Cowboy's Special Woman. Sara Orwig

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СКАЧАТЬ long-ago fire, he dug with fury.

      In the flickering orange, he saw himself as a boy, running and looking at a glow in the sky. Deep in the black hours of early morning, coming home across backyards, he had seen pink light the night sky. As he drew nearer to it, the first fear gripped him and then he was racing, bursting around the corner and tearing across the street toward his home that was a roaring blaze lighting up the entire block.

      While the raging inferno consumed his house, he tried to run inside and firemen held him back. Over his yelling, he finally heard their shouts. How long did it take him to realize they were telling him his family was dead? Still, all these years later, a knot tightened in Jake’s throat. He hated his vulnerability, and thought he had succeeded in keeping his feelings tightly locked away, yet this burning wall of flame brought the horror and hurt back. With the fire dancing in front of him, its flames taunting him, the years vanished and the pain he had felt that night consumed him. Tears streaked his cheeks. Harder and faster he dug as if physical labor could erase the aching memories and the screaming guilt.

      A man passed him. “Ease up, son. If you don’t slow, we’ll be carrying you away. I’m taking water to everyone.”

      Facing Jake was a tall, brown-haired man in ragged overalls. He held a water cooler and a tin cup.

      “You’re Jake Reiner, aren’t you?”

      “Yes, sir. Thanks.” Jake filled the cup and drank, not caring that it was a communal cup.

      “I’m Ben Alden. I’ve seen you ride.”

      “Thanks for the water,” Jake said, returning the cup. The man nodded and moved down the line. Jake glanced along the row and saw the blonde talking to the man. She turned back to fight the fire.

      Soon it seemed as if he had been fighting fire for hours. As sweat poured off his body, smoke burned his eyes and throat. Around him men yelled, and he could hear the rumble of the pumper trucks over the crackle and roar of the fire.

      With his muscles screaming, Jake looked around and saw the blonde talking to Ben Alden again, the man who had carried the water around earlier. The man had his big, work-reddened hands on her shoulders.

      Watching the man touch her possessively, Jake had an uncustomary annoyance and couldn’t understand his reaction. He didn’t even know the woman’s name and would never see her again after this morning, but he wished he could push Ben Alden’s hands off of her shoulders. Alden was probably her husband. Jake stared at the tall, rawboned man who was much older than she was. His brown hair was streaked with gray. He was solid muscle on big bones. He wore a T-shirt beneath coveralls. Then Jake noticed their profiles, the same straight noses and broad foreheads and he wondered if the man was her father.

      Taking a deep breath, Jake returned to digging, throwing dirt on the fire, watching the flames spread with each gust of wind. Now three pumper trucks were working along the backside of the fire, but in spite of everyone’s efforts, they weren’t bringing the blaze under control. Long ago Jake had shed his shirt and sweat poured off his body. He thought of ice and longed for a cold shower and a cold drink.

      The ranch house and other buildings were in view now. Choking and coughing, he felt on fire. His hands were raw, and he had to stop for water. He headed toward the flatbed truck with the water coolers, reaching first to pour a bucket of water over himself.

      He spotted the blonde, still struggling to swing a gunnysack and he suspected she must be about to drop from the exertion. He picked up a paper cup and the cooler and walked over to her, catching her arm.

      She turned, her face smudged with soot. Her T-shirt was plastered to her body from perspiration. Wordlessly he filled the cup and held it out to her. She looked dazed, and he took her arm to lead her to the pickup.

      With shaking hands, she grasped the cup and gulped the water. “Thanks,” she said, staring at him while he tilted the cooler and refilled her cup.

      “Maybe you should go up to your house and get your little girl out of there and save what you can.”

      “Shortly after I left, my sister Patsy took Katy and Tuffy, our dog, to her house. She packed some of Katy’s things.” Maggie looked at the fire. “I’m needed more here.”

      “We’re not going to stop it,” Jake said. “Go save some of your clothes and furniture. I’ll drive you up there and help. Come on. None of us can stop this inferno unless it rains or the wind changes and those possibilities look unlikely.”

      When he took her arm, she hesitated. “Come on,” he urged. In silence she walked with him. “Which pickup is yours?” he asked.

      She stared at him blankly and then looked around, pointing to a black pickup parked in a line of pickups. “Keys,” he said, holding out his hand.

      “I can drive.”

      “Give me the keys. You can catch your breath.”

      As she handed over the keys, they walked to the pickup. He drove through a wall of smoke again until they were beyond it.

      “Our house,” she said softly as they approached her home. “My grandfather built this house.”

      “Was that your husband you were talking to?”

      “No.” Her head swung around and she looked at him for a moment as if she had to think back to remember. “He’s my father. My husband and I are divorced.”

      “Sorry.”

      “I came back home last year to live with my dad when my mother died.”

      “I don’t know your name.”

      “Maggie Langford.”

      “I met your dad when he brought me some water. He’s Ben Alden,” he said and she nodded. Jake pulled to a stop by the back door and climbed out. She was already out and sprinting for the back door.

      “Anything in particular I can get for you?”

      “Yes. If we can save it, there’s some furniture that has been handed down through the generations.”

      When he followed her inside, all her dazed manner vanished as she began to briskly issue orders.

      As he secured the last bit of a second load of scrapbooks, clothing and furniture, Jake glanced over his shoulder and his stomach knotted at the proximity of the blaze. The house, barn and all outbuildings seemed doomed. He heard an engine and when he looked around, the three pumper trucks came down the lane, and her father drove a tractor along the side of the road. Firemen spilled from the trucks and ran to the house with fire retardant blankets to toss over the furniture. In minutes Ben Alden plowed a broad swath on the south side of the house, and then he crossed the road to plow west of the barn and around the other structures.

      “You get this pickup out of harm’s way. I’ll stay and help here,” Jake said.

      “I want to get some saddles from the barn,” she answered. “Thank heaven the horses are out of there!” Jake jogged beside her as she trotted to the barn. When she stopped inside, her brow furrowed. “Dad’s stuff…” As her voice trailed away, she looked stricken.

      “What do you want out of the barn?” Jake said briskly, knowing they were running СКАЧАТЬ