In Too Deep (16 page)

She peered through the darkness, looking for the deeper part of the cellar. He'd said it was at the back. She faced that direction and carefully began heading toward the back wall. Running her hand along the smooth wooden wall, she found a door, then a latch. Lifting it, she smelled the dank air and stepped in.

“I'm going to have to lay you down.” On the dirt floor. Lily had a small blanket around her, but it wasn't much protection. Heaven only knew what kind of crawling critters were down here. Shuddering, she only had to imagine the house on fire and Maggie still upstairs. The horror of it made it easy to set the baby on the floor.

“I'll be right back, Lily.” She needed Lily's drawer. That would get Lily up off the floor. She kept it in the kitchen. And she needed another blanket for Maggie.

The infant whimpered as Audra turned to leave. She hated doing such a thing. “Don't cry, honey . . .”

Audra kept talking to Lily as she hurried back to the ladder. Speaking aloud to comfort Lily also bolstered her courage. Lily's cries gained strength.

Audra scrambled up the ladder and, with a pang of fear, saw she'd left Maggie asleep so close to the hole she could have rolled right off the edge. Sickened by her lack of clear thinking, Audra snatched the little girl up and descended the ladder. She turned and stubbed her right foot on what felt like some kind of sack. She didn't have time to even guess at what it might be. A few seconds later she hit something on her left side, stumbled, and nearly fell.

Lily's cries had reached the screaming stage. Audra dashed into the little room. She laid Maggie down on the damp floor. “A blanket,” she muttered. “I have to go get one.”

What about that man she had seen? Could he still be lurking around? Could he have started the barn on fire, then come to do the same to the house?

With Lily awake and crying, and Maggie on the floor, sure to be awakened soon, Audra had to do something. Going back to the trapdoor, she abandoned her children, feeling like a monster. “The drawer Lily sleeps in. A blanket for Maggie. That's it.” The drawer was close at hand. She grabbed it, and although it wasn't large, it was big enough that she needed to carry it down on its own. Yet another trip down and up the ladder.

She hurried into the cellar's back room and picked up Lily to comfort her. A quick adjustment moved Maggie onto Lily's blanket. But now the room was too cool for Lily. “Oh, God, what should I do?”

Audra wanted so much to prove she could take charge of her own life. “And now Mama has her chance, little one,” she said to Lily.

“I have my chance, don't I?” She talked and listened and tried to decide. She'd need to run all the way upstairs to get a blanket for Maggie.

Pray.

The thought came to her so strongly she knew it was put there by God.

As she prayed, instead of lessening her fear, it grew.

The fear built as she prayed aloud, bouncing Lily on her hip. It seemed as if fear became a restraining hand that blocked the door. Audra fought it, hating her cowardice, hating herself.

Upstairs and back. One minute and she'd close this door and throw the lock.

She'd have to lay Lily down and leave both girls, but not for long.

She braced herself to do the brave thing for once in her life.

Ethan charged toward the barn.

He hated leaving Audra, but she was right. She could handle whatever happened back there.

He raced into the barn and climbed straight up to the burning loft. Hay blazed in front of him, but it was manageable if they moved fast. Steele was up the ladder in a flash, two other men with him. Ethan grabbed a pitchfork.

“Steele, tell some men to put out the burning hay when I pitch it out. Someone get the mare and her foal out. The rest of you men work up here, get buckets of water.”

Steele started shouting orders, then rushed down the ladder.

Ethan stabbed the fork deep into a flaming pile of hay and carried it to the window. He took a quick look below to make sure his men were alert, then threw it as far as his strength allowed.

Thuds from behind him assured him that his men were battling the fire. Without a pause as he pitched fire out of the loft, Ethan noticed that a cowhand carrying a bucket of water climbed up, handed the water over to Steele, and then disappeared for more. Another hand on the ground below doused the flames that rained down into the yard.

Ethan heard his mare scream with fear. He hoped Steele had someone who could handle the crazed horse. Ethan trusted Steele to know his job.

The flames danced high, licking at the rafters. If the roof went, they'd lose the barn. And if that happened, the woods would catch fire. They'd start a nightmarish blaze that could dole out destruction for a hundred miles.

Ethan jammed his pitchfork into the next clump of blazing hay, and the flames whooshed up, singed his face and hair. His shirt sleeve caught fire!

“Do it,” Audra goaded herself. “You want to be treated like a mature woman. You want to make your own decisions. Now you've got your chance.”

Lily stirred, and Audra realized she was holding on too tight. She was such a
coward
, she'd almost hurt her baby.

Audra needed that blanket. She squared her shoulders and took a step out of the cellar room. Then she stopped. As she tried to make herself move again, her heart pounded with fear. Finally, hating herself, she went back inside the room.

She couldn't overcome the fear. Instead, she let it control her. She'd wait, for now, put it off for a bit. She turned to Lily and whispered, “Your pa said there was a lantern down here. Wouldn't a little light cheer us up?”

Lily's crying eased as Audra bounced her and talked with her. Turning to the back of the room, Audra fumbled her way along the side. It was tiny. Audra could have touched both walls with her arms stretched out. It was about twice as deep as it was wide.

“Now where is it?” Audra's hands brushed against glass, and the rattle of metal against glass told her she'd found the lantern. She looked back at the wide open door. A rectangle only visible because it was a slightly lighter shade of black.

“The room has a door with a bolt on it. Throw it.”

Ethan's order came to her so vividly it was as if he was here. “Your pa said to close it and throw the bolt.” Audra swayed with Lily and wondered how to get the lantern lit with no matches and only one hand to spare. Now that Lily was calm, Audra hated to get her wound up again by putting her down.

She looked at the door again. The fear was almost a physical grip on her body. Such cowardice! Praying, whispering to Lily, Audra wasn't sure she could force herself to go back upstairs. But could she close herself in this tiny room in the pitch-dark? Her throat threatened to swell shut from the force of all her fears.

The door taunted her, called her a coward.

Children were afraid of the dark, not grown women.

Open, the door gave her light.

Open, it stood as an invitation to danger.

A creaking sound overhead stopped her fretting. A leg appeared on the ladder.

“Ethan, you're back!” Audra took two quick steps toward the cellar room door. “Is everything all right?”

The man, barely outlined in the dim light, turned and she knew. The dark form wasn't her husband, nor her husband's foreman. She lunged for the door, mindful of where Maggie lay. Praying for speed.

“I've got you!” The man jumped the last few feet to the cellar floor.

Frantic, Audra pushed the heavy door to close and lock it, but it dragged on the dirt floor. She couldn't get it shut!

The man lunged toward her.

She'd waited too long and now she and her girls might die.

Ethan ripped his shirt off, the memory of Seth's blackened bleeding skin as wicked and hot as the fire. He threw the shirt on the floor. He felt hands on him, slapping at the fire. He was too busy stomping his shirt out to notice who was hitting him.

He got the flames out. Glanced at Steele. “Thanks.”

“You okay?” Steele looked worried in the flickering firelight.

“We'll see. No time to check now.” Ethan turned back to the flaming hay.

He hurled fork loads of hay out the window from the worst of the fire.

Steele and the rest of the cowhands battled the smaller blazes.

Tongues of flame licked up the side of the barn. “Steele, don't let the wood catch.” Suddenly they were losing the fight. Fire in front of Ethan too big to quit on. Fire in two corners of the hayloft. If that barn wall caught, they'd have to get out, let the barn go, and turn to keeping the fire from spreading to the nearby woods.

Jabbing with his pitchfork, Ethan saw Steele charge the barn wall.

Back to the main fire, Ethan pitched and stabbed, pitched and stabbed.

Repeating the moves, he lost track of time as he and his men fought for their own lives, the life of the ranch, and the woods that surrounded it.

Suddenly a bucket of water splashed heavily on the stack of hay he'd kept from spreading but hadn't managed to defeat.

The flames leaped high, hissed like a beast being defeated in battle, then vanished.

Panting, looking desperately for the next place to fight, Ethan saw Steele holding a dripping bucket. There were no flames anywhere.

“That's the last of it, boss.” Steele, his face blackened with soot, jerked his chin in satisfaction and slapped Ethan on his bare back. Steele pulled his hand away quickly. “You get burned?”

It took Ethan a second to even remember his shirt.

“I don't think so. Nothing serious anyway.” Ethan couldn't fail to notice he'd been called
boss
. “How about you and the men?”

“I didn't see anyone catch fire but you.” Steele sounded exhausted but whole.

Another cowboy poked his head up to the top of the ladder. “I've got more water.”

Steele turned and relieved the man of his burden. “That oughta do it. But no one sleeps until we're sure there aren't any hot spots.”

Ethan pointed at the wall. “Make sure that wall isn't smoldering. It was on fire for a few seconds.” Ethan paused and looked at Steele. “Until you put it out.”

Nodding in the darkened barn, he added to his men, “Thank you. Thank you all.”

“We ride for the brand.” Steele doused the wall with water, then turned and went down the ladder with a bucket in hand, shouting orders—orders that Ethan had given first.

The man tripped over something and fell facedown as if God himself had flattened him.

Audra used strength she didn't know she had. She slammed the door shut and with fumbling hands slid home the heavy wooden bolt. A split second later she heard the man's body crash into the door.

Maggie woke up with a frightened yelp and started crying. Lily, who'd nearly gone back to sleep, wound up again, crying louder than ever.

“You can't hide from me!” The door shuddered under the assault. Audra turned, pressed her back against the door, and prayed.

The man pounded on the door, trying to smash open the locking bolt. Audra leaned harder against the door. She knew her weight alone couldn't keep the man from breaking in, yet it might be enough to keep the lock from giving way.

Lily screamed at the commotion.

Audra held her in one arm and held the bolt latching the door with the other. Then she saw she could drop the bolt into a little notch that locked it tight. She quickly slid it into the notch.

“I'm not leaving without you!” Fists pounded. Then came a harder sound, lower in pitch. The man was slamming his heavy boots into the thick wood door. Again, Audra threw all her weight against the door.

God, please protect us. Protect my baby girls.

It took Audra a few moments to realize all his assault on the door wasn't budging it. The lock held. The man's blows came slower as if he'd exhausted himself.

Maggie hugged Audra's leg. Audra crouched and picked the toddler up. Maggie clung to her neck and sobbed.

One last blow to the door was followed by a vicious shout. “I'll be back, Mrs. Gill. You've got something I want, and I won't quit coming. And others are coming after me. Next time I'll make sure and bring an axe along so you can't lock me out of
anywhere
.”

She heard the man stomp away, grunting with effort as he scaled the ladder. Seconds later a door slammed.

“Hush, honey. Don't cry. Don't cry.”

Both girls disobeyed her thoroughly, and Audra decided it was an idea with merit and she began to cry herself while she cuddled them.

It was a good time for tears, now that she and her babies were safe.

Ethan turned to sift around, hunting for smoldering hay just in time to see right out his barn window. A dark form dashed across the yard.

“Someone's been in the house with Audra!” He dropped the pitchfork and jumped for the ladder.

Steele was one step behind him. “You men keep hunting for any sign of fire,” he shouted.

Ethan charged into the house, terrified he'd find it on fire, too. Terrified he'd find his wife hurt, or worse. How long had that man been in here with her? Had there been time for her to get in the cellar?

He saw instantly the trapdoor laid open. He raced for it and heard crying, and not just little babies.

“Steele, check the house.”

His foreman raced past the kitchen.

Ethan slid down the ladder with reckless speed.

“Audra! It's Ethan.” He tripped over something that stuck out from the side of the little space. He staggered deeper into the cellar until he found the door to the room at the back. “Audra, are you there? Let me in!”

“Ethan? Is that you?”

He'd told her to lock herself in down here and only open the door to him or Steele. She'd remembered. She'd taken charge and protected herself and the children. Ethan hated that he'd left her on her own.

“Yes. It's me,” he said.

“We're safe in here. Go . . .” Her voice broke. “Go fight the fire.”

“The fire's out. Let me in, honey.”

“Be careful. There's a man out there, and he might hurt you. He beat on this door. He was after me.”

“I know—we saw him run away. He's gone now. Please, unlock the door.”

There was what seemed like far too long a time while cries of Ethan's daughters echoed out of the dirt cellar.

The scratch of wood on metal told him she was finally unlocking the door.

The door opened a crack and Ethan reached for it. “Step back, honey. It's heavy. I'll get it.”

A light shone in the little room. Lantern light. She'd kept herself and her children—no,
their
children—safe. She'd found the lantern. As he swung the heavy door open, he saw that she'd even brought down Lily's drawer for her.

Ethan wrapped his arms around Audra, holding two babies, and drew them out of the dungeonlike room. Audra trembled violently, but she had a firm hold on the little ones.

“You're all right, aren't you, Audie?”

Her chin rose and she stood straight. “Do
not
call me Audie.”

Ethan smiled. That put some fight in her.

He glanced over his shoulder when Steele called down through the trapdoor, asking if everything was okay.

“We're fine,” Ethan shouted back. “Post a guard. And I want the men all accounted for, especially the new ones. Scout around and see if you can find whoever did this. Watch for strange tracks. The sun is about to rise, so we'll have light to work with.”

Steele took the orders and vanished, leaving Ethan alone with the bravest woman he'd ever known.

“I'm such a coward.” Audra broke into more sobs. She felt as if all she'd done since she'd seen that man run from the barn was shake with fear or cry like one of the girls.

She hated herself.

“You did fine, Audie.”

She slapped his arm. “I hate that name. Don't you dare start calling me that.” Then she touched him again. “Where in heaven's name is your shirt?”

“It burned off my body.”

“What!” She stood away from him.

“I thought that might distract you from beating up on yourself.”

“I'll beat up on myself if I want to, and what do you mean your shirt burned off your body?”

Ethan coaxed her forward. He lifted a sobbing Maggie out of her arms. “If you can't climb the ladder, I'll take Maggie up, come back for Lily, then come back for you.”

“I carried them both down here, didn't I?” Audra had been scared right down to the bone, but that didn't mean she couldn't climb a stupid ladder. “I can climb out with Lily,” she said.

“That's good, honey.” Ethan's hands left her, and she realized when they did that he'd been supporting her since she'd let him in the cellar room. She missed his hands desperately. The lantern light from the cellar went out.

Then his hands were back. With one strong, steady hand, he urged her toward the ladder. “You go first,” he said.

Climbing up was harder than she'd expected, considering she'd flown down and up several times with her hands full. He was only a step below her, his hand still on her back. How could he hold Maggie and her and climb at the same time?

But he did it.

Her husband.

She didn't deserve him.

But she knew.

Suddenly, in that moment, she knew she was completely in love with him.

She didn't deserve a man so strong and kind. But she had him and she wasn't letting him go.

As she reached the kitchen, she saw that the sun was turning the sky to lightest gray. Another night had passed.

This time they couldn't blame Seth for their exhaustion. He wasn't here to scream and wake them up. But between the fire and . . . and the way they'd passed the earlier part of the night, Audra had barely slept at all.