I glanced at the clock and back at the kid playing the fiddle. An hour had already passed. I didn’t even know what had happened with the time. I glanced in the kitchen. Jag had cleaned up and was standing by the bar, watching the kid play the fiddle.
“He’s got to get out of here,” Jag said to me.
“What happened?” I asked.
Jag squinted his eyes at me but didn’t say anything.
“You’ve got to get him to stop playing,” Jag insisted.
“No problem,” I said, walking over to the guy with the fiddle, but as I approached him, he started to play harder, and it blew sparks at me. I glanced back at Jag; he was holding two fingers in the air toward the guy with the fiddle, but the sparks were flying past me and directly at Jag.
“What the fuck?” I asked, grabbing a plate off the table near me and throwing it at the guy with the fiddle. He must have seen it coming, hitting it with laser sparks were flying off his fiddle.
“Watch out!” Jag said, lunging toward me and knocking me out of the way as sparks flew right over my head and a big burst of flame exploded where the bar was.
Chapter 2
I lay on the floor, my breath knocked out of me. Jag was over the top of me, protecting me from the flying projectiles of fire. He quickly moved, glancing down into my startled gaze.
“Are you OK?” He did a quick visual scan of my body, looking for traces of injury.
“What the fuck is he doing.” I pushed Jag away as I stood up. The bastard with the fiddle was nowhere to be seen. My entire bar was up in flames, though.
A few sparks had turned into a torrent of fire. I reeled in horror as I watched the walls burning.
“No!” I screamed, running to the sink, grabbing a pitcher and filling it with water. I began splashing it on the burning bar. Jag came up from behind and grabbed me, pulling my arms back from the faucet.
“We have to get out!” he exclaimed. “The top story is going to come down.”
I looked up in dismay at the fire that was making its way along the ceiling. I lived up there, on the second story. This was my home.
“No! no!” I cried. "It can’t.” I was pulling away from him, trying to get his arms off me so I could fight the fire. “Why aren’t you doing anything?” I screamed at him.
“I am doing something!” he cried, shaking me lightly to get my attention. “I’m trying to get you out of here! The roof is going to kill us!”
I stopped, my eyes wide. This was Jag. He’d been my cook for a while. I trusted him.
Jag looked at me calmly, leaning his forehead against mine. “We have to get out of here.”
I took a deep breath and pushed away from him, dashing to the office. “One thing,” I said, grabbing my shirt to turn the doorknob. The metal was searingly hot even through the fabric.
“Come on!” Jag called. “She’s going to come down!”
He ran toward me as I got the door to the office open. I pushed past the desk, opened the bottom drawer, and grabbed out a box as Jag grabbed me around the waist, threw me over his shoulder, and ran out the front door. We were in the park across the street, well away from the burning building when he placed me on the ground and we both stumbled, leaning on each other as we turned back and watched my entire building go up in flames.
Tears pressed near the surface of my eyes, pinching them. I bit my trembling lower lip, sucking in air through my teeth before letting out a choked, hollow groan. The one thing I had in life, the one thing I had made of my life...gone.
The sound of the volunteer fire trucks roared through the quiet Cougar Creek night. I knew every single one of the guys in the fire department. They drank at the bar. There was nothing they wouldn’t do to try and save it. I knew that. The trucks came to a slow stop right in front of us and the fire men jumped out. A couple ran to us, but I waved them away and pointed toward the burning building. In minutes they had their hoses out. Powerful jets of water battled against the flames, but the flames had already won. With nobody in the building, all they were trying to do now was stop the burn from spreading to other buildings on Main Street. I groaned, as I sat down on the grass and placed my head in my hands.
Everything was gone.
“Helen.” Jag pressed his hand against my shoulder. “They’re going to have to check us for smoke inhalation.”
“I’m fine.” The words sounded far from fine as they croaked out of my throat.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he insisted.