“Robert’s in the study and James is drying off too.”
He studied her expression. “Did your telegram get an answer?” If she’d heard from her parents, communicated her injury, would they be coming?
She shook her head and showed only a little disappointment. “He waited an hour, but my parents must have been out.”
He nodded. “Every so often, a telegram goes awry out here.” He focused on pushing off his last boot.
Mandie stepped aside for them to enter the house. “After you’re both changed, come to the kitchen. I have warm tea and biscuits ready.”
When he reached his room, he stripped off his soaked shirt, the stubborn fabric clinging to his skin. In its wake, gooseflesh prickled his arms.
He reached for a dry shirt from his drawer and pushed his hands into the sleeves.
A shout sounded from the front of the house, but the pounding rain drowned out the word.
He tensed, listening so he could make out anything else.
“The barn’s on fire!”
His blood turned to ice, and he jerked the shirt over his head as he pushed for the door. He sprinted down the hall, toward the front door.
Thomas was running down the stairs. Good. A glance through the front window showed red mixed with the brown of the barn, but with the sheeting rain, he couldn’t make out more.
God, no!If lightning struck the barn directly, all that dry hay might go up in flames before the rain could douse the fire.
He jerked open the door, then forced himself to stop and push his feet into his boots before charging down the stairs and to the barn. They had to get the stock out, then stop the fire from spreading.
Someone must already be working to free the horses, for the barn doors stood wide open.
He raced inside, barely registering the searing heat that hit him like a physical blow. Flames licked across the ceiling, consuming the dry timber with terrifying speed. It had started in the loft as he’d suspected, and now a large hole in the roof was allowing rain over that section.
Maybe it would douse enough fire to stop the blaze’s advance.
Smoke was already pushing lower in the air, stinging his eyes and lungs. James led Robert’s mare out of the closest stall.
Enoch aimed for the next stall down where they’d been keeping one of the three-year-olds in training that had injured itself. The gash had started to fester, so he wanted the animal close so they could apply salve twice a day.
That stall door already stood open though, and he peered into the darkness to see if the animal was still inside. A person stood with the gelding, reaching high to wrap a rope around the frightened animal’s neck.
Mandie.
What was she doing? Between the flames and the panicked horses, she would get hurt—maybe killed.
He charged in to help and reached for the rope she’d managed to secure. “I’ll take him. Get back to the house.”
“Go help the rest of the horses. I’ve got him.” She pushed Enoch aside with her body as she tugged the horse forward.
The woman had pluck. And maybe she wasn’t a greenhorn with horses, for the colt took a tentative step forward.
If she could handle this one, he could go save the other three animals. He stepped around the pair to the stall door. “Once you get him out, stay there with him.”
She might be hard-headed, but he didn’t have time to molly-coddle her.
Robert was working to get Enoch’s gelding out, so he moved down to the broodmare in the last stall. Willow was due to foal any day. Hopefully this ordeal wouldn’t put her into early labor. This was to be her first foal since they purchased her, and he had high hopes for the offspring.
He grabbed a rope and jerked the stall’s latch open. As he pulled the door wide, he sent a glance upward to see the fire’s progress. On the back wall—not far from where he stood—the flames were eating down the wall. The ceiling hadn’t fully burned through there, so the inner side of the wood was still dry.
God, stop the fire. Please.
