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CHAPTER1
Hank Chapman turned off the TV after the applause had ended and threw the handle on his La-Z-Boy recliner he got for Father’s Day twenty years ago. He braced his hands on the arms and pushed himself up, fighting the arthritis from many years of working too hard for too long. He put on his house shoes, the kind the doctor prescribed, pocketed his flip phone in his overalls, and grabbed the empty bowl.
“Come on, Levi, let’s clean up, get a cup of tea, and head to bed.”
Levi, the golden retriever with a now-gray face, followed with a slight limp after lying in his oversized dog bed through the news,Jeopardy,andWheel.
Hank ambled toward the old-fashioned kitchen he had always known. The yellow countertops and wood cabinets were the same color his mom had picked out back when his dad had redesigned the ranch house before he was born. The appliances were white and of medium quality, replaced as the old ones went with time, but all of the dishes and linens were still the ones Barbara had bought in town when they had moved in forty years ago.
Hank put his bowl in the sink next to the small saucepan he had used to heat up the can of Campbell’s chicken noodle, then filled the tea kettle, leaving the water running to fill the sink. The click click click of the gas on the white range poofed into a little blue flame which he turned up before he set the kettle to boil. While the water heated, he grabbed the Dawn and an old sponge and set to work, with Levi watching him.
With two dishes done, he left them to dry in the rack next to one glass and a coffee cup from this morning, drained the sink, and passed the sponge around it to wipe away the water stains. He and Barbara had always been so careful about keeping the place clean, believing things lasted if you took care of them, which Hank had almost always found to be true.
Speaking of antiques, he pulled out the coffee mug with the Purina red and white checkerboard label which had been a gift from the man who sold feed in the eighties. Both the man and Hank had retired years ago from all things cattle, a fact that bothered him. Hank’s mind was fine, but his body couldn’t do the work of a young man anymore. He knew what needed to be done and had always hated laziness and waste, which was a hell of a feeling to be had with age.
Before, he could work from sunup to sundown, but now he could only manage one or two things a day before having to rest. The ranch had outrun him a long time ago, and time was widening the gap between what needed to be done and what Hank could do. Hank was still able to do most things, just with more time for the job and the recovery from it. Still, pride and finances meant he was the man for the job.
When Hank had gone to his doctor, frustrated with the situation, his doctor had listened with a patient smile, as if he had heard this a hundred times, and urged him to just tackle one thing a day and do what he could. Hank complied, but he hated it. The ranch wasn’t just his home, it was the house his father had built, where he was raised. It was the house he and Barbara took over and added on to while raising two boys. Seeing the disrepair around the house and ranch was a constant reminder of how far things had come.
Now it was just him and Levi. Hank righted the cup next to the ticking tea kettle, pulled down a box of tea from the cabinet above, and unwrapped a bag of Lipton’s decaf to plop inside. He pulled open the Sears refrigerator to grab the low-fat half-and-half when the tea kettle whistled.
“Alright, alright,” he said as grabbed the kettle with a pot holder and poured the boiling water into the mug.
A sloshing noise had him setting down the kettle and grabbing another towel from the drawer on instinct.
Next to the fridge, Levi lapped up water and was managing to get about half of what he wanted in his mouth.
“I gotcha, buddy,” Hank said, grunting as he bent over to wipe up the floor with the faded floral tea towel, taking care to lift the edge of the bowl and pass the rag under. Water on a floor was never good.
“There you go,” he said as he patted his old friend on the head. “No worries here.”
Levi looked up and panted his typical loving retriever smile, while Hank tossed the used rag into the washer, which was just to the left of the kitchen.
Returning to his tea, he added a dollop of low-fat half-and-half small enough to appease his doctor and replaced the carton in the fridge.
“Time for bed,” he said, picking up his cup. “Two magazines came today.AARPandGuns and Ammo. What should we read tonight, buddy?”
Hank hit the kitchen light switch on his way out like he had countless times before and walked upstairs to the bedroom following Levi, never looking back into the dark kitchen where he would’ve seen the pot holder next to high blue flame.
CHAPTER2
Megan White hopped down from the six-man-cab fire engine into the orange glow of the inferno that resembled a two-story farmhouse. Angry orange flames licked out of a small window on the side while smoke billowed into the night sky, blending with the clouds.
Megan pulled her helmet on while the radio squawked out the orders in her ear, not that she or the new rookie, Nick, needed any. Buzz had them all so well trained as a team, each assisting the engineer with parts of the hose to push back the blaze in support of the fire attack, when Buzz made the call.
At least one occupant still inside, transitional fire attack. Save lives, not the building. The seven hundred and fifty gallons of water might not save the structure, so it would have to cover the team as they went into rescue mode. That was Megan’s specialty.
Buzz supported the engineer with the hose and ordered Megan and Nick to take the lead.
There was no hesitation from either.
Megan took point and entered through the unburned side, which happened to be the front door. A few chops of the irons and it came away freely, revealing a scalding hell on six sides of the kitchen, the roar of the fire mixing with the shrill screams of the fire alarm. Four walls, floor, and ceiling all moved in waves of red energy licking every surface for fuel.
“Nick, follow me when Buzz takes over door control.”
“Got it,” he said, already inside crouching down, ready to help regulate air and steam flow but also to help her find her way back. “Go get them.”
Megan was already heading straight into the blaze, scanning for signs of life. It was almost nine o’clock, so she headed for the staircase, testing it with her boot before taking them two at a time.
