Murphy's Law (15 page)

“You won’t be any help with that ankle.
You stay here in case Abby wakes up. I’ll go on down and see what’s happening.”

Defeated, Sara nodded and sank into the
cushions. She balanced the ice pack on her ankle and rubbed her eyes, praying
the men and horses were all right. If she and Murphy hadn’t been there to see
the flames, the horses would have been lost.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” Alice
instructed before disappearing out the door.

Minutes later, fire trucks roared the driveway
and made their way down to the barn. Sara wished she could go check on Abby,
but the way her ankle swelled, she knew she’d never make it up the stairs
without assistance. She would have to trust her care to Grover.

What a night this turned out to be. It
broke her heart to think about everything being lost in the barn. It wasn’t
just the building, it was tack and photos of the kids when they were young with
their horses and ribbons they had won in competition. Memories and pieces of
their past they would never get back.

She could hear trucks barreling down the
drive, and wanted to be there. She imagined Murphy darting through flames to
get the horses out, fighting not to get burned, and bit down on her lip. She
hoped they were okay. The waiting was almost more than she could handle.

Alice returned a little while later
covered in soot and smelling like smoke, assuring her everyone was fine. “Jon
and the boys managed to get all the horses out before the building went up in
flames. The fire department got the fire out, but the barn is a total loss.”

Sara breathed a sigh of relief.

“No one was hurt?” she asked.

“Jon sustained some smoke inhalation,
but he’s fine. He’s going to be awhile.”

Sara didn’t miss the frown that marred
Alice’s brow, and her heart sank.

“This wasn’t an accident, was it?” she
asked quietly.

Alice moved to her side and laid a hand
on her shoulder. “Don’t you worry, dear, Jon will take care of everything. I’m
going to go make a pot of coffee and take it to the boys. How’s your ankle?”

“Better, thanks.”

Alice nodded and disappeared into the
kitchen. Sara closed her eyes. Deep down she knew this was no accident. Stephen
was here.

Sara let out a long sigh. She couldn’t
stay here. Too much had been lost already and she wasn’t going to let Stephen
take anything more from this family. Tomorrow she would pack their things and
go before anyone could stop her. She could go to Texas or Arizona. Somewhere
remote and out of the way. Stephen would hate the desert.

With an aching heart, she said silent goodbyes
to the family she had grown to love.

Chapter
14

Murphy raked a hand through his hair. It
came away heavy with soot. He tasted smoke and felt it thick in his lungs. The
barn was demolished.

The fire had been deliberately set.

An empty gas container lying a few feet
away and the footprints that didn’t belong to anyone on the ranch proved it.
The fools hadn’t tried to hide the truth that they set the fire, instead
taunted him with the evidence. Stephen Benchley didn’t know who he was dealing with.
By God, Murphy would make it clear as soon as he got his hands on the bastard.

It ailed him that the fire had been
started right under his nose. While he had been distracted with Sara, they had
snuck in and lit the place on fire. He hadn’t heard a thing and that wasn’t
like him. Years of dangerous missions deep behind enemy lines had fine-tuned
his instincts, yet somehow a slip of a woman had obliterated them. It rubbed
like a burr under a saddle. He couldn’t protect her if she distracted him. They
hadn’t lost more than a building and some tack tonight, but next time it might
be more.

It could be Sara or Abby or a member of
his family.

A rock settled in his stomach. This
bastard had come into his home and threatened his family. That wasn’t
acceptable.

He saluted the fire trucks as they
roared past him. Nice thing about small towns, they let folks handle their own
problems until they needed assistance. He wouldn’t press charges because he
wanted to take care of this himself.

James and Paul approached, both covered
in ash.

“What are you going to do, Jon?” James
asked. As an ex-cop, he knew what the fire represented.

“Tighten security. Keep the girls close
to home. He’s playing with us, sending us a warning. Fool thinks he’s in
control.”

“One hell of a warning,” James muttered.

“Worst thing we can do is underestimate
the man. He may not be familiar with our territory, but he managed to do okay
with this stunt.” His voice relayed his anger at being caught with his pants
down. Literally.

Paul clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jon. Sara is one lovely lady. Can’t say it
wouldn’t have happened to us if we were in your shoes.”

Murphy scowled into the darkness. Did
everyone know what he and Sara had been doing on top of the barn? Christ,
nothing was sacred in a small town. By now the firefighters knew and by
breakfast tomorrow the entire town would know too.

He never should have opened his door
that night.

“We’ll help you get the horses in the
corral so you can go see how Sara’s ankle’s doing. Did she really jump from the
roof?”

Murphy scowled at Paul, who was grinning
like a fool. Damn, he would never live this down.

“How far would you say it is? About
twenty feet?” James added with a barely concealed grin.

Murphy knew what they were doing and he
appreciated it, but he wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up. He’d missed the
mark and let the enemy get close. A dangerous mistake he couldn’t afford to
repeat. From this point on, he was staying as far away from Sara as possible.

Even if it killed him.

* * * *

Sara heard the back door slide open and
sat up so she could see for herself that Murphy was all right. He walked in
with James and Paul, who looked tired and in need of a shower. All three wore
grim expressions and were covered in soot. Paul wore flannel pajama bottoms and
James’s t-shirt was on backward. They had literally jumped out of bed to come
help.

She let out a tiny sigh. Murphy might be
covered in soot, but he was alive. Relief flooded her with such intensity she
had to turn away from him so he didn’t see. He didn’t need her adding to his
burdens.

Alice rushed over to them. She embraced
each of them in turn and did a quick inspection to make sure they were okay.

“Everything’s gone?”

Murphy nodded and leaned down to give
his mother a strong hug.

Her heart flip-flopped at the
uncharacteristic gesture. They were going to be okay. No matter what had been
lost, they would make it through.

“It was only stuff,” Alice said, holding
her son tightly. “We can rebuild. You boys better get on home before the girls
pack up the kids and show up on the doorstep. They’ll be worried about you.”

James and Paul each stopped to ask Sara
about her foot before saying their goodbyes. Touched by their concern, she
assured them she was fine, blushing when Paul winked at her. They couldn’t
possibly know how she’d done it.

Once the door closed behind them, Alice
said her goodnights and headed to bed.

Murphy circled the couch and kneeled
beside her foot. He picked up the ice pack and gently prodded her ankle with hands
that were black with ash.

“Are you okay?” Sara asked, worrying
there were burns beneath the grime.

He ignored her question, rotating her
foot in a tight circle. “Does this hurt?”

She winced. “A little. You don’t think
it’s broken, do you?”

“Sprained. You’ll need to stay off it
for a couple days.”

She groaned. “How am I supposed to
explain this? Abby is going to wonder what I did.”

Murphy glanced at her, his expression
grim. “Tell her you tripped on the stairs,” he said gruffly, replacing the ice
pack.

Why the coldness in his tone and the
distance in his eyes? Something was wrong, more than just the loss of the barn
on his mind. He was acting more like the cold, aloof man she had met in the
mountains. There was no warmth in his eyes when he looked at her. He looked
like a stranger and it hurt.

“You can rebuild the barn?” she asked,
settling back on the sofa.

Murphy rubbed a hand over his eyes.
“Yeah, we can rebuild.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Sara bit down on her lip. Tension
radiated from his pores, making her uneasy. She wanted to massage the tension
out of his muscles, but kept her hands folded in her lap, knowing he wouldn’t
welcome it right now.

“Do you know how it started?”

Still crouching at her feet, he said,
“Deliberately, with gas cans and a match.”

Her worst fear, come true. She had
brought this upon Murphy’s family. It gnawed at her insides like an angry
disease.

She met Murphy’s eyes and flinched at
the coldness she saw there.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Anger flashed in his eyes. “You didn’t
do this,” he said through a clenched jaw.

“I brought this danger into your home.
If I wasn’t here, you would still have your barn.”

Murphy locked a hard gaze on her. “If
you weren’t here you would be dead by now.”

Sara gasped. “You don’t know that. I was
taking care of Abby and I was just fine without your intervention. I evaded
Stephen for six months.”

“Only because he allowed you to.”

Stunned, she gaped at him, unable to
speak. When she finally found her voice, it was filled with indignation.

“You can’t know that. You don’t know
Stephen well enough to know that. How dare you undermine me. I took care of
Abby while I was in that godforsaken house, and I took care of her after we
left. I didn’t try to fall down that ledge, I slipped. I would never let them hurt
my daughter, so don’t tell me that Stephen has been in control. Abby is safe
because I kept her safe. I made her wear disguises and moved her all over God’s
creation without allowing her to make friends or get attached to any one place.
We’ve spent the last six months living out of a car and bouncing from one motel
to another. It’s been stressful and hard but we did it! And we’ll keep doing
it. I made the right decision. I did the unthinkable and dammit, I’m proud of
it. It’s the first thing I’ve done in a long time that was right.”

Her tirade ended with a sob and she bit
down hard on her lip to prevent it from escaping. How dare he suggest Stephen
had been playing with her the entire time? She was too angry to admit it
sounded like something Stephen would do.

Staring at her hands, she willed her
heart to stop pounding and her tears to go away. She hated this emotional
tornado that felt like it was going to suck her up at any given moment.

Murphy rose slowly to his feet. She
refused to look at him.

“You’ve done a good job with your
daughter, Sara,” he said quietly. “You’re a very good mother, but the force
opposing you is stronger and we have to act accordingly. That’s all I meant.”

Her chin lifted. Murphy stood over her,
tall and menacing, but with the gentleness in his eyes she had grown to love.
It made him seem less a soldier and more like the man she dreamed about at
night. Her anger instantly evaporated and she sighed.

“I overreacted. It’s been quite a night.
Maybe we’ll communicate better in the morning.”

“There’s nothing to say. Until the
threat is gone, I’m going to be increasing security on the ranch and you’re
going to stay close to the house.”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?”

“No more rides. No trips to town.”

Sara flinched. “No more us.”

“There never was an
us
.”

Sara felt the blow of those words clear
to her toes. They ripped and shredded their way through her heart and made her
look away from the man who’d tossed them at her. He’d shut her out the same as
he had his family after his return from Azbakastan. When Murphy felt he failed
in a task, he withdrew. Which meant he thought he had failed her.

With jerky movements she picked up the
ice pack and swung her legs to the floor. She pushed to her feet, ignoring
Murphy’s outstretched hand, and bit back a wince as pain shot up her leg. No
way would she accept his help now. The line had been drawn. They were back to
soldier and runaway. This place she’d been before. She had spent most of her
life alone.

Murphy reached for her elbow when she
took a tentative step forward. She slapped his hand away and limped toward the
stairs.

“Dammit, Sara.”

Sara kept on awkwardly toward the
staircase. Every step was pure agony, but she wasn’t going to let Murphy help
her. He had made it clear where he stood and she was determined to let him have
his way.

She made it to the stairway and gripped
the banister.

Murphy followed close behind but he
didn’t touch her.

Holding up her injured foot, she hopped
up the stairs one by one with Murphy dogging her heels the entire way.

“This is a side to you I’ve never seen,”
Murphy muttered as she stepped gingerly onto the landing. “Stubborn doesn’t
suit you, Sara.”

“It does now. Goodnight, Murphy.”

She hopped on one foot down the hallway
and into her room.

With his hand, Murphy stopped her from
closing the door. “This is the only way it can be, Sara. My job is to protect
you.”

“You have been protecting us. You got us
out of Colorado. What does being with me have to do with that?”

Murphy raked a hand through his hair.
“It has everything to do with it.”

“Well, we are not a job, Murphy. We’re
real live human beings who stumbled into your life and made a mess of things.
I’m sorry for that, but I’m not sorry I made love with you. It was the best
thing that has happened to me since Abby. I’m sorry you feel it’s a burden.”

“It wasn’t a burden, it was a
distraction,” he said and walked away. He disappeared into the bathroom and
closed the door.

Sara denied the urge to join him in the
shower, and shut her door. She leaned heavily against it for a moment,
rethinking what Murphy had said. He considered her a distraction. Kind of
flattering, even if it did put the kibosh on their relationship. If Murphy
considered her a distraction, that meant he felt something for her.

Feeling slightly better, she undressed
and fell into bed. When Murphy shut himself in his bedroom, she finally relaxed
enough to fall asleep.

* * * *

“Ever been on a cattle drive?” Justine
asked Sara a few days later. The rebuilding of the barn had started and Sara
was surprised to see the people who came over to help. Neighbors and town folk
brought their tools and lent a hand. The women spent the day cooking and
preparing an evening meal they laid out on tables in the yard and shared with
those helping. Sara had never seen so much food. Wives and children filled the
back yard along with a feast of pies, salads, breads, an assortment of meats
and drinks. When the day ended, the men came up to eat in what turned out to be
a huge gathering.

Everyone Sara met welcomed her openly
and treated her like a long lost friend. Her ankle wasn’t sprained, just
bruised, and she no longer limped. It hurt if she was on it too long, but
otherwise she was good as new.

Murphy avoided her. They saw each other
in the morning over Oreos and at dinnertime. He’d returned to being quiet and
withdrawn and she wasn’t the only one who noticed. Alice kept sending him
thoughtful stares, but didn’t push. They all knew what was bothering him and
knew they couldn’t change his mind. He had gone into protect mode and nothing
would stop him.