Cowboy's Special Woman

Katy’s arms tightened around Maggie’s neck, and Maggie held her tightly in return, relieved to have her daughter safe again. Then the stranger reached up. “Hand her to me.”

Maggie passed her daughter down. The stranger set her gently on the ground and Katy rubbed her ankle and sniffed. Maggie swung her legs over the limb to jump down. As she jumped, hands came around her waist and the stranger caught her. Without thought she put her hands out to grip his arms, feeling the rock-solid muscles, looking into brown eyes that bored into her with an electrifying intensity. The instant her hands had closed on his arms, a current had raced through her. Unable to breathe or look away, she stared back at him while her heart hammered. He smelled faintly of sweat and aftershave. The aftershave surprised her. He looked primitive rather than civilized, yet she knew she was rushing to judge too swiftly.

He lowered her to the ground and for seconds she was still caught and held in his compelling gaze.

“Mommy.”

Her daughter’s voice released her from the spell, and Maggie stepped back, dropping her hands to her sides. “Thanks again, mister. I have to call 911 and alert them about the fire.”

She knelt beside her daughter. “Let me see your ankle, Katy.” She was aware that the stranger watched while she checked Katy’s bruised and scratched ankle. She moved her daughter’s foot gently. “That hurt?”

“No.”

“Katy, you should thank the man,” Maggie said as she stood.

“Thank you, sir,” Katy said politely, sniffing and rubbing her ankle as she tried to stand. Maggie swung her up into her arms.

“My name is Jake Reiner,” the stranger said in a voice that stirred a curl of warmth in Maggie. Once more she was riveted by his gaze. With an effort she broke away, turning toward the house. She waved her hand toward the barn. “There’s a spigot. You might like a cold drink. I’ve got a fire to fight. Thanks for alerting me about it. C’mon, Tuffy,” she commanded, and the dog trotted at her heels.

She shifted the child and headed for the house as Jake watched, fascinated. Her hips swayed slightly and her cutoffs were short enough to give him a delectable view of long legs. He stood staring at her until the screen door slapped shut behind her.

When he glanced back up the lane to the southwest, Jake saw a plume of gray smoke rising over the treetops, the high wind swirling it away. This ranch family was in deep trouble.

Between the garage and the barn, Jake spotted the faucet and strolled toward it. When he passed the garage and glanced inside, he saw a pickup and a battered flatbed truck that had once been black but had lost most of its paint. Turning the spigot, he splashed cold water over his head. As he ran his fingers through his hair, he looked into the barn that stood open to his left. The barn was filled with a clutter of tack and large trunks. He glanced from the barn to his bike, which held most of his worldly possessions. At least with his wandering lifestyle, he didn’t have to mend, repair or care for a lot of things. He bent to take another long drink and splash more water on himself. As he straightened, a pickup barreled up the road and rocked to a stop, sending up a thick plume of red dust. A brown-haired woman jumped out and glanced at Jake.

“Is Maggie inside?” she asked as she ran around the pickup.

When he nodded, she moved faster, sprinting to the house and reaching for the screen door without knocking. In seconds the blonde appeared, unhooked the screen, which Jake assumed had been secured because of his presence. The brunette stepped inside while the blonde came out. He saw the brunette hook the screen and look at him a moment, but then his gaze shifted to the blonde. She hurried toward him, her breasts bouncing with each step.

“Have to get to the fire,” she said as she passed him and headed into the garage.

In its dim interior she grabbed a shovel and tossed it into the bed of a pickup where it landed with a clang.

Jake moved into the garage, feeling the coolness when he stepped out of the sunlight. “Can I help?”

“Grab those gunnysacks, wet them down and throw them in the pickup,” she ordered while she ran toward the barn. He spotted empty gunnysacks hanging on a hook. Lifting them down, he carried them to the faucet. As soon as they were soaked, he tossed them into the back of the pickup. She threw more shovels into the back.

“Thanks, again, mister.”

“Sure,” he said, opening the pickup door for her. “And you can call me Jake,” he added.

She gave him a quick nod. With another flash of her long legs, she climbed inside. In spite of the fire, the rancher who lived here was a lucky man with a pretty wife and a cute little daughter. Jake was surprised at his sentiments. He valued his freedom enough that he didn’t usually view anyone who was married and settled as lucky. He closed the pickup door and turned to go to his bike.

As the pickup raced past him, he waited, letting the dust settle before he followed.

Overhead a gray cloud of smoke spread in the sky and his sympathy for her increased. The south wind was blowing the fire north toward her house. He rounded a bend and smoke rolled over the road, engulfing him. As he drove through it, he held his breath. When the world became a dense gray blur that stung his eyes and burned his throat, panic threatened. He knew the rule: don’t drive into smoke. But he had driven into it and now he had to keep going. He could feel the heat of the fire and hear its roar. Then, as he reached the backside of the smoke and fire, he could see again.

Gulping fresh air, he was stunned by the magnitude of the fire that raged out of control, stretching across the land with acres of burning trees and grass. Cars lined the county road as men worked to beat out the flames. Someone had parked a flatbed truck near the firefighters and in the back of the truck were three large orange coolers and a stack of paper cups. Jake wondered how all these people had learned about the fire so quickly, but he assumed word spread fast and neighbors rushed to help out.

Two pumper trucks were driving along the perimeter of the fire, the firemen pouring gushing silver streams of water on the line of flames, but the strong wind was fanning the fire furiously and their effort seemed futile. Accentuated by pops and crackles, the blaze roared while heat waves shimmered in the hot summer air.

Jake spotted the blonde, already in the line of men fighting the fire with shovels and gunnysacks. She was working as hard as any man around her, swinging a gunnysack and beating flames. While dread and sorrow tore at him, Jake parked in the line of pickups.

Jogging back up the road, he spotted a shovel in the bed of a pickup. Grabbing the shovel, Jake fell into line with the volunteers, moving to the edge of the fire to try to smother the bright orange flames while heat buffeted him.

As he inhaled the stinging smoke, his mind jumped back in time. Hating the tormenting memories of that 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.