yelled after nothing more than smoke came from Carey’s clothes. “Help me roll up this rug!” They shoved the furniture out of the way and began rolling the rug in heavy turns as the fire licked at their hands and faces. Once fully rolled, they stomped on the center of the tube-shaped rug to put out any remains of the burning gas. Finally, they dragged it into the kitchen where it wouldn’t catch the hardwood floor if it was still burning, letting it rest on the cold tile floor, close enough to the sink where it could easily be doused with water.
The others ran down the stairs at the sounds of screaming, and Amy directed Anders to call Sheriff Matthews. He ran to comply as Meg retrieved several small bags of ice from the kitchen for Carey’s burns. She handed them off to Carey and a look of horrified guilt crossed his face when he touched her own-bandaged hand. Meg smiled feebly, telling him it was okay.
“How bad is it?” Amy demanded, her voice shaking a little now that the adrenaline that threw her into motion was beginning to wear off. “Let me look.” Instead of turning on the overheard lights and letting their attacker know where they were all congregated, she had Meg hold a flashlight over the bright pink skin that was already beginning to blister in places, bits of blackened, charred skin showing through where the chemicals had burned the hottest.
Anders returned with the phone in his hand just as Amy finished putting a loose dressing over Carey’s injured arm, dabbing a bit more burn cream on the spots that ran down his cheek and his collarbone where burning drops of liquid had scorched his skin. Anders swayed slightly, looking sick when he saw the burned skin but he managed to sit down solidly before falling. The smell of burning fuel and melted carpet fibers made him start to cough and wheeze slightly.
“He needs some fresh air,” Carey cautioned the others, sitting up in concern as his younger brother gasped for air. “This smoky room isn’t good for him. Take him to another room, and get his inhaler!”
“We’ll go upstairs and open a window just a little bit,” the housekeeper offered. “We won’t open it much, but I’ll have him sit on the floor so he can breathe it in.” The staff went with Anders to an upstairs bedroom, shutting the door behind them to keep the burning smell and smoke from following them in. Carey turned his attention back to Amy, who continued to dab ointment over his burns.
“You know, I think you just wanted to get my shirt off me,” Carey joked faintly, wincing as she pressed down too hard in one spot above his collarbone. “I mean it, if that’s what you wanted, all you really had to do is ask.”
“I’ll remember that for next time,” she managed to say, trying not to tear up at the obvious pain she was causing him. “I hope I won’t need anything as terrifying as a fire bomb to get you undressed in the future.”
“And I hope that’s not what it takes to get you to put your hands on me,” he surprised himself by saying. Amy’s eyes met his and she blinked back the tears, grateful that Carey could make jokes at a time like this, and even more so that he could make a pass at her, too. It meant he was probably okay.
“Try and stop me, cowboy,” she said with a wicked grin, more to ease her own nerves than Carey’s pain-ravaged ones. “But for now, you need to take these.” Amy held up a small bottle of pain pills from the first aid kit, and held out her bottle of water.
“No, it’ll make me fall asleep,” he protested. “Someone has to stay awake with you. And then there’s Anders upstairs still coughing…”
“The sheriff will be here soon,” Amy argued. “Now, you get some rest. I’ll wait for him.”
Carey nodded grimly, knowing that Amy was making sense. “Fine, I’ll take these, but not for another twenty minutes. That means I’ll be falling asleep right around the time the sheriff gets here.”
“You are incredibly stubborn, you know that?” Her words were meant to scold him, but Carey could tell there was a softness underneath that was all for him. He nodded, trying not to grimace in pain but failing when the raw nerves suddenly flared up again beneath the skin. “Now are you ready to take them?”
Carey finally nodded, giving in as a sheen of pain-induced sweat covered his injured skin, its saltiness further aggravating the burning feeling. He downed two of the pills and handed the bottle back to Amy. She felt helpless watching him cradle his arm, but knew better than to touch him and risk hurting him even more.
“Hey, why don’t you tell me a story? You know, to take your mind off it?” She suggested brightly.
“What kind of story?” He asked, catching his breath.
“I don’t know. What’s your favorite thing about the ranch?” Amy asked, keeping him talking. “Tell me what you like best about living here.”
“All the beautiful scenery,” he said softly, letting his eyes lose focus for a second. “There’s just so much…pretty…out here.”
“Nice try, mister, but stay with me here. Those pills haven’t kicked in yet, this is your own brain doing the zoning in and out. Hey! Snap up!” Amy snapped two fingers near Carey’s ear, making his eyes come back into focus. She knew he was falling out, mostly from the stress of a long day and the long drive, the lack of sleep finally catching up to him. She knelt on the floor next to the couch near where his head sank against his pillow, then kissed him softly, avoiding touching any of the angry patches of burnt skin. He kissed her back longingly but during their kiss, he drifted off, his mouth going slack beneath her lips as he finally stopped feeling the pain.
Chapter Nine
Sheriff Matthews didn’t arrive until the early hours of the morning and was appalled at Carey’s condition. “That settles it, we’re now looking at more than just vandalism and discharging a firearm. This is at least assault, if not attempted murder. That gives me more than enough reason to call in a team and help bring this guy in.”
“The sooner, the better, Sheriff. Just let me know what we can do,” Carey began, trying to sit up. Amy put a hand on Carey’s chest to stop him as the sheriff rose up out of his chair to do the same, coming to stand in front of Carey with his hands planted on his gun belt.
“You’re not going anywhere, Carey. Your father would kill me if I let any harm come to you, if he doesn’t skin me alive for the way you look already. If I’d caught that son of a bitch, Mack, the first night he showed up causing trouble, you wouldn’t be laying here practically turned inside out.”
“Do you have any idea what brought this on, Sheriff? Why does Mack have it in for the Carsons?” Amy asked. Sheriff Matthews and Carey exchanged a silent look, but Carey’s face remained unchanged. It must be all right to fill her in then.
“Well, ma’am, Mack runs a less than savory establishment over in Hale. I can’t tell you how many bar fights my deputies and I have busted up in there, and there’s been talk for a long time that he was running drugs through that place, but we could never pin it on him. We even started to think he was trafficking through there for a cartel south of the border. But this particular riot he’s causing seems to be about two of his ‘waitresses’, who went missing last week. Again, I never could pin anything on him because I didn’t have any complaining witnesses and because the girls both checked out as being over eighteen, but we think he was prostituting them from his bar. That’s the local rumor, anyway.”
“And you’re sure their ID checks out?” she asked. “It’d be a whole lot easier to shut him down on suspicion if you had any reason to believe they presented fake IDs. The alcoholic beverage board would be your inroads, not the alleged prostitution.
