Her kidnapper was bleeding and whimpering as he pressed a hand over his thigh and blood rushed over his fingers. He swore and picked up the gas can he’d been carrying when he’d hit Brand with his gun.
At a sound deep in the house, he frowned. “Stay here,” he said to her. As if she was going anywhere. He turned and started up the stairs, sloshing gas over the steps as he went.
Holly Jo waited until Darius disappeared upstairs before she looked in the direction where she’d last seen Birdie. She wasn’t there. What if she didn’t come back? The smoke from the burning wing was growing thicker. It hurt to breathe. She looked down at Brand. Was he dead? She didn’t think so. She thought he was still breathing. She strained against the ropes binding her. He’d managed to cut some of them away, but not enough. She tried to nudge him with her foot. She touched his leg, but he didn’t move.
Then she spotted the pocketknife. If she could reach it, drag it to her...
As she pulled harder, one of the loops of rope gave from where he’d cut it. She realized she might be able to get free. Darius had gone out of his way to tie her securely, no doubt determined that this time she wasn’t getting away.
She pulled harder and was able to wiggle one hand free, then the other. She began to work frantically at getting her ankles free. Any moment Darius could come back down those stairs. Brand had cut enough of the rope that she was able to unwind most of it, but there was one piece tied to the coffee table that would not give. She was fighting it when Birdie came out of the smoke like an apparition from the hallway to the kitchen. She had what appeared to be a wet towel wrapped around her face, two more in one hand and a large butcher knife in the other. Holly Jo wasn’t even sure she was real until she fell to her knees and said, “Wrap this towel around your mouth and nose to keep out the smoke.”
Holly Jo watched her put the other towel over Brand’s face as he began to stir on the floor. Then the woman began to cut the rope—just as Holly Jo heard Darius coming back.
He was halfway down the stairs when he looked down and saw Birdie. In his surprise, he splashed gas from the can onto his pant leg. Holly Jo saw his face tighten in fury. Birdie hadn’t seemed to notice; she was too busy cutting the rope with the huge knife.
But Holly Jo saw his look. She knew what the man was capable of even as she felt the rope binding her loosen and begin to fall away.
“No!” she screamed as she saw Darius fumbling in his pocket for his gun. “No!”
He staggered a little on the stairs as he dropped the gas can, the flammable liquid splashing over his feet as he hurried to get his gun from his pocket. She saw that one of his pant legs was dark with blood and now gas. He jerked the gun out, but at the same time, he pulled out something else.
Holly Jo didn’t see what it was at first, but the object caught his attention as it fell to the carpeted step he was standing on and the puddle of gasoline he’d spilled. It wasn’t until she heard a whoosh that she realized what had happened. He’d accidentally dropped his lighter, flicking it on as it fell, setting the lower part of his pants on fire, then falling to the gasoline-soaked stairs.
Flames seemed to leap all around him. She heard him cry out and begin to run down the stairs, the fire chasing him like a mad dog. She saw flames lick at his heels and the hem of his jeans, climbing higher. He tumbled down the last few steps, slapping at the flames engulfing his clothing as he found his feet and ran toward the front door of the house.
The flames rippled across the floor after him like a river of fire and smoke. Fueled by the gas that had soaked into the old wood floor, the fire rushed after him as if in a race. He reached the front door and tried to open it. Holly Jo remembered that he’d locked it, saying he didn’t want to be interrupted before he finished what he had to do.
She saw the flames catch him, racing up his back. Over the roar of the inferno, the last thing Holly Jo heard was Darius’s screams as he unlocked the door and threw himself out past the porch and into the yard, taking fire with him.
AS THE SHERIFF raced down the county road, he could see the flames on the other side of the stand of cottonwoods. They rose high into the air as if licking at the sky darkening around them. Smoke billowed up in ebony clouds.
The McKenna Ranch house was on fire—just as Stuart had feared.
Siren screaming, lights flashing, he made the turn down the long drive, praying there was no one inside.
That was when he saw the kidnapper’s pickup parked out front. To his horror, as he pulled into the yard, a figure engulfed in flames came running out of the house to fall into the grass.
The sheriff leaped out and ran to the blackened creature, seeing at once that it was too late. He rose quickly and ran toward the burning house as he heard fire trucks coming up the road behind him.
THE STAIRCASE WAS ABLAZE, the smoke getting thicker. The flames rippled down the stairs to the hardwood floor. All the time Darius had been spilling gas on the stairs, Birdie had been working frantically to cut the rope. Holly Jo felt it finally give. She was free!
“Keep the wet towel over your nose and mouth,” Birdie whispered next to her ear. “Get down on your hands and knees and crawl toward the front door.”
For a moment, Holly Jo didn’t know which direction to go. Birdie pushed her toward the door, yelling over the sound of the flames. “I’ll be right behind you.”
All she could think about as she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl, each breath painful and making her cough, was Darius. She felt bad for him, even though she knew that he had planned to leave her in the burning house. He’d never planned to take her home. She was his revenge. Setting the house ablaze was just icing on the cake, HH would have said.
She thought of HH now, the smoke burning her throat even through the wet towel, the heat making her feel like she was on fire. Darius hadn’t poured gas on the floor in the living room, but the fire moved hungrily toward her from the staircase. She realized that if she didn’t reach the front door, the fire wouldn’t kill her. It would be the smoke.
On the floor behind her, she heard Birdie and Brand. Coughing, she covered her mouth with the hem of her dirty, blood-splattered shirt and kept crawling, afraid she would never find the front door.
Moments later, Birdie and Brand were helping her to her feet. The three of them, arms wrapped around each other, moved through the smoke and out into the fresh air as the sheriff ran toward them.
“Is there anyone else inside?” the sheriff cried.
They all shook their heads as they stumbled away from the house, into the cottonwoods, sucking in air, coughing and finally dropping into the grass as they fought to breathe. The sound of sirens and fire trucks couldn’t drown out the roar of the flames. Holly Jo could hear crashing inside the house, feel the heat even this far way.
She lay in the grass, staring up at the darkness filled with sparks and smoke. She was alive. It didn’t seem possible. For so long, she’d thought for sure that no one would find her, no one would rescue her from her kidnapper, no one would ever be able to get to her in time.
“Holden,” she said between coughing bouts.
“He’s fine,” Brand said. “Everyone from the ranch is fine.”
She nodded, fighting tears. “My horse,” she said, her voice a scratchy whisper.
“The horses are fine,” Brand assured her. “The flames are far enough away from the stable.”
She closed her eyes and began to cry in huge body-shaking sobs. As she did, Birdie put her arms around her and pulled her close. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
When the EMTs insisted on taking all three of them to the hospital, it was Brand who said, “Holly Jo needs to see her horse first.” The EMT started to argue.
“You have no idea what this girl has been through. She sees her horse first.”
Holly Jo saw Birdie smile at him and Brand reach over to squeeze her hand.
“You’ll come with me,” Holly Jo said, not wanting to let either of them out of her sight. They’d saved her life. She still couldn’t believe it as she looked toward the house engulfed in flames even as the firefighters pumped water over it.
If it hadn’t been for them, she would have still been inside there—on fire.
