Chapter Seventeen
~ Harlow ~
"Pa's hurt, but alive," I gasped as Knox reached me and took some of Pa's weight. Every word scraped my smoke-ravaged throat like broken glass, but I needed them to understand. ""Got a head wound. Not sure how bad."
Knox nodded, his face grim as he helped lower Pa to the ground. Ransom supported Pa's legs, then sucked in a sharp breath as he moved behind me. "Jesus, Harlow," he said, his voice tight with concern. "Your back..."
I hadn't felt it until he mentioned it, but now the pain registered—a burning, stinging sensation across my shoulder blades where embers had landed on bare skin. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except getting back to Dan.
"Ambulance is three minutes out," Ransom said, already pulling off his own shirt to place under Pa's head. His eyes kept darting to my back, his expression growing more worried. "You need medical attention too, Harlow. Those burns—"
"Dan first," I cut him off, my voice leaving no room for argument. I pushed myself to my feet, swaying slightly as exhaustion and pain threatened to drop me back to my knees. My lungs felt scorched from the inside, each breath a struggle, but I forced my legs to move.
Knox grabbed my arm, steadying me. "Harlow, you can barely stand—"
"Dan," I repeated, the single syllable carrying all the desperation and fear I couldn't put into more words. My brother's expression softened with understanding, and he nodded once.
"I've got Pa," he said. "Go."
The distance back to the house seemed endless, each step requiring conscious effort. My vision swam with smoke and tears, my bare chest heaving as I gulped down air that still tasted of ash.
Emergency vehicles crowded the driveway now—sheriff's department cruisers, an approaching fire truck, the distant wail of ambulances drawing closer.
Through the chaos, I searched for Dan, fear clawing at my throat when I couldn't immediately spot him. Had Collins's men taken him? Had his wound been worse than I thought?
Then I saw them—Ma kneeling in the gravel beside Dan's prone form, her hands pressing what looked like proper gauze against his wound. Newt hovered nearby, passing items from an open first aid kit. Once Collins had been distracted by my dash to the barn, they must have gotten free.
"Dan," I called, the name emerging as little more than a croak.
His head turned at the sound, his eyes finding mine across the distance. Even through pain and blood loss, his face lit with relief at the sight of me, and something in my chest unlocked.
I staggered the remaining distance, dropping to my knees beside him with far less grace than I'd intended. Ma's eyes widened as she took in my appearance—soot-covered, bare-chested, with burns I couldn't see, but could certainly feel across my back.
"Harlow McKenzie," she began, that familiar tone of concern and reprimand starting to form, but Dan interrupted her.
"You're hurt," he said immediately, his gaze intense despite the pain etched in the lines around his eyes. One hand reached toward me, trembling slightly but determined.
"You're shot," I countered, reaching to take his outstretched hand in mine, careful not to jostle the wound Ma was tending.
A weak smile tugged at Dan's lips. "Guess we're quite a pair."
Those simple words, spoken through pain in a voice rough with smoke and exertion, hit me harder than I expected. We were a pair. Despite everything—Collins's attempt to destroy us, the burning barn, the wounds we both bore—we were still together. Still alive.
"Pa?" Dan asked, his eyes searching mine.
"Out and hurt, but breathing," I assured him. "Knox and Ransom are with him."
Ma's hands were steady as she continued to apply pressure to Dan's wound, her movements efficient and practiced from years of patching up farm injuries. The gauze beneath her fingers was stained bright red, but the bleeding seemed slower now, more controlled.
"The bullet went through," she said, not looking up from her work. "Clean exit wound. He was lucky."
Lucky wasn't the word I'd have chosen for any part of this night, but I nodded anyway, relief making me light-headed. Or maybe that was the smoke inhalation and pain catching up to me.
Sirens grew louder, and flashing lights painted the scene in surreal pulses of red and blue. The first ambulance pulled up beside us, paramedics jumping out with practiced urgency. They'd be taking Dan soon, rushing him to the hospital in Eugene where they could treat his wound properly.
Dan's fingers tightened around mine, surprisingly strong given his condition. "Harlow," he said, his voice low but clear as the paramedics approached. "You saved your father. You're the bravest man I've ever known, Harlow McKenzie."
The raw honesty in his voice made my throat tighten painfully.
No one had ever looked at me the way Dan was looking at me now—like I was something remarkable, something precious.
Not the gentle giant who needed protecting.
Not the slow McKenzie boy with the head injury. Just Harlow. Brave. Capable. Worthy.
I wanted to tell him that he was wrong—that running into a burning building wasn't brave, just necessary.
That I'd been terrified the whole time, sure I was about to die with every step.
That true bravery was what he'd shown, facing down Collins despite already being injured, putting himself between danger and my family without hesitation.
But the words wouldn't come, lodged behind the lump in my throat and the rawness from the smoke.
Ma looked between us, her hands still working methodically but her eyes taking in our clasped hands, the way we leaned toward each other despite our injuries. Something shifted in her expression—not quite acceptance, not yet, but a softening. A recognition.
"He's always been brave," she said softly, the words unexpected enough that both Dan and I turned to look at her. "I just forgot to let him show it."
The simple admission hung in the air between us, weightier than it might have seemed to anyone else. For my mother to acknowledge that she'd held me back—even with the best intentions—was monumental. A crack in the protective walls she'd built around me since my childhood injury.
Dan's eyes met mine, understanding the significance even without me explaining it. His thumb brushed across my knuckles in silent support.
The paramedics reached us then, efficiently assessing Dan's condition and preparing to transfer him to a stretcher. One of them turned to me, taking in my burns and smoke-stained appearance with professional concern.
"Sir, we need to check you out too," she said, already reaching for additional supplies from her kit.
I nodded, suddenly too exhausted to argue. Now that I knew Dan would be okay, that Pa was alive and in good hands, the adrenaline that had kept me going was draining away, leaving bone-deep fatigue in its wake.
As the paramedics worked around us, Dan never let go of my hand, his grip a silent promise that whatever came next, we would face it together.
In the flickering emergency lights, with the acrid smell of smoke still heavy in the air and the ruins of our barn smoldering in the background, I held onto that promise like a lifeline.
We'd survived, both of us. Damaged, wounded, but alive. And somehow, despite everything Collins had tried to do to us, we'd found something stronger than hatred or fear in the midst of it all. Something that burned hotter and lasted longer than any fire.
The ambulance doors opened, ready to receive Dan, and reality crashed back in. They would take him away soon. The paramedic examining my back was saying something about second-degree burns and smoke inhalation, words that registered distantly through the fog of exhaustion.
But all I could focus on was Dan's face, his eyes locked with mine as they prepared to move him. All I could feel was his hand in mine, warm and alive and refusing to let go.
The paramedics worked efficiently, preparing the stretcher to load Dan into the waiting ambulance.
One of them, a woman with kind eyes and quick hands, was already cutting away the remains of my flannel shirt from Dan's wound, while another checked his blood pressure and pulse.
A third hovered near me, clearly concerned about the burns on my back, but I waved him off. Dan first. Always Dan first.
"We're ready to transport," the lead paramedic announced, preparing to lift the stretcher. Dan's fingers tightened around mine, his eyes suddenly wide with something close to panic.
"Come with me?" he asked, the vulnerability in those three words making my heart clench.
I hesitated, torn between my need to stay with Dan and my responsibility to my family.
Pa was still unconscious, the barn still smoldering, our home forever changed by what had happened tonight.
The weight of family obligation pressed down on me, as familiar and heavy as the beams of the barn I'd just escaped.
My eyes sought out Ma, still kneeling beside us, her hands now stained with Dan's blood. She'd always been the compass that guided our family, the one who determined what was right and proper. Even now, with everything in chaos, I found myself looking to her for direction.
She met my gaze steadily, something complicated moving behind her eyes. Then she glanced at our joined hands, at the way Dan was looking at me like I was his lifeline in a stormy sea.
"Go," she said simply, nodding toward the ambulance. The single word carried none of the resistance I'd expected, none of the disapproval that had colored her voice when she first discovered my feelings for Dan. "Your father and I will follow in the second ambulance."