The Independent Bride (32 page)

“I don’t need any time off. I’m your sister, Abby. You don’t have to try to make up for every minute you’re out of the store.”

“I feel guilty leaving you alone so often.”

“I don’t like leaving the store. I’m comfortable here.”

“Everyone says you’re a brilliant saleswoman, better than Father ever was.”

“That’s nonsense,” Moriah said, brushing the compliment aside. “I just happen to like what I do.”

“As well as be very good at it.” In her own quiet way, Moriah had learned more about the people at the fort than Abby. Some of the soldiers had even started asking her for advice. Moriah always declined, but that seemed only to encourage them. Abby wished her sister weren’t so reclusive, but that was past praying for. She gave her a hug and a kiss. “Have I told you lately how much I love you? I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“You can do anything you set your mind to,” Moriah said, her voice brusque. “You don’t need me. And you don’t need Colonel McGregor.”

“Forget Bryce,” Abby said, striving to keep the irritation from her voice. She picked up her lamp. “Now I’m going to bed for what I hope is a dreamless sleep. See you in the morning.”

Sleep, however, was reluctant to fold Abby in its embrace.

She knew she was in love with Bryce. She couldn’t change that, so it didn’t make sense to deny it. How was she to protect her heart when Bryce left?

Pamela’s future worried her just as much. She fell asleep worrying about how she would be treated by a stepmother who might not love her and a grandmother who didn’t understand her. She finally dreamed that Bryce’s house had caught fire and there was no one to rescue Pamela. She was hanging out an upstairs window calling Abby’s name.

“Abby! Abby! Wake up.”

Abby fought her way to wakefulness to find Moriah bending over her. Abby must have called out in her dream and wakened her sister, but Moriah spoke before Abby could.

“The store’s on fire!”

“No,” Abby said, sitting up in bed, trying hard to clear the cobwebs of sleep from her mind. “I was just dreaming about a fire. I’m sorry I called out, but—”

“You’re not dreaming,” Moriah said, dragging her sister to her feet. “Smell the smoke.”

Abby had waked enough to distinguish reality from her dream. The rank smell of smoke was very real. “The store!” she cried. “We’ve got to save the store or we’ll be ruined.”

Without stopping to put anything over her gown, Abby rushed from her bedroom into the parlor. She could see smoke coming from under the door. She unlocked the door and threw it open. Flames covered half the store. She could see piles of clothing burning, hear cans and bottles explode in the heat. She didn’t know where to begin, but if she didn’t do something soon, they’d lose the trading post and everything in it, including their living quarters.

“Grab anything you can to beat out the flames or smother them,” Abby said to Moriah.

“You can’t go in there. The fire’s too hot.”

“I have to, or we’ll lose everything.” Abby grabbed one of the heavy wool blankets folded neatly on a shelf behind the counter and began to beat the flames. It didn’t take her long to realize she wasn’t making any progress. It took her even less time to discover why. She smelled kerosene. Someone had soaked the merchandise with the extremely flammable fluid.

“We can’t stop this by ourselves,” Abby shouted to her sister. “Go for help.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“Go!” Abby screamed.

Abby didn’t know whether she sent Moriah for help because she thought they could save the store or because she didn’t want her to see the destruction of their dream of independence. She attacked the fire with renewed fury, cursing the man who’d set it, hoping she found out who he was so she could have the pleasure of killing him herself.

She struggled on, oblivious to the smoke, the heat, and the danger. Only when she was on the verge of giving up did she hear someone pounding on the door and shouting for her to open it. A wall of flame separated her from the exit, but her only hope of saving the store was to open that door.

“Wake up, Daddy. There’s a fire in Miss Abby’s store.”

“It’s just a dream,” Bryce said, dragged unwillingly from a deep sleep. He hadn’t slept much the previous night and was dead tired.

“It’s not a dream,” Pamela insisted. “I can see it.”

“It’s probably just a light.”

“I saw a man climb in the window. Then he climbed out again. I saw him strike a match and throw it in the window. That’s when I saw the fire.”

Bryce was fully awake now. He threw back the covers and hurried to the window. Pulling back the curtain, he saw a bright light coming from the trading post.

“Run downstairs and wake Zeb. Tell him to get as many people as possible over to the store with buckets, wet blankets, shovels, axes, anything they can lay their hands on.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to the store as soon as I can get some clothes on. Now hurry.”

It seemed to Bryce his clothes had rebelled against him. Even putting on his pants seemed to require thought, whereas before he’d done it automatically. Finally he managed to shove his feet into his boots and snatch up a pair of gloves. As he raced across the parade ground for the second time in recent weeks, he decided he ought to include foot racing as part of the men’s fitness regime. He arrived to find some men pounding on the door.

“Use your ax to break it down,” he directed. “Break out the windows.”

“That’ll just make the fire burn hotter,” one man said.

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. We can’t stop it standing out here.”

Before anyone could lay an ax to the door, it opened and Abby stumbled out. Bryce managed to catch her before her body hit the ground.

“Is she dead?” somebody asked.

“Just fainted.” He hoped he was right. The fire had singed her hair and eyebrows. Blisters covered her face, arms, and hands. If he hadn’t known who she was, he might not have recognized her. “Put out that fire,” he ordered as he picked Abby up and carried her away from the building.

He didn’t need to stay to help. The men could do just as well without him. Someone had to take care of Abby.

Pamela was waiting at the door when he returned.

“Is she dead?” she asked, tears glistening in her eyes.

“No. She fainted. Run upstairs and turn back the bed.”

“Is she going to stay with us?”

“For as long as it takes her to get well.”

“Can I sit up with her?” Pamela asked, running ahead of her father.

“If she wants you to.” Bryce had dreamed of holding Abby in his arms, but this price was too high.

“She doesn’t look alive,” Pamela said when he laid her on the bed.

Abby groaned.

“She is. Now go tell Zeb I want him immediately.”

By the time Pamela returned with Zeb, who’d had the forethought to bring hot water and an emergency medical kit, Bryce had managed to get Abby into bed and under the covers. Though it wasn’t cold, she was trembling from shock.

“Is she all right?” Zeb asked.

“I think so,” Bryce said. “She seems to have nothing worse than some bad burns on her fingers.”

“The fire burned her hair,” Pamela pointed out.

“It’ll grow back,” Bryce said.

Abby tried to talk, but she couldn’t choke out a word he could understand.

“Give me some water,” Bryce said.

“I’ll get it,” Pamela said. She dashed from the room and came back seconds later, bringing the water from her own bedside table. Bryce poured some into a glass, which he handed to Pamela.

“Hold that while I sit her up.”

Putting his arm around Abby, he lifted her into a sitting position, then took the glass from Pamela and held it to Abby’s lips.

“Let me hold it,” he said when she tried to take it from him. “You burned your fingers.”

“Key,” Abby managed to say after draining the contents of the glass. “I burned them on the key when I unlocked the door.” Her voice rasped from the smoke she’d inhaled.

“Let me look at your hand,” Bryce said.

Abby held out her hand for his inspection. The pads of two fingers and the thumb on her right hand were badly blistered. “The first thing to do is put some salve on the burns and bandage them,” he said. It didn’t take long, but Abby’s reaction told him the burns were very painful. “Now you need to rest.”

“I can’t sleep until I know about the fire. Where is Moriah?”

“I’ll send Zeb to look for her. I expect she’ll be able to tell you how much damage the store suffered. Tell her to come prepared to stay here,” Bryce told Zeb.

“Do you know how the fire started?” Bryce asked.

“No.”

“Pamela saw a man throw a match inside. This is the second time someone has broken into the store. You and your sister are staying here until I find out who did it and can make sure it won’t happen again. Don’t argue. That’s an order. Anyone who disobeys that order will be under arrest.”

“Does that include me?” Abby asked.

“It most particularly includes you,” Bryce said. “You’re the one most likely to disobey it”

“You can’t hold me here against my will.”

“Stop being so stubborn and let me take care of you. That’s the least I can do after you took such good care of Pamela.”

“I’ll stay tonight, but that’s all.”

Bryce was certain smoke would make it impossible for her to return to the trading post for several days. “Good. Now I want you to tell me exactly what happened.”

Abby didn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already guessed. At first he hadn’t believed Spicer’s break-in was connected with the attempts to stop delivery of the beef, but the fire changed that. Someone was trying to drive Abby and her sister from Fort Lookout.

She had finished by the time Moriah arrived.

“Thank goodness you’re safe,” Abby said. “What happened to the store?”

“The structure wasn’t damaged much,” Moriah said, “but we lost about half of the merchandise. Someone soaked everything with kerosene.”

“I need to see what can be saved,” Abby said.

“You can do that tomorrow,” Bryce said. “Right now I want you sound asleep in fifteen minutes. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. You can do your work much better tomorrow if you’re rested.”

“How can I rest knowing our store is half destroyed?”

“The same way I rest knowing my men will go into battle the next day. Now, are you going to sleep?”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” Abby said. She executed a mock salute. “Anything you say, sir!”

Bryce repressed a smile. “Go to sleep before I decide to put you under lock and key. Come on, Pamela.”

“Will Miss Abby and Miss Moriah be here in the morning?” Pamela asked when her father put her back in bed.

“If I have anything to say about it, they’ll be here every morning for weeks and weeks.”

Pamela broke into a huge smile. “Thank you, Daddy.” She took her father’s hand and held it to her cheek. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too,” Bryce told his daughter.

“Do you love Miss Abby? Sarah’s momma said if you married Abby, she would be my momma. Please, Daddy, marry Miss Abby.”

Bryce had already decided that was what he wanted, but he wondered if Abby wanted to marry him.

Abby did her best to be optimistic, but seeing the virtual destruction of everything she’d worked so hard to achieve nearly caused her to burst into tears.

“It’ll take a while for the smoke and kerosene fumes to clear,” Bryce said. “You won’t be able to work in there for a couple of days. That’ll give the men time to clean up.”

“I can’t stand around doing nothing.”

She hadn’t slept well. Only Moriah’s steady breathing had kept her from getting up and pacing the room. She felt caged, unable to do anything to fix her situation. She knew it was pointless to attempt to do anything before daylight, but thoughts of ruin kept her too on edge to sleep. She’d barely managed to restrain herself long enough to choke down some breakfast, yet viewing the mess that had once been her store made her wonder why she’d bothered.

“There’s plenty to do,” Bryce said. “You can start with an inventory of what was in the store and make up orders to replace everything. When you get back in the store, you can cross off anything that can be salvaged.”

“Where am I going to find the money to pay for it?”

“Credit,” Bryce said.

Bryce’s complacent attitude was about to drive her into a screaming fit. Having something to occupy her mind wasn’t enough. She wanted to know who had done this. She wanted someone she could punish.

“You can’t stay here for a while,” Bryce said. “Why don’t you and your sister pack what you’ll need for a few days?”

“That part of the post isn’t damaged,” Abby pointed out.

“Collier says the whole place reeks of smoke. It won’t be safe to breathe the air for several days.”

Abby didn’t want to agree with Bryce. She wanted to strike out at someone, anyone, to work off some of her frustration. She was so angry she forgot the pain in her fingers. Moriah had broken the blisters and put fresh salve and bandages on them this morning. She’d covered her head in a cap to hide her burned hair, but she couldn’t hide her singed eyebrows and eyelashes, or the red spots where heat had burned her face, shoulders, and arms.