Lucas #3
No. Fuck that. I wasn’t going back out there because I didn’t know how something worked. I’d figure it out. I always did, and I needed some heat back into my bones. I turned back to the machine, jaw set, and decided I was going to figure this out the hard way.
I pressed the big button on the front.
There was a crack, a pop like a blown fuse, and then a spray of sparks shot out from the back of the machine.
The second it went wrong, I didn’t freeze.
I moved. I yelped and stumbled as something hissed and smoked, the smell of burning plastic snapping my brain straight out of irritation and into panic.
“Fuck—FIRE!” I shouted, far louder than necessary, because my body had already decided this place was about to go up in flames with me inside it.
I lunged for the door and bolted back outside, cold air slamming into my face as snow swirled down around the porch, my back spasming in pain. My heart was hammering, breath coming too fast, eyes fixed on the front of the house, expecting flames to lick out of the windows any second.
“Fire!” I shouted again, my voice muffled by the snow. “FIRE!!”
Boots crunched hard behind me.
Two men came running from the direction of the barn.
Jesse first—Mr. Sexy but Pissy Cowboy himself—jacket open, hat gone, expression wiped clean of irritation and replaced with fear.
Another man was right behind him, broader, older maybe, moving with the same urgency, eyes already scanning the house.
“What happened?” Jesse demanded, already passing me and reaching for the door.
“Fire,” I said, uselessly.
That was enough. They were inside before I finished the sentence.
I stayed where I was inside the front door, heart still racing, half-expecting the whole place to go up in flames.
Old wood. Dry dust. One spark in the wrong place and this house would go up like tinder, taking me with it in seconds, but then I moved.
Could I help? I had half of my life upstairs in the bedroom, my laptop was up there, and I couldn’t let that burn.
I saw Jesse yank the machine’s plug from the wall, cursing loudly, while the other man grabbed a fire extinguisher from somewhere I hadn’t noticed, both of them moving fast.
The smoke thinned quickly, the angry hiss dying down to nothing. No flames or spreading heat but the acrid smell of burnt wiring hung in the air.
When Jesse finally straightened, jaw tight, eyes flicking over the counter, then the outlets, then me, the silence was loud.
“I told you not to touch anything electric,” he snarled. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
He was right. I hated that he was right, but I wasn’t going to dodge it. “I wanted coffee,” I said lamely, the words sounding pathetic even to my own ears.
“It’s unplugged for a reason, you idiot!” he added.
“Then you should label it or something,” I snapped.
Jesse swore and stormed past me, shoulder clipping mine hard enough to knock me into the wall hip first as I scrambled out of his way. More pain flared as he headed outside with a slam of the door.
I was left standing there with the other man.
“Hi,” he said, as if we hadn’t just narrowly avoided burning the place to the ground. He held out his hand, easy, open. “Jake. I work here.”
I stared at his hand for a second too long before taking it. “Lucas,” I said. If he worked here, my selling would affect him, but he smiled, almost welcoming, as if I were a guest rather than a threat.
I tilted my chin. “He never told me the coffee machine was broken.”
Jake shook his head, glancing around the kitchen, already assessing damage, already mentally fixing things. I latched onto that calm because it was something I could work with. “Not the machine, it’s the kitchen wiring that’s bad. I’d avoid using anything here for now.”
“What about upstairs? What about my hairdryer?” I blurted, because yep, that was the first thing that came to mind. “My hair is curly and needs a lot of treatments and care.” Jeez.
He frowned at me, glanced up at the little he could see of my hair under the woolly hat I’d not long jammed on my head.
“Coffee machine’s toast,” he added. “But you’re not.
That’s a win around here.” Then he touched the brim of his cowboy hat, Stetson, whatever, and nodded. “Welcome to Snow Creek, Mr. Barrett.”
He left then, and I was on my own in the drafty, freezing kitchen, wrapped in so many layers I probably looked like a badly dressed Michelin man.
The adrenaline that had kept me upright bled out of me all at once, leaving my limbs heavy and my head fuzzy.
I leaned on the counter and breathed until the shaking eased.
Then, I made myself think. What had I done, what did I need, and what didn’t matter right now.
The rest of my stuff could stay in the car. I was done for the day. Not quitting. Regrouping. I didn’t have the energy to haul another bag inside, didn’t trust my hip not to give out, didn’t trust myself not to do something else catastrophically stupid.
“And I didn’t even get a coffee.”