Benji’s face turned strange enough to stop Abby in her tracks. He didn’t know. He hadn’t realized she held his baby under her coat. At first, she thought it was anger or disappointment, but when he dropped the rifle and moved toward her, his mouth open wide, expression a broken thing, she understood it for what it was: relief. He sobbed with it when he saw his boy, and had she been a different person today, she’d have let him take the baby.
Instead, she held on tighter, but when she moved to walk around him, he put out his hand to stop her.
“Stop your cryin’,” Brigid’s voice hissed from a few feet away. “You pick up that rifle, Benjamin Sipe, and make sure we get out of here alive. It’s your job to keep your boy safe. All of the kids, after what you let Isaiah turn this place into.”
Everyone stilled, except for Luc and Abby, who was pretty sure Benji had never had a woman speak to him like that before. But being less of an idiot than Abby had believed, he complied, picking up the rifle and looking to them for direction.
“Hold up the rear,” said Luc, the ax in his hand ten times more threatening than the firearm in Benji’s. But then again, he was ten times the man. Something like pride swelled in Abby’s chest.
An explosion from the Center sent them all running again, toward the fence. Finally, they made it to the truck.
Luc turned to Abby. “To my house?”
“We don’t know what it’s like up there.”
“I see lights. Probably fire engines. We’ll call the sheriff.”
They shoved the youngest children into the back and a couple of the bigger ones climbed in front with the babies. The others—adults and older kids—melted into the woods to continue on foot.
Up they went, staring out the windshield at where the reflection of emergency lights lit up the smoke and trees. One more bend and she’d see it: the destruction.
The sight knocked the breath out of her. It wasn’t just the vines they’d burned. It was the cabin.Luc’s home.
No. No, no, no.Over and over she thought it, but denial apparently didn’t work. How could it be this cold with that inferno raging outside?
“Fuck!” Luc muttered, along with some French words that didn’t sound nearly as pretty as usual. For a few dull-witted seconds, Abby watched him slam out of the truck and stalk to where Clay stood, a good distance from where the firefighters worked on the cabin.
It was no use. She knew it even as the people toiled, their blue and red lights ironically festive against the rock face above the barn, the only structure they’d left intact.
His home was a pile of destruction. Beyond it, a lighter cloud of smoke rose from the vines, the few surviving vines standing like eerie scarecrows in the dawn light.
She waited another beat or two in the shelter of the truck.This is because of me.
Even from this distance, Luc’s silhouette looked exhausted as he indicated the truck. Clay turned, his expression hard, and moved toward them. Around her, the kids stirred, antsy and crying now when their lives were no longer in immediate danger.
“We need to get you all into the barn, and I’ll call for backup.” Clay looked at Abby. “You get all the kids out?”
“Yes. But we need to drive back down for the others—they’re headed up on foot.”
“We’ll go.” Clay’s mouth tightened. He was no doubt beating himself up, although it wasn’t his fault either. He yelled for a deputy, and they called for reinforcements, sent someone down to pick up the others, and moved the group of refugees into the barn, which, if nothing else, was warm.
“You okay?” the sheriff asked her once everyone had been located and brought to safety.
“I think so.”
He looked at Luc, who nodded.
“We’ll get these people out of your hair as soon as we can. Someplace where the kids are safe and…” His phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it, running his fingers through his short hair.
Abby lifted a hand to Luc’s face—to wipe a smudge off, ostensibly, but really to touch him. To keep him to her, to apologize, to hold the pieces of him—ofthem—together. He looked wild and desperate. All she wanted was to make this right. Howcouldshe make this right? Down below, the men continued to fight the remaining flames.
“I’m sorry, Luc. I’ll help you. We’ll—”
“May I have a word, Luc?” It was Clay, sounding official, wanting to get to the bottom of everything. This was bad. It was all so bad. And what was happening next door?
On that thought, she was done. Done with it all. No more tolerance, acceptance be damned. What she felt was… Oh Lord, it was good. Pure. That amorphous guilt hardened like crystals, hot like the brightest spark, but calm and cool like the dingy snow lining the ground down below.
She stopped listening as the two men discussed the mess they’d find next door. Gesturing vaguely, she mumbled something about going to the bathroom and, instead, headed right for the door, then down the hill to the truck they’d driven up here. Rory’s truck, with its farm vehicle license plate.
