One-Click Buy: July 2009 Harlequin Blaze

by Julie Kenner

  Once she had, he pulled the doors open, jumping back himself. Smoke and heat billowed out. Greedy flames began to lick their way up the frame as hooves crashed against stall doors. She recalled that Brutus was at this end, her father’s horse at the other.

  “I’ll get Brutus,” she said.

  “No. Wait here. I can get them both.”

  The horses were shrieking now, and the flames had made their way to the top of the door frame. “There isn’t time. I can handle Brutus.”

  “You’ll have to take him out the far door. You’ll never get him back through these flames.”

  “Go. We’re wasting time.”

  He disappeared into the dark smoke that filled the building.

  Jordan held her breath and kept her eyes straight ahead as she followed Cash. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the fire had taken hold in the stall to her left. Heat blasted at her as flames shot upward. When she had to take a breath, smoke stung her lungs. Just a few steps more. Brutus was in the next stall to her right.

  “Brutus.” She pitched her voice above the noise of the fire. “Brutus.”

  His only reply was to rear and shriek with fear.

  Behind her, she could hear the fire growing, spreading, and a fit of coughing nearly overtook her. Wood splintered in the door of the stall. She felt her own panic; icy fingers of it clamped on her stomach like a vise. Ignoring it, she forced her mind to go cool. She had to act fast if she was going to save the horse.

  Grabbing a blanket off a hook on the wall, she called Brutus’s name again, then opened the door. He rushed past her, then reared in pure terror at the sight of the flames that now framed the doorway.

  The second his hooves came down, she threw the blanket over his head and grabbed his halter rope. Screaming, he reared again. But the blanket stayed in place. When his hooves clattered to the floor a second time, she placed a hand on his neck and began to talk to him. A quick glance over her shoulder told her that the smoke had thickened. If she tried to lead him out the far end, the smoke could kill them before the fire could. Her best bet was to take Brutus out the way she’d come in.

  She didn’t let herself think about it anymore. Going on instinct, she moved her hand to where the tether rope circled his neck and half vaulted, half muscled her way onto Brutus’s back. He reared again, but she held on. Then, holding tight to the rope and the ends of the blanket, she dug her heels into his flanks and sent up a prayer of thanks when he leaped forward.

  For an instant, she knew what hell was like. The heat was intense, and fire reached out greedily on either side of them. Then they were out. Blanket and all, Brutus lunged forward. For the next few moments, she concentrated her attention on calming him. He ran blindly all the way to the ranch house before she was able to get him under control.

  Still talking, she got the blanket off him and slid to the ground. Then she glanced back at the stables. The doorway she and Brutus had raced through was an inferno. Flames danced along the roof now, and an icy fear clawed through her. Had Cash gotten Lucifer out? Where were they?

  CROUCHED LOW, Cash raced down the length of the stable. The fire wasn’t as bad at this end, but the smoke surounded him. It had his eyes burning and his throat stinging. But he was very much aware that the fire behind him had started to roar.

  Jordan.

  Fear clawed at his gut, freezing him in his tracks. But when he turned, all he could see was an impenetrable wall of blackness. How was she going to get through that? A fit of coughing overtook him. Then the sound of a stall door splintering and Lucifer’s frightened shrieking had him whirling and running toward the sound. He’d get the horse out first, then circle around the barn to help Jordan. There would be time. There had to be time.

  He ran to the stable doors first and opened them. Smoke whooshed past him and the straw in the stall to his right burst into bright flames.

  Behind him he heard Lucifer’s hooves crash against his stall door again. Cash reached him just as he lunged free. Eyes watering, he grabbed for the tether rope, then held tight as the panic-stricken horse reared and reared. Cash pointed the horse in the direction of the open door and slapped his flank.

  Lucifer raced forward, and Cash tore after him. He had to get to Jordan, make sure that she was out. He’d cleared the stable door and had just reached the corner of the building when the blow struck him from behind. He saw stars before the ground came up to meet him.

  PUSHING DOWN her fear, Jordan kept her eyes on the far side of the stables as she tied Brutus’s tether rope to the railing on the front porch of the ranch. The moment she’d secured it, a familiar voice said, “Hello, Jordan.”

  She whirled so fast that Brutus whinnied and pulled at the tether. Raising a hand automatically to soothe the horse, she stared at her uncle Carleton. He was standing in the doorway to the ranch house, and he had a gun pointed at her.

  14

  “UNCLE CARLETON, what are you doing here?” Jordan asked.

  “Technically, I’m in Phoenix attending a conference for investment bankers. Several people attended the talk I gave this afternoon. Others will vouch for the fact that I ate dinner with them. But actually I’m here because of Dorothy.”

  “I don’t understand.” Behind her the fire was roaring now, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the gun in her uncle’s hand.

  “When your mother became a problem for Dorothy, she took care of it on her own. She didn’t even consult me.”

  “You didn’t know she killed Eva?”

  “Heavens, no. Neither she nor Adam confided in me. We’re not a particularly close family, and running Ware Bank takes all my time.”

  Her uncle’s casual, careless tone had her blood chilling even further.

  “However, Dorothy has inspired me to follow her example in this instance.”

  “You’re the one who was working with Daniel Pearson. He was representing you?”

  “No. He was representing Rainbow Limited, a charitable foundation that I established some time ago in Dorothy’s name. I took care to make sure that he never dealt with me directly. They’ll never trace him to me. Now, with the situation Dorothy is in, they’ll probably be satisfied that she was pulling Pearson’s strings. That part has worked out quite well.”

  “Why would Dorothy or you want the ranch?”

  “For the turquoise mine, of course. It’s worth a fortune. I learned about it years ago. Your mother let it slip once. Then she swore me to secrecy. Of course, I was already keeping a much bigger secret for her.”

  Jordan studied him. “You knew about Maddie all along. Did she tell you?”

  “No.” His voice took on an edge as he walked across the porch. Jordan had to keep herself from stepping back.

  “I made it my business to find out exactly what my sister was doing when she deserted her duty to Ware Bank and ran away from home to pursue her frivolous dream. Keeping Maddie a secret gave me some real leverage over Eva for the first time. As long as I didn’t say anything, Eva agreed to let me vote her stock at Ware Bank, make decisions on my own and live in Ware House. And that was only what was due me.”

  The edge in his voice had become angrier. Jordan had never seen her uncle express any kind of a heated emotion before.

  “My father should have left the bank and the house to me.” He gestured to his chest. “I was the oldest son. I was the one who shouldered the responsibility of running the bank. Eva ran away from all her rights to either of them when she went off to Santa Fe to study her art. Then when she returned, my father welcomed her like the prodigal son.”

  “But if you got everything you wanted by keeping my mother’s secret, why do you need the turquoise mine?”

  “Because Ware Bank is in trouble. Just temporary. A few unlucky calls on my part. All I need is a quick influx of cash to turn things around. I’d forgotten about the mine until Eva mentioned that Michael Farrell died. As I said, we weren’t close but she seemed to need to tell someone, and I was the only option—fo
rtunately for me. But Pearson was taking too long even after I offered a percentage of the future profits from the mine.”

  “So you hired someone to shoot at Maddie?”

  “And to get rid of you.”

  His tone had calmed now and was almost sounding reasonable. It sent a new wave of chills through her.

  “It all came to me while Fitzwalter was reading that will. Eva will never know how completely she solved all my problems. All I had to do was get rid of both of you, and the ranch would come to me as next of kin. Plus, I would have the added money that would come from the sale of Eva Ware Designs. My sister couldn’t have played more completely into my hands.”

  “You won’t be able to kill Maddie now. You’ll be the prime suspect.”

  “Perhaps. But I would do anything to save Ware Bank. It’s my duty, my responsibility. Eva would understand what I’m doing. She felt the same way about Eva Ware Designs.”

  Jordan doubted that her mother would have killed to preserve her life’s work. But in an odd way, she thought her mother might understand her brother’s absolute tunnel vision when it came to the family bank. Perhaps Mike Farrell would have understood it, too. Not the methods, but the intent.

  Secrets. She’d thought before how good the Wares were at keeping them. Carleton, Dorothy and Adam had all been very good at hiding their true colors.

  At least her parents, Mike and Eva, for all their faults, had never tried to hide what they were.

  “Now, if you’ll just come up and join me on the porch.”

  Brutus whinnied again and pulled at his tether. An answering whinny had Jordan turning to see Lucifer racing across the field beyond the stables.

  Alone. There was no sign of Cash. Once more fear chilled her veins.

  “If you’re hoping that cowboy neighbor of Maddie’s will rescue you, forget it. If he hasn’t already, he’ll die in the fire. One of my men will take care of that.”

  Jordan’s heart nearly stopped. No, she wasn’t going to let herself think about Cash right now. He could handle himself, and D.C. had only been minutes behind them in his car. He’d be here soon. Both men were smart and resourceful. So was she. And her job right now was to keep her uncle talking.

  “Your men?”

  “I brought two of them just to make sure. As you may have noticed, one of them is very skilled at setting fires. The other one is a pilot who flew us in on a small private plane. We’ll be back in Phoenix in time for me to host a private party later tonight. Come now, Jordan. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Jordan stood her ground. “How did you know about Maddie’s neighbor?”

  “Pearson did manage to leave a rather detailed message about the guy sticking to you like glue, so we needed a distraction. And when he told me about another offer on the ranch, I knew I had to act fast. Now, it’s really time for you to join me up here on the porch. I’m just going to knock you out until one of my men comes to take you to the barn. You and your neighbor are going to die tragically in the fire.”

  “No.”

  Carleton frowned at her. “Do as you’re told, Jordan. Or I’ll have to shoot you.”

  “You can’t shoot me. I’ve met Detective Alvarez. He’s a smart man and a friend of my cowboy neighbor. If I have a bullet in me, he’ll know I didn’t die accidentally. He’ll track you down.”

  “If you don’t come up here and join me, I’ll shoot the horse.”

  Checkmate, Jordan thought. She stepped away from Brutus and began to walk toward her uncle. Once Brutus was safe, she was going to get that gun away from him.

  THE PAIN in Cash’s head was fierce. He welcomed it because as long as it was there, he was conscious. And his head wasn’t the only pain he was experiencing. Someone had hold of his feet and was dragging him along the ground. Pebbles and stones bit into his back. He opened his eyes, blinked back tears and saw the blurred edge of the stable door, then the dark outline of the figure pulling him through it.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a breath. His one advantage was that the air at ground level held more oxygen than the air at his opponent’s level. Beyond his eyelids, he could see the brightness of the flames that had caught hold in the stall near the doorway. They weren’t very far into the stables when the man dragging him began coughing and dropped his feet. Drawing back his foot, Cash gave him one hard clip to the kneecap.

  The man fell like a tree, and Cash summoned all his strength, all his focus, to roll on top of him. Trying not to breathe, he grabbed the man’s hair and smashed his face hard into the concrete floor of the stable. Once, then a second time. Afterwards, he rolled off and tried to stand. The flames were closer now, the smoke thicker. A fit of coughing overtook him.

  “Need some help?”

  Still crouching, Cash found the strength to swing a hand.

  The man jumped back. “It’s me. D.C. If you clip me in my good knee, neither one of us will get out of here.”

  “D.C.?”

  “Yeah. If you can make it out on your own, I’ll drag this guy.”

  They were both coughing as they staggered out of the stables. Once clear, D.C. dropped the body he’d been dragging next to another one.

  “You’ve been…busy,” Cash said.

  “I knew the minute I saw the fire that something was up.

  So I ditched my car and climbed a few fences. Took your guy’s pal out with my cane.” D.C. retrieved it from the ground. “Are there any more?”

  “Don’t know. Have to help… Jordan. Left her…other end of the…stable.”

  “I saw her make it out on one of the horses.”

  Cash’s relief was so intense his knees nearly buckled. “Got to…get to her.”

  Cash forced himself to take calm, even breaths. He wasn’t going to be any good to anyone if he keeled over.

  Together, they made their way along the stable wall. Cash spotted her first. She was standing near the front steps of the ranch house. The stars were bright enough that he saw the other figure, too—holding a gun.

  His heart sank. There was absolutely no cover between the ranch house and the stables. If he and D.C. rushed the guy, he could easily shoot Jordan, then take them out like ducks in a shooting gallery.

  “She’s got his attention,” D.C. said. “My brother claims she has a good head on her shoulders.”

  “She does.” Remembering that helped Cash keep panic at bay. Brutus was tethered to the porch railing, and Jordan was standing close to him, her hand resting on his neck. They weren’t close enough to hear what anyone was saying.

  “How’s your head?” D.C. asked.

  “Fine. How’s your leg?”

  “Probably better than your head. If the man with the gun looks this way, we’re right in his line of vision. So I figure our best bet is to angle our way to the bunkhouse. Then I’ll circle around the far side of the ranch house and you take the shorter route to this side.”

  Cash pictured it in his mind. The trickiest part would be getting to the bunkhouse. But it was their best option. “And when we get to the house? He’s got a gun. We don’t.”

  D.C. shot him a grin. “I’ll create a diversion and you take out the guy with the gun before he shoots me.”

  “How come you get the fun part?”

  “See you in a few minutes.” D.C. took off. Even with the limp, he was halfway to the bunkhouse before Cash started after him. He had to push the image of Jordan standing there facing a gun out of his mind. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his jog steady and his breathing even. Emotions would only slow him down. There’d be plenty of time for feeling later.

  Once they were all safe.

  By the time he reached the bunkhouse, D.C. had already started making his way to the far side of the ranch house.

  Cash allowed himself the luxury of leaning against the wall for a moment. His mind cleared, and he didn’t feel quite so breathless.

  Still, he kept his jog slow. He couldn’t risk another fit of coughing. When he reached his destination, he f
lattened his back against the wall and risked a quick look around the corner. Jordan had stepped away from Brutus and was talking calmly to a tall, distinguished gentleman in a business suit. Admiration mixed with fear as he watched her. There wasn’t anything in her tone or demeanor to indicate that she was staring down the barrel of the gun.

  Nor that the man holding it wasn’t nearly as calm as she was.

  Cash gauged his distance to the gunman. He’d need at least three, maybe four seconds to reach him. He prayed that D.C.’s diversion would last that long.

  JORDAN STOPPED when she reached the foot of the porch steps. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen Cash look around the corner of the house.

  He was safe. Relief mixed with fear because he was going to try to rush Uncle Carleton. She knew it. And heaven knew where the two men her uncle had hired were.

  “One of my men should be here any minute.”

  He barely got the sentence out before there was a loud splintering sound and a section of the stable roof caved in.

  “Bunglers.” Carleton spit out the word in another sudden flash of fury. “I’m surrounded by idiots. They should have come to get you by now. You’ve got to be in that barn. Your death has to look like an accident.” He descended a step. “I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”

  She had to calm him down. She wasn’t sure the Uncle Carleton she’d always known was capable of using a gun. She was pretty sure the man pointing the gun at her right now was.

  “Wait.” Jordan raised a hand. “You haven’t killed anyone yet, Uncle Carleton. Daniel Pearson acted on his own when he tried to kill Pete Blackthorn. Dorothy acted on her own to kill my mother. You could still walk away from all of this.”

  Okay, so he had hired professionals to do his killing for him. She wouldn’t mention that.

  “You don’t understand,” he said.