“It’s a distraction.” His voice is gravel, face menacing.
“Call the fire department,” he hollers over his shoulder, already heading toward the stables. “I’ll get the herd.”
“Wait, Arlo,” I cry, fingers balling at my sides. “It won’t be a fair fight.”
“No, it won’t,” he promises.
“Don’t you dare play hero,” I call after him, knees weak beneath me.
“I don’t play, Leonora.” And he’s gone.
I wheel back around, facing the fire, hand shaking as I find my phone. After the call, I beeline to the stables, releasing the horses and calf just in case. The chickens and rabbits are farther from the barn, thankfully. But if the house goes, I’ll have to release them, too.
Smoke burns my throat now, filling the air black and angry. In the distance, I hear gunfire, and my chest tightens.
I can’t breathe.
I saddle Buttercup quickly, hands trembling with anger. I don’t have time to retrieve the shotgun from the house, so, I raid the safe I keep in the stable for predator emergencies, strapping on my waist holster.
I wipe my cheeks, fighting through the cold wind and blurred vision toward the winter pasture where everything that matters lives.
That’s when it hits me like a gut punch.
I’m pursuing more than cattle.
When I catch sight of Arlo’s beige Stetson in the distance, my throat tightens. Behind me, I hear the intensifying wail of fire trucks. Buttercup moves swiftly beneath me as I crouch low in the saddle, urging her on.
Arlo’s in the dirt and red-churned snow.
Two men on him. A boot on his shoulder. Another with a pistol drawn.
“No,” I shriek into the silence, as if my voice could banish what I’m seeing.
I can’t lose him. Not now when I’ve only just found him.
Arlo rises to his feet, hands in the air. Unafraid. Cool and controlled as he speaks with them. The ranch hands circle like hyenas, faces twisted and mocking.
Suddenly, a volley of bullets comes from the right of the pasture.
Arlo dives.
The ranch hands freeze.
From the treeline, mounted sheriff’s deputies emerge. And one blond man in front with a white hat.
Sheriff McLeod.
Calm. Controlled. Deadly.
Thank God.
Among the deputies stands Martin, red-faced and brazen as ever. “Saw the fire. Had to lend my neighbor a hand.”
I laugh under my breath. The nerve of this man.
Behind me, high-pressure water sprays in great gushes as firefighters swarm the building, calling to one another. But it feels like everything I’ve built—and my family before me—going up in flames.
I don’t look back again as I race across the pasture toward Arlo, Christian, and the deputies in their tan and black uniforms.
