The Bride of Willow Creek(102)

“I should have told him that I might not be successful in his eyes, but you would never want for a home or food on the table and a few pretty lady things.” Like the rose soap she loved so much. “But I let your father put it in my head that a man who worked with wood could never be as good as a man who worked with brick and could never deserve his daughter.”

“I should have stayed in the parlor with you. I should have told my parents that I was a grown woman and married, and you and I would decide our own future.”

“I’ve spent ten years treating my profession like a hobby that paid just enough to allow me to search for silver or gold.” He watched the lantern light seeking out the red in her dark hair. “Consequently, your father’s prediction came true. I haven’t been successful. If I’d stood up to him and believed in myself, by now I might have been a prosperous contractor.” They would have been together all these years.

“I’m sure you would have been. But—”

“What are you looking at?” She kept glancing at the wall behind him with a puzzled expression.

“There’s a light on the other side of the tent, and it’s growing brighter.”

“A light?”

“I can’t figure where it’s coming from.”

Sam turned his head to examine an orange glow that flickered against the canvas wall, receded, then flashed brighter and higher. For an instant he didn’t register what he was seeing. Then he swore and jumped to his feet. “Fire!”

For a frozen moment neither of them moved, then they raced outside and halted in horror.

Whipped by the wind, flames leaped along the back wall of the house, licking at summer-dry wood. The curtains at the kitchen window blazed in tatters. Already the canvas ceiling above the sink was a sheet of racing flame. In seconds the kitchen would be an inferno.

Spinning on his heel, Sam dashed into the tent and emerged with a blanket covering his head and shoulders. Running toward the back door, he shouted over his shoulder. “Go to their window!”

Oh God, the girls. Angie’s paralysis broke and she grabbed up her skirts and sprinted forward, then around the corner and into the darkness. Cold wind tore at her hair and skirts. Ringing filled her ears which later she would identify as the urgent tolling of the fire department bell.

On this side of the house, the ground dropped away. Screaming, “Lucy! Daisy!” she stretched up on tiptoe, but only her fingertips reached the sill. Swearing, gulping air, she frantically looked for something to stand on, but all she found was a boulder she couldn’t possibly move. Damn, damn.

Smoke billowed out of the girls’ bedroom window. Frantic, shouting over the heavy pounding of her heart, Angie screamed their names again and again, wringing her hands, unaware of frightened tears streaming down her cheeks.

Then Sam appeared in the smoke at the window, holding Daisy’s limp body in his arms. “Angie!”

“Here! I’m right here!”

A soft whoosh preceded a sudden blaze of fire and light behind him. The blanket was gone. So was one of his sleeves. A finger of fire flickered on his collar. Fear and horror closed Angie’s throat.

Before Sam turned back into the blaze behind him, he lowered Daisy as far as he could, then dropped her the remaining two feet into Angie’s outstretched arms.

Daisy’s weight sent Angie to her knees on the hard rocky ground, but she didn’t notice. The child lay in her arms, limp and heavy, her eyes rolled up in her head.

“Daisy! Daisy!” Gasping and sobbing, she set Daisy on the ground and pounded her back. “Breathe! Damn it, breathe!” Daisy’s head lolled on her shoulders. Grinding her teeth, half crazy with fear and terror, Angie pounded the child’s back.

Daisy’s small body convulsed, then her mouth opened on a sucking sound and her chest expanded.

“Angie!” It was Sam.

Stumbling over her skirts, she jumped up and reached for Lucy. Again she went down on her knees as Lucy’s weight fell into her arms. But before she could try to revive the child, she had to smother the flames racing up Lucy’s nightgown. Roughly, she rolled the unconscious little girl in the dirt.

Dimly she realized that Sam had jumped and landed beside her. “Move away from the house,” he croaked, his voice choked and raw from the smoke. He slung Daisy over his shoulder and tugged at Angie’s collar.

“Wait, wait!” His shirt was on fire. Oh God, oh God. Frightened, sobbing, Angie beat at his back with her bare hands. When the flames were extinguished, she scooped Lucy into her arms and staggered away from the house.

“No,” Sam shouted. “This way. Toward Molly and Can’s.”