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Ignoring the sweltering heat, I bolt to the far end closest to the flame and rip the bar off the first stall. The chestnut horse inside bursts free and tears into the darkness outside. One after the other, I free each one. Their thundering hooves fill the air as they race into the void.
They’ll seek shelter in the mountains and I can go after them later.
The barn is too hot and the smoke is so thick I can barely see. My skin burns like it’s been striped raw and my eyes stream. My shirt is soaked in sweat and dusty with ash and I can feel the heat through it.
I need to get out now.
Yanking the last stall door open, I send the final horse out through the back door. I’m right behind it, circling the barn and skidding to a halt. A second set of flames fills my vision, smaller than the first, but just as deadly.
The back of the house is on fire.
How is that possible?
It hits me right then that this wasn’t an accident and I have a pretty good idea of who’s responsible. This wasn’t an electricalfire or a careless cigarette. Someone did this and their target is alone right now. Sitting on my horse in her front yard.
My chest tightens.
Not again.
They took everything from me once. I won’t let them do it again.
I break into a full run and see her, climbing down from Shadow. She couldn’t be obedient this one time?
She starts running towards the house on her bare feet and I catch her before she gets to the porch. Wrapping my arms around her waist and lifting her from her feet.
She screams, arcing. Her fists pound my back.
“It’s all I have,” she wails. “Please, Gerard, it’s all I have.”
It’s not.
She has me. Whether she likes it or not.
I carry her ruthlessly back to where Shadow waits and put her down. She wrenches herself back and attempts to dart towards the house, but I grab her wrist and pull her into my chest. Turning her so she can’t see the flames eating the back of the house.
“It’s just bricks and wood,” I tell her. “It’s not worth it, redbird.”
She sobs, hyperventilating. Her chest heaves in until it’s concave and she’s barely able to breathe. Her hands shake in my grasp, her eyes wide like a deer in headlights. I brush her tangled, sweaty hair back and cradle her face.
“Breathe for me,” I urge.
“It’s all I have,” she gasps out. “I’ve never had anything until this. I have no home…I have no one.”
I grip her shoulders and pull her against my chest. Her entire body goes still. I wonder if she can hear my heart pound against my ribs as her breathing eases. She’s no longer struggling for air the way she was, but I feel her shake like a leaf in the wind.
“I will take care of you,” I say into the top of her head. She smells of smoke and pomegranates.
There’s a long silence.
The fire crackles on.
“Why?” she whispers, sniffing. “Why will you take care of me?”
I want to have the words. God, I wish I had them. But that part of me is calloused and dead. If I had the ability to speak my emotions, I could say all the foolish things I’d felt since I’d laid eyes on her. That she was the first woman in twenty years who’d made me feel human again. That I was used to loneliness and she was the opposite of that.
But I don’t know how.
That’s why I need her to sign the damn contract.
