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“What about neighboring ranchers?”
“Vince Monroe, George Lassiter and Matt Wilkerson swear they haven’t seen anything suspicious.”
“Okay,” the deputy said with a sigh. “I’ll be out just as soon as I’ve made a few inquiries.”
“Thanks.” Colton hung up and strode out of the den. The house was a mess, he thought, surveying the hallway and kitchen. He hoped that Milly Samms would return soon to clean it up—either that or he’d have to don an apron himself.
One side of his mouth curved into a half smile. He’d never admit it, but he had missed the rotund housekeeper with her constant advice and easy smile. Watch it, McLean, he warned himself, you’re getting too comfortable here.
“Never!” he muttered, shoving open the back door.
Outside, the air was clean and fresh. White clouds drifted in a blue Montana sky. Colton walked directly to the stables. Fresh paint gleamed, and new windows sparkled. The building had just been rebuilt; the final touches had been completed this past December.
His teeth ground together. The stables represented all that he detested on the ranch. Eight years before, on the night after Colton had learned of Cassie’s lies, his mother and father had been killed in a blaze inadvertently set by Tessa Kramer’s brother, Mitchell. Denver, trying to save his parents and some of the horses, had been burned so badly he’d nearly died. Despite plastic surgery, Denver would wear his scars the rest of his life.
And so, Colton thought wryly, would he. Though his scars were all internal, they were just as deep and painful.
Leaning against the top rail of the fence, he glowered at the building and didn’t feel the wind kick up and ruffle his hair.
All the pain and grief had caused him to hate this ranch and everything about it.
He closed his eyes and shuddered. He’d been out riding that evening, trying to push Cassie out of his mind forever, when the gates of hell had literally opened....
* * *
The air was hot, the ground dry. Bees flitted near his Stetson, and flies buzzed around his bay gelding’s face. “Come on,” Colton growled to his horse, unable to shake his black mood. Cassie’s deception was turning his gut even as he tried to forget that she ever existed.
He should be glad, he told himself as the bay sauntered slowly across the dry fields to the river. He stared across that silvery slice of water to the woods and beyond. Aldridge property. Cassie’s home. He was better off without her.
But the feelings brewing inside him were far from joyful. Even a sense of relief was missing. In its stead was loss and anger, a deep-seated and hateful anger.
So he wasn’t going to be a father; he should be walking on air. No responsibilities, no ties, no wife!
Damn it all to hell!
More frustrated than he’d been in all his twenty-one years, he climbed off the gelding, kicked at a clod of dust with the toe of his boot and glowered at the Sage. Why had she lied? Why, why, why?
The sky turned hazy as diaphanous clouds hid the sun. Colton barely noticed what was happening overhead. His horse snorted a little, then sidestepped nervously.
“Steady,” Colton muttered as the first smell of smoke drifted to him. “What’s gotten into you?”
Surfacing from his dark thoughts, he froze. A prickle of dread slid like ice down his spine. He noticed for the first time that the day had grown unnaturally dark. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled.
Fire!
He whirled. His heart slammed in his chest.
Black smoke surged upward, billowing menacingly to the sky. “God—oh God, no!” Colton cried, jumping onto his horse and driving the heels of his boots into the gelding’s sides.
He rode as if the devil himself were following. Slapping the reins hard against the bay’s shoulders, swearing wildly, he stared straight ahead. Fire licked upward, crackling and rising in ugly gold flames through the rafters of the stables.
Red-and-white lights flashed; huge fire trucks rumbled up the lane.
The fence was just ahead. “Come on,” Colton urged, racing faster, hoping the horse could clear the top rail. But the gelding, once he understood Colton’s intention, skidded to a stop and reared, refusing to take the jump.
Swearing, Colton leaped from his back. “Damn coward,” he cried, climbing the fence and spying his uncle’s old flatbed parked near a dilapidated sheep shed. He wasn’t aware that he was running, just that he had to get to the truck.
Breathing hard, he wrenched open the door, climbed behind the wheel and found the keys in the ignition. Colton twisted his wrist, glancing in the rearview mirror at the horror of the fire. “Come on, come on,” he said as the old engine turned over, sputtered, coughed and finally caught.
