Page 91 of Second Start: Family
“Always.”
He slid lower on the bed, kissed under her chin, enticing her to arch her neck, then her back, bringing them into heated contact that stopped all words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dan had fallen asleep with his hat over his eyes.
He didn’t realize it until he woke and wondered what woke him.
Buster. Had to be.
The young horse made noises conveying unease and shuddered.
Must have been more thunder. He hadn’t heard it, with the wind pushing away from him, toward the house. Could have carried the sound away, but Buster still picked it up.
Dan sat up, glanced in the direction of the house, then stopped.
Smoke.
A solitary line curling up into the sky.
A thread that turned to a rope as he watched.
He stood, repositioned his hat and looked again.
Closed his eyes hard and opened them.
The rope had turned into a smudgy shower in just that much time — a shower rising up instead of falling down. It was a range fire and growing fast.
He gathered the reins and swung up.
But when he crested the ridge closest to the house, Buster side-stepped nervously.
Dan figured they both saw the fire’s path.
*
Hall leaned over the top of the steering wheel and squinted. “Smoke.”
He’d persuaded Kenzie to come with him in the truck once he promised he’d drive her back to her trailer from the house after they talked to the kids.
Didn’t require much talking to agree that Vicky was right. They needed to keep going to see what was between them.
Kenzie, though, had said the kids needed easing into the idea of her being with their father.
Since the girls and Bobby would set off fireworks to celebrate, he figured that meant Dan. Who wouldn’t be exactly surprised after yesterday.
But there was no budging Kenzie on the matter.
“Your house is that way—” She pointed to the east of the smoke plume. “—isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He hit 9-1-1 on his phone. “There’s a fire at the western edge of the Q-T Ranch.”
“We know, Hall. It’s jumped a couple spots. We’re blocking off roads and—”
They came around a curve and he clicked off.
A truck was parked diagonally across the road. He swore and braked only at the last minute, when a barrel-bellied man stepped into the roadway.
