"Everything okay at Loon Cove?" she asked as he drew near.
"Running as smooth as a baby's butt," he told her, taking her hand to guide her in another direction. "He wouldn't have hid it in the machine shed, or any other building that could burn down. Is there a spring-house around here?"
"No, just an old hand-dug well that's dried up, over there," she said, pointing a few hundred feet behind the house. "And I seem to recall that Gramps had a root cellar. I remember not wanting to go down inside it, and I cried whenever he did, because I was afraid the spiders would eat him."
"Where is it?"
She looked around, turning in a slow circle. "I can't remember. I must have blocked out its location because it scared me."
"How about if we take a ride someplace and get away from everything?" he suggested. "We could go down to Portland and spend the night, or head to the coast and rent a cabin on the water. It's not tourist season yet."
"I want to look for that document."
"Sometimes the harder you push at something, the more it resists. Some time away might help us see things in a different light."
"I can't leave Bear."
"We'll find someplace that allows animals. Come on, it'll be fun. We'll bring Bear and the journals, and we'll read until our eyeballs fall out."
"It won't work, you know," she said, smiling up at him. "You're not going to seduce me into marrying you."
Ethan gave her his best innocent look and covered his heart with his hand. "On my honor, Segee, I would never use sex to get what I want."
She snorted, then gave him an assessing look. "We'll only be gone one night?"
"We'll be back tomorrow by sunset," he promised. "Unless you're having such a good time that you want to stay another night. It'll be your call."
She looked around the mill camp, then back at him. "And we'll bring the journals?"
He nodded.
"Can we take my truck? It's got satellite radio and navigation."
He grabbed her hand before she could change her mind and headed toward the house. "If you want. Sarah found your purse and coat at the dance, and Alex drove your truck to Loon Cove last night. We'll swap vehicles on our way."
She pulled her hand free and ran ahead of him, clearly warming up to the idea. "You pack Bear some food and gather up the journals. I'll pack us some clothes," she said, running up the front steps and into the house.
Ethan followed at a more leisurely pace, shoving his hands in his pockets and whistling a happy tune. This was definitely a promising turn of events.
"I can't find my pajamas!" she called down as he entered the house. "I know I left them right here when I got dressed," she said, stepping into the hall to look down the stairs at him.
He shrugged. "I wasn't wearing them. Just pack one of your nighties."
"No matter," she said, disappearing back into the bedroom. "I've got another pair in my bureau."
Well, damn.
Chapter Nineteen
They arrived at Loon Cove Lumber just as the last of several fire trucks went speeding into the mill. Ethan pulled up outside the gate and parked well out of the way, and Anna was out of the truck before he even shut the engine off. She ran toward the man who appeared to be the fire chief, shouting orders as he stood upwind of the black smoke billowing out the windows of the saw building.
"You need to start watering down the sawdust pile so we can bucket it away from the building," she told him as she looked for Keith amid the swarming chaos of men. "If we try to move it dry, the dust will combust."
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, taking hold of her arm and trying to turn her away.
Anna stood firm. "I'm the foreman here, and I've fought several mill fires in Quebec. How many have you dealt with?"
He let go. "None," he admitted, and looked toward the saw shed. "The point of origin seems to be the saw itself, according to what your crew told me."
"I'll use our excavator to punch a whole in the roof to vent it," she said, still looking for Keith as she spoke. She finally saw him talking with Ethan and Alex as they headed toward her, their faces lit by the flames shooting out the central windows of the long and narrow saw shed. She looked back at the chief. "You need to set up your largest hoses at each end of the building and keep pushing the fire toward the center. Once I get it vented, it'll go up instead of spreading out and will eventually suffocate itself."
He grabbed her arm when she turned away. "We'll vent the roof," he said, again trying to push her toward the office.
She shrugged free. "It's not safe to place men on the roof, but I can punch a hole in it with the excavator."
"My crew will— "
A sudden explosion sent flames and fumes out through the windows and both ends of the building. "Get those hoses going!" she yelled, running toward Keith and Alex and Ethan.
"Keith, switch the loader forks to the bucket, and as soon as they get that sawdust pile watered down, start pushing it away from the building. But keep an eye on what's happening around you. If the fire gets too close, get out of there. Ethan," she shouted over the noise, "there's a hydrant that runs to the river beside the machine shed and three diesel-powered water pumps inside. Get the men to start watering down the buildings and all the rows of timber. They know where the other hydrants are. Alex, you put a couple of men in pulp loaders and start moving the timber you were going to saw today."
Keith leapt into action, but Alex and Ethan stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.
"I've fought fires at our own mills, and I can tell you that if we don't get going, every inch of this property will go up in flames. Let's go!" she yelled, giving Ethan a nudge.
He held his ground. "What are you going to do?" he shouted.
"Vent that roof!" she told him, running to the excavator.
He caught up with her within three strides and swung her around to face him. "You go start the water pumps. I'll vent the roof."
Anna thought about arguing, but it would only slow things down. "Okay," she said. "Just get in close enough to drop the boom through the roof to make a hole, then get the hell back out of there fast."
"Yes, ma'am." He ran for the excavator.
Anna watched him climb into the big machine, then ran to join several of the crew who already had the pumps hooked up to the first of three hydrants. "Okay, guys," she shouted. "We've practiced this enough that you can do it in your sleep. Hose down everything and watch your backs. There's a mess of equipment working here. Mills can be rebuilt; bodies can't."
"You got it, boss lady," they said to a man, grinning broadly as they scrambled into action.
Anna ran nonstop for the next five hours, going from team to team to see how they were holding up, while keeping an eye on Ethan to make sure he didn't slip into his knight's armor and rush to the rescue of someone. Once the fire chief realized that her plan to contain the fire to the saw building was actually working, he started consulting her on each step of their hard-fought battle.
"You're going to have to leave a truck and crew here for the night," she told the chief, sitting down on a stack of wet lumber for the first time in hours. She wiped her face with the tail of her shirt. "And we'll leave several of our own crew to help you. Mill fires are more stubborn than most, and you'll discover hot spots you thought were completely dead. We'll keep our equipment standing by to tear apart the timber and sawdust piles, in case they're still smoldering inside." She tiredly shook her head. "I've seen spots flare up five and six days after we thought we'd gotten all the embers extinguished."
"You're beat, Segee," Ethan said, plopping down on the stack of lumber beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to lean against him. "God, you stink. Go home. I'll stay and help the crew."
A large group of dirty, exhausted men started to gather around them, and Anna tried to move away from Ethan. But he just hauled her back against his side, grinning down at her from his blackened face and giving her a wink that said he knew
"There's a ton of food set out in the office," Sarah Knight said as she approached with her two children.
"And there's cake," Tucker added, staring wide-eyed at all the dirty men.
Anna stood up, effectively shedding Ethan. "I'm starved," she said, heading for the office.
Delaney fell into step beside her. "You sure looked pretty Saturday night," she told Anna. "Are you really going to marry Uncle Ethan?"
"I'm really not," Anna said, softening her words with a lopsided smile at the girl. "Ethan just said that to protect me."
"From what?"
"Old rumors and town gossip."
"Uncle Ethan's lonely."
"Really?" Anna said, stopping outside the office door. "What makes you say that?"
"He hardly ever goes out on dates, and he's so serious all the time. He needs to find a girlfriend who makes him laugh. Someone like you."
"I think I make him crazy," Anna said, herself laughing. "And you may have loneliness mixed up with plain old grumpiness."
"But that's just it. Since he's been living at Fox Run, he seems happier. He laughs more, too, when he comes home to visit." Delaney got a twinkle in her eye as she smiled up at Anna. "I think he really likes you, but just doesn't know how to say so." She scrunched up her face. "But he never took his eyes off you all Saturday night."
"That's because he'd never seen me in a dress before," Anna said, opening the door and going inside.
"But couldn't you just think about marrying him?" Delaney asked, leading her over to the table laden with food. She leaned in close to whisper, so the women setting out food wouldn't hear. "At least go on some dates with him. I know you could fall in love with Uncle Ethan if you tried."
Anna also leaned down to whisper. "Can you keep a secret?"
Delaney nodded.
"Ethan and I were headed out on a date today when we saw the fire. Would you go out to your uncle's truck and get Bear for me?" she asked as she straightened. "He's been stuck in there for hours. You could bring him in and give him some water."
"Sure," Delaney said, her face brightening with the news that Anna was dating her uncle.
"You, young woman, are enough to make an old man cry, dancing with me one day and saving my mill the next," Grady Knight said as he came up and pulled her into a bear of a hug. "Thank you, Anna," he said, stepping back. "We know how to fight forest fires, but not mill fires."
"They can be stubborn."
"Do you have any idea how it could have started?" he asked, just as Paul and Alex and Ethan came over, looking exhausted and covered head to toe in soot.
Anna shook her head. "Everything in this mill was completely up to code, and that saw shed has a foam extinguishing system. A fire shouldn't have lasted more than two minutes once that system kicked in, and it certainly shouldn't have spread that quickly. Tom Bishop had all the equipment inspected just before you took over."
"Could it have been deliberately set?" Clay Porter asked, walking over and handing Anna a plate of food. He was also covered in soot from his hair to his boots, his shirt torn and his pants wet up to the knees.
"You think someone started the fire on purpose?" Anna asked.
Clay looked over at Ethan, and ignoring his scowl, said, "I was headed to Jackman early this morning to look at a used tree harvester when I noticed a pickup parked off the road beside your northern fence line." He glanced over at Anna and smiled. "And since I've gotten in the habit of checking for birdshot dents, I stopped to look at the truck's tailgate. It had a bunch of tiny pings in it."
"Did you get the plate number?" Ethan asked.
Clay reached in his shirt pocket and produced what looked like a page torn out of a classified ad magazine. "I wrote it down. It was a dark blue Ford pickup, maybe six or seven years old. Straight cab, missing the right outside mirror, and it had a cracked rear window."
"I'll give this to Tate," Ethan said, taking the paper with a nod of thanks. "Did you see anyone hanging around or hear anything unusual this morning?"
"I thought I heard a light tapping from someplace inside the mill, but it lasted only a few seconds and was sort of muffled, so I can't be sure." He handed Anna the cup of punch he'd been holding, and she washed down the sandwich she'd all but inhaled.
Clay looked back at Ethan. "I'm wondering if someone tampered with your extinguisher and set the fire to go off when you started up the saw this morning. The state fire marshal should be able to figure out what happened." He nodded at Anna. "Nice seeing you again, Anna. And my offer still stands," he added with a wink before giving his attention back to the men. "Grady, gentlemen," he said, also nodding to them. "I hate like hell to think we have an arsonist around. Hope that plate number helps," he finished, turning and leaving.
"What offer?" Ethan growled.
Anna swallowed the last of her second sandwich. "Twice what you were paying me to help him build a lumber mill from the ground up." She picked up the cupcake Clay had thoughtfully added to her plate. "And his promise not to fire me for saving a dog. I'm heading home, soaking in a tub of steaming water, and going to bed." She looked Ethan square in the eye. "Your crew gets a whole week's wages for today," she added, then popped the cupcake in her mouth and left.
* * *
"Ronald Briggs? You're sure?" Ethan said.
John Tate tossed his radio mike on the seat of his cruiser. "That's who they said the pickup is registered to. So tell me why you look like you've just seen a ghost."
"Ron Briggs was one of the boys who attacked Anna down at the lake eighteen years ago."
"From which all three of them walked away without so much as a slap on the wrist. I've always wondered why Samuel or Madeline never pressed charges against those boys. But that wouldn't have anything to do with what happened here today," John pointed out. "Briggs will do anything for a price. If he did set the fire, it's because somebody paid him."
"But Clay said Briggs's tailgate was peppered with birdshot, which means he was one of the men Anna shot at that night."
"That only implies that we're probably right: that Frank Coots may have hired a couple of locals to do his dirty work."
"Then why torch my mill?"
John rubbed his jaw. "To redirect your attention, maybe? You've been spending a lot of time at Fox Run lately. It's hard to search a place if someone's always hanging around."
Ethan snorted. "They didn't need to burn down my mill. They could have had Fox Run all to themselves for the next two days. Anna and I were just heading down to the coast."
John laid a hand on Ethan's shoulder. "You only lost the saw building."
"And both saws."
"So you and Anna were heading off together, huh?" John shook his head. "Even covered in soot, she looked a hell of a lot better today than when you carried her off that dance floor Saturday night."
"I'm still a long way from getting her to marry me."
John lifted a brow in surprise. "You mean that wasn't just a ruse? You're really planning on marrying her?"
"I'm going to try." Ethan suddenly stiffened. "My God, if the fire was a distraction, Briggs could be at Fox Run right now. And Anna went home half an hour ago!"
"So whose truck was it?" Alex asked as he strode up, along with Grady and Paul.
"Ron Briggs's," Ethan said, grabbing Alex's arm and turning him toward the parking lot. "And we think he may have torched our mill to cause a distraction so he could search Fox Run. And Anna's there all alone," he explained to his brothers and father as they ran to his truck. "We need to get out there now!"
"I'll lead the way," John shouted to them as he climbed in his cruiser. "Stay behind me."
Alex and Paul climbed in Ethan's truck, and Ethan turned to his dad. "Somebody's got to stay here with the crew," he said.
Grady nodded. "I'll stay. You boys just be careful."
"We will," Ethan promised, climbing in and starting the engine. He pulled onto the main road right behind John, who immediately turned on his siren and flashing lights as they sped toward Fox Run.
"Dammit!" Ethan growled, hitting the steering wheel. "She's been there alone for over half an hour!"
"She's a smart girl," Alex offered. "She'll find someplace to hide if Briggs is snooping around."
Ethan shot his brother a quick glare, then looked back at the road. "You're talking about the woman who went after them with a shotgun. Damn, I hid it under the couch!"
"Why?" Paul asked in surprise.
"So she'd quit shooting at people!"
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