A Ranching Man

by Linda Turner

  Chewing on her bottom lip, she stared at the glow of the fire on the horizon and knew she had to do something. If Joe didn’t want her to help fight the fire, she could respect that—she wouldn’t know where to begin, anyway. But the volunteers would be tired and hungry when they finally got the fire under control, and she could at least make them something to eat and drink and have it there waiting for them when they needed it. She would get the guard to help her and they’d take everything in her car.

  Relieved that she’d finally come up with a way to contribute, she whirled from the window. She had to get dressed. And make a list of everything she would need so she wouldn’t forget anything. There was a large ice chest on the top shelf in the laundry room. And she’d check the freezer for sandwich meat—

  Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t see the man who stepped into the bedroom doorway until she was halfway across the room. She looked up and gasped, her heart in her throat. Suddenly he was just there, as if he’d appeared out of nowhere. Dressed all in black, his face smeared with something dark to conceal the paleness of his skin, he had a can of gasoline in his hand and looked like the Devil himself.

  And just that quickly, Angel knew who he was. Her stalker.

  Terrified, she wanted to scream, to run. But he blocked the only exit, and there was no point in screaming for help anyway, not now. The gasoline can told its own story. He’d set the forest fire near Merry’s house to draw everyone on the ranch there. Then, while they were all fighting the fire, he’d somehow found a way to eliminate her guard and Buster—otherwise he would have never gotten into the house. And no one had suspected a thing.

  There was no one to help her, no one to save her but herself. She was alone with her worst nightmare.

  Terrified, she could have easily begged him right then for mercy, but he didn’t know the meaning of the word. And she only had to see the expectation in his cold, soulless eyes to know that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. She’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction.

  Drawing herself up to her full five foot seven inches, she faced him squarely, fearlessly, and never let him know that inside, she was shaking like a leaf. “I don’t know how you got in here or who you are, but you’re not welcome here. Get out!”

  “Without you?” he taunted in a cruel, sinister voice that she had heard far too many times at the other end of her telephone. “I don’t think so. You’re mine.” And with that announcement, he stepped completely into the room.

  Shivers of revulsion skated down her spine, but she didn’t so much as flinch. “You obviously have me confused with someone else. Leave now, or I’ll call the security guard.”

  She was bluffing, of course, and they both knew it. “Go ahead,” he goaded as a slow, evil smile transformed his face into that of a devil. “He can’t help you from the grave.”

  Horrified, she gasped. “You’re lying!” she cried, and desperately wanted to believe it. But he reeked of gasoline. What had he done? Set the poor guard on fire? Dear God, no! “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No one is keeping me from you,” he snarled. “No one! Not a dog or a fat old security guard or a dirty cowboy who doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself. If they all die, you have no one to blame but yourself. You gave yourself to him! Just like a cheap whore!”

  His self-control nearly nonexistent, he shrieked the accusation at her like a madman, but there was no doubting the ring of truth in his words. Shocked, Angel realized that he knew. Somehow, some way, he’d discovered she and Joe were lovers.

  Just the thought of him possibly seeing them, watching them together, made her skin crawl, but she’d be damned if she’d explain herself to him. “What I do or don’t do with Joe is none of your business,” she said coldly. “I’m not yours. I never have been yours. I never will be yours.”

  The minute she said it she knew she was waving a red flag in front of a bull, but she didn’t care. She was tired of living her life in fear because of him, tired of constantly searching for him everywhere she went, tired of dreading the day when she finally came face-to-face with him. That day was here, and by God, she wasn’t going to cower before him!

  And he didn’t like it. He wanted her on her knees before him, begging for mercy. “Bitch!” Screaming at her, he threw the gasoline can in the corner, where it slammed against the wall and fell on its side on the floor. Jarred by the blow, the lid fell off and gasoline silently pooled on the carpet.

  “You’re mine!” he roared. “Do you hear me? You’re mine and no man is ever going to take you away from me again. I’ll make sure of it!” Lightning quick, he stepped toward the corner where the gas can lay and struck a match.

  “No!” Angel screamed, but it was too late. The gasoline caught fire with a horrifying whoosh, and flames raced like quicksilver across the carpet. Before Angel could do anything but gasp with horror, the room was ablaze.

  The heat was like something out of the bowels of hell. Incredibly intense, mind-numbing, so hot it actually singed the air itself. Out of the southwest, a strong dry wind fed the flames, whipping them into a raging inferno that consumed everything it touched. Whole trees, decades old, went up like matchsticks. Even the ground burned.

  His face flushed from the incredible heat, sweat dripping from his brow to blind him, Joe wiped his arm across his stinging eyes and was forced to back up another few steps from the encroaching edge of the fire. All around him, friends and neighbors beat at the flames, trying to stomp them out, but he was afraid they were fighting a losing battle. The fire was too big, too hot, and already out of control. Merry’s house and clinic stood right in the path of the grass fire that spread out from the trees, and if the fire trucks from Spring Falls and the other surrounding communities didn’t arrive soon to help, there wouldn’t be much point in coming. There would be nothing but ashes left by the time they got there.

  His concentration focused on the raging inferno in front of him, he never saw the gust of wind that sent sparks skipping across the dry buffalo grass behind him. Like kindling doused with lighter fluid, it burst into flame, and in the time it took to blink, he was surrounded by a three-foot-wide circle of fire.

  Someone shouted behind him, the sound nearly lost in the roar and crackle of the fire. Blasting heat hit him from all sides. Suddenly realizing his predicament, he spun around sharply, his lungs burning with every breath he took, only to swear. He was trapped.

  “Over here!” Appearing out of the thick smoke that filled the night, Zeke beat a narrow path for him, one that would only last seconds before it was swallowed whole by the fire. “Hurry!”

  He didn’t have to tell him twice. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but throw himself through the wall of flames. Sucking in a searing breath, he felt the shirt on his back catch fire right before he hit the ground clear of the fire.

  “Roll!” Zeke yelled hoarsely, and fell to his knees beside him to pound out the smoldering sparks on his shirt with his bare hands.

  His heart hammering, Joe rolled over the rocky ground, hardly feeling the hot spots that singed his back and arms. Close, he thought, swallowing to force moisture into his parched throat. That was too damn close.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Zeke demanded furiously as he helped him up and pulled him away from the fire. “Trying to cremate yourself?”

  “It’s the damn wind!” he growled, brushing himself off. “It keeps changing directions. Where the hell’s it going to come from next?”

  Scowling, he lifted his face to the dark, swirling wind, only to freeze as his eyes fell on the horizon to the south. The forest fire was miles from there, yet the night sky was bright with what looked like a fire…right where his house was. And Angel.

  His heart stopped dead in his chest, a fear unlike anything he’d ever known clutching his heart. He must have made a sound—he didn’t remember—because suddenly Zeke was swearing, his gaze, too, focused on the horizon.

  “Son of a bitch! The
bastard orchestrated this whole damn thing! Go!” he yelled, pushing Joe toward where he’d left his truck. “I’ll round up some of the others and be there as quick as we can!”

  Later, Joe had no memory of the drive to his house. His hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles were white, the accelerator pressed all the way to the floor, all he saw was the fire in the distance, licking at the night sky.

  Engulfed in flames by the time he finally reached it, the house looked like something on a Hollywood film set that had been created with special effects. But there was no director standing by, waiting to yell cut, no crew in the wings armed with retardants to douse the fire. The security guard lying on the front porch wasn’t an actor playing a part, but a real guard who’d been knocked out cold. And Angel was nowhere in sight.

  Bursting from his truck, Joe ran to the porch and dragged the guard to safety, all his instincts telling him that Angel couldn’t be inside. No one could be in there and still be alive. She would have gotten out. She would have found a way.

  But there was no sign of her anywhere.

  “Angel!” His raspy cry carried on the hot wind, but his only response was silence. A deep, deadly silence that turned his blood to ice.

  Then he heard her scream.

  Screaming, choking on smoke, Angel struggled with her stalker, fighting the hold he had on her arm as he tried to drag her into the flames that danced wickedly around them. He was a small man, but wiry strong, with a grip like a vise. Slowly, relentlessly, he pulled her closer to the fire.

  He was going to kill her. While the house burned down around them, he was going to kill her and laugh while he did it. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. Fighting like a wild woman, she kicked and bit, determined not to make it easy for him. Her gouging fingers raced toward his eyes, catching him off guard, and sinking deep. With a cry of outraged pain, he slung her across the room.

  She hit the wall with a grunt of pain and slid to the floor, shaken, but almost immediately, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward the door.

  “No!”

  Too late, he recognized his mistake and charged after her with a roar of fury, but she never looked back. Sobbing, she darted into the hall. Smoke choked her, blinding her, but she knew the house well now and didn’t need to see to find the stairs. Her heart thundering, she stumbled down them, her only thought to get away.

  Spewing curses at her, he was so close behind her that Angel could practically feel him breathing down her neck. Sick with terror, she almost fell, only to catch herself with a whimper. She couldn’t fall, couldn’t miss a step or he would be on her. And if he got his hands on her a second time, he wouldn’t let her outsmart him again.

  Caught up in the nightmare of what he would do to her if he got the chance, her eyes focused on her feet as she took the stairs two at a time, she never noticed the heat of the banister under her hand or the thick smell of gasoline that permeated the smoky air. Her only thought was to run. If she could just get to the front door—and outside—she could lose him in the darkness.

  But she never made it that far. The second she reached the lower floor, she turned toward the front door, only to gasp in horror. The entire lower floor of the house was in flames, the smell of gasoline so strong that she nearly gagged, every exit cut off by a wall of flames.

  Stunned, she hesitated, and in a heartbeat, her stalker was on her. Grabbing her arm and wrenching it behind her back, he laughed when she screamed. “You didn’t really think you were going to get away, did you?” he jeered in her ear. “I made sure of that before I came upstairs. We’re going to burn in hell together, sweetheart. I hope you like the heat.”

  “No!” she choked as he forced her arm farther up her back and pain shot up to her shoulder. “I won’t let you do this.”

  “You can’t stop me—”

  With no warning, the front door burst open, and through the flames that surrounded it, a dark specter charged inside like an avenging angel. Tall and dark, his face covered with soot and grime, Joe snarled, “Let her go!”

  Far from alarmed, Angel’s captor only laughed insanely, madness glinting in his eyes as he jerked her back against him. “Oh, no. Not in this lifetime,” he said, then laughed again at his own twisted wit. “Not in this lifetime! Get it? This lifetime’s over. Look around you, cowboy. We’re toast. All three of us!”

  He spoke nothing less than the truth. The house blazed around them, upstairs and down. The heat was so intense that lightbulbs shattered in their sockets and the floor buckled beneath them. Smoke swelled in thick dark clouds, making it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone see.

  And still the bastard laughed like a maniac. Fury raging in his eyes, Joe wanted to rush him, to jerk Angel free of his touch and drive the son of a bitch into the ground with his fists and make him pay for every time he’d hurt her. But there wasn’t time. The house was on the verge of coming down around their ears any second. If he couldn’t convince the madman to see reason, they really were all going to die right there because there was no way in hell he was going anywhere without Angel.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he rasped, choking on the smoke that filled his lungs. “There’s still time to get out.”

  “And leave this nice cozy fire?” her stalker tossed back flippantly. “I don’t think so. I brought marshmallows. Wait. Where did I put them? Oh, yes, now I remember.”

  Truly mad, he began to pat down the pockets of the overlarge black shirt he wore. Suddenly, directly overhead, a large, burning beam groaned loudly. Startled, they all three looked up just as it started to fall in a shower of sparks right where Angel and her stalker stood.

  “Look out!” Joe yelled.

  His insane grin turning to a look of horror, Angel’s stalker screamed and instinctively shoved her out of the way. A split second later, the beam slammed into him, cutting off his horrified cry and crushing him.

  With that, the house began to fall in upon itself. The ceiling broke up in huge, burning chunks, while upstairs, the roof caved in in a crash that shook the place to its very foundation. Flames climbed the walls, the curtains at the windows, the stairs. Everywhere you looked, there was nothing but fire.

  What had once been the front door was now an inferno, but there was no time to look for another way out. Dodging the debris that fell all around them, Joe swung Angel up into his arms and ran for safety. Blocking his path was a wall of fire.

  “Hang on,” he warned, and burst through the flames at a dead run.

  They felt the heat—and the lick of fire. Then, just when they both thought they were going to burn alive, they stumbled out onto the porch and into the yard, gasping for air. Almost immediately, Zeke was there with the rest of the family, not to mention half the ranch hands.

  “Son of a bitch, what the hell took you so long?” Zeke demanded furiously as he helped Joe ease Angel to the ground. “I was giving you five seconds, and then I was coming in after you! Have you got a death wish or what?”

  “Don’t yell at them, dear,” Sara McBride scolded qui etly as she and Janey settled blankets around them. “We’ve all just had a horrible fright.”

  “I had to get Angel,” Joe rasped, throwing off the blanket so he could check on Angel himself when she couldn’t seem to stop coughing. “God, is she all right?”

  On her knees at Angel’s side, Janey quickly listened to her lungs. “She’s suffering from smoke inhalation, and it looks like she’s got several nasty burns.”

  “The ambulance will be here any second,” Merry said as she returned her cell phone to her pocket. “Joe, you need to be checked out, too.”

  “Later,” he coughed, his own voice hoarse from smoke as he turned back toward the house. “The stalker’s still inside. I’ve got to get in there.”

  “The hell you do!” his brother snapped. “Are you crazy? Look at the place. There’s nobody in there alive.”

  There was no question that he was right. From fifty yards away, they could still
feel the incredibly intense heat of the fire. The gusting wind swirled around the house, fanning the flames even higher as windows shattered and what was left of the walls collapsed. The porch was the next—and last—thing to go, and all they could do was stand there and watch it burn.

  By three in the morning, all the fires were out, and there was nothing left to do but to assess the damage. Standing in what had once been Joe’s front yard with his family and Nick, Angel couldn’t seem to stop crying. Using a corner of the blanket she still clutched around her, she wiped her teary eyes. “He saved me at the last minute,” she whispered in a croak. “If he hadn’t pushed me out of the way at the last second, I’d be dead right now.”

  “If he hadn’t set the fire in the first place, you never would have been in that position to begin with,” Joe retorted. “Don’t feel sorry for him. He wasn’t joking when he said he planned for the three of us to die tonight. An attack of conscience at the last second doesn’t excuse what he did.”

  “He’s right,” Nick said as he watched the ranch hands hose down the last smoldering areas of the foundation that still glowed red with heat. “We found his car two miles down the road and hidden in some brush. His name was Eugene Tyler. He left a suicide note and instructions for his burial.”

  “But why?” Angel cried. “Why did he do this? Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?”

  “He wasn’t sane, Angel. He had a history of mental illness but was released from an institution in L.A. because of a cutback in government funding. He became fixated with you and was determined to have you.”

  “But he didn’t even know me!”

  “He knew the woman on the screen, the angel with the bedroom eyes. When you were in L.A., he actually thought he could court you with flowers and gifts and win you. When that didn’t work, he got a job with the security company that monitored your home. Every time you changed your phone number or access code, he knew it almost immediately.”

  “So that explains how he was able to deactivate Joe’s security system and get in the house tonight,” Zeke said. “He worked in the business.”