19. Tammy
TAMMY
I wanted to wash Derek’s visit from my brain. Yet every time I tried to mentally shower, that asshole stepped right into the water with me.
Derek's truck had disappeared down my driveway hours ago, but the aftertaste of his visit lingered.
I sat on my now level porch steps, arms wrapped around my knees, watching as the setting sun painted the landscape in riotous hues.
The beer bottle was still tipped over behind me on the porch, its spilled contents long dry.
Watching my property at the end of the day wasn’t like before though, when the golden light spilled over the derelict buildings and the fences I couldn’t afford to fix.
The aliens had repaired so much in the short time since they’d crash-landed.
Even the still somewhat shabby parts looked like hope made visible.
My gaze roved over everything, and my entire body ached.
This was a fleeting beauty. Barely two weeks from foreclosure, still one bad month from becoming another Derek Morgan acquisition.
If only the bank could see it like this, bathed in glorious light, the transformation in progress.
A little longer, and a little more cash.
That’s all I needed. Sunflower Hills could look like something out of a country living magazine if the universe would just give me a break.
Hasn’t it already? My brain pulsed. Didn’t that break ruin your supply barn?
A fresh wave of melancholy washed over me. For all the alien help, for all their technological wonders and inexplicable abilities, Derek's visit had sucked me right back into the headspace I’d had before leaving him.
Feeling like a decorative, useless ornament meant to hang on his arm and look pretty.
God, he'd always had that effect, reducing me to the sum of my failures with just a few carefully chosen words and that practiced, pitying smile. I seemed to wilt inside whenever he gave me that sort of “sounds loving but is actually cruel” brand of attention.
"You're playing house on borrowed time." His voice echoed in my head, the drawl thicker in memory than it had been in person. I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to physically push the thought away.
The sunset deepened, pink and purple tendrils fingering through the remaining blue sky. Even as my chest ached with uncertainty, the view soothed me. This was my ranch. It may be failing, soon foreclosing, parts of it still a mess, but it was mine. For now.
Movement in the distance called my attention, pulling me away from quickly worsening thoughts.
The alien trio had spread out across the property after dinner, each returning to their self-appointed tasks.
Kalith tinkered with their UFO. Cyro was in the stables observing the horses—he’d found a book on Jane Goodall in the house and now insisted he could assimilate with the equines.
And Vantor was reinforcing the perimeter for the third time, or maybe fourth time.
I stood up, deciding to head inside for a much-needed glass of anything alcoholic.
Just as my hand touched the screen door, my nose caught wind of a scent that didn’t belong.
At first, I thought it was just coming from something Kalith was doing.
Maybe welding some strange galactic alloy inside the ship.
But as my gaze searched the land, skimming over my truck, the stables, the well that was now working better than ever, I saw something that made my pulse quicken and my heart free-fall into my belly.
Smoke.
A flicker of unmistakable orange licking upward that did not belong among the sunset colors.
Fire.
The pasture next to the stable paddock was on fire.
The dry grass there, too poor for grazing, was aflame.
My heartbeat stuttered, then slammed against my ribs as the flames leapt up the side of the gate between the two cordoned areas.
In the split second before I moved, I registered everything with crystal clarity.
It wouldn’t take long for that fire to spread to the greener pasture.
For it to get nearer and nearer the stables.
The stables. Where the horses were. Where Cyro was.
Where my future might truly go up in smoke.
Shit, I’d never bought new fire extinguishers.
There was one in almost every building, but they were ancient.
A decade old. They wouldn’t work. God! They wouldn’t work!
How could I let something so important fall to the wayside?
"Fire!" I screamed, already moving, my feet pounding against the hard-packed, rock littered earth as I sprinted across the yard. "Help! Fire!"
The horses must have sensed the danger now. I heard them braying and whinnying in panic. Cyro shouted, but I couldn’t make out his words. I kept running, thighs burning, lungs searing, mind imagining the worst outcome.
"I'm coming!" I screamed to them, as if they could understand, as if my voice could protect them from the hungry orange tongues licking up the fence posts and now spilling across to the other side of the barrier. “Don’t be scared!”
The fire moved impossibly fast, a trail of fire snaking across the grass as if someone had dumped kerosene across the pasture. It was getting dangerously close to the side of the stables.
I was halfway across the yard when movement erupted from three different directions.
Cyro and Kalith both launched out of the supply barn.
Cyro wasn’t in the stables. He wasn’t with the horses.
I was both relieved, and anxious. At least if he were with Mystery, Sass, and Artie, they wouldn’t be so alone, so terrified.
Vantor was also sprinting toward me from the direction of the machinery building, his human disguise rippling slightly as he exerted himself.
Arriving at the stables first, I tore the doors open.
Mystery and Sassafras were slamming their bodies into their gates, desperate to get away from the approaching danger.
My eyes widened when I saw that, somehow, the fire had already spread inside the building. Smoke spilled from the rearmost stall.
Mystery reared back, his powerful forelegs slamming into his gate and nearly knocking it off its hinges.
I should save Sassy first; she was the most expensive.
Then Mystery. But I grabbed a lead off a wall hook, and my heart took me to Artie first, where he stood frozen with his body crammed into a corner of his stall.
His ears were pinned back, tail tucked between his back legs, body shaking.
I heard the aliens tumble into the stables, but I didn’t turn around. “Get Mystery and Sassafras out of here!” I screamed, approaching Artie slowly. “It’s okay, honey. You’re fine. Let’s get you out of here.”
Where should I take him? Where would be safest?
The flames were spreading faster than I'd thought possible, crackling and spitting as they devoured the stables. Smoke billowed upward, black against the ceiling. I coughed, the noxious fog invading my lungs.
“Let’s take them to the training area Kalith just fixed!” I shouted, putting the easy loop lead over Artie’s head and pulling him gently. He wouldn’t move. He was too scared. “Please move, honey. Artie, you’ve got to move.” I was close to tears.
Suddenly, Vantor was beside me. He took control, his defensive training making him efficient even in the middle of disaster.
He scooped the elderly Appaloosa up—I dropped the lead automatically—and he strode quickly away.
I didn’t have time to follow and make sure he got Artie to safety.
I launched out of the stall, catching a glimpse of Cyro carrying Mystery and Kalith carrying Sassafras outside.
When I faced the fire, I froze. It was out of control. I knew I couldn’t stop it. Not just me. Not without a million fire extinguishers or a lake’s worth of water.
I patted my pockets. No phone. Why was I surprised? I never carried my cell. It lived stuffed in a kitchen drawer, off half the time. I’d thought it was so retro to use the rotary phone. Tammy Tucker, certified rancher with a landline.
Should I race back into the house? Should I call 911?
I backed away from the building inferno, heat burning my body, sweat slicking across my skin to dampen my clothes. I coughed again, eyes closing against the sting of smoke. I felt the world crash down on me. This was the end. It was all over. Over. Over. Over. It’s all over.
When I was about to fall to the ground, give up right then and there and let a horrible death consume me, tentacles wrapped around my body. They held me upright, then lifted me gently, and carried me out of the stables.
Who was holding me? I glanced up awkwardly, finding Vantor’s face. Cyro brushed past us; six buckets held in the curl of six tentacles. He entered the smoke, disappearing.
“Cyro! Don't go in there!” I shouted.
“Do not worry, Tammy. He will be fine.” Vantor soothed, slowly setting me down. “Stay at a safe distance. We will handle this.”
I watched as Vantor quickly left, tentacles flowing beneath him, human legs split past the knees.
He beelined for the water trough, jumping inside to soak his body.
When he hurried back, water sprayed from his pores, as if he’d filled himself to bursting like a balloon ready to empty itself against the slightest pressure. Vantor ducked into the stables.
Kalith returned shortly after. He unfurled something like a firehose, its length extending toward the supply barn and their spaceship. He pointed its gleaming nozzle toward the stables and strode inside.
I stood frozen, unable to tear my eyes away from the burning stables.
My horses were safe—that much I knew—but my livelihood was going up in flames before my eyes.
The heat pressed against my face like a physical hand, and I backed up several more steps, struggling to breathe through the thickening smoke.