A Brand of Christmas Page 11

  Part of the roof fell in with a deafening roar and an explosion of sparks and cinders. The flames shot skyward, and Jessi screamed Garrett's name. Wes shoved the fire fighter so hard the man went flying and hit the ground, then Wes surged forward, running flat out toward the stable.

  But he stopped short at the doorway. Garrett and Lash came stumbling out, and it was unclear who was helping whom. Blue lumbered along beside them. They staggered forward, and Jessi ran to meet them. Wes already had his arms around Garrett, so Jessi took hold of Lash and helped him back toward the others.

  The remaining part of the roof and one whole side of the stable fell inward with a thunderous crash. But Jessi was too busy thanking God to notice it much.

  "Chelsea?." Garrett coughed and pushed the oxygen mask away from his face. He glanced once toward the burning building. Not much was left but a blazing framework. And then even that collapsed in on itself, leaving only charred ruins.

  Jessi knelt beside him, crying, holding his hands. "They got her, Garrett." She nodded to his left, and Garrett saw Chelsea lying there, surrounded by men who worked on her. But her eyes were closed and his heart turned over.

  He drew a raspy breath, swallowed, but his throat felt raw. "Wes and Elliot?"

  "They're okay, Garrett." This from his left, and he turned to see Lash sitting upright, back bowed forward slightly, holding a mask to his face, breathing several times before moving it aside to speak again. "They took in some smoke, but they're okay. We got all the horses out, too, I think."

  Garrett took only a second to look for his brothers. Elliot seemed shaken, dazed, but all right. Wes had wandered over to the corral and was trying to soothe the horses there. Garrett brought his gaze back to Lash and narrowed his stinging eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "Garrett, he saved your life. Elliot's, too," Jessi said. "Thank God he was here."

  Lash held Garrett's gaze. "I saw the fire trucks heading this way, and I followed."

  "Why?"

  Lash shrugged. "Thought I might be able to help. I used to do this crap for a living."

  Garrett frowned. "You're a fire fighter?"

  "Used to be. In Chicago."

  Garrett nodded, digesting the information and still wondering what this stranger was really doing here. Why did he leave Chicago and show up in a speck-on-the-map town like Quinn? Why did he just happen to be around every time disaster struck?

  Chelsea groaned, a hoarse, guttural sound, and putting his questions aside, he got to his feet and went to her. He knelt beside her, brushing her hair away from her face.

  "She took in quite a bit of smoke, Garrett. Has a few burns, but nothing life threatening. We need to get her to the hospital."

  He nodded to the anonymous voice of a paramedic, not bothering to link a name to it or to check the face of what was, in all likelihood, one of his neighbors.

  "You could use some treatment yourself," the voice said.

  "I'm fine. See to Chelsea." The man didn't argue. Garrett watched helplessly as Chelsea was bundled onto a gurney and rolled to a waiting ambulance. He turned once, found Wes and Jessi standing nearby. "You all right, Wes?"

  Wes nodded, grim-faced. "Some of the horses have burns. They'll need tending."

  "Can you and Jessi handle it?"

  "Sure," Jessi said quickly. "I'll ask Marisella to stay and take care of Ethan for us."

  "I want Elliot at the hospital. He doesn't look good."

  "Neither do you," Wes replied. "I'll see he gets there."

  "Send him along by ambulance. I want you to stay here, Wes. I'm thinking this fire was no accident."

  Wes's black eyes narrowed, again reminding Garrett how appropriately his Comanche mother had named him. Raven Eyes. "Vincent de Lorean?"

  "Probably."

  "You think he'll try again?"

  "He might."

  "I'll watch things. He tries anything today, he's gonna be one hurting son of a-"

  "You watch things. Don't let little Bubba out of your sight. Not for a second. I'm going with Chelsea."

  Wes nodded, for once not making smart remarks about his love life. Garrett climbed into the back of the ambulance and found a seat. He clutched Chelsea's dirty hands in his and closed his eyes as the doors slammed shut. Then the vehicle bounded away, its siren wailing.

  She stirred awake. Pain seared her right arm and both feet. Her lungs burned. Her eyes stung, and it hurt to breathe. But all of that faded when she brought her vision into focus and saw Garrett sitting in a hard little chair beside her bed, staring down at her. Black soot coated his face and neck and arms. His dark hair curled unnaturally at the ends, singed, and she realized what had happened. She'd been trapped in the burning stable, and he had come in after her.

  His brown eyes widened when they met hers. "Thank God Almighty, Chelsea. I was beginnin' to think you'd never come around."

  She opened her mouth to speak, but only a hoarse croak emerged. She glanced down at herself. She lay in a white bed, wearing a pale blue hospital gown, and her right arm was bandaged and both her feet were wrapped in gauze. No soot coated her skin, and she realized someone had cleaned her up. No one had tended to Garrett, though.

  She cleared her throat. It hurt. "You're a mess," she whispered.

  "You should have seen yourself."

  She mustered a smile.

  "Are you hurting, Chelsea?"

  "A little." She closed her eyes, licked her parched lips. "A lot."

  "I'll call a nurse, make them give you something for-"

  "In a minute." She covered his hand as he reached for the call button clipped to the edge of her pillow. "Garrett, there was someone outside the barn."

  "You saw someone?"

  "I saw?a shape. Movement. I smelled gasoline, and?." She closed her eyes, shivering at the memory of the instant when she'd realized what was happening.

  He left the chair, bending over the bed and enfolding her in his arms before the chill even left her spine. His big, solid chest was under her hands, and his strong arms held her gently. She thought she felt him tremble. And when he spoke, his voice was rough from more than just the smoke he'd inhaled. "Dammit, Chelsea, you could have been killed. I could've?we?could've lost you."

  She didn't fight her instinctive response to him. She let her arms slide around his waist and hugged him back, resting her head on his shoulder. He smelled smoky. But even that didn't make his embrace less soothing.

  "I was scared, Garrett. I haven't been that scared since those nights when I'd sit in my bedroom and listen to my father's slaps and my mother's tears."

  His sigh warmed her neck. Then he loosened his grip and moved back a little. He looked down at her and smiled softly. "I smudged your face." He took a tissue from the box on the bedside stand and wiped at a spot on her cheek.

  She drew a calming breath, wishing she could steady her pattering heart, but finding it difficult.

  Garrett dropped the tissue into the wastebasket and sat in his chair again. "So what were you doing in the stable, Chelsea?"

  She shrugged. "The horses sounded jumpy. I thought I'd check on them." She studied his face as he listened carefully to her answer. "How did you know I was out there?"

  "Saw the coffee on the porch, your slippers. Then the smoke." He shook his head and swore. "You'll never know how I felt when I yanked those doors open and saw that wall of fire."

  "But you came inside anyway."

  He held her gaze a long moment, his brown one darkening. "Because I had this gut-deep feeling you were in there."

  "You could have gotten yourself killed trying to get me out."

  "What was the alternative, Chelsea? Just leave you there to burn to death?"

  She shrugged. "I'm beginning to think my nephew would fare just as well being raised by you as by me. Maybe better."

  "And you think your nephew is the only reason I risked my neck to get to you?"

  She lifted her chin. "What else would I think?"

  He hooked a
finger beneath her chin to raise it, then settled his mouth over hers. His kiss was gentle. Healing, almost. Warmth and life seemed to flow through him into her. He lifted his head.

  "Think that," he said softly.

  She blinked up at him, confusion swirling like a tempest in her mind. "I don't?."

  "Doesn't matter, Chelsea. We have time. Right now, all that matters is that you're okay and you're coming home with me."

  She drew a slow breath as Garrett settled back in the chair. "I'm not sure that's such a great idea."

  He frowned, didn't speak, just frowned and nodded at her to continue.

  "Garrett, if that fire was deliberately set, then this Vincent character knows where I'm staying. He knows where Ethan is. And he'll keep trying until he gets to us."

  "He can keep trying until hell freezes over, Chelsea. It won't do him any good. He's got a truckload of Brands to go through before he can get to you or Bubba, and he's gonna find that isn't exactly easy."

  Chelsea closed her eyes. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

  Garrett shook his head slowly, a puzzled look creasing his brow.

  "You could have been killed in that fire, Garrett. Elliot or Wes-God, even Jessi-might have died today. I don't want all of you standing between this gangster and me. I don't want anyone else suffering because I showed up in your lives."

  "No one's going to suffer-"

  "No? Tell my mother that, Garrett. She died because she tried to protect my sister and me. I can't live with that happening to anyone else."

  He stared down at her in silence as if he didn't know what to say. Finally, he just sighed hard. "We'll take precautions. I'll contact Ben and Adam, get them back here to help out. Everything will be just-"

  "No."

  He frowned at her, seeming unable to understand what she was getting at.

  "He murdered my sister, Garrett. Not yours. This is between Vincent de Lorean and me, and nobody else."

  "And Ethan," Garrett whispered. "Don't you forget about Ethan."

  Licking her lips, swallowing hard on a decision that went down like a brick, she nodded. "I'm not forgetting him."

  "Chelsea?." He shook his head, leaned over and took her hand in his. "All that crap before, the wine and the music, that wasn't me. It was bull. But I realized that night that-"

  "I don't want to hear this. Not now, Garrett. Please.''

  He stared down at her, and she knew she'd hurt him. God, could the big lug actually have developed a soft spot for her after all?

  "You aren't alone anymore, Chelsea. Dammit straight to hell, I know you've had to be your whole life. I know every battle you fought, you fought by yourself. But you don't have to do that this time. Damn, woman, why won't you let me help you?"

  Because I love you.

  The words whispered through her mind like a sudden breeze, startling her enough to make her eyes widen. She loved him. The way she'd loved her mother and her sister. She loved him in spite of the fact that he was a man and that she'd vowed never to love one of that gender. And she trusted him. There wasn't a single doubt in Chelsea's mind that he'd never harm a hair on her head. No doubt in her mind that he'd do everything in his power to protect her.

  Her mother had tried to protect her, too. From a man a lot like Vincent. Her own father. Oh, Chelsea and Michele had taken beatings. Lots of them. But whenever she could, Mom had stepped in, diverted the bastard's rage away from her daughters, deliberately directing it at herself instead. And she'd died because of it.

  And Michele. Michele had found a safe haven for her baby son and then run off in another direction. She'd become a moving target for Vincent's rage in order to save her son from the monster. And she'd died because of it.

  Chelsea couldn't let someone-especially Garrett-try to take her place as the target of Vincent's vengeance. And she wouldn't run. Running didn't do any good. No place was safe as long as that man remained on this planet.

  "Come home with me, Chelsea. The doc said you could leave whenever you felt up to it."

  She nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll come." But she knew in her heart she was lying.