Page 73 of Wyoming Bodyguard
She fisted her hand and pounded it against the rough wood. “Help! Madden!”
* * *
Madden jumped out of bed. Cold air hit his skin and slapped his system awake better than any coffee. Lily had woken him from a dead sleep, yelled something, then flew out of the room like the devil himself was after her. He wasn’t exactly sure what she’d said, but it couldn’t be anything good to get him out of bed in the middle of the night.
Quickly finding his clothes, he dressed and jogged upstairs. “Lily? Are you up here?”
No answer.
But something in the distance caught his attention. Horses?
Shit.
A sense of urgency rushed him out the door. “Lily!”
The barn door was closed, but plumes of smoke rose from the structure. Cool, night air hit his face as he sprinted down the porch steps. Jolts of adrenaline shot through his system. No flames snaked across the structure, but billows of smoke smothered the dark sky.
Damn it, he should have brought his phone, but he couldn’t turn back to grab it now. He had to get the horses out safely and pray Lily had called for help.
“Help me. Please. Let me out!”
Lily!
Her screams registered and his body moved impossibly faster. Horror clawed at his insides, and a desperate need to get Lily to safety pushed aside every other thought in his brain. He lunged for the barn door and yanked but nothing happened. He tried again, pulling as hard as he could. The hinges creaked and groaned, but the door stayed in place.
Moonlight bounced off something silver by his hand. Dread curdled in the pit of his stomach. “What the hell?”
A chain with a padlock was wrapped around the latch.
“Lily, I’m here. I can’t open the door. There’s a chain and padlock in place.”
“What! Oh my God, Madden. Get me out of here! The smoke’s getting thicker. It’s hard to breathe.”
“Stay low to the ground and try to keep your mouth and nose covered. Hold on, baby.” He hated leaving her but had to find something to rip off the lock.
He raced to the red barn where ranch tools were kept and found a shovel. Gripping it in his hands, he sprinted back out to the stable. Sweat dotted his hairline and adrenaline zipped through his veins. “I’m back, Lily. I’ll get you out of there in no time.”
“I don’t think you will.”
A familiar voice sent a spike of fear through his heart. He twisted around as something slammed against the side of his head, and he fell to the hard ground.
Chapter 27
Seconds ticked by like hours. Lily stayed on the hard concrete floor and leaned against the wooden door. Dust and dirt clung to her skin. She held her breath, both to stop the smoke from entering her lungs and to listen for Madden. He’d been right there. About to free her. Where had he gone?
“Madden?” She yelled as loud as she could, but the smoke swimming in her system stole her voice and zapped her energy. She pounded against the wooden barrier trapping her inside the smoke-filled barn.
A coughing fit took over her body. Her lungs screamed for clean oxygen. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to find a way out.
Staggering to her feet, she crouched low and moved toward the cloud of smoke. The old stable only had one way in and one way out. No windows were inside to offer escape. She was stuck, but that didn’t mean she’d sit on her ass and wait to be saved, or worse, wait for death.
Clearing the fog and fear from her mind, realization smacked her over the head. There was a water source in the barn. She needed to find the cause of the smoke and extinguish it before things got worse.
The horses whinnied in panic, stamping their hooves, as she hurried by them. Their fear pushed her to her limits. She couldn’t let them die. She had to figure out how to get them all out of there alive. Her gait was slow, and each breath harder to take than the last, but she forced herself through the wall of soot and dirty fog until she stumbled into the feed room.
Buckets. That’s what she needed. Buckets of water.
Summoning all her strength, she found a large black bucket and carried it to the sink. While it filled with water, she surveyed the cloudy room, but couldn’t see fire. The smoke had come from the back of the barn, so she struggled to carry the heavy bucket back into the aisle and turned toward Queenie’s stall.
