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Colton ground the gears and stomped on the gas. Bald tires spun, and the truck shuddered before lurching forward. Colton didn’t stop at the gate but drove through, sending boards splintering in both directions. Within seconds he brought the truck to a halt near the house. Sirens wailed, terrified horses screamed and the day had turned to hellish night.
Heart pumping wildly, eyes smarting from the smoke, Colton threw open the door and hurled himself out of the truck, running across the yard toward the flaming stables, stumbling, gasping for breath.
The fire chief barked orders through a bull horn. Men were running everywhere. Horses shrieked in pain and fear.
Tessa Kramer and her brother, Mitchell, were bending over the prone form of her father. Curtis Kramer’s hair was singed, and soot streaked his otherwise white face.
“Give us room,” a paramedic ordered as he and another man tried to revive the old man. The smell of whiskey on Curtis’s breath mingled with the stench of smoke.
“Everybody back off!” the chief ordered.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Colton demanded.
The chief ignored him.
Colton stared in horror at the stables. Orange flames shot out of the roof, and heat rippled in sickening waves from the inferno.
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Curtis coughed loudly and stirred, his red-rimmed eyes focusing on his daughter. “Tessa, gal?” he murmured, cracking a weary smile.
Colton watched as tears formed in Tessa’s eyes. “Thank God, you’re all right!” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her father’s grimy work shirt and burying her head against his chest. “Did you see Denver—”
“You were with him,” Curtis said, and shook his head. “No one—”
“But Denver’s in there! So are his parents,” she protested, her head snapping up.
Colton’s knees threatened to buckle. “Oh, sweet Jesus! No! No!” He stumbled backward, and he had to fight to keep back the blackness that was enveloping him. His head felt as if a herd of wild horses were charging through it.
“Hey, you? Are you okay?” a man shouted.
Stumbling blindly forward, Colton started for the stables.
“It’s too late!” Mitchell Kramer yelled. “Colt—stop! Damn him!”
“Stay back!” the chief commanded through the horn. “Christ! Somebody stop him—”
A blast ripped through the stables, and the building exploded in a fiery burst. Glass shattered. Timbers groaned and crashed to the ground. Flames crackled and reached to the sky in death-tinged yellow fingers.
The earth shuddered. Colton’s feet were thrown out from under him. He was slammed into the ground, hearing the wail of terrified horses and the screams of firemen. They were all dead! Denver, Mom, Dad!
Colton’s fingers curled in the gravel. Vomit collected in the back of his throat. Sharp rocks dug into his palms. Deep, wracking sobs tore through him. His family, his entire family had been destroyed by the ranch they’d loved. He pounded impotent fists against the sharp gravel until they bled.
“Come on, son,” the fire chief said, offering his hand. “There’s nothing you can do here.”
He struggled to his feet and blinked against tears and smoke.
“Hey—here’s another one!”
Two firemen dragged what seemed to be a lifeless body from the blaze.
“Get the oxygen!”
Denver! Colton started forward. The chief’s hand curled over his arm. “You’d better wait—”
But Colton didn’t listen. He recognized the clothes. But when he was close enough to see Denver’s face, he stopped dead in his tracks. His stomach roiled again, and he nearly threw up. Denver’s face was blackened by smoke—his hair was singed, and one side of his jaw and cheek had been burned.
“Is—is he—”
