Chapter 13
The phone rang at eleven at night, and Caroline knew before she answered.
She grabbed it.
"Hello?"
"Miss Jessup?" The voice was old, shaking, a man fighting to keep control. "It's Earl Compton. Out on the Compton spread—you shoe my draft horses every spring."
"Earl. What's wrong?"
"They're burning my barn." His voice cracked. "They came twenty minutes ago—trucks, six men, and they set fire to my barn. My horses are still inside. I can hear them screaming."
The bottom dropped out of her stomach.
"Earl. Listen to me. Are you safe?"
"I'm in the house. They're moving toward the hay stores now. Miss Jessup, my horses—"
"I'm coming. Stay inside."
She was already moving. Out of the cot, feet on cold concrete, reaching for her boots in the dark.
"Caroline." Hatchet's voice, sharp with instant alertness. No groggy transition, no confusion—asleep to awake in a heartbeat, the way soldiers woke. "What is it?"
"Earl Compton. Holdout rancher, forty miles east. Lander's crew just torched his barn." She yanked her boots on, grabbed her jacket. "Three horses trapped inside."
Hatchet was on his feet, pulling on his cut, reaching for his pistol. "I'll mobilize the brothers—"
"I'm going with you."
He stopped. Turned. In the dim light from the armory's emergency strip, his face was carved from stone.
"No."
"Those horses will die without someone who knows how to handle them. You can't lead a panicked animal out of a fire, Hatchet. They'll trample you. They'll bolt back into the flames."
"I'm not taking you into a combat zone."
"It's not a combat zone. It's a barn fire."
"With six armed men outside it." He crossed the space between them in two strides, his hands catching her shoulders.
His grip was fierce, possessive, the grip of a man whose whole body was screaming no.
"Lander burns things, Caroline. That's what he does.
Buildings, hay stores, people. I'm not letting him anywhere near you. "
"You're not letting me do anything." She met his eyes. Held them. "I'm telling you I'm going. Those are horses in that barn. Living animals that will die screaming if nobody gets to them in time."
"The brothers can handle—"
"The brothers don't know how to lead a thousand-pound animal through smoke. I do. I've done it." She grabbed his wrists, pulled his hands off her shoulders but didn't let go. "You promised me. When we take down Pryce, you said I'd be there. You said I follow your lead. Same deal."
His jaw worked. She could see the war behind his eyes—the soldier who needed to control the variables fighting the man who'd learned she wouldn't be controlled.
"You stay behind me," he said through gritted teeth.
"Until we get to the barn. Then the horses are mine."
"Caroline—"
"Deal?"
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His amber eyes blazed.
"If anything happens to you, I will burn this entire county to the ground."
"Noted. Let's go."
The convoy rolled out five minutes later.
Hatchet rode point on his bike, Caroline behind him on the seat with her arms locked around his waist. Ridge and Rascal flanked them. Striker and Shadow ran a second pair behind. Six men armed and moving fast through the Panhandle dark.
The wind tore at Caroline's hair, whipping it across her face. She pressed her cheek against Hatchet's back and felt the tension in his body—every muscle coiled, vibrating with a fury that had nothing to do with the road and everything to do with her being on it.
He was terrified.
Not of the fight. Not of Lander or his men.
Of her. Of losing her.
She tightened her arms around him and held on.
They smelled the fire before they saw it.
Smoke on the wind, thick and oily, carrying the stench of burning hay and old timber. Then the glow—orange light painting the horizon, flickering against low clouds like a false sunrise.
Then the sound.
Horses screaming.
Caroline's gut clenched so hard she nearly doubled over. That sound—high, desperate, the raw shriek of an animal in terror—was the worst thing she'd ever heard. Worse than gunfire. Worse than the motel assault. Worse than anything.
"Faster," she said into Hatchet's ear.
He didn't need to be told. The bike surged forward, eating the last mile of highway.
The Compton spread appeared in the headlights. The barn was fully engulfed—a wall of flame fifty feet high, the old timber frame collapsing in sections, embers spiraling into the sky like hellish fireflies. Beyond it, smaller fires burned where Lander's crew had torched the hay stores.
Six men moved between the buildings. Caroline could see them in the firelight—dark shapes with rifles, spreading fuel, working with the methodical efficiency of men who did this for a living.
Hatchet killed the engine fifty yards from the fence line.
"Striker, Shadow—take the crew at the hay stores. Ridge, Rascal—secure the ranch house. Compton's inside." His voice was ice. Controlled. Every word a bullet. "I've got the barn."
"And me," Caroline said, already swinging off the bike.
Hatchet grabbed her arm. Spun her to face him.
For one second, in the orange light of the burning barn, she saw everything in his eyes. The fear. The fury. The desperate, bone-deep need to keep her safe warring with the knowledge that she was right—that without her, those horses would die.
"Behind me to the fence line," he said. "Then the barn is yours."
"I know."
He kissed her. Hard. Fast. A brand more than a kiss.
"Come back to me."
"Always."
Then they were moving.
Gunfire cracked across the ranch yard as Striker and Shadow engaged Lander's crew at the hay stores. Muzzle flashes strobed in the dark—sharp, stuttering, lighting the scene in snapshots. Two of Lander's men went down in the first exchange. A third scrambled behind a tractor, returning fire.
Hatchet ran for the barn with Caroline on his heels.
The heat hit her like a physical wall. Twenty yards from the structure and the air was already searing, the fire a living roar that swallowed every other sound.
Almost every sound.
The horses were still screaming.
"Side entrance!" Caroline pointed to the left—a smaller door, partially shielded from the main blaze by a stone feed room that hadn't caught yet. "There—the fire hasn't reached that wall!"
Hatchet kicked the door open. Smoke billowed out, black and choking, and the temperature inside was an oven.
Caroline pulled her jacket over her mouth and plunged in.
The smoke was blinding. She couldn't see walls, couldn't see stalls, couldn't see anything but the orange glow above where the hayloft was fully involved. The heat pressed down like a hand, crushing, relentless.
But she could hear them.
Two horses in the nearest stalls, slamming against the walls, hooves cracking wood. And a third—farther back, its screams weaker, either injured or exhausted from panic.
Caroline moved by feel. Her hands found the first stall door—metal latch, burning hot. She wrapped her jacket around her palm and threw the bolt.
The horse lunged past her. A big animal, wild-eyed and streaming sweat, its hooves clattering on the concrete aisle. She grabbed its halter as it tried to bolt deeper into the barn.
"No. This way. Come on."
She pulled. The horse fought her—twelve hundred pounds of blind panic, every instinct screaming to run from the fire into the darkness at the back of the barn where it felt safer.
It wasn't safer. The back wall was starting to go.
Caroline planted her feet. Set her weight against the halter. And pulled with everything she had.
"Move."
The horse moved.
She dragged it toward the side entrance, one hand on the halter, her shoulder braced against its neck. The heat was unbearable now—she could feel her hair singeing, her lungs burning with every breath.
The doorway appeared through the smoke. She shoved the horse through and it burst into the night air, galloping across the yard.
Back in.
The second stall. Another latch, another scream. This horse came easier—a smaller animal, a mare, following Caroline's voice through the smoke because the voice was calmer than the fire.
"Good girl. That's it. Come on."
Out the door. Into the air. Two down.
The third horse had stopped screaming.
Caroline plunged back into the barn.
The smoke was thicker now, the fire eating through the dividing wall above her. A beam cracked overhead—the sound like a rifle shot—and a shower of sparks rained down.
"Caroline!" Hatchet's voice, somewhere behind her, ragged with fury and terror. "Get out! The roof's going!"
She ignored him.
The third horse was in the back corner stall. She found it by touch—her hands on the door, the latch, then the animal itself. It was down. Lying on its side, sides heaving, too exhausted or too scared to stand.
Caroline dropped to her knees beside it.
"Hey. Hey, come on." She ran her hands along its neck, its face, finding the halter. "You don't get to quit. Not today."
The horse lifted its head. Dark eyes, glazed with shock, reflecting the fire above.
"Up. Get up."
She pulled on the halter. The horse groaned, rolled, and lurched to its feet—shaky, unsteady, but standing.
"Good. Now walk."
She led it forward. One step. Two. The horse followed her voice the way a drowning man follows a rope—blindly, desperately, with nothing left but trust.
A beam collapsed behind them.
The impact shook the floor. Fire roared through the gap, a wall of heat that drove Caroline to her knees. The horse screamed and tried to bolt, but she held the halter, held on, refused to let go.
"This way. Stay with me."
Three more steps. Five. The smoke was thinning. The doorway—
They burst through the side entrance together.
Caroline hit the ground on her hands and knees, coughing, her lungs raw, her eyes streaming. The horse staggered past her and stood trembling in the yard, alive, breathing, out.
Arms seized her.
Hatchet hauled her to her feet and crushed her against his chest so hard she couldn't breathe. His whole body was shaking—not the tremor, not the nerve damage. This was something else. This was fear made physical.
"Don't ever," he said into her hair. "Don't you ever—"
"They're alive." She coughed, pushed back enough to see his face. It was wrecked—fury and relief and something so raw it hurt to look at. "All three. They're alive."
"You almost weren't." His hands were on her face, her shoulders, running down her arms like he was checking for damage. "The roof came down ten seconds after you cleared the door."
"I know."
"You could have died."
"I didn't."
"Caroline."
"I didn't." She grabbed his wrists. Held them. "I'm right here."
He stared at her. The firelight danced across his face, turning his amber eyes to molten gold.
Then he kissed her again—slower this time, deeper, the kind of kiss that said mine in every language that existed.
Behind them, the barn collapsed.
The fire roared upward, a pillar of flame and sparks and disintegrating timber, and the ground shook with the impact.
Caroline didn't flinch. Didn't look.
She just held onto the man in front of her and breathed.
Striker's voice crackled through Hatchet's radio.
"Three of Lander's crew down. Two rabbited into the scrub. Lander himself bolted east toward the canyon breaks with three men. Want us to pursue?"
Hatchet pulled back from Caroline. His face shifted—the fear locking away, the soldier coming forward.
"Negative. Hold the ranch, secure the rancher." His eyes found Caroline's. "I'll handle Lander."
"Hatchet—"
"Stay here." His hand cupped her face. His thumb traced her cheekbone, leaving a streak of soot on her skin. "The horses need you. Compton needs you."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to insist on going with him, on being there when it ended.
But the mare was down in the yard, coughing, and the third horse was standing on shaking legs with singed patches across its flank. They needed treatment. They needed her.
"Go," she said. "Find him."
"I will."
He was already moving toward his bike. Ridge fell in beside him without being asked, checking his rifle, ready.
Caroline watched them disappear into the dark, the roar of engines swallowed by the roar of the dying fire.
Then she turned back to the horses.
Three animals, alive because she'd gone in.
She knelt beside the mare and pressed her hand against its chest. The heartbeat was fast, thready, but steady.
Alive.
It was enough. For now, it was enough.