wildfire. She searched the sky and could see a haze of smoke beyond the front range of mountains that cupped the valley. The radio report affirmed that all mountain roads in the threatened areas were restricted to emergency vehicles.
After hearing the news broadcast, Shannon decided the irritating Ward Dawson policing the road had only been following instructions. She felt a little ashamed of her assumption that he was just some local throwing his weight around. She could even forgive him his little joke of telling her it might be a month before the road was open.
Surely, with a statewide alert, enough knowledgable firefighters would be able to put the fire out as quickly as it had begun. There was no reason to panic, she told herself. Sighing, she realized that she would just have to be patient and wait with the rest of these strangers.
Collecting her purse and bag of groceries, she left the car and followed the crowd inside the building. The Red Cross had arrived. Tables had been set up in the front hall with a cardboard sign that read, Register Here If You Are An Evacuee.
Am I? Shannon asked herself. She wasn’t sure just what the identification implied. As far as she was concerned, she was someone waiting for the road to clear so she could get back to her rented cottage.
When Shannon explained her circumstances, a pleasant, ruddy-faced woman handed her a form to fill out. “Your friends and relatives can contact us to know you’re safe,” the volunteer explained.
For the first time, Shannon felt a quiver of foreboding that the situation might not be as quickly resolved as she had assumed. She wrote her name on the form and handed it to the woman without filling it out.
The lady volunteer raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t there someone who needs to be notified about your safety?”
Shannon shook her head and walked away. Her insistence on independence and total privacy suddenly had a hollow ring to it. Even her closest former coworkers had no idea she had taken off for Colorado. She felt it was none of their business. No one would be waiting to hear from her. No friends or relatives would be inquiring after her safety.
Reluctantly, she joined the milling crowd in the gym where clusters of people were busily talking, looking out windows, trying to placate crying children or sitting silently on cots that were being set up as quickly as they were delivered.
A tall, angular woman wearing a Red Cross pin spied Shannon carrying her small sack of groceries. She hurried over to her and gave Shannon a grateful smile.
“Oh, good, donated food. Here, let me take that sack to the cafeteria for you. God knows, every little bit will help. We have no idea how many will need to be fed tonight.”
Shannon readily handed over the sack and watched the woman scurry away as if she held a treasure in her hand instead of a quart of milk, three bananas, a box of crackers and a six-pack of a diet drink. The idea of feeding all these men, women and children was more than Shannon could contemplate.
All over the crowded gym, people were talking quietly together. Others were fighting back tears or sitting silently as if in a state of shock. Most of the men were wearing work clothes, as if they’d been suddenly taken off some job, and the women wore casual summer tops with their slacks or jeans. Shannon felt more out of place than ever in her pale-yellow linen dress and matching designer sandals. Several puzzled glances came her way as she headed to a corner of the gym to sit down in a folding chair.
Announcements over the school’s public address system blared in her ears, but most of the information had no relevance for her since she was unfamiliar with the names of places and people. Although she had a detached sympathy for the milling townspeople around her, she felt alien to them. As the hours passed, she decided that as soon as the roads opened to general traffic, she’d leave the area and forget about losing her three weeks rent on the mountain cottage.
Ward had forgotten all about the attractive blonde in the fancy sports car until later that evening when he brought some supplies to the high school. The place was a madhouse. Growing numbers of evacuated families from threatened and closed areas had poured into Beaver Junction all afternoon, seeking refuge at the school.
A call had gone out for cots, food and supplies, and Ward had made a quick trip to his ranch, located twenty miles up the mountain valley. He and his young ranch hand, Ted Thompson, had stripped the house of some extra cots and brought them to the school.
“You’re God’s own angel, Ward Dawson,” the preacher’s wife, Laura Cozzins, told him with a broad grin on her round face as she accepted his donations.
“That’s what my mother always used to say.” Ward nodded solemnly.
Laura laughed heartily. She was a small woman with greying short hair and a ready twinkle in her hazel eyes. “Glory, glory, we must not be thinking of the same God-loving woman. As much as your parents adored you, Ward, I don’t ever remember them calling you an angel.”
“Ah, come on, now, I wasn’t that bad.”
“No, you weren’t.” She grinned at him. “Just heading down the wrong road. It was a miracle, for sure, the way you made a U-turn when you came back to the ranch to live.” Her smile faded a little. “I know it wasn’t easy for you, but the Lord wasn’t about to cut you free.”
“Yep, He had a lasso on me, for sure,” Ward admitted, remembering how hard he’d fought, trying to follow his destructive godless path in the college town where he’d been working. Both Laura and her husband had been there for him when he’d passed through his Gethsemane three years ago. After his wife, Valerie, had died and left him with an infant daughter to raise, he’d moved with Tara to the family ranch so that his older sister, Beth, could help raise his little girl. Since then, he’d learned to live in the moment and trust divine guidance to take care of the rest.
Ward gave Laura’s plump shoulders a quick hug. “You’re the prettiest gal around. If you weren’t already taken, I’d throw my hat in the ring.”
Laughing, she gave him a playful shove. “Your sweet talking is wasted on me. Now, you and Ted get busy setting up these cots before I think of some more work to keep the two of you out of trouble.”
They had just finished that job when Ward spied the California woman sitting all by herself. Her apparent indifference to the plight of others around her was disappointing but not unfamiliar. When he’d gone off to college, he couldn’t wait to leave home. Like the prodigal son, he’d thrown off all restraints and concern about others. Living campus life to the fullest, he forgot about the firm Christian values in which he’d been raised, and when he’d married his last year in college, it had been without any consideration except that he liked Valerie more than any girl he’d met, and they had a good time together. Her death when Tara was only two had left him emotionally bankrupt, and he’d come home to find himself. He didn’t know what the emptiness in the pretty stranger’s life might be, but he recognized the sign of a soul shut off from its source of peace and happiness.
“Do you know who that young woman is?” he asked his eighteen-year-old ranch hand, who usually had an eye out for any attractive female who wandered into town.
“Nope.” Ted shook his curly black head. “Haven’t seen her before. She must be new around here.”
“I know she’s staying at one of those summer homes on the north ridge,” Ward offered. “She drives a fancy sports car with a California license, but that’s all I know about her.”
Ted grinned. “Well, if you’re interested,
