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She couldn’t move.
The fire raged closer…its greedy heat licked her.
Stunned, she watched a spark land on the tip of her silk wrap.
Like a fuse, it ignited.
Chapter Three
“Alcina!” Reed cried again as the bay shot through the opening, scattering a handful of men who’d converged around the perimeter of the fire.
Fire…
Her shawl…
And Alcina wasn’t moving!
Fear squeezed his gut as Reed ducked into the corral even as she untangled herself from the material and rolled away from the new burst of flames. Mere seconds later, Reed was at her side, stomping on the burning silk. Voices rose behind him—Pa and Bart shouting orders to control the fire before it spread to the storage shed or bunkhouse.
Alcina was struggling to sit. Doused in the orange glow of the reflected flames, she appeared strangely calm.
“I’ve got you,” he muttered, swooping down and pulling her to her feet. “Can you walk?”
She choked out, “I think so,” but Reed realized she was having trouble breathing.
Cursing, he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of what had grown into a nearly complete ring of flames.
Men and women in their Sunday best had pitched in to fight the fire. A bucket brigade formed from a nearby horse trough and a stream of water from the garden hose hit the flames. People scraped an area ahead of the fire bare so it had nothing to feed on, while others shoveled loose soil over burning grasses or used wet burlap feed sacks to beat back the smaller flames.
And Bart seemed to be everywhere at once. In charge. In control. As usual.
But Bart’s being in the saddle was after the fact. He hadn’t been able to stop that fire from starting. Certain that he’d heard something weird, Reed was wondering exactly what had happened, when he noticed one of the guests leaving alone.
Vernon Martell.
Reed guessed the newcomer didn’t want to get his fancy leather jacket or new boots messed up.
Alcina pushed at his chest. “Reed, you can let me down.”
“If I did, I would probably just have to pick you up again.” His temper flared. “All that dry brush catching fire, whatever possessed you to go into that corral, woman?”
“That’s Alcina to you,” she said icily. “My being a woman has nothing to do with it. I was merely trying to save one of your precious horses from being added to Felice’s platters of barbecue.”
Reed figured Alcina hadn’t intended to be funny, but the black humor of her comment got to him, and he couldn’t help himself. He snorted. He couldn’t stop, either. Not all the way to the ranch house, where he carried her straight inside. The whole time, she lay in his arms, stiff as a cord of wood. Her lips didn’t even twitch once that he could see.
Reaching the deserted kitchen, he set her down and was relieved that she was steady on her feet. He probably could leave her alone in good conscience. After all, everyone was outside fighting the fire.
Everyone but the two of them.
Torn between a sense of duty and pity for the woman who had taken him away from it, Reed took a good long look at his older brother’s childhood friend, the daughter of their pa’s former partner and current enemy.
Grime streaked her dress and dappled her creamy skin. He skittered his gaze away from the top of her bodice where ash marbled her breasts, and let his eyes wander up her long, elegant, black-striped neck. Her hair was soot-laden, as well, and dirty strands tumbled from their pins. A regular bird’s nest, only not so neat.
“You’re a mess,” he stated flatly.
“You don’t look so great yourself,” Alcina grumbled.
Reed rubbed a smudge from her chin and then held it steady so he could gaze deeply into her eyes.
He was looking for a concussion…
What he got was caught.
He didn’t quite know how it happened, but when Alcina’s gray eyes went all wide and soft on him, Reed felt his mouth go dry and his gut knot.
“I—I really am all right,” she said. “Thanks to you. I do thank you for rescuing me.”
Alcina sounded oddly breathless.
Reed felt a little short-winded himself.
Still, he said, “Knowing you, you would have rescued yourself, given another minute or two.” He found himself smoothing a thumb over her grimy cheek. “But I’m glad I could be of service.” A little soot couldn’t hide her sheer beauty and Reed wondered why her looks had never impressed him before. “Dollars to doughnuts you really are all right, but I think you should see Doc—”
“No. Really. I’ll probably be bruised and stiff in the morning, but nothing’s broken,” she insisted. “He’ll merely tell me what I already know to do, sensible things like take a couple of aspirin, get in a hot shower and then apply an ice pack to the sore spots.”
She’d always been that beautiful, Reed guessed…but had she always been so stubborn?
He said, “If you won’t agree to see the doctor, maybe I ought to inspect those sore spots myself.”
Not that he normally worked on people; he usually kept his doctoring skills to ranch animals.
“I don’t think so.” Alcina’s gaze narrowed on him and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Our relationship isn’t that personal.”
Getting her drift, he muttered, “Oh.”
“Yes, oh!” she said with extra emphasis.
Which made him want to check all the more.
He was having a moment of clarity, Reed realized. Normally ambivalent about the women who passed through his life, he was more interested in Miss Alcina Dale than he should be, considering the way her daddy and his pa had been fighting mad at each other for years.
She shifted uncomfortably under his close gaze. “So maybe you’d better get back outside.”
“Right.” He backed off a bit, but suspicions were niggling at him. “Before I go, answer me something, would you?”
“If I can.”
“You beat everyone else to the barn.” He didn’t want to think the fire was anything but an accident, but after the cryptic hints about this and that going wrong on the spread that he’d gotten from Bart, he had to assume the worst. “You didn’t see anything unusual, right?”
“Other than the fire? No. But maybe you ought to ask Moon-Eye.”
“Why Moon-Eye?”
“He was out there earlier.”
“In the barn? When?”
“I saw him right before I spotted you with the dog,” Alcina said. “I mean, I really couldn’t see who the man was for sure, but I assumed that it was Moon-Eye…doing chores.”
Frowning, Reed shook his head. “As far as I know, Moon-Eye never left the party.”
“Then if he wasn’t in the barn…” Alcina’s forehead creased. “Who was?”
Who, indeed?
THE CRISIS WAS OVER, Alcina realized when she left the house a few minutes after Reed. Thankfully, the fire had been extinguished. Some people were standing around talking, while others were already heading for their vehicles.
Obviously, the festivities were over, as well.
Reba Gantry and her escort stopped nearby, their voices low in a heated discussion. The café owner’s finery had been ruined, but somehow Cesar Cardona had managed to remain picture-perfect, as if the land developer had stood back to watch the barn burn.
Reba’s voice suddenly rose, carrying across the few yards that separated them from Alcina. “I wouldn’t keep anything this valuable without trying to find the rightful owner!”
“It wouldn’t be like you stole anything!” Cardona growled. “Think of it as payment for the clothes you ruined doing your good deed. A reward.”
Puzzled, Alcina took a better look at the couple and noted something sparkly in the café owner’s hand.
Cardona continued to argue. “Anyone could have lost it. You’ll never find the person.”
“Not if I don’t ask around, I won’t.”
“Even if you do, how do you know whoever claims it is the rightful owner? What if I told you that I lost it?”
“I’d call you a damn liar and then some, Cesar Cardona. You don’t fool me none. I know the kinds of things you’ve been up to around here.” Appearing as disgusted as she sounded, Reba glanced around and, when she saw Alcina, headed her way, waving the sparkly object that was the focus of the couple’s argument. “Say, honey, you didn’t lose a diamond tonight, did you?”
Alcina shook her head. “I prefer pearls.”
“What about Pru? Could this have come from her engagement ring?”
Alcina took a closer look at the trillion—a triangular-shaped unmounted diamond.
“Nope. Wrong cut.” And unusual. “Where did you find it?”
Reba pointed. “Over by the entrance to the barn. Rather, what’s left of it. I was swatting down some flames with wet burlap when this beauty nearly jumped up and bit me.”
Staring down at the sparkling diamond in her dirty hand, Reba wore a wistful look. No doubt she would like the gem for herself, Alcina thought, admiring her honest nature.
She suggested, “It probably belongs to one of the other women who were fighting the fire in the same area.”
“Nope, already asked them.” Reba sighed and pocketed the stone. “But the diamond belongs to someone, so I’d better get a move on and spread the word that I have it before the party breaks up.”
The party had broken up with the first whiff of smoke, but Alcina didn’t bother clarifying.
“Cesar?” Reba called, making a one-eighty. “Now, where did that man go?”
Alcina spotted him climbing into his shiny black truck. “Uh-oh, looks like he lost patience with you. If you need a ride back to town, let me know.”
Following Alcina’s gaze, Reba muttered, “Well, I never…! He’d better not come back sniffing around me for what he’s not welcome to anymore, that’s all I have to say.”
With that, the café owner marched off and approached a small knot of people standing near the parked cars.
Alcina wasn’t aware of Hugh Ruskin until he said, “That was a real brave thing you did, ma’am, putting yourself in the thick of the fire to save that horse.”
Alcina knew the bartender only by sight and reputation since she didn’t frequent the Silver Slipper. And after the altercation between him and Bart over Josie, Alcina had to admit that she was surprised to see him on the Curly-Q at all.
“Nice that someone appreciated my effort,” she muttered, wondering if he’d been eavesdropping on her and Reba.
Then, thinking of the way Reed had lit into her, Alcina glanced around until she spotted the aggravating man over by the corral, deep in conversation with Moon-Eye. The grizzled ranch hand was shaking his head as if in denial. Undoubtedly, Reed was questioning Moon-Eye about being in the barn prior to the fire, as he’d intended.
Not feeling very warm toward Reed at the moment—he could have said something positive about what she’d done—Alcina turned back to the bartender, whose clothing appeared to be ruined.
“It looks as if you went all out, putting yourself on the line,” she said, surprised by the fact. Maybe he was trying to make up for that altercation with Bart over Josie, though that had been quite a while ago when he’d been brand-new in town. “And my name is Alcina, by the way, not ma’am. That’s my mother.”
Ruskin laughed. “Alcina, then.” Strong white, predatory teeth flashed from a soot-streaked face that was rugged and interesting, if not handsome. “I didn’t get nearly as close as you did to that fire,” he admitted. “I simply pitched in like everyone else to stop it from spreading.”
Not everyone, Alcina thought, remembering Cardona’s spotless appearance. Not quite.
“I admire a woman with spirit,” Ruskin was saying.
“Pardon?”
“I admire you,” he clarified, stepping closer, leaving her with too little room. “And I’d like to get to know you better. Maybe I could interest you in sharing supper with me some night this week.”
She was not a small woman, but he was the kind of man who filled a doorway. He made her feel delicate, and the comparison didn’t leave her comfortable. Or maybe it was the way he was staring at her expectantly. The strange glitter in his nearly colorless eyes suddenly reminded her of a reptile setting sights on its prey.
She took another step back to set a definite boundary. But having been raised with a certain standard of manners, Alcina thought to turn him down politely.
“I’m very flattered, Mr. Ruskin—”
“Hugh. Mr. Ruskin is my stepdaddy,” he said, echoing her.
Alcina forced a smile and started to say, “I just am not—” when she was interrupted yet again.
“Ready to go home?”
This time it was Reed, who inserted himself between her and the other man. Truth be told, she was relieved that she didn’t have to turn Ruskin down directly.
“Ah,” the bartender said, his visage darkening. “I see how the wind blows.”
