"You mean about him burning down your barn and your daddy dying because of it?"
Darcy stared at her, temporarily at a loss for words.
"Don't look so shocked. I figured the two of you had some history so I asked around. You know Grantley. Folks were only too happy to tell me the whole story."
"I'll bet."
"You're still holding it against him, aren't you?"
"No, but I can't forget it, either. Neither can he."
"Is that why he became a fireman? To make up for what he did?"
"I think so, yes."
Darcy glanced at the brightly lighted landing above. The sounds of childish shrieks and little girls giggling drifted down to her the way they had hundreds of times before. It was a soothing sound. Reassuring her that her life had purpose and joy and contentment.
"But that's not enough for you, right?"
Darcy turned sharply to find Prudy watching her with an intensity that surprised her. "What kind of question is that?"
Prudy rubbed her hand over her belly, a rare look of melancholy in her eyes. "Ever since you hauled me out of that shelter in Portland, you've been telling me to put the past behind me. You said I had my whole life ahead of me and that I shouldn't drag past mistakes or regrets into this life. Right?"
"Right."
"Isn't that what your fireman is trying to do? Only it seems to me he can't, because people keep thinking of him as that same twenty-year-old kid, no matter what he does. I mean, the guy is the fire chief, for Pete's sake. He's got to have done a lot of changing to go from setting fires to putting them out. Maybe, if you gave him a chance, you might find out you like this guy better than you thought."
Prudy leaned past her belly to give Darcy a kiss on the cheek, taking herself and the twins slowly up the stairs.
Liking him wasn't the problem, Darcy thought as she followed. Letting herself be vulnerable to him again was. One broken heart per lifetime was enough.
"And I checked all the bank accounts on the list." Charlie Fox had been the Kerrigan family attorney for years, starting with the probate of her mother's will thirty years ago.
"The total after funeral expenses, taxes and legal fees comes to a little over two thousand dollars." He leaned back in his chair and gave Darcy a small, sad smile. "Naturally, according to the terms of Mike's will, it's all yours, along with his house and all the furnishings, of course."
Darcy picked up a myrtlewood paperweight, then put it down again. "To tell you the truth, Uncle Charlie, I'd rather have him around to harass me than have his money."
"I know what you mean. He was always after me to stop smoking." The attorney grinned, but his expression remained saddened. "The last time I saw Mike he was feeling his age. Talked about retiring, maybe buying a place on the Gulf of Mexico."
Darcy smiled. "He'd been threatening to pack up and head for the sun since I was a little girl. But everyone knew he loved his job too much to ever retire."
"I know, but this time he sounded as though he meant it."
"Well, he was sixty-seven, even though he would never admit that he had slowed even a step since his forties."
The phone buzzed discreetly at Charlie's elbow and he excused himself to take the important call he'd already warned her that he was expecting.
Ignoring the drone of Charlie's voice, Darcy let her gaze wander to the tall, narrow window overlooking Grantley's main drag, her mind running over a long list of errands yet to be done.
"I might have a buyer for Mike's house, if you decide to sell. Ann Billings has been calling just about every day from her real estate agency, asking me if it will be available."
Startled, Darcy turned to find Charlie's eyes somberly sympathetic over his bifocals.
"Really? Who?"
"Our new fire chief."
Darcy blinked. "I thought he was going to buy his old house."
"According to Ann, the church elders balked at selling it to him. Said they'd rather burn it down than blaspheme his father's memory that way."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Darcy exclaimed. No wonder Judd refused to go to church.
"Parson Calhoun was one of my first clients when I came back to Grantley to open my own practice. In fact, I drew up the papers making Judd a ward of the congregation." He shook his head. "Shameful, what that old man did to his son, but I couldn't talk him out of it."
"I remember Papa and Aunt Bridget talking about it at the time. I can't remember ever hearing Papa so angry."
Charlie nodded. "He wasn't the only one, but the boy was a minor, and there were very few laws in those days to protect minors. Still, treating a boy like discarded rubbish is inhuman."
Charlie scowled, then rubbed two fingers over his mouth as though trying to seal it. "Well, enough ancient history. How about letting an old man buy you lunch?"
"Thanks, but I'm meeting Prudy and the three little ones at the drugstore for burgers and milkshakes. Our one monthly indulgence, and then Prudy's taking the girls to a movie while I pack the rest of Mike's things."
"I thought Mike's housekeeper was doing that for you. What's her name, again?"
"Carmen, and she is. Most of his clothes and books are already packed and ready for the Salvation Army, but some of the things Carmen found are personal and she wanted me to make the final decision on those. We're meeting at Mike's house at two."
Charlie's eyes turned solemn. "If I can help, please call."
"Thanks, but between Carmen and me, I think we have things in hand."
She stood, bringing the attorney to his feet, as well. Instead of shaking hands, he came around the desk to enfold her in a clumsy bear hug.
"You take care now. And try not to work so hard. Take some time for yourself for a change."
"Maybe after the harvest." And before she added four more to her household.
"Let me know if you want to sell the house, and I'll give Ann a call."
"Yes," she said, smiling her goodbyes. "I'll do that."
Darcy was making a left turn onto Myrtle Street
when she saw the smoke. It was black and thick, like a rain cloud over the mountains, but this cloud was flecked with deadly orange flame.
She heard the siren a split second later and slammed on the brakes. The old car was still rocking when the ladder truck came barreling past to virtually disappear into the smoke like a ghost ship under full sail.
Putting the car into reverse, she zipped into a parking space close to the corner and hopped out. There were a dozen houses on this block besides Mike's. The odds said it was probably one of those, but the sick feeling in her stomach told her otherwise.
Seconds later, her hunch was confirmed. The interior of the old brick home glowed orange from the inferno within, sending poisonous smoke billowing skyward. Nearby, the cork oak whose thick spreading branches had been a haven for squirrels and heartbroken teenagers for more than a century was blazing like a torch.
Pausing, she watched the firemen swarming over the front yard in a kind of organized confusion. In their heavy black coats and turnout pants they all seemed big, tough and competent. And anonymous.
The heat was so fierce she could feel it all the way across the street. Using her forearm to protect her face, she hurried past the maze of trucks and hoses and spectators. The noise and the heat were intense, worse than anything she'd ever imagined.
She spotted Monk first, directing a crew handling some kind of flat canvas hose. Intent on catching his attention, she hooked a toe under one of the bulging hoses and fell flat on her face.
At the same moment she heard a warning shout, and then the roof seemed to explode upward, spewing burning shingles and hot coals into the air like a fountain. Seconds later, deadly debris rained down, igniting tree limbs and severing a power line.
Static electricity hissed as the heavy line fell only inches from her head. It was alive and lethal, coiling and uncoiling like a viper from the force of the current it continued to spew out.
"Don't move!" It
was Judd's voice and it was shot with warning.
"Don't worry!" she managed to shout back. Still spread-eagled and terrified, she fixed her gaze on the hissing, spitting wire and told herself she absolutely refused to die in such an undignified position.
And then, in less time than it would later take her to describe it, a gloved hand clamped around her ankle and yanked hard. She shot backward, like a sack of meal dragged behind a mule, and then she was being hefted up and over Judd's shoulder. Smoke billowed around her as she bobbed along, her vision restricted to the street.
"Judd, stop!" she cried out in alarm. "Mike's housekeeper … she was supposed to meet me!"
"Shut up!" he ordered. Or something like that, because her senses somehow didn't function properly when she was dangling upside down.
"Judd, you have to listen to me. Carmen—"
A sudden movement choked off her protest and she found herself upright again, fresh air filling her nostrils and strong arms holding her against a very dirty, very strong male chest covered in heavy fireproof Nomex.
"Who's Carmen?" His eyes glittered like coals beneath the dirty white helmet and his face was black with soot.
"Mike's housekeeper. I was supposed to meet her here and—"
"When?"
"Now!"
Even as he was yelling for Monk, he was depositing her on the grass. "Don't move."
"But you don't know the house and—" He cut her off with a hard, angry kiss, then took off running.
Monk had two men going in the front and two heading rearward, toting an inch-and-a-half hose connected to the pumper. The two-inch came from the hydrant half a block east. As soon as Judd neared, the lieutenant broke off what he was doing and hurried toward him.
"Darcy says there might be someone in there," Judd shouted close to the man's ear. "Mike's housekeeper."
"I'll get her," Monk shouted back.
"No, you handle the fire. I'll find the lady. And have someone keep tabs on that power line."
"Right," he shouted before beckoning to one of the probies.
Judd hooked his face mask and tank from the back of his truck and was half into them by the time he made the front door.
It had been knocked partly off its hinges by the force of the fire venting itself and was hanging drunkenly by the top hinge. Inside, it was black as a cave, with the only light coming from the front door and a window halfway up the stairwell.
Two men were inside spraying water on the fuel-hungry flames that had already engulfed the kitchen and dining room and were in the process of destroying the stairs to the second floor.
"Did you check this floor for occupants?" he shouted, and received an affirmative. "Upstairs?"
"Not yet, but the call-in said the house was vacant."
Judd snatched off his helmet and slipped the mask over his head before replacing the helmet. Holding the mask to one side so that he could be heard, he ordered, "Hit the stairs for me. I'm going up."
The man holding the nozzle swung a hundred eighty degrees, and water whipped like a lash across the foyer to land on the blazing stair risers. There was a violent hiss as water met flame, and then smoke billowed upward.
Without waiting for them to finish, Judd took a deep breath and dived through the sheeting flame. He landed on the fourth step and started climbing. Halfway to the top his knees threatened to give way but he gritted his teeth against the pain and kept going.
At the landing he was met by a nearly solid wall of black acrid smoke. Through the filter of the mask he could hear the rasp of every breath he took. At the most, he had fifteen minutes.
Pulling aside the mask, he shouted, "Carmen, are you up here?"
Holding his breath, he listened. No answer. He knew better than to count on it, but he couldn't help hoping that Mike's housekeeper had been late arriving for her appointment with Darcy. Still, it was his job to make sure and that meant checking every inch of the second floor.
He dropped to the floor and started crawling. The heat was intense now, and getting hotter. He could feel it on his ears, even through the helmet flaps.
By dead reckoning he was halfway down the hallway when he heard a moan. It had come from the right.
Wishing he had his ax to push ahead of him like a probe, he crawled in the direction of the sound as fast as the limited air and smoke would permit. He used one hand as a support while reaching out with the other.
He felt something soft and stringy, then realized it was fringe on the bottom of a bedspread. Seconds later, he found Carmen.
She was on the floor with her legs under the bed as though she'd been trying to scoot backward like a crab into its den.
She didn't stir when he touched her face, but from her nearly constant moaning, he knew that she was still alive.
Somehow he got her out from under the bed, but the smoke was too thick to allow him to use a standard fireman's carry. Instead, he maneuvered her torso over his legs and, using his heels, began propelling himself backward.
The woman was big-boned and seriously overweight. At one ninety-eight he himself was no lightweight—even after his stint in a hospital bed—but the woman was total deadweight, considerably magnifying the strength needed to move her.
By the time he was halfway to the bedroom door he was dripping sweat inside the hot, heavy coat and his lungs felt as though he were breathing cement instead of oxygen.
When he reached the hall, he paused to get his bearings. Exhaustion nipped at him, and the burst of adrenaline that had propelled him up the stairs was just about spent.
Through the steamy, soot-clouded faceplate, he saw flames licking at the walls at the far end of the hall. Their only way down was the way he'd come up—the stairs.
Digging in one heel and then the other, he inched the two of them toward the landing. Just when he thought he was all used up, he heard someone shouting his name.
Lifting the faceplate a half inch, he shouted an answer. What had to be seconds later, but what seemed an eternity, two of the men from Grantley South seemed to pop through the smoke.
It took both of them to get the housekeeper slung over the shoulder of the taller of the two. Meanwhile, Judd was discovering that his legs were numb, and he required a hand from one of the men to haul him to his feet. He reached up to secure his helmet, then discovered that somehow he'd lost it between the stairs and the bedroom.
By the time he reached the lower landing, the bottom four steps were gone, necessitating a leap over the gaping hole. His knees gave when he landed, and he crashed forward. Instinctively, he folded his body into a ball and rolled.
His shoulder hit the doorjamb, sending pain to the bone. By the time he staggered from the house, the bell on his Scott mask had begun to ring, signaling a scant four minutes of oxygen remaining.
Fatigue made him clumsy and it took him three tries to switch off the alarm and then rid himself of the mask and tank. Leaning against a nearby tree, he retched, emptying his guts onto the grass.
Still breathing hard, he raised his head and took stock. The roof was gone, and the house was fully engulfed. A total loss, he estimated, but thank God they'd kept the thing from spreading to the houses on either side.
An emergency vehicle had joined the truck and engine, and two emergency technicians were busily administering oxygen to the unconscious housekeeper. Another was cutting off the woman's charred dress.
One look at her blackened face told him that her chances of making it weren't good.
Rousing himself, he searched the area for Darcy's bright head, but a haze of smoke turned everything around him gray. And then, strangely, to an icy, unfriendly black.
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
Judd woke the way he usually did, his mind clear and his body already tensing to leap from bed into his boots.
Instead of the shrill alarm he expected, however, he heard hushed voices, the swish of a door, the hum of a ventilation system. Sounds he'd lived with for almost nine mon
ths before he'd finally sprung himself from San Francisco General Hospital.
Scowling, he forced open his eyes. Sure enough, he was lying on his back in another hard, antiseptic hospital bed. Both knees were wrapped in elastic bandages and propped on pillows.
The rest of him seemed in decent shape. No hard-core burns, only a moderate problem breathing. No one in the other bed, which meant that none of the other guys had been hurt. Still, he needed to be sure.
Turning his head, he searched the pillow for the call button. A split second later, he realized that he wasn't the only one in the room after all. Darcy was there, too, asleep in the chair by the bed.
She had molded herself like a circus contortionist, her legs tucked under her and her cheek resting on the hand she'd propped against the armrest.
Her eyes were closed, her features soft, her breathing slow and even. Dark smudges lay beneath her lashes, and her pretty yellow blouse and slacks showed definite signs of the smoke and fire. If she'd gone home, she hadn't taken time to change.
In spite of the pain busily attacking various parts of his anatomy, he found himself imagining her curled next to him that way, with her fanny tucked into his groin and her bare skin snuggled against his chest.
One time, Calhoun. A couple of hours in the grass so long ago it seems like the Dark Ages. So how come you remember every sigh, every kiss, every awkward movement she made? How come you have this adolescent craving to feel those small, exploring hands on your body one more time?
Anyone would think you were in love with that sixteen-year-old virgin when you took her that night. Anyone would be dead wrong, though, wouldn't they? Because you made a vow when your old man walked out that you would never let yourself feel more than affection for any living soul ever again.
"Darcy?" he called in a low voice. "Wake up. Are you okay?"
She frowned, then sighed deeply and licked her lips as though they were terribly dry. Instantly, his mind zoomed right past worry to hunger, the kind that had him thinking about wetting those dry lips with his tongue and kissing the softness back into her smile.
FIREBRAND Page 11
