Page 189 of Hold Me Until Morning

A rendering of peace.

I gasped and tried to orient myself, to process what I’d heard.

To make sense of what still trembled through the atmosphere.

Shouts rose up from all around, in the distance and some coming from a couple ranch hands who ran past me down the aisle where they tossed the door open at the end in search of what had happened.

My head spun, and I swallowed around the tumult that had me in shock.

Gathering myself enough to focus, I tuned my ear to the shouts and voices that were coming from outside.

Not an earthquake.

An explosion.

Oh God.

It was an explosion.

Panic erupted in my senses, and I slammed the stall gate closed, latched it, and went running in the same direction as the other hands had gone, flying out through the door to the disorder happening on the other side.

Shouts.

Mayhem.

Chaos.

Voices penetrated from all around, rising through the smoke that clouded the air.

“Someone call an ambulance.”

“Stay back!”

“We need an extinguisher.”

I faltered for only a beat, my heart in my throat as my gaze raced to where the commotion was coming from.

To the lot near the maintenance facility.

Then I was running.

Sprinting.

Hemorrhaging.

My heart bleeding out when through the haze of smoke and dust I saw Cody’s truck.

Consumed in flames.

“Cody, oh my God, no, Cody.”

I ran as hard as my feet would take me, my boots pounding the ground, the world falling away around me.

People were gathered around, though a few were holding them back, keeping them away from the heat that I could already feel blasting my face.

“Cody!” I shouted it through the terror that ravaged, and I barreled through the wall of bodies. “Cody!”

Arms curled around me from behind. “Stay right here, Ms. Wagner. It’s not safe.”

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