Page 36 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
For a moment, she lay still, futilely gasping for oxygen, the close call making her heart pound so loudly that it blocked out the roar of the flames around her. Her head was spinning from adrenaline and smoke inhalation, but she forced herself back onto her hands and knees. She couldn’t let herself lie there. If she didn’t get out soon, she’d be burned alive. Slowly shuffling forward, she continued crawling around the bonfire of barn wood. She was completely turned around now, and reaching the door seemed like an impossible feat. A sob burned its way up her throat, and she clenched her teeth to hold it back.
Think. Despite her dizziness, that firm, commanding voice was still clear in her head. This was her workshop, her space. She knew it better than she knew the house she’d grown up in. She wasn’t about to get lost in her own shop, fire or no fire. If she was going left around the pile of wood, then she needed to follow a diagonal line, and she’d hit the door.
Ignoring the confusion of the flames and the heavy grayness of the thick blanket of smoke, she crawled, the heat from the floor searing her knees. She couldn’t let the pain and her paralyzing fear overwhelm her, or the fire would win. She pressed forward, knee and hand, other knee and hand. It felt endless, this slog across the floor of her workshop, her sanctuary.
If she’d been able to get any air in her lungs, she might have laughed at that. Nice sanctuary it had turned out to be.
There was something lighter ahead of her, a rectangular shape that was slightly less gray than the surrounding area. She shuffled closer on her hands and knees and realized what it was with a rush of relief so intense that tears came to her eyes.
She’d found the door.
Blinking away the blurriness, she scrambled forward, moving faster now. Rising onto her knees, she was grabbing the handle with her gloved hand when a crash behind her made her duck and turn to look. Her display shelf had collapsed, leaving just flaming, charred remains, but her attention quickly moved past the wreckage. Fresh flames licked up the wall—the one connecting the workshop with the kitchen.
Lucy!
She started crawling toward the interior door before she realized what she was doing and stopped, forcing her mind to work, for logic to override panic. Rather than trying to make it through the fire-engulfed workshop, she needed to get out and go around to the front door. If the fire had started in the garage, it would take a few minutes to make its way into the house…she hoped.
Forcing herself to turn back, Camille fumbled with the knob in her gloved hand and yanked the door open. As the cold air rushed in, the flames around her billowed up with a deafening roar, and she automatically ducked, her arms flying up to protect her head. She dove out of the opening, scrambling to her feet and running for the front door. Her breath was loud under her helmet, and the mask had gone foggy, either from condensation or soot, but she couldn’t slow down long enough to try to wipe it clear. She needed to get Lucy out of the house before she burned with it—or they both did.
Taking the four porch steps in one leap, she reached for the storm door handle. Just as her gloved fingers were about to close around it, hard arms wrapped across her middle and yanked her back.
Shock stole her voice for a brief second, allowing the person behind her to drag her several steps away from the house before she started struggling. “Lucy!” she shouted, but her voice was drowned out by sirens and truck engines she hadn’t even noticed until that moment. “I need to get Lucy!”
She shoved at the iron bands locked around her waist, twisting her body from side to side in frantic attempts to free herself, but she couldn’t get away, couldn’t stop them from pulling her farther and farther back from her burning house, away from any chance she had to save Lucy.
“Stop!” she cried out, a sob harshly burning her throat, her eyes locked on the black smoke curling out of the eaves, the windows glowing red. “Lucy’s in there!”
“Camille!” It was Steve’s voice. “Listen to me. You can’t go in there. You’ll die, and so will Lucy. I’ll go get her. I have the gear, so I can go in that house.” As he continued to talk in his calm but firm way, his words started making sense and she began to still. This time, her sob was one of overwhelming relief. Steve was here. He’d save Lucy. It’d be okay. They’d both be okay.
Turning, she fumbled with her welding helmet, and he helped her pull it off. The sirens had ceased, but the flashing red and white lights still lit up her yard in pulses. The only sounds were the fire-truck engines, people shouting commands, and Steve’s calm, steady reassurances. She concentrated on his words until even the fire became a muted roar in the background.
“You with me?” he asked gently. A face shield and breathing equipment masked his features, and bunker gear added bulk to his already sturdy frame, but his voice reminded her that he was here. He would make everything okay.
“Yes.” Her voice shook and rasped, raw from the smoke. “Please get Lucy out.”
“I will.” There wasn’t any hesitation, and Camille believed every word. “Who’s Lucy?”
“My cat.”
Another firefighter Camille recognized as Rose Marie Mackenzie ran toward them with a medical bag, but Steve didn’t look away from Camille. “Is there a place she likes to hide when she’s scared?”
“My bedroom. S-second floor.” She tripped over her words, tears welling in her eyes at the thought of how scared Lucy must be. “Top shelf of the bookcase.”
“I’ll get her.” There it was again, that sure, steady assurance that made Camille believe that he could do anything.
“Thank you.” Her heart ached with gratitude. “Be careful.”
“I will.” He turned the simple phrase into a promise. “Stay with Mackenzie here, and don’t try to go back in that house, okay?”
“I won’t.” She tried to put as much resolve into her words as was in his, wanting him to believe her so he wouldn’t have to worry.
She must have succeeded, because he tipped his head in a nod and left her with the other firefighter. Mackenzie wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and tried to lead her away, but Camille didn’t want to move.
“Just a few steps over there,” the firefighter said, her voice soothing, though not as reassuring as Steve’s had been. “That way, you can sit down and still see everything that’s happening.”
By the time she was seated on the back of the fire rescue truck with an oxygen mask on and Mackenzie checking her blood pressure and blood oxygen levels, Steve was entering her front door. Light caught the reflective stripes on his bunker coat, and the sight reminded her of the photo Mrs. Lin had taken on her phone. The dark image seemed even more foreboding now, as if it had been a prediction of this terrible night.
Then Steve stepped inside, and all her anxiety focused on him, on the fact that he’d just gone into her burning house to save her cat. She thought of his kids, of how they’d be orphaned if Steve never made it out. Terror and guilt churned together in her stomach as all the horrible possibilities ran through her head. Why hadn’t Lucy been her first thought once she’d realized the workshop was on fire? She should’ve gone into the house, rather than just thinking about her escape. “It should’ve been me,” she said softly, her eyes locked on the open front door of her house.
