Firelight at Mustang Ridge (5 page)

“Of course we do!” Her father leaned in, making his nose look huge for a second. A grizzled gray contrast to her mother's bottle brunette, he was more laid-back, except when it came to racing. Now, looking happy to see her, even if only on-screen, he said, “Tell us everything.”

Skipping over the nightmares and claustrophobia—it was fifty-fifty between them worrying and shrugging it off, neither of which would help her one bit—Danny told them about the valley and the mustangs, and made them laugh with a quick description of the sandwich test. Then she asked, “So, how are you? How's Charlie? The dogs?”

They chatted for a few minutes, with Danny paying more attention than usual, acutely aware of the way her parents overlapped each other on the screen and alternated finishing each other's sentences. Little things that seemed suddenly so important after what Gran had told her about Sam's parents.

“But enough about us,” her father said. “We're more interested in you. How about it? Are you ready to come home yet and get back to work?”

And there it was. Not subtle, either. Then again, Mainers weren't big on beating around the bush. Or maybe it was just her parents.

“We miss you, sweetie,” her mom put in. “Not to mention that if you were here to help out, Charlie would have more time to race.”

It was the Traveler family motto:
If you're not competing, then why bother?
Except she didn't want to compete anymore, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be the flag bearer while the rest of them competed, either. Especially knowing that she would keep getting those
sidelong looks, the ones that said,
You're all healed up, so why aren't you getting back out there?

Doing her best not to bristle—it wasn't their fault that their lives were built around mountain sports when she was the one who'd lost interest—she said, “I'm sure you can hire someone to fill in.”

“It's not about the shop.” Her dad gave her mom a pointed look. “We want our girl back home.”

“I miss you, too.” She blew them both a kiss, but said firmly, “I just got here, though, so if I were you, I'd post a Help Wanted ad over at the mountain. There's got to be a few ski bums left looking for work, even this late in the summer.” Her attempt at a smile went crooked. “Heck, call Brandon. Last I checked, he was saving up to climb K2.”

There was a startled pause, followed by a parent-to-parent look that set off warning bells.

“Ohhh-kay.” She drew it out. “What am I missing? Did something happen to Bran? Is he okay?”

“He's fine.” Her mom visibly squared her shoulders. “Better than fine, I suppose. He's engaged.”

“He's
what
?” The sudden buzzing in her ears must have made her hear that wrong. Because there was no way. Tall, dark, and handsome, with the swagger that came with being able to master just about any sport he set his sights on, Danny's ski instructor ex lived by the motto he'd had tattooed on his chest:
NO BOUNDARIES
.

Her father's face settled into deeper-than-usual creases. “It's true, baby. He and Allison got engaged last week.”

“He and—” The name turned into a wheeze as the air vacated her lungs.

“Charlie said Allie was going to e-mail you,” her mom added. “I guess not, huh?”

A shake of her head was all Danny could manage while her brain spun like someone had dumped it in a blender and hit the
ON
button. Allison and Brandon, engaged. Brandon engaged to anyone. It didn't compute, like trying to picture a flying shark or a mountain suddenly rising up on reptilian legs and stomping off in search of a beer. “I'm . . . I don't know what to say.” Was she going to be sick? She didn't think so, but her stomach had turned to a queasy knot.

Her dad reached out, as if he had forgotten she was thousands of miles away. “I'm sorry, sweetie.”

“It's not your fault.” Her lips felt numb, as if the words were coming from someone else. “It's not anybody's fault. He's free to . . .” She couldn't get the word
marry
out of her mouth. Not in a million years. “He can do whatever he wants.”

Apparently, he just hadn't wanted to do it with her.

“If it helps any,” her father said gently, “Charlie said that Allie feels weird about it, seeing as how you got her the job over at the mountain.”

“It really doesn't help,” Danny said. “But thanks for trying. I've gotta go.” She was suddenly dying to hit the disconnect button, and escape back outside, where she could breathe. “I'll call you guys next weekend, okay? Maybe the weekend after.” Or the one after that.

“How about you buy a plane ticket instead?” her mom said, not unkindly. “You should be here, with us, at the shop.”

Down the road from the mountain, where her ex and her second cousin—who could barely ski an
intermediate slope and thought that an indoor wall counted as climbing—were planning the wedding she had once envisioned.

“Bye, Dad. Bye, Mom. Tell Charlie I said ‘hey.' I love you all.” She ended the call before her parents could respond, and the video feed went dark.

Then, even though the walls were closing in, the oxygen too thin, she sat staring at the home screen of her laptop, where the little red number in the upper left corner was in the double digits.
You've got mail
.

She should just empty her whole darned in-box. One click, and
poof
. All gone. Except that deleting the notes wouldn't change the reality, would it?

Hand shaking, she hit the icon and then looked down the list, seeing Charlie's e-mail address, and Allison's. And then, at the bottom, Brandon's. The subject line said
GOOD NEWS
, all douche-y and capitalized, like he somehow expected her to be happy for him.

Don't open it,
she told herself.
It's just going to make things worse
. But if she didn't, she would only drive herself nuts trying to guess what it said. “Oh, what the hell?” she said out loud. “Rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with.” And she clicked on the message.

Dear Danny,

I know that Allison already e-mailed you the good news, but I wanted to follow up personally.

“If that was true,” she grumbled, “I'd have a voice mail. And what sort of dork uses letter formatting in an e-mail?” Which was bitchy, but she didn't care. Not
when her pulse thrummed in her throat and the words blurred on the screen.

I know our engagement will probably come as a shock to you. I hope you can see past that, though, and be happy for us as we embark on this new adventure, freeing yourself for whatever comes next. I treasure the memories of our time together, and wish you the absolute best.

Your friend,

Brandon

“Why, that arrogant, overhyped, ham-handed . . .
aah
!” Danny had always thought that the idea of steam coming out of someone's ears was a metaphor reserved for bad prose and kids' cartoons, but now she knew different. Her face burned and when she breathed, the overheated air scalded her nasal passages.

Shoving away from the desk, she slapped the laptop shut, jammed it back into its carrying case, and slung the strap over her shoulder while she fought the adrenaline buzz of a major fight-or-flight response.

She had to get out of there—not back to her parents and Maverick Mountain, where “don't wimp out” was a battle cry, but to Blessing Valley, where she could be alone. But as she rounded the huge desk, boot steps sounded out in the main room, and Krista's voice called, “Danny? Are you still in there?”

With her pulse thudding and her stomach tied in knots, she was seriously tempted to go out the window.

Knowing she owed Krista better than that, though, she concentrated on her breathing and forced her
voice to stay steady when she called, “Yep. I just finished up.”

Krista came through the doorway with Abby on her shoulder and her face alight with welcome. “I'm so happy you're here! I was just saying to Wyatt . . .” She trailed off, her expression shifting. “Are you okay?”

“I'm . . .” Danny dug her fingernails into her palms. “I'll be fine. Just some family stuff.”

Krista hitched a hip on the desk. “Abby and I are good listeners, if you'd like to talk. Or I could hand her off and we could go someplace.”

Normally, Danny preferred to keep private stuff private. This was far from normal, though, and she was supposed to be working on breaking free from her tortilla. She exhaled, and her shoulders came down a notch. “In a nutshell, I just found out that my ex-boyfriend of five years, who was all
I shouldn't have to give you a ring to prove that I'm committed to you
and
Marriage is a fascist institution
, is now engaged to my much younger, prettier second cousin. Who, by the way, only met him because I helped her get a job waiting tables at the ski resort where he works.” Indignation sharpened her voice. “She doesn't even like being outdoors!”

“That wench!” Krista said in immediate solidarity. “Not for the outdoors thing, but for going there. As for your ex, he sounds like a royal”—she covered the baby's ears and, in a whisper, spelled out—“
a-s-s
. You ask me, you're far better off without him.”

“I am. I know I am. And I shouldn't be upset, really. We broke up more than a year ago, and there's no reason he shouldn't move on. It's just the marriage thing. It makes me feel like—”

“Don't.” Krista held up a hand. “Tomorrow you can be all logical and rational. Today, I'm giving you permission to be completely illogical and upset. In fact . . .” Her expression shifted to an
aha
. “I'm not just giving you permission, I'm going to give you a weapon. How does a sledgehammer sound?”

“Better than it probably should. Why?”

“Have you heard about the Sears place?”

“It burned down, right? An ember from a wildfire started it?”

“Exactly. It's a total loss, most of it torched to the ground. But there's lots of cleanup left to do before they can rebuild, so the mayor organized today as a demo day, and a bunch of us are taking the shuttle over there to help. It's strictly volunteer, a community-service sort of thing. You're welcome to join us.”

Suddenly, Danny couldn't think of anything better than an excuse to smash stuff while helping out a family whose problems were way bigger than her own. “I'd love to,” she said. “When do we leave?”

S
am left for the Sears place later than he'd meant to, but he made up for it by talking Murphy, Midas, and Axyl into ditching their evening plans and coming along for the ride. The parking lot was jammed; Mayor Tepitt's campaign truck, parked in the baked-dry front yard, had classic rock belting from the roof-mounted speakers; and a dozen empty picnic tables were set in rows near a bunch of coolers and a table stacked high with food. “See?” Sam said. “I told you there'd be snacks.”

“We're going to need 'em,” Midas said. “Get a load of this place. It's a disaster area.”

“So the mayor tells us.” Axyl frowned at the barn, where streaks of gray paint and white trim were interspersed with blackened char and blasted-out windows. “But the plan is to have the riding school back up and running by winter.”

“The sooner the better,” Sam agreed, struck once more by the randomness of the destruction. The fields on one side of the drive were untouched, with even the fine layer of ash mostly blown away and horses and cattle grazing like nothing had happened. On the other side, though, the earth was black and barren, the
fencing turned skeletal. “Come on.” He climbed out and snagged a tool belt and a sledge from the back of the truck. “I'm betting there are some smashables with our names on them.”

Sure enough, after a quick check at the food tent, where the mayor and her terrifyingly efficient assistant were keeping things on track and handing out safety gear and lectures on using it, they split up to the spots that needed extra hands.

Boots thumping on the platform that had been cobbled together to span the burned-out wreck of the front porch, Sam stepped through an empty doorframe into the main house. He found himself in what used to be a sitting room, with a mangled flat screen on the wall over a stone fireplace, and rectangles of less-burned hardwood where couches and chairs used to be. The bulk of the debris had been cleared, but a few odds and ends remained. A soggy stuffed dog with only one eye. A half-melted toy car. A single pink bunny slipper, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

“Damn,” he muttered behind his respirator. “Eerie.” So was being alone in there. Most everybody else was working on tearing down the charred remains of the outbuildings, clearing the way for the big barn raising that was being planned, which left the main house feeling empty and strange.

As he moved deeper into the house, past a cordoned-off bathroom where nothing was left except a whole lot of porcelain shrapnel, a
thud-crash
echoed from a back room, followed by a few unintelligible words in a woman's voice. Following the sounds down a hallway that was mostly intact, save for a thick layer of soot on the
walls, he stepped through a wide archway into a big, bright kitchen, where sunlight poured through to illuminate broken tiles, burned-out cabinets, a snakelike mess of dead wiring. There, a dark-haired woman swung a wood-handled sledgehammer like it was the bottom of the ninth and she was aiming for the walk-off homer as she nailed a caved-in section of the scorched Formica countertop.
Wha-bam!

And darned if he didn't recognize her right off the bat. The book-wielding, revolver-toting beauty had her back to him, and should have been unrecognizable in a yellow hard hat, clear safety glasses, earmuffs, and alien-looking respirator, but he recognized her just the same. Mostly because he'd thought about her off and on, wondering how she was doing, and whether he should ride over and see for himself. Turned out luck was with him, though, because here she was.

Before he could step through the door and say hi, she lifted the sledge over her head and hollered, “Jerk!”
Wha-bam
went the sledge against the countertop. “Idiot!”
Rattle-slam
, and a cabinet door went flying. “Stupid to care.”
Crash-bang!

“Uh-oh,” Sam said under his breath, realizing that he had walked into something more than community service.

But then she made a muffled noise and rubbed one wrist with the opposite hand. “Ow. Damn it.”

Just go,
he told himself.
She wants to be alone
. Heck, she thought she
was
alone. But she was hurting, too, and he couldn't just walk away from that. So, summoning a look that he hoped said
I just got here, didn't see a thing,
he stepped through the door. “Howdy, Miz
Traveler. Fancy meeting up with you here. And look. This time, we're both wearing masks!”

*   *   *

Danny whirled and gasped, surprise banging up against the
oh, hell, no
of realizing that she had an audience. And then, a nanosecond later, a flush seared her skin as she recognized the figure in the doorway. “Sam!”

It was a very different version of the man she had met the other day, though, and not just because of what she knew about him now. Clean-shaven, with a high-tech-looking sledgehammer over his shoulder and the burned-out archway framing his body, he looked taller than she remembered, his T-shirt stretching across his chest to hint at rangy muscles. But while he might be trying to pull off the
hey, howdy, glad to see you again,
she could see the sympathy in those intelligent gray eyes.

She didn't remember what she had said just now—she'd been so caught up in the violent satisfaction of battering at the kitchen cabinets until her bad wrist was damn near on fire. Whatever she'd said, though, he had definitely heard. And between the way their first encounter had played out and now this, he probably thought she was completely mental.

Flushing harder beneath the mask and goggles, she said, “I didn't realize you were there.” Which scored about a million on the one-to-obvious scale. “I don't know what you heard, but . . .” She shrugged. “I'm not as nuts as I look. I swear.”

He studied her for a moment with those granite-gray eyes that seemed to go right through her. Then, instead of saying anything, he lowered the futuristic-looking tool from his shoulder and held it out to her, handle first.
The gleaming metal had a foam-wrapped grip, thin shaft, and complicated articulation where the head attached.

She frowned at it. “I've got a hammer.”

“This one's better.” He closed the distance between them, snagged her sledgehammer easily from where it was wedged into the side of a cabinet, and pressed the pimped-out replacement into her hand. “You can leave it in the back of my truck when you're done. Green Ford with ‘Babcock Gems' on the door.” With that, he sauntered out, carrying her sledgehammer by two fingers, like it weighed little more than a stick of gum.

Danny blinked after him, thinking she should go after him and make him trade back—she had been doing fine on her own, and she didn't need him coming in and trying to fix things for her. But even through the heavy work gloves, the spongy grip felt good against her palms and her wrist suddenly didn't hurt so much. So instead of chasing him down she adjusted her respirator and looked for a target.

The cabinet in the corner was about ready to fall. Growling, she lined up and swung. The lighter, faster sledgehammer blurred through the air, shattered the door, carved through the bottom shelf, and buried itself in the Formica with a shuddering impact that sent her reeling, not because of bad reverb, but because she couldn't believe she had just done all
that
. She gaped—first at the cabinet that looked like someone had wrapped it around a tree at high speed, and then at the caved-in counter and the robot-leg sledgehammer that should've come with a warning label, like
LAST USED BY THOR
. “Wow!”

A strange sort of fight-or-flight buzz kicked in—battle
lust, maybe, or hysteria—and she wrestled the sledgehammer free. Not thinking of Brandon now, she lined up again on the mangled cabinet and swung again. And again. Three blows and it was off the wall, a fourth and it was squashed roadkill-flat and her pulse was pounding, her blood singing through her veins like she had just made an impossible summit. Jumping up on top of the pile, she did a little boogie-woogie dance. Then, hefting the SuperSledge, she headed for what was left of the kitchen's center island, which she had avoided so far because it was sturdily built and not that badly burned.

“Out with the old and in with the new!” she announced. And swung with all her might.

*   *   *

By the time the volunteers called it quits and straggled over to the picnic tables, the snacks had been demolished except for a couple of bruised apples and a radioactive-green, fruit-laden Jell-O mold that had survived the midsummer heat with terrifying tenacity. There was plenty of soda and beer, though, and pizza on the way, so the workers who didn't need to be anywhere grabbed cold ones and found places to sit, most of them covering up groans and muttering about how ranching was damn hard work, but demolition and cleanup used a different set of muscles.

Feeling just fine—prospecting and demo weren't that far apart in the swing-and-smash department—Sam spooned some of the Jell-O thing into a bowl and went in search of Axyl and the others. He found them leaning against a plastic-wrapped pallet of construction material and dropped down, discovering that the shingles made a far more comfortable backrest than he would've
expected. “You guys have fun Dumpster diving?” he said to Midas and Murphy, who had been going through the demolition mess, separating the recyclables and hazardous materials from the stuff that would have to go to the landfill.

“Loads and loads,” said Midas. “Literally.”

Murph eyed Sam's Jell-O. “My great-aunt used to make that stuff. In fact, she might have made that batch. You never know—it's like the Christmas Fruitcake Phenomenon. There's really only six of them, and they rotate throughout the world forever in a cosmic cycle of regifting.”

At Axyl's guffaw, Sam shrugged. “I figure someone brought it. I didn't want it to just sit there and make her feel bad.” He felt pretty safe assuming it was a
her
—no guy in his right mind was floating fruit in Jell-O unless there was alcohol involved. “Besides, me striking the first blow might encourage the others to dig in.”

“It might also encourage the Jell-O-and-fruit pusher to bring another one tomorrow,” Murph said darkly. “Or maybe drop it off at your place.”

“If that happens, I'll be sure to leave it in the break room so we can share.”

“Only if you want to find it in your bed. Or worse.”

“I'd better not see green Jell-O on the next supply list,” Sam warned.

“You'd prefer orange? Maybe cherry?”

“I'd prefer a long-legged blonde who's looking for a good time, but she's not going on the list, either.”

“Baloney,” Axyl said to his beer. “I saw you with the brunette. Krista's friend. What's her name—Annie?”

“Danny. And it's not like that.” Or maybe it was.
Sam hadn't entirely figured it out. He didn't usually go for women with loner tendencies or a ton of baggage—mostly because he had plenty of his own—but there was something about her that had stuck in his head, under his skin.

“Uh-huh. So how did she get hold of your sledge?”

Murph's head came up. “You let her use the Terminator?”

“Folks,” Gabe Sears called, saving Sam from having to explain why he'd handed over one of his favorite prototypes without a second thought. The rail-thin farmer, wearing denim and a Rockies cap over hair that seemed shot through with new streaks of gray, climbed up on one of the picnic tables. He offered a helping hand as Winny—plump and pretty, with her face scrubbed free of the soot the rest of her was wearing—came up beside him. Then, as the crowd quieted, he said, “I'm, um . . . I'm not much for public speaking. But Winny and the kids and I want you to know how much it means to us that you all came out here today. It . . . ah . . .” He cleared his throat. “It's a hard thing for a man not to be able to do for his own.”

Squeezing his hand, Winny said to the crowd, “A week ago, we didn't think we were going to be able to rebuild, at least not right away. In fact, we didn't know what we were going to do. Now, though . . .” She looked around at the blasted landscape, but the way her shoulders squared and her chin came up made it seem like she wasn't seeing the devastation so much as the progress. “Now we've got hope. And hope is a powerful thing. So thank you for that. Thanks to each and every one of you, from the bottoms of our hearts.”

A sudden fanfare blared from a car horn, an engine revved, and, as if ushered in by some cosmic director—
cue the mayor!
—the loudspeaker-topped truck flew up the driveway, bounced across the burned-out lawn, and skidded to a stop near the picnic tables. The driver's window buzzed down, and Mayor Teppitt leaned across her assistant to holler, “Hey, there! Who wants pizza?”

That got some whoops and laughter, and Gabe slung his arm around Winny and shouted, “Thanks again, everyone. Now, let's eat!”

As the hungry workers thronged around the truck like something out of a zombie movie playing on fast-forward, Sam couldn't help noticing one figure going the other way with her hands in her pockets—pretty and brunette, with the kind of curves and curls that stuck in a man's mind.

Let it go,
he told himself.
Give her room
. But he couldn't very well let her starve, could he? Ignoring the logic that said there was zero chance of a guest—even one living out in the boonies—going hungry on Gran's watch, he worked his way through the crowd, snagged pizza and sodas for two, and dug through a first-aid kit for one of those smash-to-activate ice packs and a foil packet of painkillers. Then, ignoring Axyl's smirk, he followed her.