Radclyffe - Homestead

Clay jumped out, holding the door open as the rain lashed her face, and stared in at Tess. “I don’t remember you being this stubborn.”

“I wasn’t.” Tess smiled. “I’m tougher now. You’re going to have to get used to that.”

“I can handle that. If you’re not going to stay here, you have to promise to follow my lead. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Tess shut down the engine and left the keys in the ignition. She jumped out and ran to the front of the truck to meet Clay. “I’m very sure. Because wherever you’re headed, I’m going with you.”

“Stay close!”

Tess grabbed the back of Clay’s shirt as they ran, afraid she would lose her in the otherworldly orange haze. The fire was bright, but the air was so heavy with smoke and rain, visibility was practically zero. Beneath the roar of the flames and rush of water falling all around them, she thought she heard shouts. The rain, a cold, dense wall, suddenly shimmered and broke apart as a wave of heat speared through it. Recoiling, she finally made out the silhouettes of burning buildings writhing against an ominous sky. Two buildings, storage sheds or barns of some kind, were fully involved. Flames leapt twenty feet into the air as if trying to escape their own fury. The trailer door stood open as she remembered it had been after it had been vandalized. It wasn’t burning but appeared dark and deserted.

“Wait here,” Clay said. “I need to get the men organized and find Ella and Kelly.”

“I’ll check the trailer,” Tess called and took off running as Clay’s protests were quickly swallowed by wind and flame. She jumped up onto the top step and grabbed the side of the trailer for balance. The metal was scorching and she yanked her hand back. “Ella! Kelly! Are you in here?”

She heard nothing but had to be sure no one was lying unconscious inside. Carefully, she stepped inside, checking her footing and testing the air. Nothing appeared to be burning, but the power was out just like everywhere else. Venturing a few feet farther, she could tell almost immediately the trailer was empty. She pivoted back to the door and nearly ran into Clay.

“Oh!” Tess’s pulse jackrabbited with a rush of adrenaline.

“Damn it!” Clay grabbed her shoulders. “Whatever happened to following my lead?”

“I was—you went to check in with the men, and I went to look for Ella and Kelly. They’re not here. They must be with the men.” Tess grabbed Clay’s hand. “Come on, we need to find them.”

“Just be careful. Please.”

“I will.”

Back outside, they ran toward the nearest burning shed. As they got closer, Tess could finally make out human forms, a half dozen figures dragging equipment and loaded pallets away from a wall of flames.

“I don’t see Ella…Wait”—Tess pointed—“I think that’s Kelly.”

Tess raced toward Kelly as Clay was stopped by a big man in an undershirt and work pants. Kelly’s face was smudged with soot, her shirt and pants drenched and covered with smears of oil and grime.

“What happened?” Tess said.

“Not sure—it looks like a gas leak. Looks like the fire started over near the big storage building.”

“Where’s Ella?”

“I lost track of her when we went to check on the men in the barracks.”

“Is everyone accounted for?”

Kelly shook her head. “There’s no way to tell. The guys bunking in one building didn’t know who had stayed in the others. We located the crew foreman before Ella disappeared. He’s trying to get a head count now. It could take hours before we know for sure.” Kelly wiped her forehead, smearing the soot into long dark streaks like war paint. “Any chance help is coming?”

Tess shook her head. “I doubt it. Not in time, anyhow.” A chorus of engine roars brought her spinning around in time to see Clay climb into the operator’s station on a large track-type tractor, engage the plow, and head directly toward one of the burning buildings.

“What is she doing?” Tess started to run.

“Wait.” Kelly grabbed Tess’s arm. “She’s going to take the building down. It’s the only way to contain the blaze and keep it from spreading.”

“What about the gas?” As Tess watched, other men jumped into tractors and backhoes and started for the second burning building.

“The men already shut down the lines from the uninvolved tanks. They’ll be all right,” Kelly said.

Tess jerked around, fury making her voice quiver. “How exactly do you know that? They’re driving right into the middle of that fire.”

“They know what they’re doing, they’ve done it before. This is part of the job.”

“It’s a ridiculous job,” Tess yelled, knowing she probably sounded ridiculous, and not caring. Clay had disappeared behind a wall of flames and she was terrified.

“Trust her,” Kelly said. “Clay knows what she’s doing.”

Trust. Why did it always come down to that? Clay might know what she was doing—but not even Clay could control nature. Tess knew what formidable foes wind and rain and fire could be.

“I can’t just stand here and watch,” Tess said. “I’m going to check the rest of the buildings and make sure that they’re all empty, just in case.”

“Good idea,” Kelly said. “I’ll come with you.”

Tess trotted toward the nearest uninvolved building. “I don’t think you need to be on duty tonight, but I appreciate you looking out for me.”

“Right now, I think we all need to look out for each other, at least until we find out if this was an accident or not.”

“Clay doesn’t seem to think so.”

“No,” Kelly said, her usual good humor gone and a hard edge to her voice. “Neither do I.”

Running from building to building, they cleared them all in less than five minutes. All were empty with no sign of any injured workers anywhere. The fire was concentrated near Clay’s trailer and the storage sheds. If there was an arsonist, he seemed to have targeted buildings that were unoccupied.

By the time they crossed back across the wide expanse of the camp, Clay and the others had knocked down both burning structures and were heaping mounds of dirt on the flaming debris. Tess searched for Clay, but in the swirling smoke and embers, she couldn’t tell one person from another. Despite Clay’s promise she wouldn’t try to be a hero, Tess couldn’t think of any other name for it.

“When she gets off that tractor, I’m going to kill her,” she muttered as she paced.

“I don’t know,” Kelly said. “If it was me, I’d kiss her.”

Tess shot her a glance.

Kelly grinned. “Well, you know, if I was into hot sexy women.”

“I don’t plan on asking for details.”

“I’m going to check the perimeter for Ella—she’s got to be out there somewhere.”

“Text me every few minutes so I know you’re all right,” Tess said.

“Will do. You should be fine if you just stay here.”

“Fine.” Tess squinted through air thick as sawdust and about as easy to breathe, searching for Clay, trying to make herself believe everything would be all right. She thought maybe Kelly was right. When she saw Clay again, she planned on kissing her. Until then, there was work to do.

As Kelly disappeared from view, Tess ran toward the closest tractor.

Clay pulled her T-shirt up over her nose and mouth to block out the worst of the smoke and soot. Her eyes burned, her vision blurred through the veil of tears. She’d lost track of time, aware only of the heat and noise and the inexorable beast that slashed and roared and fought to annihilate everything in its path. Propelling the tractor back and forth in sharp, short bursts, she knocked down the burning metal buildings, uprooting their timber supports and shoveling earth onto the piles of rubble to smother the flames. Periodically she directed her men to the edge of the forest to trench a firebreak and prevent the fire from spreading into the adjacent woods. Catching sight of a line of flames licking toward the underbrush, she maneuvered next to the vehicle on her right to send him in that direction.

“Hey,” she yelled, her voice raspy and her throat burning after hours of breathing smoke. The driver turned in her direction and Clay shook her head, certain she was mistaken. Her low-level headache skyrocketed with the motion, but her vision cleared up. She hadn’t been wrong. “What the hell are you doing?”

Tess sent her a grin, looking like she was having a fabulous time. “Following your lead.”

Irritated, impressed, proud, Clay worked on frowning. “Not what I meant.”

“What do you need?”

You. You and nothing else. Clay debated finding someone else to take care of the problem, but everyone was engaged and Tess clearly knew how to handle a tractor. “Over there to your right—about two o’clock—dig a trench and outflank that finger of fire headed for the woods. Be careful it doesn’t come around behind you. If it does, plow a path through the woods if you have to, but don’t let it trap you.”

“I’ll be careful. You too, okay? The wind is making this monster unpredictable.”

“I will.” Clay hesitated. “Hey!”

Tess stared back, her gaze so intense Clay felt the world drop away—as if they were back in bed with all the time in the world to show each other what mattered. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ll see you later,” Clay said, wanting to say so much more. Wanting every night, every morning.

“Yes. You will.” Tess smiled, and somewhere beyond the wild, angry night, Clay’s world righted itself.

Clay pushed the tractor into gear and went back to plowing the burning debris into the center of a cleared area of the yard, building a giant bonfire that would eventually burn itself out. By the time they’d managed to contain the conflagration, the sky was lightening in the east. Dawn was coming, and the rain had eased off to a steady drizzle. The long night was over.