A support beam groaned overhead.
And that was just it. He swooped her up into his arms, pulled her tight against him.
“Close your eyes. Put your head against my chest.” Somehow, he’d put away his emotion, found the part of him who’d extracted civilians from war zones. “Don’t look up, don’t breathe deep, and trust me.”
Sierra pressed her face into his shirt. “Let’s get out of here.” Her body trembled against him.
The hallway to the bedroom had become a tunnel of fire. Flames licked down from the ceiling and reached up from the floor, leaving a narrow corridor of furnace air in between. Rowan kicked aside burning debris and plunged through.
The fire licked across the ceiling, and the walls had begun to char.
But the window was clear.
Rowan boosted Sierra through the opening first, lowering her as far as he could before letting her drop to the ground outside. She landed hard, with a cry, but crawled away from the house, putting distance between herself and the flames.
A thunderous crack split the air as the main support beam started to give way. The entire back half of the house groaned.
Rowan dove through the window as the bedroom ceiling started to sag.
He hit the ground and rolled.
By the time he came up, the rest of the house had folded. Where the structure had stood moments before, nothing remained but a pile of burning timber reaching toward the darkening sky.
“Mom!” Huck’s voice cut through the roar of flames. The boy was running toward them, Saxon limping hard close behind, both their faces streaked with soot.
Even Saxon’s face twisted, as if he might cry.
Sierra struggled to sit up, favoring her injured ankle. “I’m okay, baby. I’m okay.”
Huck threw himself into her arms. She rocked him as he sobbed.
And over their son’s head, her eyes found Rowan’s.
“Thank you,” she rasped.
Rowan nodded, not trusting his voice. The tactical calm was cracking, and his hands started to shake even as he moved everyone far from the fire—enough to breathe clean air and not feel the heat.
Then he simply collapsed in the dirt and grass beside them, breathing hard.
Saxon disappeared, hobbling away, and then, after a bit, reappeared with a first aid kit. He handed it over to Rowan. “Emergency services are en route. Should be here in a minute.”
“How’d you find us?” Sierra had turned to Saxon, who now loosened the belt over his wound. Tore open his pants leg.
“We tracked your phone,” Saxon said. “We have a friend.”
Rowan stood now, staring at the house. “Who were they, Sierra?”
She leaned back, stared at him, her eyes wide.
Something about the way she looked at him…“What?”
“It was Alden.”
A beat, then…wait. “What?”
“Alden Jenkins took us. Got me to sign over the ranch to him.”
He sat in the grass, the house behind him an inferno. “What are you?—”
