Worth the Risk (22 page)

Hannah cut off Mia’s warnings, telling her to call 911, then barely got her car in park before jumping out and sprinting toward the barn. One thing on her mind.
Get the horses.
The front was an impassable wall of flames. She changed course to check the back.

Smoke poured through every crack and seam as she rounded the corner, but it wasn’t as bad here. She undid the latch, slid back the wide door, and was hit with a staggering blast of heat. The blaze crackled, the horses screamed and battered against the stalls holding them prisoner.

“How many?”

It was Lexie, shouting right beside her, barely audible over the roaring of burning wood.

How many in the barn?
She didn’t know, couldn’t think. Nothing to do but go stall to stall. “I’ll do this side,” she shouted, and stepped into hell.

Hannah opened the first door she came to on her left, freeing Big Ben, who instinctively ran from the danger.

She moved to the next one, squinting toward the front of the barn.
Oh, God.
It was a wall of flames moving toward her. They licked up the walls around the office, to the ceiling and across the beams. A destructive force, pushing choking smoke and searing heat ahead of it.

The hungry flames were devouring everything in their path. The feed room across from the office was already engulfed. Once it got past there, it would reach the horses in the first stalls.

Her heart beat out of control but her thoughts were clear. Start at the front. Work your way back. High-pitched whinnies pierced her ears as she ran past the animals.

I’m coming back.

It had only been a few seconds, and already smoke-induced tears poured from her eyes. The sounds of panicked horses tore at her heart. She opened the door of the first stall past the tack room, swatted Sugar’s rear, and the black mare took off in the direction of safety.

Sixteen stalls, and not all held horses, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t be sure which stalls were empty. Couldn’t accept the consequences if she skipped one and was wrong. She’d have to go side to side and try to beat the flames.

Bits of fiery hay sprinkled the air until the entire building looked like the inside of a fire pit someone had just kicked. The stacked bales of hay had created a roaring inferno, and Hazel was right next door. Using the end of her shirt like a potholder, she flipped the hot metal latch and slid it back to free the frantic gray. That was two. No, three. The smoke had thickened to black and she worked only by feel, arms outstretched. She assumed Lexie was doing the same at the other end.

She’d never been so hot, so suffocated. It was like someone had turned off the lights and turned up the heat. Her chest burned from trying not to breathe. Her hands moved, the rough wood scraping her palms, until they felt metal and another horse ran out, desperate to be free from a sudden threat he couldn’t comprehend.

She hunched low instinctively, searching for a clear bit of air. Or maybe, remembering her brother Zach’s instructions.
Stay low and get out. No matter what.

I can’t. I won’t leave them.

A beam crashed to her left in a stream of orange light. She wasn’t going to make it. Wasn’t going to get them all out. She flipped the latch on the nearest door, slid it back, and freed Lady, a boarding mare. And just in time. The fire in the neighboring stall caught the hay bedding in Lady’s and erupted, sending more burning bits into the air. She swiped at her arms and face and kept moving.

With a quick glance back through teary eyes, she saw Lexie fighting the door to Roma’s stall. The stallion reared and battered against the door, unknowingly making it more difficult for the woman trying to save him. Hannah felt a second of relief when she stepped back and Roma emerged. Then she watched in slow motion as Lexie tried to get to the frantic horse turned in the right direction. Saw him rear, saw the woman go down.

“Lexie!” Her scream went nowhere, only opened herself to hot smoke that seemed to charge straight down her throat.

Hannah dropped to her knees and crawled to the other side, one pointless hand over her mouth, the other making wide sweeps along the ground searching for a body. Yelling for her was useless. She couldn’t drag in enough air and there was no way Lexie would hear her. Her hands met wood, telling her she’d made it to the other side. She turned right and crawled toward the back.

Her lungs felt seared, her eyes burned like they’d been doused with hot pepper, and she couldn’t keep them open any longer. Didn’t matter. She couldn’t see anyway, couldn’t hear anything except the fire and the shrill cries of horses as the inferno grew over and around them.

Starved for oxygen, her head started to buzz. What if Lexie was crawling on the other side looking for her? She had no way of knowing if her friend had already made it out. If she didn’t go now, there was a good chance she would burn on this floor.

Would she pass out before the flames got her? Hooves pounded against wood near her head. There were more horses, but…she couldn’t think who, where, or which way to go.
And Lexie.

She pulled her legs under her and tried to crawl. The suffocating heat and black smoke pressed her back down. She couldn’t even drag in enough air to cough. After all the times she’d wanted to die, she now desperately wanted to live, but her mind was going dark. With her forehead resting on the ash-strewn floor, she took a second. Thought of her brothers, of Stephen.

A strong hand grabbed her upper arm and jerked her up and off the concrete flooring. She reached out with her other hand as she was lifted and felt the thick, rough fabric of the protective jacket Zach wore. She coughed out Lexie’s name. Or tried to as she was thrown roughly over a shoulder, knocking the remaining air from her stomach.

The relief was immediate, but her throat and chest burned like she’d swallowed fire. Maybe she had.

She was lowered to her back on cool grass. Something covered her mouth and she made a weak attempt to push it away. “Lexie. She’s—”

“They’ll get her out. Just relax. Breathe.”

Zach.
Zach was here. She tried again to tell him but couldn’t get enough breath to speak. Nauseous, she fought to sit up. Zach helped her roll to her side and she coughed until she thought a lung would come up.

Lying back in the grass, she heard sirens, male voices shouting. And above it all, the roar of burning wood.

Another figure emerged from the mouth of the barn. A man running, a body slumped over his shoulder.
Lexie.

“Is there anyone else in there?”

She shook her head, then tried to croak out that she really didn’t know.

“The horses.” She tried to get up again.

“They’re all out,” Zach said, pushing her shoulders down. “We’ll round them up. Just relax.”

Tears poured from her eyes, making them hurt even more. New voices and something different over her mouth. More sirens as water flowed in a giant stream high into the air.

“You’re okay. I’ll be back.”

She squinted after Zach. Everyone who wasn’t fighting the fire hovered around the other body on the ground.

When the fire truck passed him ten minutes earlier, he didn’t think much of it. When the ambulance flew around him just three minutes later, he didn’t want to believe it, but he pressed his foot to the gas. When he followed the emergency vehicle through the gates, the empty sound of her unanswered phone was still ringing through his truck’s speakers.

He didn’t remember stopping and getting out, just that he was running. Heart slamming against his ribs as he sprinted toward a nightmare. It seemed like hours for his eyes to track around, take in the scene. Seeing everything except what he was looking for.

Flames thirty feet high lit up the night. Men’s voices shouted above a sound he wouldn’t have associated with a fire. Sparks flew, bright orange against the dark sky. Blue and red emergency vehicle lights spun over the entire scene.

And above it all his repeating mantra.
Don’t let her be in there.

Would she have seen the fire from her house? Maybe not. Maybe she was at home, in bed.

Hannah.
Don’t let her be in there.

His mind screamed her name. His throat was closed with absolute terror. Voice cut off. He had the random thought that this must be why people couldn’t scream in a nightmare.

This is a nightmare.

Would she go in there? For the horses? His stomach turned as his mind answered that question. Another ambulance bumped over the ground to his left, siren wailing, lights flashing into the chaos.

Firemen yelled and pointed to the emergency technicians and he followed their line of sight to a body on the ground. And he ran.

He reached her, dropped on weak knees beside her. “Hannah?”

Her head turned and she lowered the mask that covered her nose and mouth. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t understand, or couldn’t hear, over the blood pounding in his own head. Moving. Alive.

Was she hurt? Was she burned? He lifted a shaky hand and ran it over her hair, searched her face. The same face he’d looked into just hours ago, now covered with black soot except for the white lines tracking from the corners of her eyes.

“Lexie.” She said the name and coughed so hard her small body strained off the ground. He helped her sit up, adjusted the oxygen mask over her mouth so that every time she wheezed, her lungs would fill.

A paramedic rushed over. “We need to get you checked out at the second ambulance.”

“Is she okay? The other—Lexie.”

Stephen’s eyes landed on the figure lying still on the grass.

“They’re working on her,” the woman said. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

She started to stand, but Stephen lifted her slight body into his arms. She’d been in that fire. She’d
been
in that
fire
.

“I can walk.”

He was literally shaking with fear. “Be quiet.”

“The horses. I need—” She broke off in a fit of coughing.

“Someone else will have to take care of the horses,” Stephen said.

“Got them out, but I don’t…know where they are. I should—”

“No. You shouldn’t.”

Another car flew into what already looked like an emergency parking lot. Nick flung open the driver’s side door and shot out. “Hannah!”

Stephen saw Nick’s stricken expression as he immediately started for the ambulance where they were strapping the still body of a woman to a stretcher. He knew what Nick felt because he was still feeling it. And wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.

“Nick!” Stephen yelled over the chaos.

Nick looked back in bewilderment and took a second to stop the race to what he thought was his sister before changing gears and direction.

“I’m okay.” She strained to speak when Nick reached them.

Nick stared another second, then his eyes met Stephen’s.

“She’s not hurt,” Stephen told him. “It’s Lexie.”

Nick’s face had gone from terror to relief and now a bit of guilt as he looked back toward the paramedics loading the body into the ambulance.

“Come on. You should get checked out.” Nick reached for his sister.

“I’ve got her,” Stephen told him.

An internal battle played out over Nick’s hard face as he looked at his sister. He squeezed the back of his neck, then he brought his eyes to Stephen’s and a kind of understanding passed between them. “I’ll make sure Lexie’s sisters are called. Talk to Zach.”

Hannah nodded and Stephen was walking.

Stephen carried Hannah through the house,
his
house. He’d wanted her safe and somehow, in his mind, that equated to getting her away from there. He needed to be in control, and that was here.

“I can walk,” she repeated for the third time.

“Forget it.” He stood her in his bathroom and stripped her blackened clothes, every thread reminding him where she’d been. What could have happened beating at him as he helped her shower off the worst of it.

“Is the water too hot?” Her skin was bright red in little places on her arms and face. Just seeing them made him sick. Proof she’d been inside that burning inferno.

“No. It feels good.”

When she was finished, he plucked her from his shower and wrapped her in an oversize towel. He patted the drops of water from her fragile skin, thankful for the first time that his housekeeper had gone for the feminine fluff.

He kissed her legs as he dried them, her back, her shoulders. He stood and saw her eyes welling with tears, her bottom lip trembling. “Come here.” He caught a tear with his finger, then kissed her damp cheek. Slender arms came tight around his waist. It was hitting her now. God knows it was hitting him.

“Sit down.” His throat was raw, his voice jagged. But it wouldn’t compare to hers. He filled a glass of water, pushed it into her hand.

Hannah sat where he directed on the side of the tub and caught a glimpse of herself in his mirror. “Oh my gosh.”

“Yes. I know.”

“No wonder you look so…”

Terrified?
He left her side for two seconds to get the ointment from his first-aid box in the closet. “It won’t burn,” he said, opening the ointment. With trembling fingers, he dabbed soothing burn cream on a dozen little places where hot ashes had singed her skin. One at her temple, several across her cheeks and arms. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured you in my bathroom, naked and near that tub.”

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips as he’d wanted.

“I was thinking more along the lines of bubble bath.” He finished the last and kissed her forehead. “Another time.”

“You never brought me here before.”

“No.” He returned the ointment to the box. “I’ve never brought any woman here.” But he could have brought Hannah. Had no problem with her being here. So why hadn’t he?

Their eyes met in the mirror. There were questions there, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t answer. He couldn’t, not now. Not with his insides still twisted, unsure he would ever get over seeing that fire and her body lying in the grass beside it. He could have lost her.

Drops of water slipped from the ends of her hair down her arms and she shivered.

“Come on. Let’s get you dry and into bed.” When she was seated on the edge, he pulled a T-shirt over her head. He draped a blanket around her shoulders, and rubbed her hair dry with another towel until the ends were no longer dripping. “That’s enough.” He drew back the covers, ushered her to climb in. When he had the blanket pulled up and around them both, he gathered her against him. Wrapped her in his arms as close and tight as he could.

He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head tucked under his chin, thinking about what could have happened. And what he’d been doing, where he’d been.

If he’d been there, she never would have gotten within a hundred yards of that fire. The fear when he’d seen her on the ground had sucked the air from his lungs, knocked the breath right out of him. But he got a similar breathless feeling when he made love to her; when he watched her walk into a room; watched her eat, or ride, or work with the kids.

She shivered again and curled deeper into his chest. It didn’t escape him that he’d spent the majority of the past five years imagining what life would have been like if a certain woman hadn’t died. Now he lay here while a hard rain beat on the skylight above his bed, wondering how he would live if Hannah had.

Maybe he could love her without destroying them both. Maybe he already did.