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As the heat rose in the room, her self-preservation mechanism finally clicked in. She rolled onto her stomach, but coughing threatened to make her pass out. Pulling the neckline of her T-shirt up over her nose and mouth, she found relief, but just a bit. Crawling in the direction she thought led to the front door, relief swept through her when she felt it within reach. Rising up on her knees, she twisted the handle and found it locked. Panicking, she tried over and over to twist the handle and find the lock. The heat was increasing, and the orange of the flames began to poke through the gray, smoke-filled room.
"Help!" she yelled but began coughing again.
Hitting her fists against the door, she tried again. "Help!"
"Megan? Unlock the door."
Frozen in fear at the voice on the other side, she shook her head, but help was help, and she needed it.
Chapter5
From his truck two doors down, he watched Megan close her garage door, rubbing her back as she made her way to her mailbox. He'd watched the diner most of the day and assumed she'd run her little legs off—figuring the whole of South Pass must have come through the doors of the Log Cabin at least once. The food was fantastic, and many left with Styrofoam boxes filled with all they couldn't eat.
He watched as she admired the front of her house and then stepped inside. Settling back into the seat of his truck, he logged onto his laptop and checked his email while often glancing toward her house. If he was lucky, Waylon would show up looking for help from Megan, and he could nab him and save her from Marcus at the same time. Not that she'd asked. But, he could tell she was afraid of Marcus, and if he was honest, that was another reason he was sitting here now. It went against his grain to see a woman in need and not help her, and he'd bet his whole paycheck that she needed help.
An explosion sounded, and when he looked up, he saw the smoke coming from the back of Megan's house. Quickly jumping from his truck, he ran across the street. He could hear her coughing and trying to twist the door handle.
"Megan? Unlock the door."
"It's stuck. I can't."
He heard her fall into a fit of coughing and looked around the porch for something to throw through the front window. Seeing a pot filled with colorful flowers, he shook his head and picked it up.
"Back away from the window," he yelled through the door.
He hefted the large pot to shoulder height and tossed it through the window.
He heard her gasp but didn't stop to wait. Using his boot, he swiped the broken glass from the bottom and sides of the window as much as he could and folded himself through it.
Running his hand along the wall, he held his T-shirt over his nose and mouth with the other, inching his foot in front of him, so he didn't step on her.
"Megan, where are you? We need to get out of here." He tried keeping the fear from his voice but felt he was losing that battle.
Coughing sounded next to him, and he reached down with both hands and found her shoulders. He scooped her up and slid along the wall to the window. The smoke was so thick, it was impossible to see anything but the bit of light streaming through where he'd just come in and the orange flames racing toward them.
Bending down, he threw one long leg through the window, ducked a bit farther and stepped out onto the porch. But he didn't stop until they were at the edge of the yard.
Sirens wailed in the distance as he laid her on the grass, her coughing still heavy, but her lungs would hopefully clear soon.
Smoothing her hair away from her face, his heart hurt for her. This woman had been through a lot this week—probably her whole life, but this week he knew for sure had been stressful, if Marcus' comments were any indicator.
Her coughing subsided as the fire trucks pulled up.
"Sir, you're going to need to get out of the way; we need you over by that pickup truck," a fireman yelled.
Easily picking her up, Ford carried her across the street. She tried protesting, but her voice was raspy, and her lungs were still heavy with smoke, so the words came out garbled.
"Shh. It's okay, Megan. I won't hurt you."
Her eyes opened, and the bright green he'd seen earlier hadn’t dimmed, though the whites of her eyes were now reddened from the smoke. Their eyes locked, and he saw when she'd finally stopped wrestling with herself as her features relaxed. Then he noticed his heart raced just a bit faster as he looked into those green eyes. Her tongue swiped across her bottom lip, leaving a glossy path, and he shook his head to clear it of sensual thoughts, which wasn't easy with her soft body pressed against his.
He laid her on the ground and seconds later an ambulance pulled to the curb directly in front of them. Two paramedics came to their side; one immediately began pulling items from a bag, and the other shined a light into her pupils to see them dilate.
"Megan, are you all right? Besides the smoke you inhaled, did you hit your head or hurt yourself in any way?"
She nodded. Coughed a bit more and rasped out, "I think I hit my head on the floor when the explosion happened. Knocked out a bit." More coughing.
One of the attendants covered her nose and mouth with an oxygen mask and said, "Okay, just relax and take in this oxygen to help you breathe."
