Winny and shouted, “Thanks again, everyone. Now, let’s eat!”
As the hungry workers thronged around the truck like something out of a zombie movie playing on fast-forward, Sam couldn’t help noticing one figure going the other way with her hands in her pockets—pretty and brunette, with the kind of curves and curls that stuck in a man’s mind.
Let it go, he told himself. Give her room. But he couldn’t very well let her starve, could he? Ignoring the logic that said there was zero chance of a guest—even one living out in the boonies—going hungry on Gran’s watch, he worked his way through the crowd, snagged pizza and sodas for two, and dug through a first-aid kit for one of those smash-to-activate ice packs and a foil packet of painkillers. Then, ignoring Axyl’s smirk, he followed her.
6
Tired of being around people and noise—even the happy kind—Danny slipped away from the party and down to the little pond she had glimpsed from the driveway. Tucked into a low-lying valley that had escaped the wildfire, it had a flat shore on one side that was liberally dotted with hoofprints, while the other side offered a rocky overhang that looked perfect for cannonballs.
Sitting at the edge of the overhang with her heels hooked on a narrow ledge and nothing but water below her, she gazed down at her own reflection, which blurred around the edges, like she was underwater. It was strangely hypnotic, oddly relaxing. Or maybe the relaxation came from the pull of overused muscles, the knowledge of a job well done, and the pleasant emptiness that had cloaked her mind.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind her. “You up for some company?”
Oddly, the answer wasn’t an immediate hell, no, and not just because she recognized Sam’s voice. Twisting around, she found him standing some distance away, looking as sweaty and rumpled as she felt, but holding a couple of beers and a plate of pizza.
Her stomach growled, even though a minute ago she would’ve said she wasn’t hungry. “Are you going to share?”
He settled in beside her and put the plate between them. Holding out one of the beers, he said, “To demolition.”
She clinked her bottle to his. “To using the right tool for the job. And thank you.”
“For the sledgehammer?”
“That, the privacy, the food.” She shot him a sidelong look. “I got the Hulk, smash urges out of the way, so you don’t need to worry I’m going to go psycho on you after dinner. I just had some things I needed to get out of my system.” She stretched out her free hand and wiggled her fingers. “All gone.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You sure?”
“For now, yes. Beyond that, I’ll take it day by day.” Not so much when it came to Brandon—the shock had worn off and the sting had already started to fade. It would take longer to work through the dreams, though, and the fears.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I know how that goes.”
“So I heard.” At his sharp look, she said, “Gran told me a few things about you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s a small town. Gossip happens.” He took a pull on his beer, then added, “I’m flattered my name came up.”
Was he fishing to see if she was interested? She couldn’t tell, not with him sitting close enough that she could feel an echo of his body heat on her skin and see that there was silver and blue mixed in with the gray of his eyes. Leaning away, she said, “I figured I should apologize to her for letting the fire get out of hand. She kind of took it from there. Mostly, I think, because she wanted to tell me what a nice guy you are.”
He rolled his shoulders, but said only, “Well, since you know my story, or at least some of it, it seems only fair for you to even things up by answering a question for me.”
She hesitated, but then surprised herself. “Okay. Ask.”
“What do you have against the Rambling Rose?”
“What . . . That’s what you want to know about me?”
His teeth flashed. “Not necessarily. But it’s a start.”
A quiver of awareness went through her, a feminine aha that said he was interested, all right, or at least flirting a little. And the thing was, she was tempted to flirt a little right back. He had given her his sledgehammer, after all, and he had those big, wide hands. So she said, “I don’t like small spaces, especially dead ends. The tent has zips in the front and back, and I sleep with a knife under my pillow in case I need to cut my way out.”
“Always?”
“Do I always sleep with a knife under my pillow?”
Faint lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. “Have you always been claustrophobic?”
“It’s only been the past eighteen months or so.” Aware that she knew more about him than he probably wanted, and turnabout was only fair, she backed up some. “Before that, growing up in Maine, I was the one who was always poking in the smallest, darkest hidey-hole I could find, just to see what was inside.” Which made it that much worse, having lost that, too. “It didn’t even matter if I got stuck, because my parents were always there to pull me out. Or my sister, Charlie. Our parents never scolded us, never told us to be more careful. They just wanted to know what we had found. Bigger, better, faster, higher . . . that’s the Traveler family motto. Or one of them, at any rate. We were all about the outdoors, all the time—skiing, climbing, obstacle races . . . If I could win it, I tried it, and usually did pretty well. I won a bunch, crashed some, healed up, and did it all over again. Until one day, my luck ran out.” Her voice went hollow on the last word.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” But his eyes were steady on hers and he seemed somehow very solid beside her.
“There’s not much to tell, really.” Not if she wanted to sleep tonight. “My ex-boyfriend and I were out climbing with a few friends—the route wasn’t all that gnarly, and it had a great picnic spot at the top. There was this one section of chimney we wanted to try—that’s a narrow gap where you put your back on one rock face, your hands and feet on the other, and work your way to the top.” Swallowing to loosen the sudden tightness in her throat, she said, “It was a little sketchy because we had to drop in halfway and climb up from there, and things were real narrow, with jagged rocks at the bottom. But the upper part looked doable, so I volunteered to go first. I was the smallest and lightest . . . and, well, I liked being first. I roped up, set some safety lines, and started the climb.” It had been wider than she had anticipated, slipperier. And she probably wasn’t sleeping tonight after all. “I was about halfway to the top when it happened. There was this little ledge I had to get past. The rock looked solid, felt solid, but when I put my weight on it, the whole thing gave. And I went with it.” She fought not to remember the noise, the moment of free fall. The impact. “I wound up lying at the bottom, pinned under the broken ledge. It was nearly eight hours before the rescue team could get me out.”
“Damn.” His voice was rough. “That’s a hell of a thing.”
Pain. Cold. Numbness creeping in. The terror of realizing she couldn’t move her toes. Brandon and the others peering down at her, calling, “They’re coming” and “It’s going to be okay,” but then disappearing to huddle together as they waited for the rescue team, leaving her staring up at the sky. Alone. Swallowing hard, she continued. “I broke my arm, and being pinned that long damaged the nerves in my spine. It was six months before I could walk across the room, a year before I was anywhere close to normal. Physically, at least.”
Usually it bothered her when people stared at her like he was doing, but there was something about him that blunted the irritation. The lack of pity in his gray eyes, maybe, or knowing that life had knocked him around some, too. “And here you are,” he said, “throwing
books and swinging hammers.”
A corner of her mouth kicked up at the reminder. Looking back at the burned-out farmstead, where the pizza party contrasted starkly with the ruined house, she said, “It’s crazy, isn’t it? How one split second can change everything? One ember from a wildfire, and a family loses everything. One cracked ledge, and I spend the rest of my life avoiding danger and counting exits.”
“You flip over the right rock and you’re rich,” Sam said. “Then a couple of months later you take the scenic road rather than the bypass, and you wind up dead.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, truly sorry.”
“Thanks.” His eyes flicked to her. “Right back at you. And for the record, living out in the Wyoming backcountry with a bear fence and a six-shooter is hardly what I call avoiding danger.”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to climb anymore, don’t want to race, don’t want to do anything that involves faster, harder, or higher. My parents don’t know what to do with me, or what we’re supposed to talk about.”
“I bet your dad wishes he’d been there that day, to pull you out.”
He would see that, wouldn’t he? She nodded. “He wants me to come home. I think he’s afraid I don’t trust them to have my back anymore, but that’s not it. Or maybe it is, a little, because now I know it’s up to me to have my own back. More, I need to figure out what I want to do next. Before, it made sense to stick near home and work in my family’s pro shop, right at the bottom of Maverick Mountain. Skis and snowboards in the winter, mountain bikes in the summer, plenty of flexibility to compete at whatever, and it was all good advertising.” She took a sip of her beer, was surprised to find it halfway gone, the alcohol giving her a low-grade buzz. “He wants me to take over the office work, build up the Internet sales, do some advertising. I’ve got a business degree, after all. But I don’t know.”
Firelight at Mustang Ridge Page 6
