Chapter Fifteen
Rhett pressed Lily back against the nursery office and shielded her body with his. Her ears felt like they had turned inside out, and for several seconds, she could only cling to Rhett with her face buried in his shirt and wait to see if another explosion would follow.
His grip felt like a vise around her ribs, and she finally wheezed in his ear, “I can’t breathe. You’re squeezing me too tight.”
“Baby, I’m sorry.” He drew back and brushed the hair from her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “What happened?”
Still shielding her, he turned them, and she shrieked, “It’s the cottage!”
Visible flames leaped high in the air on the far side of Lily’s cottage. She tried to bolt, but he held her firmly in place.
“Did you have a propane tank?”
“Yes,” she cried, trying to wriggle free.
“Then it just blew up. You stay here and call 911. I’ll get a hose,” he ordered.
He gave her a push toward the back door of the office and then streaked for the cottage as flames scrabbled up the clapboard siding and across the eaves on the far side of the structure.
Lily yanked out her cell phone and called 911, then speed-dialed Rob as she raced after Rhett. He had already grabbed a hose from the garage side of the house and had a stream centered on the worst of the flames by the time she reached the driveway.
“You stay back!” Rhett thundered when he spotted her. “I lost you once. I’m not losing you again.”
Ignoring him, she ran to the palm field bordering her small lawn and straight to the closest hose bibb with its attached coil of hose. She had ordered two-hundred-foot hoses for the palm field and wondered briefly if that had been one of them God things Hank always mentioned.
Rhett saw her lumbering back toward the cottage under the weight of the heavy coils, water flying out the end in all directions as she ran. “No, Lily! Stay back!”
She could see the panic in his eyes even at this distance and knew it was all for her. “It’s my home, Rhett,” she shouted back.
Nothing remained of her propane tank but a black metal husk, and she used her spewing hose to flood the smoldering grass as she passed by.
The storm brewing out in the Atlantic earlier had headed inland, and she said a silent prayer for rain.
Only wind showed up for the fireworks party and threatened to blow the flames quickly out of control.
Their two small-diameter hoses couldn’t keep up with the spreading flames.
They needed the gushing fire hoses to do proper battle.
Gusts of wind grabbed sparks from the roof and scattered them in every direction like miniscule sparklers.
Lily adjusted her aim to send her stream of water onto the roof, but the flames grew higher and inhaled the thin stream like a sadistic magic act.
Gusts fluttered more sparks into a shower overhead, and Lily raised an arm to cover her head.
“Dammit, Lily, get back!” Rhett hollered again.
Still she ignored him and shifted her stream of water to the highest flames.
“Lily, I mean it!”
She made the mistake of glancing over. Rhett looked furious, but no way could she retreat. The tiny cottage was the only home she had ever known. Her parents’ pictures and homemade Christmas decorations were inside, along with her family Bible, her yearbooks, and her father’s landscape references.
The crackling and snapping of the flames merged into a dull roar, and somewhere nearby, she heard a vehicle fly up and spew gravel. Seconds later, large hands closed over hers. “Let go of the hose, Lily,” Rob ordered. “The cottage is gone. We have to save the shadehouse.”
She whipped around and saw small flames teasing at the edges of their new annuals shadehouse. No sprinkler system existed inside as all the annuals were specially hand-watered, according to their needs. “No!” she screamed and took off running.
Rhett had her around the waist before she took three strides, and she pummeled his shoulders to get free as the sound of sirens echoed from nearby. “Let me go! Let me go!”
He crushed her arms down to her sides in a bear hug. “Hold still, dammit!”
Tears spilled from her eyes. Her whole life was going up in smoke.
“I’m going to let you go, but I need you to run to the entrance to guide the fire trucks back here, or they’ll drive straight through your planting fields.”
She nodded and he released her, but kept an eye on her as he jogged toward another hose bibb in the palm field, this one even closer to the shadehouse.
Rob was already soaking down the roof of the shadehouse with the hose he had heisted from Lily.
She did exactly as Rhett ordered until he turned his hose and attention on the shadehouse, and then she sprinted toward the back door of her cottage.
She had to get her pictures of Hank. They were all she had left to remember her dad.
~ ~ ~ ~
Smoke billowed out through holes in the roof as Lily raced around the side of the house.
The wind caught the smoke and swirled it in all directions.
An especially strong gust shoved a blanket of smoke down over her as she reached the back door.
Her lungs coughed violently against the invasion, and she drew her T-shirt up and over her mouth and nose, then yanked open the back door.
A wall of flames spread across the front of the house and inched steadily toward the family room in the rear.
Thick smoke filled the inside of her cottage, and Lily couldn’t see into the kitchen to her left or the family room to her right.
Memory alone would guide her steps to retrieve the beloved pictures.
She had mere seconds. Barely enough time to reach the frames on the end tables and maybe, the frames on the fireplace shelves at the far wall.
Thick smoke stung her eyes. Squinting her eyelids to slits, she took careful measured steps through the family room to avoid falling over any furniture.
If she hit her head, she died right here.
Moving steadily forward, she skirted Hank’s recliner to get to the end table just beyond, which held two precious photos of her and Hank at Disney World.
Rhett shouted her name outside, and she quickly shuffled forward, knowing he would charge in and drag her out.
As she reached for the end table, dozens of stinging sensations erupted on her forearms. Her eyes opened wide.
A shower of sparks fluttered onto her arms. Her gaze jerked up in time to see the blazing beam break free from the roof above and drop straight for her head.
~ ~ ~ ~
When Rhett glanced back at the gravel drive and didn’t see Lily, a wave of all-out panic hit him like a sledgehammer. He spun toward the flame-engulfed cottage. No sign of her.
“Lily!” he roared.
Rob shot him a panicked look. “Where is she?” he hollered.
“I don’t know!” Rhett shot back. “Lily!” He glanced back at the cottage and then hollered to Rob, “Is there a back door to her cottage?”
Rob’s eyes widened in alarm, and Rhett’s heart kicked up in his throat. He raced for the cottage, shouting her name.
Dear God, don’t let her have gone in there!
He careened around the back corner of the cottage, and sparks fluttered like rain around him as a strong gust of wind whipped across the flaming roof. He spotted the back door yanked wide, and his heart almost stopped.
“Lily!” he yelled into the billows of dark smoke pouring from the interior.
He yanked his polo shirt up and over his nose and mouth.
Right or left? A light was still on in the room to the left, and two steps later, he bumped into a counter.
Kitchen. Knowing Lily, she went after personal belongings, probably pictures.
Squinting to shield his eyes against the onslaught of smoke, he moved through the arch to the right of the back door.
“Lily!” he shouted and took two strides into the room.
He caught movement through the smoke. One more step and he spotted her as a shower of sparks fluttered down over her head. She glanced up, and he followed her gaze. The beam overhead tore free of the flaming roof, leaving a gaping hole and creating a second thicker shower of sparks.
As though in slow motion, Rhett lunged for Lily and yanked her to the side as the fiery beam bounced hard off his shoulder. His subsequent roll to their right snuffed out the burst of flame on his shirt.
Ignoring the blast of pain in his shoulder, he held his breath, scooped Lily into his arms, and hustled toward the back door, moving via memory through the opaque gray curtain.
Gulping a lungful of air once he exited the house, Rhett marched toward the halogen security lamp atop a pole at the rear of her property.
When he reached a picnic table well back from the burning cottage, he set her down.
Immediately, a spate of coughing overwhelmed her, and he brushed the hair back from her face.
“Are you all right?” he demanded hoarsely.
The halogen lamp lit the area around them, and he tilted her face toward the light. Streaks of tears washed a path through the sooty grime on her cheeks, and her desolate expression tore at his heart.
“I’m not hurt,” she managed to wheeze.
“Take slow deep breaths to clean out your lungs. Are you nauseous?” he probed, searching for symptoms of smoke inhalation.
“I kept my mouth and nose covered.”
“Oh thank God,” he said, and gently drew her into his arms.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then her arms went around his neck. He held on for dear life, finally realizing how much that clichéd phrase meant and how close he had just come to losing Lily. Permanently.
~ ~ ~ ~