Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chance
“ C ome on now, Duke. Don’t be like this,” I run my hand along his flank while holding his reins tight in my other hand.
I resist the urge to cough, as it only seems to agitate him more. The burning in my lungs is getting worse with every breath I take, but I need Duke to calm down or I have no hope of avoiding a stampede of cows along with him.
Duke huffs and blows air at me, trying to take a step back.
“Just let me put this on you. It’s for your own good.” I try to talk in my calmest voice, but the closer this fire gets, the less I’m able to maintain it.
I know he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, but if I talk, I distract him, and that’s what I need if I have any chance of saving him surrounded by this smoke.
Moving slowly, my hand runs along his side and up his neck, trailing my damp bandana as I go.
“There you go, boy. That’s good. Just stay still.”
Everything goes well until I go to put the damp cloth over his eyes, causing him to rear back.
“Fuck!” I use both hands to pull back on his reins, holding him close to me.
The cows are starting to move erratically, their moos getting louder as they become more agitated.
The heat of the fire is close to unbearable. Sweat soaks every inch of my shirt. The urge to shed off my layers is hard to ignore, but I have to. If the fire gets any closer, I’ll need everything I can to keep it away from my skin.
I won’t run and leave these animals, not unless there’s no hope of saving any of them.
Even then, I’m not sure I could ever leave Duke.
Which brings me back to my task of getting this wet bandana around his eyes.
Taking a shallow breath, I will us all to just calm the fuck down.
“Come on, Duke. Just let me put this on you. It’s best you don’t see it. Hell, I wish I couldn’t.” I stroke my hand along his coat. “This is just my luck, isn’t it? I finally start to do what everyone in town wants me to do—what Dad wanted me to do—and I’m about to lose it all. The ranch. The rodeo. Dakota.”
My hand stops moving as a pang shoots through my heart.
I’m going to lose Dakota.
Or more accurately, she’s going to lose me.
Duke whinnies and starts to pull back, but I hold firm on the reins and start petting him again.
“It’s fine. She’ll move on. I was never part of the long term plan for her, anyway. Who was I to even think I could do the forever kind of stuff? I’m not built for that.”
Or, I didn’t think I was. Not until I started seeing her as anything other than a sassy annoyance. But then she made me open up to her. She made me talk to her about things that weren’t superficial.
She made me care.
“At least Mom’s ring is safe,” I add, slowly moving my way from Duke’s side and petting his neck, making sure to wet the hair of his mane. “I guess it’s hers now. No one else to give it to.”
But maybe it was always going to be hers.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen to the ring once we decided to try ‘us’ for real. Not that it had felt fake at all since the weekend of the gala.
“What do you think, Duke? Would I have proposed for real if we didn’t get stuck here?”
Duke huffs.
“You’re right. I would have found some excuse not to.”
I look over my shoulder, seeing the fire burning near the edge of the clearing, moving fast as it tears through the last of the barrier.
I had spent a good half an hour trying to saw through the cow fencing with the knife I had grabbed from the barn, but I wasn’t able to make it through. If I had thought more clearly, I would have grabbed the bolt cutters instead of grabbing the first thing I saw.
“I guess none of it matters now. That fire isn’t going anywhere, and neither are we.” Moving slowly, I keep talking while I move my hand closer to his head, making sure to rub his ears. “There’s a lot of ‘would haves’ when you have time to look back on things, I guess. Like how I should have come to my senses about Dakota earlier instead of spending so much fucking time pushing her away. I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time with women I don’t remember just to forget everything I’d fucking failed at.” I move slowly, cover his eyes with the bandana, and sigh with relief when I tuck it into his harness, holding it in place.
He shifts uncomfortably, getting used to his blindness, but doesn’t rear back again. I move my hand down his neck, petting his hair to keep him calm.
“I guess if this is it, at least we’re here together, huh? I couldn’t have asked for a better horse. You’ve been with me through a lot.” I think back to the rides we took when I couldn’t handle any more of Dad’s lectures on how I needed to get my life together, and how I wasn’t going to be able to run a ranch if I was out sleeping with half the town.
Guess he wasn’t wrong on that one. Not fully, anyway. It never impeded my ability to run the ranch. Just the rodeo.
There were also all the rides after Dad died. When running the ranch suddenly all became too much. When there were too many questions I didn’t have the answer to. Hell, I still don’t have the answer to.
“What do you think Dad would have done, huh?” I ask, continuing to stroke his hair. I can feel him calming under my touch, the reaction causing the cows around him to start calming among the chaos as well. “He’s probably looking down on me calling me every name in the book, but I know he would have done the same. There’s no way he would have left any of you behind. Although, I’m sure he would have remembered the fucking bolt cutters.”
A roar of the fire bellows across the field, making me jump. Duke rears back and the cows paw at the ground.
I suck in a breath and regret it as I begin what feels like an endless cycle of coughing. Each rise of my chest brings a new wave of burning down my throat and into my lungs, starting the cycle all over again.
This isn’t how I thought I would go. Being caught in a wildfire wasn’t in even on my radar of possible scenarios that would end my life.
But here I fucking am.
I herd Duke and the cows into as much of the corner of the property as I can, hoping that even an extra couple of inches will provide some relief for us. The heat and smoke are overwhelming, and the more I move, the more lethargic I feel myself getting. I know I can’t afford to stop, or I might lose consciousness and then it will have all been for nothing.
“This hasn’t been for nothing, right, Duke?” I ask between coughs, placing my head on his neck. I hold on to his mane as if he’s the only thing holding me together. “This isn’t it.”
Blinding light flashes through my closed eyelids. The fire must have jumped. It’s here now.
The odd sensation is that the heat didn’t come with it. It still feels the same level of hell that I’ve been feeling for the past hour.
“Chance!”
Dakota’s voice rings through my head. Now I’m imagining things.
“Chance! Answer me!”
More lights and sounds of voices fill my head. I can hear what sounds like more people calling my name, but I can’t bring myself to lift my head to face it. Mostly because I’m not sure if I can handle it when I find out it is just a part of my imagination.
“Cut the fence, Wyatt! Hurry!”
Of course Wyatt would bring cutters.
“Kit, do you have that side?” Now I’m imaging Wyatt’s voice.
Wrapping my arm around Duke’s neck, I let him shoulder my weight and keep me upright as I fight to remain where I am. I can’t fall. If I fall, I’m dead.
I hear the movement of the cattle and I know I should lift my head to make sure they aren’t going to scatter, but I can’t do it. I can’t move. If this is it, there’s nothing I can do for them anyway.
“Chance! Talk to me!” Dakota yells.
I guess there’s no harm talking to her since it’ll be the last chance I get. Even if it’ll only be in my mind.
“I never should have treated you the way I did,” I confess. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”
I don’t know if she hears me, the imaginary Dakota in my mind, but it feels good to get the confession out. Even if it means I start a new round of coughing.
“We’re coming to you, Chance! Just hang on!”
I chuckle. Hang on. If only she knew I was literally hanging on to Duke for dear life.
Laughing. That’s something else I should have done more. Another thing that Dakota let me see I am capable of.
“Kit, can’t you move these cows any faster?” her impatient tone rings over the deafening flames.
“You’re more than welcome to try to move this thousand-pound calf yourself there, Darlin’,” Kit’s sarcastic tone hits my ears and I groan.
Even that old asshole is in my hallucination now?
“If that thousand-pound cow doesn’t haul ass so we can get Chance out of there, I’ll gladly be eating it as a steak dinner,” Dakota answers.
There’s my girl.
I drown out the noise in my head, trying to focus on anything else, including the suffocating heat that seems to get more intense. The noise of truck engines and metal against metal compete with the sounds of voices and the fire in my mind, getting more and more confusing as the minutes pass.
“Chance! We’re almost there! Just hang on!”
“Hang on,” I chuckle. “If you only knew.”
There’s more bustling and movement behind me, but I can’t find the energy to look. I can’t find the energy to do anything. Duke shifts underneath me, and I know he wants to move. I’m just happy I got the bandana on his head so he doesn’t have to see what’s coming.
“I’m sorry, Duke.” I hold on to his mane tighter. “I’m sorry I brought you into this. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Duke snorts.
“Yes, I also know you would have been pissed if I left you behind.” I cough and shuffle my feet and almost lose my balance if it weren’t for Duke grounding me. “I guess we’re both assholes then, eh?”
“Chance, do not fall! We’re almost there!”
“I’m sorry, Dakota. So sorry for everything.”
I feel my hold on Duke slip as my knees buckle under me, and all I can feel is falling.