Once a Father. Marie Ferrarella

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      As manager of the popular Lone Star Country Club these past few years, she’d been inside her office reviewing last month’s profits when the explosion had thrown her from her chair. Momentarily disoriented, the acrid smell of smoke reached her nose just as her ears were clearing of the deafening noise.

      Stumbling out into the hallway, she’d been accosted by flames. One of the busboys had grabbed her hand, all but dragging her out of the building. In retrospect, he’d probably saved her life. She wasn’t even sure which young man it had been.

      It seemed too incredible for words.

      Well clear of the building, she stood shivering beneath a coat someone had thrown on her shoulders, fighting off the tightening grasp of shock. Her eyes stung, whether from smoke or grief she wasn’t altogether sure, and a tear trickled down her sooty cheek as she surveyed the damage that had been done. A panicked feeling was taking over the pit of her stomach.

      Dressed in the pink colors she tended to favor, Bonnie stood out like a petite, colorful focal point amid the destruction that came in the wake of the explosion.

      Her mind struggled to understand.

      Was this some horrible accident, or deliberate? Who could have done this?

      Noise, hoses and smoke seemed to be all around her. Right in front of her, yellow-jacketed firefighters were attempting to tame the flames.

      “Nothing like this has ever happened here before,” she said more to herself than to the powerfully built man standing beside her.

      “Yeah, bet old Peter Wainwright and Jace Carson are spinning in their graves right now. Like as not they’d each blame the other for this.” Ben Stone took a step back from the scene. He’d been the police chief of Mission Creek, the town that had slowly grown up and around the Lone Star Country Club that the once best friends had created, cutting the acreage equally out of both their properties before a blood feud had rent them apart, for more years than he was happy about. Agitated, he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. At 6’2” he all but dwarfed the woman beside him.

      Damn it all to hell, it wasn’t supposed to have happened this way.

      He shifted his keen eyes to her profile. If she lied, he’d know. Bonnie Brannigan was one of those scattered, flighty women who couldn’t be secretive even if her life depended on it. “You didn’t see or hear anything, did you Bonnie?”

      “No.” Wiping away traces of the tear, she shook her head. “I was in my office when this awful thing happened.” Still dazed, she turned to look at him, fear in her clear-water blue eyes. “You don’t think this is like that terrible bombing in Oklahoma, do you?”

      It astounded him how far off the mark she was. A tinge of relief wafted through the wall of frustration that surrounded him.

      “That was a federal building, Bonnie, not a place where people like to come to talk over how much money they have.” He watched firefighters scrambling out of the way as an outer wall fell. “Maybe it was just an accident. Who knows?” Playing out his role of the big protector, he slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t a hardship. Even though a grandmother, the curvaceous Bonnie Brannigan was still very much an attractive woman. And even better, right now she was no threat to him. “But we’ll find out, by and by. Don’t go troubling that pretty little head of yours.”

      Bonnie smiled, relieved to have someone in charge taking over. She loved her job at the club, but there were times, such as now, when she definitely felt in over her head. That was why she relied so heavily on people like Yance Ingram, the head of security at the club. She recalled that Ben had been the one to bring Yance to her attention.

      Funny how thoughts just popped out of nowhere at a time like this.

      “I suppose it could have been worse,” she murmured, attempting to console herself. She looked at Stone, realizing that had to sound callous, given the circumstances. There were at least two known dead, perhaps more. “I mean, this could have happened during the busy part of the day.”

      Stone nodded, looking toward the body bags just being zipped closed by two of his men. The burned bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage that had been, until an hour ago, the main dining area of the Men’s Grill.

      “Just two fatalities.” The wrong ones. A man and a woman. Their misfortune for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Do you know who they were?”

      Were. The word had such a terrible ring to it. She nodded.

      “Daniel and Meg Anderson.” She’d stopped by their table not fifteen minutes before the blast, asking if everything was to their liking. Admiring how much Jake had grown since the last time she’d seen him. Bonnie fought back a fresh wave of sorrow. “It’s awful, just awful.” Shivering again, she ran well-manicured hands along her arms to ward off a chill that no heat could chase away.

      He had no idea what goaded him on. Instinct, probably. The security guards who had scrambled out of the burning building, soot all over their smart blue blazers and crisp gray slacks, had said that there appeared to be no one left within the area where the bomb and the accompanying fire had hit. There was no need to risk his life by diving back into the flames before they became entirely overwhelming to satisfy himself that everyone was out. His chief had ordered everyone clear of the building.

      But one of the witnesses had mentioned something about thinking he had heard a child scream a heartbeat after the explosion. That had been enough to make Adam go back.

      That and the memory of the child he hadn’t been able to save from another inferno. His own child. And his wife.

      The memory of that clung to him, riding the truck beside him with each fire he went to. No matter how many people Adam Collins had saved since that awful night two years ago when his small family had died in the flames within his house, it didn’t ease his pain. He suspected it never would.

      Taking deep breaths through his mask, Adam forged farther into the burning building. The heat was all around him as broad, decorative beams above him groaned dangerously, threatening to snap in half at any moment.

      He should be withdrawing.

      He pushed on instead.

      His captain’s voice ordering him to turn back echoed in his head as he made his way through the blinding sheets of fire.

      He almost missed him.

      If he hadn’t stumbled just then, trying to avoid falling debris, Adam wouldn’t have seen him. The small, curled up form of a boy lying on the floor, covered with plaster.

      At first he thought he was hallucinating. The boy looked so much like Bobby. But when he drew closer, fighting the flames for possession of a floor that was quickly eroding beneath his feet, Adam saw that it wasn’t Bobby, wasn’t a hallucination, it was a child. A small, unconscious little boy.

      Scooping up the limp body, Adam fought his way back out.

      Timber cracked and collapsed, nearly felling him. Blocking his path. With one arm wrapped around the boy, he picked another path, praying his luck would hold out one more time. Not for himself, but for the boy. Maybe that was why he’d been able to save so many people, because he didn’t care if he lived or died. СКАЧАТЬ