It Takes Two: Deep in the Heart, Book 1 (20 page)

She ran into her room, coming back out two seconds later wearing jeans under her nightshirt. She hurried past Zach, but he was at her side before the screen door slammed shut. “I won’t even ask how you knew there was a fire,” she said, not breaking her frenzied pace.

Zach halted in his tracks, staring after. Annie. Her long ebony hair waved as she ran, stretched out on the wind of her footsteps. Those feet were bare, flying over sharp rocks and uneven, prickly growth. He pounded a fist against his leg and took off running again. The woman was probably going to lose everything she had. He wanted to try to help her. Later, they could talk.

Zach heard sirens in the distance. The crackle and roar of the fire as it ate its way through the corn crop was louder, and Zach realized the fire department wasn’t going to be able save enough of it to matter. The land was already parched from endless days of baking sunshine, and what might have been a small, manageable fire under different conditions was exploding into a pyro’s dream.

The whine of a tractor as it started caught Zach’s attention. Cody headed the tractor into the eastern portion of the field, rolling over the tall stalks in his path. Zach realized he was trying to divert the fire, but it was too desperate an attempt. “Cody!” he cried, running behind the tractor. “Stop!”

Most likely Cody couldn’t hear him, but Zach knew he wouldn’t have stopped anyway. Zach halted in the path of run-over corn and watched the tractor shove on relentlessly. Annie ran to Zach’s side, her fingernails digging into his arm. “He’s going to get hurt.”

“I know.” Grimly, Zach watched the tractor slow, then come to a stop a couple hundred yards away. Heat from the fire scorched Zach’s face. Cody had to be suffering worse. He counted under his breath, waiting for the big man to give up and jump from the tractor. Nothing moved. Zach got to ten and started running with everything he had.

“Cody!” he shouted. “Cody!”

A wall of fire was steadily sweeping its way toward the tractor. Pungent, lung-burning smoke seared Zach’s eyes, making it difficult to see. Heedlessly, he sprinted over the crushed stalks. “Cody, damn it! Get out!”

The tractor engine was silent, Zach realized. He started coughing, wishing he had a shirt or anything to put over his nose and mouth. Eyes tearing, lungs bursting, he finally reached the tractor. Cody was slumped; the only thing keeping him on the tractor was his knee jammed against the steering column.

“Son of a bitch!” Zach cursed. He reached up and knocked Cody’s leg away from the column until it angled toward the side, then dragged the big man off the tractor, knocking himself down in the process.

“Son of a bitch!” Zach swore again. Cody’s dead weight crushed him, bringing stars of pain to Zach’s eyes. With a mighty shove, he pushed Cody off of him, then pulled himself to his knees and finally to his feet. Choking, gasping, and knowing they were both in immediate danger of being overcome by smoke, Zach grabbed Cody by the feet and began pulling him, rickshaw-style, away from the fire.

Suddenly, Annie was at his side. “Give me a leg,” she gasped.

Together, they made stubborn progress tugging the man out of danger, making their way toward the fire truck at the far edge of the field. Men were running with water hoses and shovels, but Zach knew it was too late.

When they were far enough from danger, Zach gently let Cody’s leg down. Annie did the same before running to get help. “You stupid cigar-store Indian,” Zach said roughly, lifting Cody’s eyelids. He laid his head to Cody’s chest, listening for a heartbeat. There was a faint one. “I know you hear me,” he said. “You nearly got yourself killed. You nearly got Annie killed. Wake up so I can kill you,” he said, not meaning the last but desperate enough to say anything.

Vainly, he watched for any movement in Cody’s face. Zach shook him, knowing even as he did that it wouldn’t help. “
Come on
,
Cody
,” he ordered. “You’re too damn bullheaded to die.”

A volunteer paramedic hunkered down on the opposite side of Cody, placing an oxygen mask from a portable tank over his nose. Another man monitored Cody’s vital signs. Annie crouched nearby, silver trails of tears running down her face. She met Zach’s gaze over Cody’s still form, but he looked away, unable to bear the despairing plea for help in her eyes.

He’d done the best he could. And come up lacking.

Suddenly, Cody coughed, a frightening, hacking sound. Zach’s gaze riveted to the man on the ground. Cody spluttered beneath the oxygen mask, his eyes popping open to stare up at the heat-clouded sky. The paramedic pulled the mask away as Cody tried to sit up.

“Hey, take it easy, there, Cody,” Zach said. “Put the mask back on.”

Cody shook his head, thumping his chest weakly as he coughed. Slowly, he lay back down. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“Sorry?” Zach tried to sound jovial as he glanced up at Annie. She shook her head at him, so he shrugged to make light of the situation. “What’s there to be sorry about?”

“Couldn’t…stop it,” Cody whispered.

Annie moved closer, tracing her fingers across Cody’s furrowed brow. “There’s a fire truck out here that can’t stop it, Cody You risked too much,” she said.

Zach winced at the pain and held-back tears in her voice. “Take some more oxygen, Cody. It might help you.”

“Don’t…want it.” He waved away both the mask and the paramedic who was trying to edge him onto a stretcher on the ground.

Zach’s patience was threadbare from fear that the big man was hurt more than he would admit. “Listen, damn it,” he said, leaning over so that Cody could clearly see and hear him. “You need medical attention. You tried to put that fire out by yourself, and damn near swallowed more smoke than a hundred packs of those crappy cigarettes you adore would have put into your lungs. Not to mention,” he said, reaching over to Cody’s ear and flicking the hanging wire there, “you singed off your earring. The feather’s completely gone, Cody, and some of your eyebrows. You could have been, too. So quit being so damn ornery and put the mask on and get your ass on the stretcher.”

Cody’s gaze slid over to Zach, questioning in the darkness. “Tell…me you…didn’t do this, Slick.”

“Do what?” Zach asked, genuinely confused.

“The…fire,” he rasped.

“Oh, for—” Zach swallowed the curse words, glancing up at Annie. Her doubtful expression froze him. “You don’t… I mean, why would I?”

Cody lay silent and still, yet his eyes wouldn’t let go of Zach. “Why would I?” Zach asked numbly. “I want to help Annie, not hurt her.”

“Your…father,” Cody whispered hoarsely.

“My father!” Zach frowned. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

He looked up at Annie, but she was staring at Cody.

“Your father…wants…her land.”

Zach couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Cody, you’re out of your head. My pop is a dirt-poor alcoholic who lives in a falling-down shack across from a bingo parlor. He couldn’t buy a pot to piss in, much less Annie’s land.”

Cody closed his eyes for a moment. “Owns…land to south.”

Zach shook his head. “No. That’s not possible. Annie, I swear to you, my pop doesn’t even own the house he lives in.”

The paramedic gave one last stab at trying to move Cody onto the stretcher, but at the strength of Cody’s hoarse curse word, moved away. “Lying.”

“No. I swear it.”

“Somebody did buy the farm to the south of my property,” Annie confirmed. “But I don’t know who it was.”

“Zach’s father,” Cody said. “Sales are matter of…public record.”

“So I did this for my father, whom I completely despise.” Zach snorted. “Not damn likely.”

“Blood…thicker than water.” Cody closed his eyes again.

“Bullcrap The blood runs too damn thin in my family to be of any use to a corpse. If you’re not going to the hospital, then let me help you up off the ground, you son of a bitch. I’m not dragging your ass all the way back to the house.”

The fire was out in places, still smoldering in others. Black-edged fields and heavy smoke lent a surreal air to a place where so much hope had once thrived. Annie met his gaze silently. Zach turned his face, angry at her suspicions. Angry at Cody’s. Angry at the whole sorry situation. A hacking cough tore out of Cody’s throat, and Zach looked down wearily. He pushed an arm under Cody’s shoulder. “On the count of three, sit up,” he commanded. “One, two, three!”

Giving him a hearty shove, Zach managed Cody into a sitting position. Annie crouched under one shoulder and Zach took the other. Together, they tugged Cody to his feet, and when he was steady, they slowly helped him stagger back to the house.

The firemen were rolling up their hoses and putting away their equipment. Zach could hear them muttering among themselves as they passed. More than anything, he felt hopeless for Annie’s sake. She was a survivor, true, but now she was wiped out.

Travis was sitting on the porch with Mary tucked up against him. Her anxious eyes flew to Cody. “Uncle Cody!” she cried. “What happened?”

“He’s all right, sugar,” Annie said, her voice calm. Zach knew she couldn’t be nearly as calm as she was trying to sound. “Open the door, baby, so I can help Uncle Cody onto the sofa.”

Straining every muscle in his shoulders, Zach maneuvered Cody inside and to a sitting position, where the man collapsed with his head back on a sofa arm.

“Dang, but I feel…lousy,” Cody admitted.
 

“Try to get some sleep, Cody,” Annie told him. “We can’t do anything more tonight, and worrying isn’t going to change anything. That goes for you too, Papa. And you, sugar.” She tossed a light blanket over Cody, which he immediately threw on the floor. Sighing, she helped her father to his room. Zach heard her relating the damage as they made their painful way down the hall.

Mary stood still, staring up at him with those trusting eyes. Zach put out his hand. “Come on, Mary. I guess I’ll tuck you in.”

She stood rooted to the spot. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, heckfire,” Zach muttered, trying to keep the harshness out of his voice and not succeeding. “Nobody in this family wants to do anything they should be and…and—”

He halted at the stricken look in Mary’s eyes. “Oh, come here,” he said, gathering her up into his arms. “I’m not angry with you, Mary. I’m grumpy because I’m worn out, kind of like a baby when it misses a nap. See?”

Mary gazed at him with big indigo eyes inches from his face. “Mr. Zach, I’m afraid. I heard sirens, and something smells funny. I don’t want to be in my room.”

Zach groaned, knowing the child was frightened out of her wits. She’d been through so much in her short life. He tamped down the urge he was feeling to go tearing back to Austin and leave these obstinate, unfortunate people to their own devices. How could Annie even think for a second that he would do something as cruel as wiping out her livelihood?

But the child was still looking at him, her gaze confused and upset. Zach firmly planted his bare heels on the hard wood floor, miserably aware that he was not going to desert the little girl while she was suffering. “Here, Mary,” he said, pulling over a ragged plaid easy chair, “sit right here next to your Uncle Cody for just a bit. Don’t be scared, even though he looks like a burned-out scarecrow.”

Zach allowed himself a wry grin and momentary satisfaction at Cody’s indignant grunt. “Sit here quietly so Uncle Cody won’t feel like the last, charred hot dog on the grill. I’m going down to talk to the firemen, but I’ll be right back. I promise.”

The men were about finished cleaning up when Zach got there. Even dulled by the rosy glow of the rising sun, the fields looked sickeningly empty, destroyed. He fought down a wave of revulsion as a fireman walked over to him.

“Ugly sight, ain’t it?” the man asked. “Name’s Jim Crier. Known the Aguillars forever.”

Zach took the hand Jim offered. “I’m Zach Rayez. I stayed with the Aguillars overnight.”

Jim’s steady eyes didn’t so much as blink. “They don’t have many houseguests.” When Zach shrugged at his comment, he asked, “Do you know who saw the fire first, Zach?”

He heaved a sigh, knowing the words were going to damn him. “I did.”

“That so? How’d you come to see the fire?”

Zach shrugged. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Then I thought I smelled something, so I got up.” He frowned, remembering how fast the fire had spread. It was the most horrible, consuming thing he’d ever seen. “I got up…and saw the fire. Then I ran to Annie’s house to get help.”

“To get help?” Jim’s voice was sharp. “From an old man and a helpless woman? Or were you wanting to be the big hero?”

“I don’t know.” Zach despised the helpless tone in his voice, but he had just reacted blindly. He’d have carried water in his mouth to put out the fire if it would’ve helped, but he’d known the fields were past saving. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “All I could think of was that we were going to need a miracle to put that damn thing out.”

“I see,” was Jim’s laconic reply.

Zach felt Annie standing beside him even before she spoke. The feeling was an instant awareness, like a coming together of pieces, and Zach wondered at the realization.

“Thank you for coming out so quickly, Jim,” Annie said.

The man hugged her briefly. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”