Page 52 of Love on the Run

“Sheriff, Kyle’s looking for you,” Roberts said then. “I’ll take you to him. Diego, you hold tight. I’ll go back out with you and we’ll find those last two.” Though Daniel Roberts was well over sixty, he never left the dirty work to his younger hands. The older man led Jake back to the still burning barn.

“Diego thought the stalls had been opened somehow,” Jake noted, watching the older man direct his people.

“He mentioned that to me,” Roberts nodded. “I don’t know a thing about it, and none of the other boys have ‘fessed up to leaving any stall unlocked. Probably thought I’d be angry. ‘Course, it turns out it was a blessing this time.”

As they came upon the barn from the downwind side, Jake caught a strange smell in the air. “Roberts, you don’t keep your spare gasoline in the barn, do you?”

The older man gave him a look. “Are you crazy? With those horses in there? No, all my gas is stored in the garage, next to the ranch vehicles.”

“Then why does the fire from the barn smell like that?”

Roberts sniffed the air. “It does smell odd. What does it mean?”

Remembering something Diego had mentioned earlier, Jake ran back to the quiet ranch hand. “Diego, you said you woke up and smelled the fire. Did you mean you smelled the smoke?”

He looked startled. “No, sir. I didn’t start to smell the smoke till after I got outside. It was the fire. At least, I thought of fire when I smelled it.”

“Could it have been gasoline? Or kerosene?”

Diego began to nod slowly. “That is what I smelled.” His eyes narrowed then. “Someone set that fire, Sheriff. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “The smell, plus the stalls having been unlocked…”

“Hijo de puta,” Diego muttered. “Is someone trying to mess with the thoroughbreds? But then, why let them get out?”

“Whoever it was, they weren’t just being kind to animals. With the horses loose, everyone was distracted. You had to take the time to get the animals back, and that meant not as many men to fight the fire.”

By that point, Roberts had rejoined them. He heard Jake’s last statement. “You think this was deliberate? But no one around here would do a thing like this.”

“But someone did,” Jake frowned, now certain the fire was deliberate. “You two go after those last palominos. I’m going to check a few things out here.”

Jake walked back the barn, feeling the heat of the fire as he got closer. The tang of gasoline was obvious now. He asked Jimmy about it, and received a grim nod of agreement. “Smelled it before, but I thought it was the garage. But now that we can get to the barn, you can smell that it’s coming from inside.”

“That makes it arson,” Jake said slowly, rocking back on his heels, pondering the situation. A fire this size was no teenage prank, but a serious event that summoned practically everyone from the surrounding area here to deal with it. Dan Roberts was well-liked in the community. Jake couldn’t imagine someone trying to hurt him or his horses. But then, the horses had been let loose, so they wouldn’t be harmed. No, whoever was behind this wanted the horses to live. But they certainly wanted to create confusion. A distraction. From what? Was there something worth stealing on the Roberts’ land?

Then a chill settled in his heart. No one wanted to distract Roberts. Someone wanted to distract Jake. Only a chaotic event like a ranch fire would have gotten him to arrive at the scene so soon and kept him there that long. He’d been distracted, all right. And all the time he’d been here, Callie had been left alone.

* * * *

Bruiser had gotten a good run, and he led them back to the house at an easy pace. Callie followed along, her mind full of the last few days, trying to figure out what she should do next.

When she slipped back into the house, it felt like coming home.Easy, girl, she warned herself, unconsciously mimicking Jake’s drawling accent. She always tended to plunge into relationships, usually with disastrous results. And this situation was crazier than anything that had come before. Jake was the finest man she’d ever met, and he’d definitely saved her life. It was easy to forget that she had only known him for a few days. Really, she knew so little about him…other than what he’d slowly revealed, and what she’d seen with her own eyes. Or thought she had seen.

It would be dangerous to assume they wanted the same thing. She didn’t even know whatshewanted. For all she knew, he would forget about her as soon as she left. Lord knew LA-to-Montana would make for one hell of a long-distance relationship.

Bruiser flopped down beside her on the couch, and Callie simply sat there for a while, petting the dog and going over things in her mind. She had just decided to get up and make some tea when Bruiser suddenly raised his head, alert in the way that only a guard dog can be.

“What’s up?” Callie asked him, as if he could answer.

Bruiser sniffed, then whined slightly. A wash of nervousness came over Callie. All at once, she felt totally exposed. Alone.

The dog got up off the couch and began to pace nervously around the living room. He pawed at the porch door. Callie walked over and opened it, but Bruiser didn’t go through. He stood like a sentinel, sniffing the air and turning his head from one side to the other. He pressed himself against Callie’s leg, as if to reassure her.

After a moment, Callie pulled the dog back and closed the door, turning the deadbolt to lock it, the first time it had been locked since she arrived. All her city-born instincts took over then, and she methodically went around the house, closing the blinds and curtains on the windows, flipping the latches, and wishing they didn’t look so flimsy. A creepy feeling of being watched had settled over her, and she tried to calm herself down. Her heartbeat was too fast, fluttering in her chest. Bruiser tagged along with her, his ears pricked and his nose twitching. “You’re just freaking out, Callie,” she said aloud. “It’s nothing, and when Jake comes home, he’ll laugh at how crazy you were.”

Callie remembered the front door, where she’d waved goodbye to Jake that morning, was still unlocked. Why would anyone in Hazelton lock their doors? She walked carefully to the front entrance, intending to flip the lever of the deadbolt.

She froze about four feet from the door, her eyes widening as she saw the doorknob turning. Then Bruiser barked loudly, and she used a momentary sense of courage and panic to spring forward and hit the lock. A startled curse echoed from the other side, and Callie tried not to scream in response. If she thought her heartbeat was fast before, it was nothing compared to this.

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