She pushed open the stall door, trying not to swing the pail in her hands. The smell persisted. It increased with each passing moment, the pungent scent reminding her of a fireplace.
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. The aisle was completely normal, but the animals in the barn grew restless. Horses bucked wildly in their stalls. More sounds accompanied the animals’ vocal fear. A crackling noise struck behind her, and sudden whooshes of air accompanied the sound of a blaze building. Evelyn gulped.
Smoke. The smell was smoke.
The metal pail clanged to the floor, white milk spilling across the hay in all directions. Her hands lay slack at her sides, ignoring the bucket rolling on the ground in front of her.
“Fire!” she screamed.
• • •
Jesse matched Mr. Lancaster’s slow stride across the cleared dirt road. “I cannot thank you enough for working as a ranch hand at Breighton for free. Of course I’ll get you your cut of the profit, but I do appreciate your help,” the old man said grudgingly. Jesse could tell every word cost his new business partner another piece of his soul.
Jesse waved his hand and stepped forward. The chill of the air made him fold his hands across his chest to conserve heat. “I grew up on this ranch, Mr. Lancaster. Can’t see it fall apart.”
“Even so.” Mr. Lancaster stopped walking as soon as they reached the fences. He rested his hand against the post for support before they continued back toward the house. “You’ll see your first profit payment when . . .” Suddenly, his lips parted, and his widened eyes flickered from Jesse to something behind him.
Jesse leaned forward, waiting for the rest of the sentence. “Everything all right, Mr. Lancaster?”
“Good Lord!” His eyes filled with terror. “The barn!”
Jesse whipped his head around.
One side of the barn was ablaze, while ranch hands gathered outside to try to contain the fire. A line had formed from the well, and desperate pails of water were passed along to put out the rising blaze. Most fearsome was the thick smoke drifting from the entrance of the barn. It permeated everywhere, causing the cowboys closest to the blaze to lift their shirts over their mouths to guard against the fiery air.
Someone had raced inside long enough to let the animals out of their stalls, because nearly all the cows were clustered outside the barn. Several of the horses bucked wildly as smoke filled the air, whinnying as cowboys barely hung onto the reins of the animals to keep them from escaping. Other cowboys rounded up the frightened cattle that had been scared enough to break out of the herd.
Jesse raced forward.
Denny, the youngest ranch hand, was at the center of a group of cowboys. Someone was trying to calm him down, but he just kept shaking his head no matter what the boys said to him.
He flinched as Jesse grabbed his shirt lapels, yanking him into the air.
“What happened? What started the fire?”
“It was . . . it was my fault.” Denny sniffed and shuddered. His eyes were wide in fear. “I was so mad that Miss had caught me smoking, I thought I’d just leave my cigarette in the hay and let her stamp it out for me . . .”
Jesse’s stomach plummeted. “Miss? Miss who?”
He stopped sniffling to look up in confusion. “Why, Miss Lancaster, of course.” He gasped.
“God, she’s still in there! Miss Lancaster’s still in that barn!”
Dread filled the pit of his gut as his worst fear was confirmed. Jesse spun around to take in the sight of the burning building. The blaze was probably worse inside. A whooshing sound echoed through his ears as flames fanned into the evening air.
He scanned the crowd around him and cursed beneath his breath. No sign of Evelyn anywhere. There was no way she would be cooped up in the house when her barn was burning. The animals had been moved to safety, but she had been left inside.
Without ceremony, Jesse dropped Denny. The ranch hand fell to the ground with a whimper. Jesse felt nothing but disgust toward him. He ran from Denny to the front of the water bucket brigade. The ranch hands seemed to be making at least slow progress toward putting out the blaze, but it wouldn’t be enough to save anyone inside. Anything inside would be burned to a crisp.
Jesse gritted his teeth. Or anyone.
His body snapped back as another pair of hands grabbed him. He attempted to shrug off the hands, but the person holding onto him had a firm grip. His attacker turned Jesse around and placed both hands onto his shoulders.
A familiar voice growled at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I have to get inside the barn!”
“Oh no, you ain’t. You can’t go in there!” Fieldings, the oldest ranch hand, scowled at Jesse. “Not if you want to live, Greenwood. Help the men from outside.”
He pushed Fieldings off, who staggered back. “Evelyn Lancaster is still in that barn!”
Fieldings grabbed Jesse by the neck of his shirt and glared. “Trying to get yourself killed?” he asked. “Look here, I want Miss Lancaster saved as much as anyone. But we don’t want to lose two lives today instead of one. Ain’t no glory in that, Greenwood. Save yourself and the barn and the animals first, then we’ll get Miss Lancaster.”
Jesse recoiled and shoved the man’s hands off his shirt. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let her die. He raced toward the entrance of the barn as his mind registered the protests of the men from outside. Jesse pushed open the barn door and jumped inside. As soon as he entered, he pulled up his wool shirt to cover his mouth and nose against the fumes. The large barn door swung shut behind him, as if trapping him to confirm the consequences of his perilous choice. No time to think twice. Pure instinct drove his body forward further toward the flames.
Smoke filled every crevice of the building. The gray cloud permeated the outside air as well, but with the concentration of the wooden slats surrounding all sides of the barn, the effect was even more disorienting and daunting inside. He could barely see the stalls around him and rafters above him. The cloud of smoke was too dense to make out anything except blurred outlines and vivid flames.
While the fire seemed contained to only one side from the front, inside the barn was a different story. Smoke began to filter through his fabric. He coughed as he inspected the damage. Orange and yellow waves danced across his line of vision. Crackling flames licked every corner. Colors merged to create an even more confusing path in front of him.
Some of the stalls had already burned down, and he could no longer make out the aisle inside the barn. There was only fire and dry ground. The only constant was the cloud of grey vapor covering every visible nook and cranny.
“Evelyn!” he yelled, and then covered his mouth and nose again.
No response.
His coughing doubled as the persistent smoke still found a way through the material to settle in his lungs. He looked up. Several of the beams holding the barn together had caught ablaze. The rafters were not just on fire; they were drooping, the blaze eroding away the shaky beams that held them.
He ran forward before a beam could cut off his path and start another blaze. Another beam fell where he had previously stood right as he jumped out of the way. He swore under his breath. The burning beam narrowly missed the entrance, if he was making out the shape of the wood against the smoke correctly. It would be a matter of only minutes until the blaze blocked the entryway as well.
He leaped over the patches of blazing hay to avoid the remaining stalls covered in flames. Really, the whole place was nothing more than a roaring fireplace. His heart sank. If Evelyn had been unconscious in one of those stalls, there was no way she could survive.
“Eve!” he roared. He barely heard his own voice over the sound of the flames, much less any other noise.
The farther he went inside the barn, the harder it would be to get out. Still, there was no sign of her. He walked forward again, narrowing his eyes to focus against the smoke for any shape of life.
He heard coughing agai
n, but this time Jesse knew it wasn’t his. The coughing grew louder, and he stepped toward the source of the sound.
A figure stumbled forward around a corner and into his path, supporting its weight on only one foot. A figure with long, dark hair.
“Evelyn!”
She looked up. Her brow furrowed. While she opened her mouth to respond, coughing came out instead. She clutched her hand over her mouth. Then she tripped over the end of a beam and fell forward, her knees slamming against the ground.
Pushing through the cloud of smoke, Jesse darted forward, dodging another falling beam as he hurried toward the figure.
Her body lay crumpled on the floor, completely unconscious and thus unaware of the blaze at the end of the beam coming closer to her. He lifted her up just as the end of the beam transformed to flames, morphing the previously harmless wood into a deadly obstacle.
Her eyes fluttered open for only a second. He could barely make out her wheezing gasps through the sounds of the blaze.
Her red cotton dress was torn from her fall, the hem now dragging on the ground. He ripped away the fire hazard and chucked the unnecessary fabric to the ground before picking Evelyn up, bridal style, and carrying her toward the rapidly deteriorating entrance.
With his hands occupied, Jesse tried his best not to breathe the deadly air around him. But he couldn’t stop the desperate coughing from starting again as smoke burned the length of his throat. He felt like someone was setting him on fire from within his own body as he struggled to remain upright and grounded on a path to the door.
The first beam that fell nearly covered the entire entrance of the barn, but he could see some of the flames at the end of the wall were reduced. The fire had removed the entrance door. Checking to see if his next step was straight into a burning wooden post, he narrowed his eyes against the vapor clouding his vision and stepped over the end of a beam. The path was clear. Swinging her in his arms, he ran.
Bright light filled his vision, and his lungs gasped in the fresh air to flush out the smoke. Flames no longer danced in front of his eyes. He’d never been happier to see so much dry dirt in front of him.
He set Evelyn’s limp body down until her feet touched the ground. Her head bobbed to the side, her eyes shut and face covered in soot. Her dress was even more damaged than he’d realized in the barn, and he couldn’t tell if the dress merely looked darker in some areas or if the stains were blood.
“I think she’s hurt,” he rasped to the maid who met him. Even with the outside air rushing into his lungs, his throat felt covered in ash. “Be careful.”
The maid, Irene, nodded. She carried her in the direction of the big house. His heart lurched as he watched her limp body being hurried toward the house and away from him. He wanted to carry her to her room; he needed to see if she would wake up.
He started after the maid, but Fieldings grabbed him again. His familiar bark made Jesse clench his fists. “You can see her later! We need to stop this blaze!”
Jesse scowled but turned away from Evelyn and back to helping the ranch hands. He joined the line in digging dirt trenches to fight the fire from spreading. Slowly but surely, the blaze began to die. The red and orange glow licked at the corners of the end of the barn. The ranch hands stood back and let the barn collapse.
Afterward, the cowboys stood in silence in front of the smoldering ashes. Their victory at saving the livestock felt hollow—they were staring at months of work to rebuild. Mr. Lancaster gave commands to build a temporary corral for the dairy cows in the morning.
He ordered Jesse and some of the other cowboys to fetch several of the horses that had managed to bolt from the barn. Jesse found two of the mustangs and trotted them back to the temporary coral where they would stay for the night. The entire time, his mind was occupied with Evelyn’s condition. Was she still unconscious?
He kept his eyes fixed on the house through most of his chores. There was a lantern light in her window—surely that was a good sign. As soon as the men finished erecting a basic skeleton of the corral, Fieldings allowed all the ranch hands to retire for the night. While the other men sneaked away to the cookhouse for a second supper, Jesse headed back to the big house.
The porch door creaked open as he stepped inside. He heard hushed voices from down the hall, where her room was. His heart thudded inside his chest, afraid of what the voices were saying about her fate. The image of her unconscious body, covered in ash, filled his mind. He stopped at her doorway, taking in the sight before him.
A doctor dabbed Evelyn’s forehead with a wet cloth. Her eyes were shut, her pale cheeks matching the same shade of the white pillowcase behind her head. All the soot and dirt had been wiped off, but he couldn’t see her chest rise and fall from breathing. Mr. Lancaster was standing over his daughter and the doctor, shaking his head.
“No!” Jesse yelled, rushing to her bed and kneeling down. The room started to spin. Surely she couldn’t be—
He buried the thought, afraid to even put words to the dread.
“What’s happening, doc?”
Mr. Lancaster answered instead. “It could’ve been so much worse.”
“What do you mean?” His insides clenched.
His former boss’s voice was low and reassuring. “Some burns here and there, and a sprained ankle. But otherwise she’s going to be all right.”
Jesse felt his shoulders slouch, the tenseness of his muscles slowly evaporating.
The doctor nodded in agreement. He set the washcloth down into a basin filled with water on the nightstand. “The burns won’t fade, but there’s no internal or physical damage that can’t be fixed with some bed rest.” The white-haired man wagged his finger at Mr. Lancaster. “No strenuous activity for several weeks until the ankle heals. Preventive measures. Then she’ll be just fine.”
Relief swelled inside his chest. He wanted to embrace the doctor. Heck, he would kiss the man, the wonderful man who told him that she was going to be just fine.
He leaned closer to her. Upon closer inspection, her expression looked peaceful. Her thick and full lashes lay pressed upon her skin, contrasting with the cool pallor of her cheeks. Her mouth spread out in a serene line, as if in the middle of a wonderful dream. He felt like someone had just lifted a boulder off his chest.
She was going to be all right.
“You saved her life, Jesse.” Mr. Lancaster’s voice sounded far away, so far removed from the vision of her sleeping before him. “I cannot thank you enough.”
He didn’t need thanks. He had all the gratitude he needed: Evelyn sleeping soundly in bed, safe and secure against the flames that had threatened to take her away from the world—from him.
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
• • •
The sound of a rooster crowing caused Evelyn’s eyelids to flutter open. As sunlight streamed through the window, the darkness of dreams melted away, and the sudden bright, blinding light filtering through her lids made her wince. The last thing she remembered was the barn being full of smoke and tripping over a fallen beam—and then Jesse had saved her. Or, at least, she thought so. She’d barely been able to see anything through that smoke.
A shadow fell across her face, the shape of a man near her bed. There was a terrible pain from somewhere on her leg, but the pain was momentarily forgotten as her heart soared at the thought of who stood next to her.
“Is that you?” Evelyn smiled at the profile. Jesse had come to see her. He’d saved her from the fire! Surely that was a sign that he cared for her. He was here to see her rest and get better; he was here to confess to the letters and his feelings for her.
“Yes, it is.”
Her heart ran cold. The voice wasn’t Jesse’s at all. As her eyes adjusted to the light and she discovered who the figure was, her heart sank.
“John Cooper.” Her tone was flat. “What are you doing here?”
His handsome features lit up when she said his name. John lifted off his hat an
d smiled down at Evelyn. She hated to admit it was a genuine smile, albeit a proud one. Unlike her other suitors, he actually cared about her, rather than simply her ranch.
“I rode here as soon as I heard you were hurt. I’m glad to see you recovering.”
She sighed. It was hard to dislike a suitor who was so earnest. “Thank you, but as you can see, I am perfectly well . . .” She tried to swing her legs over the side of her bed, but a sharp, searing pain caused her to gasp and remain still.
John knelt down. With a soft push, he leaned her back against the pillows. “Mr. Lancaster told me you twisted your ankle. He says you need rest.”
No use in attempting to escape, then. She pulled the upper half of her body against the headboard until she was sitting upright. Where was Jesse?
“Do you know the extent of the damage to the ranch?” She grimaced. She only hoped the fire was contained to the barn. Another set of added expenses, another wave of more ranch hands needed.
“It collapsed. Your father said there was nothing to be done.”
She drew a quick intake of breath. Nothing to be done. “My father is resting, right?”
“No, actually . . .” John gave her a sideways glance. It was odd to see such a proud man look bashful, and his next words were spoken in a hesitating way. “Your father and the other ranch hands are needed to do the chores while some of the others repair the barn. I volunteered to take care of you.”
Just wonderful. She suppressed the groan rising in her chest. “I assure you, I will be fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Your swollen ankle doesn’t seem to say so.” John pointed to her leg. He dragged forward an oak chair resting against the wall closest to her, the chair legs scraping against the oak floor. He sat down, and she literally couldn’t bring herself to scoot away.
“I thought you might like some company.”
“I think all I need to pass the time is a nice book, really. Could you please fetch me one of my books from the library across the hall?”
After he had left the room, she glared at her treacherous ankle.
Texas Temptation Page 137
