12-Alarm Cowboys (29 page)

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Cynthia D’Alba

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Cover Artist: Kim Killion

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G
eorgina Greyson used
her toes to push her porch swing into a lazy sway as she sorted her mail. Today’s bundle contained a mixture of unwanted advertising, store ads, and a couple of bills.

And then she came to the final envelope. Cream-colored, of heavy stock with fancy script writing, she was sure it could only be one thing…an invitation. Flipping it over to check the return address, she wasn’t surprised. It was what she had expected. An invitation to her ex-fiancé’s wedding.

She slid her nail under the flap and pulled out the heavy card with a swirling black font.

Priscilla Eileen Duvall

and

Christopher Joseph Lemon

Request the Pleasure

of Your Presence

Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, yeah, Priscilla. You got him to marry you. It won’t be all you think it will.

The wedding had been last month. With all of the moving associated with her veterinary internship, the invitation had taken some time to catch up with Georgina through mail forwarding. But still, a month was a long time…. She checked the postmark. Had Priscilla actually mailed this after the ceremony to make sure Georgina knew her ex was off the market? Or maybe Priscilla wanted to make sure her groom showed up before she crowed.

As she’d suspected, the postmark was the day after the wedding.

Georgina chuckled to herself with a shake of her head. She’d dodged a bullet when Chris had dumped her for her best friend Priscilla. Too bad he’d waited until they were standing at the altar to do so. At the time she hadn’t thought herself lucky, positive her life was over, even if she survived the embarrassment. Today, a year later, she was thankful to have avoided what she was sure would have been a matrimonial error of epic proportions. She mentally wished them well and put the card with the rest of the trash to be burned.

Resting her head against the cedar plank back, Georgina pushed off again and set the swing in motion. Whispering Springs, Texas was exactly what she needed right now…a small community and a job guaranteed to keep her busy and her mind off her non-existent love life.

And speaking of her love life, it really was time to get rid of all the pictures and notes and other memorabilia from her years with Chris. Why she’d moved it around with her was a mystery even to her. Most likely it was related to her years in the foster system and her lack of ability to take much with her when she was rehoused from family to family. Now she had a problem letting go.

No more, she vowed as she stood. No time like the present to do a little housecleaning.

Her parents had died when she’d been only two years old, so she had no memories of them. She’d lived with her maternal grandmother until her death when Georgie had been ten. Living on a large farm, her grandmother always burned the trash, something Georgie had loved doing with her. Since then she’d lived in cities where burning her trash really wasn’t an option, not without drawing the cops and fire department to her door. Then again, maybe a cute cop or fireman might have been the answer to her love life drought.

But Whispering Springs was different. She lived outside town on a small farm with just enough acreage to make her feel a little country. No crops to tend, but there was a horse, a cow and a goat to care for during her stay. That was part of the rental agreement, not that she minded. Along with the four barn cats, they gave her some company.

She found the box marked “Crap” in the spare bedroom and hauled it outside to the blackened area ringed with rocks where she assumed previous tenants had burned their trash. Then she gathered up all the newspapers and junk mail that’d been accumulating over the past week. Might as well get rid of those while she was at it.

She found perverse pleasure as she watched the flames lick and then consume the wedding invitation. Fire cleansed, and after seeing the cream-color turn to black ash, she felt the relief of the past being lifted off her shoulders.

Speaking of shoulders, she remembered an old jacket that belonged to Chris in her closet. Heck, yeah. She’d burn that too. And maybe even that pair of running shoes he’d left at her house that’d somehow gotten packed and moved.

The fire burned low and Georgie hurried into the house to grab those items. While there, she found a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans of his that definitely needed to be torched. Collecting the wad of old Chris-clothing in her arms, she hot-footed it back to the now barely-burning fire and dropped everything on top.

Her phone buzzed. She wasn’t technically on-call this weekend but she’d promised Dr. Mabee that she’d be around if an emergency came up. But when she saw the name on the readout, she smiled. Magda Hobbs Montgomery was the reason Georgie had ended up in Texas.

“Hey, girlfriend. What’s shakin’ bacon?”

Magda laughed. “Man, I haven’t heard that in years.”

Georgie returned the laugh. “No one but you would get it. Glad you called.”

“You okay?”

“Oh, sure. Getting settled in nicely.” Georgie went back to the porch swing and sat. “I’m glad I had a few days to get settled before I have to go to work.”

“Where’s Mabee going again?”

“Australia. Some research trip he’s been dying to do, to hear him tell it. Personally, I think it’s just an excuse for an extended second honeymoon.”

“When do you actually start work?”

“Tomorrow. He’s taking me around to meet all the ranchers and cattlemen so they’ll know me if they need to call the clinic.”

“Oh goodie. He’ll bring you by here then. Try to make it about one and I’ll have lunch for you both.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Georgie protested.

“Honey, you know me. I don’t do anything I don’t want to.”

Georgie laughed. “True.”

“Plus I want you to meet Reno.”

“Kind of taken with that husband of yours.”

Magda sighed. “You have no idea.”

The scent of smoke filtered around the side of the house. “I guess I’d better check on my fire.”

“Your what?” Magda shouted. “Fire? Your house is on fire?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I was burning trash, and a few things that needed to be permanently disposed of.”

“There’s a burn ban on right now. County’s as dry as I’ve ever seen it. You might want to go put that fire out pronto.”

“Burn ban? Seriously? I didn’t know. I’ll–”

The sound of a siren interrupted her. “I hear a siren close by. Guess you’re probably right about putting out the fire. Holler at you later.”

The smoke rolling around from the back of the house was heavier and darker now. Probably those darn running shoes smoldering. Maybe she should have thrown those into a Salvation Army bin. Too late now.

She screwed the hose nozzle onto the faucet at the side of the house and dragged the hose around to douse the fire. The unexpected heat from the growing blaze pushed her back. Somehow the fire had jumped its rock boundary and was eating its way toward the house.

Crap, crap, crap
.

She’d begun frantically spraying the hose when a large, red firetruck braked to a stop in front of her house. Three men in tan turnout coats and pants jumped from the truck and scrambled for equipment. Behind the fire engine, five trucks skidded to a stop, red strobe lights on the dashes flashing through the windshields.

“Grab the hose and let’s get it around back,” the tall man from the first pick-up truck shouted. “Buddy, be sure to get the fitting tight this time. We need all the water we can get.” He shoved past Georgie with a gruff, “Move, lady.”

Two firemen raced past her dragging a large hose toward her fire. Good grief. It wasn’t even that big of a fire. Sure, it’d gotten out of its assigned location but she could have handled it with a simple garden hose. What an overreaction. Typical small volunteer fire department.

As that thought crossed her mind, the pine tree close to her bedroom window crackled as fire leapt up into its branches.

The animals! She needed to make sure they were okay.

Whirling around, she raced around the front of the house and approached the shared pasture from the other side of the house. Surprisingly, she found three more firemen there putting out small fires that’d started in the dead grass in the yard.

Running past them, she got to the fence and saw all three animals watching the firemen with a mixture of curiosity and fear. None of the burn paths had led to the pasture, so none of the animals she’d been trusted to protect were at risk. Even the smoke wasn’t as thick over here.

The volume of water the firemen’s hose sprayed was much greater than anything she could have generated with her garden hose. Within fifteen minutes, the fire was out and the men were rolling up their hose to leave.

A pain in the patoot for sure, but no real harm done.

The tall man who’d rudely shoved her out of the way stalked toward her with long strides and heavy footsteps.

“Lady,” he said, his face red with either heat exposure or anger.

Georgie crossed her fingers for heat exposure. She was wrong.

“Are you nuts or stupid?” the man shouted. “You don’t look crazy, so I’m going with stupid. There’s a fire ban right now. That means
no fires
. At all. For any reason.” He jerked the helmet off his head. Dark wavy hair fell over his forehead. “Well?” he demanded. A pair of chocolate brown eyes glared at her.