The good Lord knew women weren’t better for much more than that. Never had been, never would be.
Satisfied, he opened the trunk of the car and took out the items he’d brought with him. He’d had to purchase the gas, instead of just syphoning some out of another car. Fucking newfangled vehicles these days made syphoning a thing of the past. He shrugged. Well, that and being older with lousy lungs. So he’d picked up a jerry can and filled it with gas at one of those twenty-four hour stations out on the interstate, a good ten miles from Waco.
He didn’t move as fast as he used to, but he could get around a lot better than he’d led his son—and his son’s nosy neighbors—to believe. He did need the oxygen on some days, especially if he overdid things. He really did have COPD, that was no lie. He reckoned the damned disease would get him in the next few years. Dev Gowan was determined to live the rest of his life in the lap of luxury. What he was about to do would see to it he could do just that.
Damn boy’s such a pussy I think I’ll leave the remainder of my fortune when I die to some charity group devoted to cats.
That thought made him chuckle. The chuckle turned into a cough, and he took a moment, right there on the lawn, to try and get it under control.
Then Dev continued on, stopping when he reached the front porch. He’d taken a good look at the place the last time he’d been by—when he’d brought his son’s hunting rifle and shot out the power line. It had pleased him some at the time that, despite the years he’d spent in prison, he still had damn good aim. He looked up and grinned at the line that had clearly been repaired. He could smell fresh paint, too. The idea that he was doing this right after she’d slapped some white on the outside walls made him grin.
Dev had no doubt whatsoever that, in all likelihood, come the morning, the slut would decide to sell her place. When she wandered home and discovered she had no house left to live in, what else could she possibly do?
If Terry didn’t move immediately to make an offer on the property, Dev would damn well find another agent who would. He wasn’t certain where the gold was buried, but he knew it was on this land, near some tree. He’d seen a metal detector at the pawnshop when he’d stopped in to sell some of the old family silver Terry had kept in a box in the attic. It shouldn’t take Dev long to find his own personal motherlode. And since the land would be his, he’d have the “finders’ keepers” law backing him up when he did, indeed, stumble upon that golden treasure.
This was Texas, by damn. You found treasure on your own place, it was yours.
He didn’t step right onto the porch. Instead, he sprinkled a good amount of gas on the edge of it and then poured a thick stream down the side of the house, as far down as the living room window. And just in case he left evidence in the way of his footprints, he doused the grass where he’d walked with the flammable liquid, too. The smell of the fuel surrounded him. He pulled his leg back, not wanting to splash himself. His pantleg got a bit wet but not enough for him to worry about. He’d keep back so he didn’t catch fire himself.
For good measure, Dev had brought along some newspaper. He crumpled a couple of sheets and then set it amongst some of the higher blades of grass close to the house.
The building appeared to have a stone foundation, but he knew the age of the structure. It was wood, inside and out. Old wood, and new coat of paint or no, if there was one thing that old wood could be counted on to do, it was to burn hot and fast when set alight.
The jerry can was empty, so he tossed it away. He took a moment to assess the job he’d done. The stink of gasoline was strong, and in what little light there was from the few seconds of moonlight the clouds gave him, he could see how wet the grass was.
Satisfied, he stepped back. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a box of matches and, opening it, took out one stick.
He struck it, watched the flame burn, then bent over and touched the flame to the paper. It caught immediately. The lack of a breeze ensured it would burn without difficulty.
The grass around the burning paper caught, and then flames ran down half the length of the house and onto the porch. Satisfied, Dev walked as quickly as possible toward the car he’d come in—the car that his witless son, sound asleep in his bed, didn’t know he’d taken.
An orange glow began to lighten the sky behind him as he drove off, headed for home.
* * * *
“Fire!”
The single word jolted Michaela from her sound and very comfortable sleep. Not yet fully awake, she inhaled deeply and coughed. Smoke was a light but very real presence in the room.
Michaela’s heart pounded in her chest as her mind cleared.
“Shit!” Randy pulled her to his side of the bed—the side she’d undressed on after they’d returned from Sunday supper with his family.
“How…” No sense asking how. Randy thrust her clothes toward her, and she pulled them on as quickly as possible. Lewis had yanked on his pants and headed out into the hallway. He came back almost immediately, a fierce look on his face.
“It’s got a good start, damn it, at the front of the house. We have to get out, now.”
It took them only another minute to finish dressing. The single window in her bedroom showed a wavy, orange-tinged light moving closer. Randy didn’t open it. He just looked out, above the a/c unit that was lodged there. He turned off the device, then looked at her.
“Too close to the flames for us to use.”
“We’ll use the window at the end of the hall,” Lewis said.
Michaela knew that window wasn’t very wide, but it would be wide enough.
She’d just slipped her shoes on and grabbed her cellphone off her dresser when Randy took her hand and led her out of the bedroom. They stepped into the hallway, and Michaela felt the heat and heard the crackling. She couldn’t not look to the left, toward the monster. Her heart broke at the sight of the flames devouring her living room. Randy pulled her to the right.
He whipped up the window and pushed out the screen. Then he lifted her into his arms and slid her out the window.
“I’ll call for help.” Michaela moved away from the window to make room for the guys. But when she turned back, Randy wasn’t there, and neither was Lewis.
She had the fire department’s number on speed dial—as she had the sheriff’s and the clinic’s. Michaela didn’t panic. She was concise and to the point—and lied when she told them everyone was out of the house because they damn well would be within seconds if she had anything to say about it.
The call was no sooner done than Lewis appeared at the window with a box.
Michaela ran up and took it from him.
“Get out of there!”
“One more trip, baby girl.”
“Damn stubborn men.” She set the box away from the house then ran back in time to take the items Randy pushed on her—her purse and what looked like a good armload of her clothing.
He disappeared, too. Michaela took the salvaged items over to the box. She looked down and saw her brother’s name scrawled atop it.
Her throat caught. They were taking care of her, her men, and had even thought to ensure that the one truly irreplaceable item in her home—aside from all of them—was safe.
Randy dropped another pile of clothing and, this time, thank God, came out the window. The sound of the fire, a snarling ugly crackle when they’d awakened, had morphed into a growing roar.
Randy turned and reached up. Lewis handed him another box. Randy headed toward her while Lewis climbed out and scooped up the load Randy had dropped. Then he, too, joined her, well back from the building. As she watched him approach, she got a glimpse through the window, into the house, in time to witness a burning beam fall from the ceiling to the floor.
“I’ll get the truck,” Randy said. He jogged off to the right, toward the barn where they’d parked the night before. Her own car, which she usually parked in front of the barn, was instead at Laci’s. They’d driven there in her car for a change, and then,
when they’d gotten ready to come home, her starter had finally crapped out. Lucas had given them a ride home.
Randy drove to them, and they quickly piled the salvaged items into the back of the pickup. Then they rode back to the driveway and stopped halfway between the house and the barn, just as they heard the sirens of the approaching Lusty fire trucks.
Lewis lowered the tailgate and lifted her onto it. Then he and Randy hopped up and bracketed her. The moment the firemen got out of the firetruck, they looked toward her and the guys. Randy waved, letting them know there was no one left inside the house and that they were all safe.
The firemen didn’t waste any time. Grant and Andrew, along with Trace Langley and a couple of people she didn’t immediately recognize, began to pour water onto the burning building. They were shouting to each other in a lingo she didn’t understand.
Another siren in the distance joined the cacophony of sound. Moments later, the sheriff’s vehicle pulled into the driveway. Adam stopped the cruiser behind the fire truck. From her angle, she couldn’t see if he was alone, or not. But she guessed that likely Jake was with him.
An explosion jerked her, and she shivered.
“Propane tank at the back of the house,” Lewis said.
It was still dark out, and not at all cold, but Michaela began to shiver. Her men reacted by tucking her in even closer. The sound of a crack reached her.
And then the roof caved in.
They sat and watched as the firemen pulled back, as they focused on the surrounding area, on stopping any sparks that wanted to escape. It took her a moment to understand the significance of what that meant.
“Hey.” Randy reached over and wiped the tear off her cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know how it happened. Did we leave something on? Was there some kind of short in the electricity?” Michaela was having a hard time with the fact that her house was dying.
The building that Jonas Powell had first constructed when he’d staked his claim in the 1880s. The home that he’d passed on to his son, Gabriel, who’d passed it on to his son, her grandfather, Nikodemus. The home Grandpa Nick had remodeled and added onto, the same home that her father had brought his wife to, that she had been born in, that home was now a collapsing mass of burning wood. Gone.
“We didn’t leave anything on,” Lewis said.
It took another half-hour for the fire to eat the rest of the walls. The firemen poured more water onto the shell, their focus now on preventing an even bigger fire in the surrounding fields. They were very lucky in that the grass wasn’t nearly as dry as it could have been.
Adam and Jake appeared to be having a conference with one of the Jessops, who led them off for a moment toward the house. A few minutes later, they reappeared and headed toward them. Adam held his cell phone to his ear. He ended his call just before they reached her. Michaela instinctively wiped away her tears.
“How are you doing, Michaela?” Adam asked.
More tears threatened, and her throat tightened. She shrugged. “We’re all safe and unharmed.” She exhaled and grabbed onto that reality with two hands and every instinct to embrace the truth that lived within her. Just that afternoon, she’d been ready and willing to sell this place and go wherever her men wanted to go, hadn’t she?
Michaela didn’t know why she was feeling bereft at this moment. After all, it was just a stupid house.
“We’re all safe,” she said again. It’s not a stupid house. It’s a lifetime, my lifetime. Yes, it was, and she’d grieve. Later. What she’d just said aloud echoed in the night. “And that’s the most important thing.”
“It is the most important thing. And the second most important thing is justice.”
She hadn’t noticed until that moment, because she’d been inside her own head. But now she focused on Adam Kendall and realized the man was deeply, seriously pissed.
“It was arson, wasn’t it?” Lewis asked.
“Grant is pretty sure of it. Stupid schmuck left the fucking gas can behind. It melted some, but we’ll test what’s left of it for fingerprints.
“They’ll be back out in the morning to start the investigation. In the meantime, we’ll keep a crew here, on watch. Also, I’ve asked the DPS—our state police—to pay a visit to Terry Gowan.”
“If that bastard did this…” Randy’s fury-laced words tapered off.
“We’ll find out who did this,” Adam said. “And we will deal with him, to the fullest extent of the law. That’s a promise.”
“In the meantime,” Jake said, “saddle up and follow us. The family’s been busy in the last hour. We have a house ready for you to move into.”
Michaela blinked. “Excuse me?”
Jake’s grin was softer than usual. “A temporary place where the three of you can hang your hats until you re-assess and get your new house built.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lewis said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. It’s what family does,” Jake said.
Family. They were surrounded by family. Right then and there, Michaela thought it was the most amazing feeling in the world.
Chapter Eighteen
Michaela stretched and yawned, her body awakening before her mind, which fought to throw off horrid dream images of flames and smoke and stalking death.
She blinked and remembered. Lewis’s shout awakening her, the smoke in the air, the race for the window. Then panic when her men weren’t joining her but, instead, taking precious time to retrieve the few keepsakes that she’d only so recently discovered—Daniel’s box and the few keepsakes of her mother’s that hadn’t been in her car for Monday’s trip to the drycleaner’s.
Not a horrid dream, but a horrid reality. Her eyes felt irritated, and she remembered more.
She remembered watching as her house surrendered to the fire beast, as the roof caved in and the focus changed to ensuring no grass fires erupted as a result of the burning house.
Then coming here, to this house in Lusty, a place that had miraculously been made ready for them as they’d watched the funeral pyre of the place they’d been. Her place. Their place.
She’d been grateful—of course she had—and had reeked of the smoke. They’d all showered in the enormous master bath and cuddled in the enormous bed, and she’d wept.
More of a wailing than a weeping.
Michaela finally understood the concept of the ugly cry, because, man, she’d had one last night.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
Randy, on her left, snuggled closer. On her right, Lewis moved in and laid his hand across her stomach. Cossetted. Cocooned. Safe.
“Like I need eye drops and a strong cup of coffee. Sorry I cried all over you both last night.”
“You were entitled,” Lewis said. “And we’re not sorry we were there for you. Holding you. That’s what we plan to do for the rest of our lives. Be there for you. And you’ll do the same. That’s what love is.”
“We love you without limits,” Randy said. “We’ll always take care of you—just as you’ll take care of us. We all need that, sweetheart. The world around us can go for a shit—or feel like it. But I know that if I have you, then my world is perfect.”
Michaela gave thanks then and there for a pair of men who loved her unconditionally and, with their words, could remind her of what was most important. She shot from a sense of bereavement to a boundless joy in one heartbeat. The devotion she read in their gazes settled within her. Lifted her. Completed her.
“Yes. I want very much to spend the rest of my life with the two of you, us taking care of each other.”
They held her close, and Michaela absorbed their heat and their love.
“We have to meet Grant and Andrew out at your place in an hour.” She read regret in Lewis’s gaze. “But we’ll come right back here as soon as we can, baby girl. That’s a promise. For now, let’s go get that coffee you mentioned.”
“Is there coffee in the house to be had?”
“I’m pretty sure there is,” Randy said.
Getting dressed didn’t require a lot of thinking on Michaela’s part. She didn’t have a lot to choose from. The guys had emptied her drawers and grabbed a few things from her closet, but she figured she’d lost at least half of her clothes.
And she remembered then that they’d had some things stored at her place, too. But they hadn’t bothered with any of it.
“I guess we could all hit the mall later today,” she said.
“We still have some things at Jenny’s,” Lewis said. “But, yeah, that sounds like a plan.”
There was coffee available in this temporary house—as well as bacon, sausage, eggs, milk, juice, and a couple loaves of homemade bread. A butter dish sat in the fridge, as did a jar of strawberry jam that looked homemade and probably was. The Keurig on the counter was accompanied by a rack that held her favorite coffee, as well as a couple brands she knew her men preferred.
“I’ve always considered that as long as there’s coffee and toilet paper, I can handle the world.” She grinned as her two men burst out laughing.
“That’s an…interesting outlook,” Randy said. His cheeky grin told her he’d considered using another adjective, perhaps one related to toilet paper.
She didn’t want a full breakfast, which Lewis had offered to cook even if it made them late for their meeting. Instead, she opted for a piece of toast with butter and jam. Her stomach told her that while the rest of her was feeling better after the events of the very early morning, her gut wasn’t quite ready to welcome much more than toast and coffee.
They walked through their new, temporary home. “I can’t believe they did this for us,” she said to the guys. “This place is completely furnished. Who does that?”
“The families of Lusty, Texas, apparently,” Randy said.
“The first night we were here, there was a huge gathering at Ari’s place,” Lewis said. “We heard the tales of how the family pulls together whenever there’s a need. More than one cousin was the recipient of a speedy move.”
Love Under Two Mavericks Page 16
