Royalty Farm
Near Simpsonville, Kentucky
Saturday afternoon
A cold, black dread gripped Melody O’Shea’s heart. Hands tight on the steering wheel, she scarcely breathed. In the distance, a thin plume of smoke floated from a window of Royalty Farm’s main show barn.
Fire was a horseman’s worst nightmare.
Her Jeep Cherokee rolled to a complete stop in the parking lot, and Mel flung open the door, sprinting toward the barn. “Fire!”
A wiry groom poked his head out of the tack room, bridle in hand, surprise in his eyes. “Mel, is that you?”
“Fire!” she shouted over sounds of panicked horses. “Dave, call 911!”
Lifting the water hose off a nearby rack, Mel raised the pump handle and hoisted rolls of it on her shoulder. The hose was used for filling water troughs, not for fighting fires. Jerking the clumsy hose down the hazy aisle of the training barn, Mel settled her intent gaze on the end stall where flames traced their liquid fingers along the sides of the wall.
Trapped horses snorted and circled in their stalls, rearing to get out of the smoke only to stick their heads into the thickest part of it. She heard the sharp complaint of a hoof striking a wooden wall and another high scream, echoing her own fear.
Already her nostrils stung from the acrid smoke. What if she couldn’t put out the fire? She had to. There was too much at stake.
“Okay. Easy, easy,” Mel said to the horses, knowing it wasn’t okay.
Her words were as worthless as the thin stream of water she shot at the flames. The heat was intense—a noxious, gut-wrenching heat radiated from a fire she couldn’t control. Mel’s arms throbbed. Her eyes burned. This was unreal. It wasn’t happening. It happened on television or in books where heroic cowboys rescued horses from flaming barns. Other barns burned. Not Royalty Farm’s prime training barn.
“Mel, we can’t save it.”
“No!”
The old groom’s fingers were steel on her arm. “C’mon, there’s not much time. We’ve got to get the horses out!”
God help them. Dave was right. “Okay!”
Dave thrust a lead into her hand and Mel threw down the hose. Coughing, her eyes tearing from the smoke, she took the stall nearest the flames. Dreamcatcher. Pop had pegged the stallion his next World’s Grand Champion.
Fortunately the horse wore a halter. Mel snapped the lead on it. Then she stripped off her cotton polo shirt and tied it around Dreamcatcher’s eyes. Grasping the lead with sweaty palms, she pulled and coaxed the frightened horse from the stall, down the long aisle into the waiting daylight and fresh air. Outside, she led the stallion to an empty paddock, where she stripped the shirt from his head, let him go and firmly shut the gate.
Gulping in fresh air, her lungs hurting, Mel turned back to the barn. Others had joined the struggle—dark, silent forms silhouetted against the blazing inferno. Flying brands making a curious sparkler affect in the cloudless sky.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped in horror.
Strange black shapes ran in and out of the barn, calling out in panic, their strident voices heard above the death screams of the horses.
“Don’t just stand there. Move your sorry ass!” A vaguely familiar voice barked at Mel from behind.
“What?”
“Help, for God’s sake. The whole thing’s going up!”
Anger held her immobile for a split second as she glared at the back of the nasty-tongued man who disappeared into the barn. She took a gulp of air, determination steeling in her heart. The barn was going fast.
Mel ran back into the nightmare, heat and smoke rushing to meet her. She smelled the odor of burning wood and electric wires. At the far end, the barn was now engulfed. Fierce flames licked the aisle. She ran to the first occupied stall, ducking low, trying to avoid the heavy smoke overhead.
A big gelding flailed wildly in his stall, the whites of his eyes rolling. Mortally afraid, he screamed as she approached. Mel grabbed the bolt on the door, threw it back, and shoved it open.
“Easy. Easy, boy.”
The horse wore no halter. With no other choice, Mel shooed him out of the stall, running after him toward the nearby wide-open door. The horse turned on her and tried to return to what he perceived as the safety of his stall. Mel raised her arms, waving the lead line and her shirt. She shouted until her throat hurt. The gelding veered and bolted through the opening.
In the next stall, another horse stomped and trumpeted, his chestnut head thrown high in fright, his delicate nostrils flaring. The animal refused to come out. Mel dodged his flying hooves to chase him out of the stall. Once in the aisle, she smacked his rump, hoping he’d make it to the door.
Then she turned toward the tunnel of fire that threatened to swallow the old wooden structure. She moved in a trance. Overhead, the rafters raged. Only minutes more and the whole barn would be engulfed by yellow fire.
“Get the hell out!” The stranger jogged past leading two horses.
Not yet. No. Mel ground her teeth together. Pop had worked too hard for this place. She had to try to save one more.
Stooping low, she staggered across the smoke-clogged aisle to the stall where Royalty’s Dreamer stood.
“Royalty!”
The black mare snorted at the sound of her name.
Thank God, she wore a halter. Mel buckled on the lead and draped the shirt over the mare’s face. Clutching the leather, she hauled the horse from the stall. Royalty tossed her head, wrenching Mel’s shoulder and pulling the lead through her hands. She grabbed it and held on.
“No! You can’t go back to the stall,” Mel cried out. Tears blurred her eyes. Her lungs complained against the dense smoke. The open end of the barn seemed so far away.
“Give me that damn horse and get out.” The stranger grabbed the lead from her hand and shoved her toward the door. Mel blinked and stumbled. He caught her elbow and steadied her.
Jake? Something about the way his fingers grasped her bare flesh, the way her body fit by his side, made her think of the man she would have married.
They made it to the door just as the hayloft collapsed behind them.
“I’ll take the mare.” Her father’s calm, familiar voice was welcome haven.
“Here you go, Pop.” The stranger thrust the lead into Pop’s outstretched hands and turned back to the barn.
Mel stared after him, unable to see his face. Then wracked by a cough, she bent double, and grasping her knees with aching hands, forced clean air into her lungs.
“You okay, darlin’?”
“You shouldn’t be here, Pop,” she said between gasps.
“Ain’t in my grave yet.”
Still doubled over, Mel lifted her head in time to see her father guide the spooked mare away. His words were brave, but she knew the old trainer’s heart must be breaking. Forty years of work at Royalty Farm was going up in flames. It may have been Bert Noble’s farm, but Pop’s knowledge and ability had built it into the greatest American Saddlebred show stable in the country. What a waste. What heartache. She fought a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Long moments later, Mel stood up and reluctantly turned to look at the chaos around the burning barn. As she watched, flames blasted from the walls like a blowtorch. Oh, God! She shivered. She was cold, colder than she had ever been in her life. Overhead, a blistering summer sun glinted like a horrible specter. Her heart faltered at the smell of smoke and death. In the distance, a fire siren screamed.
Slow tears trailed down her cheeks. Mel swiped the back of her gritty hand across her eyes. Shouts from the frantic men obscured the sickening silence of doomed horses. Had they saved them all? How had this happened?
“Bring that hose over here, Sam!”
“You can’t go in there, Jake! It’s too late!”
It was Jake. Jake Hendricks.
Mel swallowed the knot that rose in her throat. Her breath came unevenly. Dazed and shaken by the knowledge that she’d come home ironically at the same time as Jake, Mel tried to pull herself together.
She’d fallen off many horses. When that happened, she always gathered her nerve and climbed back on. Now, she fought for the same control, raising her chin and reining in her sudden panic.
If Jake was at the farm, how long would it be before he learned about Cory?
| 
