40. Chapter 40
forty
At closing time, instead of walking Darla to her car like I always do, I stop at the counter, telling her, “I’ll close up. You go on.”
“You are fucking up,” she mutters.
I let out a slow breath. “Darla… I have always liked you. You’re a great business manager. But whatever you thought was between us years ago? That ended years ago. I’m with Laurel now. I need you to respect that.”
Her jaw works, eyes shining with something that looks a lot like hurt. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it,” I say quietly.
“All these years…”
I don’t know what to say. Nothing has happened between us in years. “If you can’t respect her being here, I’ll take your notice. But I’m not doing this back-and-forth anymore.”
A beat. A flicker of hurt crosses her face, which tugs at me—then she nods.
“Fine,” she whispers and walks out without another word.
In the Dust Devil, I relay the exchange to Tanner over a beer. He needs to know.
“What does that mean exactly?” he asks, wiping the bar. “Is she going to straighten up, or is she quitting?”
“Guess I’ll find out in the morning.” I tip my bottle toward him. “Now out with it. What’s going on with you and Mercy?”
He glances left and right. “Fuck off, Calder. That’s my business.”
“It became my business this afternoon. Laurel’s frantic. She says Mercy’s moving to Austin.”
“What?” He’s loud enough that a couple of heads turn.
“You heard me.”
“She can’t move to Austin. She’s lived here her whole damn life.”
“Grown woman, Tanner. She can do what she wants. And don’t blow smoke up my ass—she wouldn’t be acting like this if all she saw was some waitress being handsy.”
We share an extended glare.
“Fuck. Off,” he mutters, but it’s softer this time. More rattled than pissed. He looks away, jaw tight, knuckles white around the rag in his hand.
“Are we playing 42 tonight?” I ask.
“I don’t feel like it.”
I nod, finish my beer, and clap him on the shoulder. “I love you, brother. Pull your head out of your ass. See you tomorrow.”
Stepping outside, the temperature’s taken a nosedive. The wind’s howling out of the northwest. A shiver runs through me. Didn’t look at the weather forecast.
We don’t normally get this cold until November.
I need to get the horses in the barn.
First thing after jumping in the truck, I crank up the heater—like everyone else in the county. Fuck. I hope we don’t have a fire tonight.
The alarm reads 2:37 a.m. when my fire tone screeches on the bedside table.
Exactly what I went to bed dreading.
It never fails. First cold night of the season, we always get a fire. Somebody’s space heater. Somebody leaves an electric heater too close to a curtain. Some idiot lights a trash barrel to warm their hands.
The radio crackles.
“Dispatch to all units. Caller reports grassfire on the Llano Highway rest area south of County Road 14. Flames in the ditch. All units respond.”
Grassfire. Didn’t expect that. And in this wind.
I groan.
Not a minute later—
“Dispatch to all units. Fire is wind driven. Flames crossing the roadway. Be advised—fire on both sides of the highway. Llano Fire Department en route.”
God help us all.
“Sustained winds fifteen miles per hour, gusts to twenty-five. Texas Forest Service notified. Dispatch to all units. Ladera County requesting mutual aid from Brownwood, Lampasas, Mason and Burnet Ridge.”
A chill runs up my spine.
Three hours later, the eastern horizon is lighting up—and this fucker is far from under control. The sheriff’s department has evacuated five families so far, and with the wind pushing it south toward Ladera—there’ll be more.
They’ll probably move families into the high school gym.
Laurel. Bowie. They’re safe, I tell myself. They have to be.
Four hours in, and I can barely feel my legs. Smoke’s in my teeth, my eyes burn like I rubbed cedar needles in them, and every breath tastes like scorched earth. That damn wind stays steady at our backs—bone-chilling even with flames throwing heat.
Where did this cold front come from?
The Arctic, no doubt.
Tanner drags up beside me, sweat freezing on his neck even with the fire roaring twenty yards out. “Not a good day for this,” he mutters, leaning on the brush truck like it’s the only thing holding him upright.
“Hungover?”
He doesn’t answer, but I know him. He didn’t deal with Mercy. He got drunk. Poor bastard.
Waddy coughs hard enough to bend in half. “Dispatch says the head fire’s still running south. Wants us to leapfrog to the next line.”
The chief steps over, face streaked with soot, voice rough. “You boys got anything left?”
Tanner snorts. “Not much.”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my glove. “We’re going anyway.”
The chief nods once, tired as the rest of us. “That’s what I figured.”
My phone trills in my pocket. I answer, “Hey. No time to talk.”
“Boss? The store’s locked. I can’t get in.” It’s Chad Harlan, my stocker.
“Locked? You sure?”
“Yes.”
“No Darla?”
“I’ve called her. No answer.”
Guess I got my answer.
“I can’t leave, Chad. Tanner and I are both at a grassfire. So go home. Guess we’ll just have to be closed today. I’ll call when I can get there.”
And just like that—in the middle of smoke and wind and fire—Darla’s absence lands like a stone in my gut. I’ve relied on her since we opened.
I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it.
Not yet.