12-Alarm Cowboys

by Cora Seton

  She had to believe her sister was all right. That she was free at last from everything that had ever gone wrong for them here.

  Because otherwise all she’d done was for nothing. All the years she’d sacrificed would be meaningless. Chris Price, a drop-out closer to Netta’s age than hers, had been waiting for her at her family’s run-down house on the edge of town when she got back hours later. He’d stepped out from the shadows under tree at the corner of the yard and crossed the grass to meet her at the front steps. She’d never been free from him since.

  He’d seen what Netta did. Knew exactly how to use the information to his advantage. He laid out the rules of their relationship right then and there. They’d date for a month. Get engaged and married soon after. She would provide for his every need. Brynn balked when he’d lowered his head to hers and tried to kiss her, and after a few clumsy scuffles, Chris agreed that her providing for his almost every need was good enough. He wanted a meal-ticket more than a warm body in his bed. But if she wouldn’t put out, she couldn’t complain if other women did.

  Brynn agreed, and the noose of Chris’s demands tightened around her neck. She’d understood during those fifteen minutes on her front lawn that in saving Netta, she’d given up her own life. She’d quit school only a month before graduation, increased her hours at the Chance Creek Market to more than full time. Gave up her dreams.

  It was worth it.

  It had to be.

  It was Adam who’d saved her from despair during those first few weeks and given her the strength to go through with a wedding that no one could understand or celebrate, and he didn’t even know it. She overheard him talking with the other firefighters one day when they all came through her line at the checkout counter. By then, the fire at the Five and Dime had been determined to be arson, but the perpetrator hadn’t been found.

  “The police will find him in the end,” Jacob had said. “They always do.”

  Her heart had squeezed in fear.

  “Unless he keeps running until the statute of limitations is up,” Adam pointed out. She had a feeling he was trying to sound smart in front of her. He didn’t have to try. Already caught in Chris’s snares, she longed to tell Adam everything and ask for his help. She knew he’d do whatever he could.

  It wouldn’t be enough, though. Netta would be caught and go to jail.

  “Statute of limitations, my ass,” Jacob had said. “They’ll catch him by the end of the month.”

  But they hadn’t. She’d gone home from work that night and looked up the statute of limitations for arson, and nearly wept with relief when she discovered it was only five years. Five years—she could do anything for five years, even marry stupid Chris Price.

  She kept working at the market. Kept living for the days when Adam came through her line, and listening in on his conversations with his friends when he did. Kept shrugging when anyone asked about her sister and telling them that Netta was happy in her new life.

  She’d done it. Lived like a slave for four years and 358 days. Only seven more to go.

  So why had Chris decided to go back on his word now?

  She placed an unopened bottle of whiskey on the counter. “This is for the weekend. Don’t touch it while I’m gone.”

  “Gone where?” He appeared in the doorway again.

  “To get your supper, what do you think?”

  “All right. Just get your ass back here quick.”

  Now that she wouldn’t do. She’d drive as slow as molasses into town to pick up some burgers from the Burger Shack and even slower back again. Meanwhile he’d be all over that bottle like stink on a skunk.

  She hoped.

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  “Bet you a buck you miss.” Two days later Jacob leaned on his pool cue and watched as Adam got ready to take his turn.

  “You’re on.” He leaned down and lined up his shot, pulled his arm back—

  The fire alarm’s shrill clanging split the air. Adam jumped and the cue slipped, knocking the ball sideways.

  “You owe me a buck,” Jacob called as they sprinted for their gear.

  “It’s up at the Price place again,” the chief yelled out of his office. “Probably another grease fire, but answer the call as if it isn’t.”

  Adam didn’t need that particular lecture. Brynn was in danger. He’d get there as quick as he could. Not that she cared.

  Ten minutes later he was facing a furious shapely blonde again.

  “It’s this damn stove. I swear that burner gets too hot.”

  “It couldn’t possibly be your lousy cooking, could it?” Chris spat from the living room. He was far more pissed off than he’d been two days before, and Adam got the feeling the man had been thwarted in something. He just wasn’t sure what. Brynn was agitated, her movements jittery as she tried to set the kitchen to rights.

  “I’m going to look around.” Without waiting for an answer, Adam walked through the house, but all he saw were Chris’s messes and Brynn’s attempts at orderliness. When he completed his tour he found Brynn alone in the kitchen. He could see Chris out front on the porch with the other firefighters. “Brynn, what’s going on with you? Did you and Chris have a fight?”

  “All we do is fight.”

  “Why the hell do you stay with him?” His frustration gave his words an edge.

  “Because I have to!” She bit her lip and turned away.

  Adam stilled. “You have to? Why?” When she didn’t answer he spun her around. “Why, Brynn?”

  “I can’t tell you.” She glanced toward the door. “It won’t be forever.”

  His heart lurched. Was she planning to leave Chris? “How long?”

  Chris strode back through the door. Took in their proximity. Adam realized he’d put Brynn in danger by having this intimate conversation. He bent closer, feigning an anger toward her he wanted to aim at her husband. “You keep your ass in the kitchen when you cook, Brynn! And get that stove looked at. You hear? You’re wasting tax-payers’ money.”

  He stormed out of the house and prayed his trick would work. He couldn’t live with himself if he thought Chris might take his jealousy out on her. It killed him to know Chris would be with her tonight while he was stuck helpless at the station. By all rights he should be married to Brynn and sharing a home with her. He’d been far more loyal to her than Chris had ever been. Adam would admit it was her pretty face that first attracted him when they were young, but it was her pride and determination that had hooked his heart. He’d tracked her down in the library most lunchtimes in high school and even though she wouldn’t flirt with him, let alone date him, she would study with him—as long as he didn’t talk too much. He never won her heart, but he’d brought his grades up higher than they’d ever been while he was chasing her. He had known she wanted to leave Chance Creek and he’d understood why, but it had always bothered him. He wished she could see that Chance Creek was special—as worth fighting for as she was. It wasn’t the town’s fault she’d had it rough; her parents’ drinking was the problem. If she had married him, all that would have changed. Together they could have made Chance Creek a paradise.

  Instead she’d managed to make it a living hell. Adam was determined he’d figure out what was happening up at the Price place. Brynn had told him once he couldn’t save her.

  She was wrong.

  Four more days. She just had to get through four more days. As Brynn gathered her car keys to run to town and fetch another takeout meal, Chris grabbed her arm. “You heard Adam. No more fires, Brynn.”

  “Of course not. I won’t use that burner again until it’s fixed.” She tugged her arm away. “Burgers tonight? Or do you want something different?”

  “You know what I want.” He blocked her way to the door.

  “We agreed up front you weren’t getting that.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Panic filled her, but she pulled herself up to her full height and raised her voice. “I’ve worked all day, I’m
hungry and tired and I want my dinner!” Chris pulled back in surprise. She took advantage of the opening, pushed past him and ran out the door.

  “You hurry back,” Chris yelled after her.

  Like hell she would. Given enough time he’d discover the new whiskey bottle she’d “hidden” behind the cooking oil in the pantry, and he’d be too drunk to carry out his threats by the time she got home. She’d hide another one in plain sight for tomorrow. In fact, she had a better idea. She pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car. She punched the number of one of Chris’s drinking buddies into her cell phone. This call would cost her, but it was worth it if it worked.

  “Danny? It’s Brynn. Yeah, I know I don’t call much. Can you blame me, you old horn-dog? Listen, I need a favor—it’s for Chris. I’ve nearly managed to burn the house down twice in three days. I owe him big time for putting up with my shit. I want to make it up to him. Meet me at the liquor store in a half hour. I’m going to buy you a passel of munchies from the market and a bottle of Black Velvet. You pick up Chris afterward and have yourselves a party, you hear? While you’re gone, I’ll get the house back to rights. It smells like a cigarette factory in there.”

  She played up her country girl twang and awe-shucks hometown persona, knowing it would work like magic on a guy like Danny who’d never been farther from Chance Creek than Billings. She’d buy five or ten bottles of whatever liquor she could afford and enough food to last them for days. With any luck, Chris wouldn’t come home until his time had run out altogether. As she pulled back out onto the road, she wondered what Netta was doing right now. Her older sister would know how to get herself a job and make herself a life; she’d always been resourceful. First she’d babysat, then she’d worked at a kiosk in the mall. By the time she’d graduated from high school she’d been promoted to assistant manager in the Five and Dime store on Main Street. She’d left home when Brynn was still sixteen and moved into an apartment with a couple of friends. That didn’t leave her much money left over, but she’d been slowly saving up to travel to California when trouble hit. “I don’t care what I do there,” she’d told everyone who would listen. “As long as all that sun shines on me I’d shovel shit for a living.”

  So when Brynn packed her on the bus that night she had a fair idea where Netta would end up, and everyone believed her when she told them that Netta had finally saved up enough cash to make her dream come true. Nearly twenty years old when she took off, Netta couldn’t be classified as a missing person, and Brynn knew their parents wouldn’t go after her. She had lied through her teeth to the police, claiming Netta had left town in the afternoon—long before the fire was started. She knew Henry Delaford, the owner of the Five and Dime, would never spill the beans. He wouldn’t want anyone to know where Netta had really been.

  “Good for her,” their mother said when Brynn broke the news the next morning. “She saw her chance and she took it.” Brynn caught her unspoken words. I didn’t, and see where I ended up.

  As the months slipped by and Netta didn’t write or phone, her parents grew worried and then angry, but it was too easy for Brynn to convince them Netta had turned her back on her family.

  “She always thought she was too good for us,” her father said. “She’ll realize someday we did our best. Then she’ll come back.”

  Brynn’s heart ached for all of them.

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  “No more trouble at the Price place?” Adam asked Chief Brookings when he came on duty late Tuesday afternoon.

  Ed shook his head. “Quiet so far, but if the pattern holds we’ll get a call there tonight. What do you think she’s trying to tell us with those smoke signals of hers?”

  “I don’t know, but I mean to find out. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” Ed leaned against the doorjamb to his office. A large, balding man, he’d worked at the station for over thirty years.

  “Why do you think Brynn married Chris?”

  Ed made a face. “To get away from that family of hers?”

  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

  “Something like that. Of course, the question isn’t why she married him. The question is, why does she stay?”

  “I asked her that myself the other day. She said she wasn’t staying long.”

  Ed pursed his lips. “When do you think she means to fly the coop?”

  Adam thought about that. Recalled the blue splotch on her calendar. “Thursday.”

  “Thursday?” Ed’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s pretty specific.” He grew thoughtful. “You don’t think she’s practicing to roast him alive, do you?”

  “I don’t think that’s Brynn’s style.” She was planning something, though. Adam wished he knew what. He wished she trusted him enough to tell him. Hadn’t he earned that by being here for her all this time—even after she’d married a man she clearly didn’t love?

  It struck him again how strange it was that Brynn had married Chris. They’d barely dated before announcing their wedding plans and everyone Adam knew had assumed they’d announce a pregnancy before long. No announcement came. Adam had gone from shocked to devastated to furious and had launched a relationship with Carol Freece that crashed and burned six months later. Meanwhile, Brynn and Chris seemed stuck in a holding pattern. Brynn—who should have headed to college—never progressed beyond her checkout clerk job. She’d never even been promoted to assistant manager. He’d discounted a rumor he’d heard once that she’d been offered promotions plenty of times and had turned them all down. He couldn’t believe such a thing, but now he wondered.

  Chris hadn’t done much of anything. His parents had died in an accident when he was a junior in high school, but that didn’t seem to bother him much. He’d dropped out of school and kept on living in the house they’d left him. Once Brynn had moved in and started taking care of all the bills, he acted as if he was still a teenager. As far as Adam knew, Chris worked out at the gym, hung out with his friends, and partied as much as he could—just like he had back in eleventh grade. Adam didn’t understand why Brynn hadn’t left him long ago.

  It was nearly seven-thirty before the alarm rang through the fire hall and Ed announced the call was to Brynn’s place.

  “Bonfire’s gotten out of control,” he said. Adam was already halfway to the truck. With him came the rest of the crew—Jacob, Daniel Wallace, Ryan Miller, Eli King and Owen Green. He’d worked with these guys for years now; they were his second family. They bickered sometimes, scuffled now and then, but he’d trust his life with any of them and he knew they’d trust theirs with him. He hoped they weren’t growing tired of these calls to Brynn’s. She wouldn’t pull pranks for nothing. She needed them there, even if it wasn’t to put out a fire.

  “Once the fire’s under control, I want you to keep Brynn and Chris outside for a few minutes, okay?” he said to Jacob. The tall blond nodded.

  “Sure thing. Whatever it takes. You think Brynn’s in some kind of trouble?”

  “I think she’s been in trouble for years.”

  It had been a dry spring, so it hadn’t been hard to tip a couple of logs out of the bonfire she’d built and set her lawn on fire. It helped that she’d stacked a pile of even drier wood nearby and doused it with lighter fluid. Chris had shown up this morning hung over and sullen and she’d thought she’d be safe for another day, but by the time she got off work and came home with a couple of marinated steaks he was awake and itching for a fight.

  Or itching to get his hands on her.

  She’d held him off while she built up the fire and put the grate over it. Thank goodness they didn’t own a gas grill, or her improvised plan wouldn’t have worked. She kept adding stick after stick of wood, grateful Chris had elected to stay inside and watch television while she cooked. When the blaze was high enough, she accidently kicked a burning log onto the grass. The dry lawn caught fire quickly, aided by a trail of kerosene. As she watched the wooden post that held her clothes line
catch ablaze, she heard the sound of the fire trucks on their way. Mrs. McConnelly, whose backyard bordered theirs, must have seen the flames and called it in.

  This fire was fairly impressive, if she did say so herself.

  “Thank you, Mrs. McConnelly,” she said beneath her breath. The slider door to the kitchen banged open.

  “For God’s sake, Brynn—you trying to burn down the whole neighborhood?” Chris ran past her and began to stomp out the fire with his foot.

  “A log fell and it got away from me.” She wondered if Chris bought her dumb act. After nearly five years she was beginning to buy it herself. If she got through this—when she got through this—she wondered if she’d ever be able to find the Brynn she used to be, or if that incarnation of her personality was gone forever.

  As the firemen jogged around the house with their equipment and started to put the fire out, she searched among them for Adam. The only bright spot in this whole mess was how much she’d gotten to see him this week.

  Two more days. Two little, short days. She could do this.

  Where was Adam?

  She tapped the shoulder of the nearest crew member. “Ryan? You seen Adam anywhere?”

  Jacob stepped up, his picture-pretty good looks nearly blinding her. “Hey, Brynn. I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages. You ever hear from that sister of yours? I always wondered if she got her wish and made it to California.”

  “She did, as a matter of fact. She loves it there.” Her heart sped up as she wondered if Jacob’s mention of Netta was purely coincidence or something more.

  “You two keep in touch, then?”

  She glanced around her. Why wasn’t Adam here lecturing her about fire prevention? “Not often. We were never close.” A downright lie.

  “What’s she doing out there?”

  “Waitressing. Like she always said: it ain’t about the work, it’s about the sunshine.”

  “Lots of sunshine in California.” Every time she moved to pass him, Jacob stepped in her way. Brynn narrowed her eyes. Was he keeping her away from the house? Why?