Nancy Gideon - Warrior For One Night

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my Road Warrior writer trio, who helped me tackle the ups, downs and almost off the edges of Lake Tahoe. Laurie, the Indie wheel who kept us from a Thelma and Louise ending, Loralee, who thankfully said she was afraid of going up in the gondola first, and Lana whose wet wipes saved my shredded bacon. Thanks, ladies!

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

She couldn’t breathe.

Smoke seeped in through the car’s vents, changing the air into something that tasted hot and raw and clawed all the way down.

From where she was belted in the Nova’s tiny back seat, she watched the ridge with mounting apprehension. It was lit with a bright sunset glow. And they were heading toward it, not away. Her mother never looked at it. Her fierce concentration was on the road ahead.

What was wrong? What could be worse than the approaching flames?

All morning Melody had watched her mother and the fire with equal dread as both built and grew more combustible. They could smell the acrid heat pulsing against the cheap walls of their motel as June Parrish paced and panted like a wild thing trapped at the edge of the blaze. She’d held a bag of ice to the ugly welt on her cheek as her frantic gaze cut between the silent phone and the door where all their belongings sat stuffed into the three duffel bags. For the hundredth time, she checked her wristwatch. Each passing minute added to her agitation. Finally, her mother stopped her restless movements and gave a savage sigh.

“Damn him.”

The curse exploded from her like boiling sap from the forest pines. She threw the ice to the floor and grabbed the bags.

“Come on, baby. If he’s not coming to us, we’re going to him. Get Karen.”

Heat from the parking lot hit, a solid wall. Melody ran to the room next door where she and her fifteen-year-old cousin had spent the night. They’d huddled together in the big bed in the dark, trying not to hear the sounds of an escalating argument in the other room. Three years older and a lifetime wiser, Karen hadn’t let her check to see if her mother was all right, even after the angry storm settled into a silence that was somehow…worse. They’d gotten no sleep, afraid of the fire sweeping down on them, terrified of the violence on the other side of the thin wall.

Karen had her single bag in hand. Her features were somber and somehow ancient, but she managed a tight smile as she banded the younger girl’s shoulders with a squeeze of support. The car was running. Karen climbed in front and Melody in back, next to their battered cooler and her father’s extra gear. They tore out of the driveway in a spit of gravel. Heading toward the flames.

The resort was a huge, hillside-hugging building hewn from native logs. Fuel for the fire. Ground pounders were on the roof, wetting it to protect against the deadly embers floating down on the hot wind. In their protective gear, one firefighter looked pretty much like the next. June pulled into the paved parking lot where the night before a half dozen pumper engines had sat waiting to go into the field along with a single helicopter. The copter was still there. Hope surged within Melody as she gripped the back of the seat in front of her.

“Is Paddy coming with us?” Even at a young twelve, she called her father by his name—at his insistence.

Her mother answered with a brusque “Stay in the car.”

The two girls did as they were told, sitting anxiously while the stench of smoke and grit slowly gained a stranglehold on them within the hot interior. They coughed, their eyes fixed on the long front porch and beginning to tear up. Then Karen reached for her lap belt.

“Mama said to wait.”

Karen’s tone was as harsh as the stuff they were trying to inhale. “You wait. I’ll be right back.” She slipped out of the car and raced up to the building, now backlit in an eerie glow.

The minutes passed. Melody hugged the bucket seat. She’d been raised to pay respect to the flames as if they were some unpredictable animal that was warm and friendly one moment then lunging with teeth bared the next. And she’d been taught to listen. But her mother hadn’t listened when she was told to head down the mountain in a hurry. She hadn’t taken the girls home where they’d be far removed from the danger massing on the other side of the ridge. So why should she?

As she got out of the back seat, brushing ash from her hair and eyes, Melody took a choking breath and simply stared in dismay. The left wing of the empty resort was no longer dark and abandoned. Light gleamed behind the wall of windows. A bright, flickering, fearsome light.

It was on fire.

“Mama! Karen!”

She ran up the many steps to the front porch and inside without a thought to her own safety. Her family was in there.

Smoke roiled down the hall, thick, black, deadly. Flames rimmed the door frame like a circus hoop. And she stood frozen, praying her mother or cousin would come jumping through it.

“Mama? Karen?”

A faint cry answered, female and afraid.

Covering her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her T-shirt, Melody ran toward the sound, crouching low. The heat was tremendous, prickling over her exposed skin as she ducked down the hallway. Her tears seemed to sizzle on her cheeks.

“Mama? Karen? Where are you?” she shouted, forcing the words through the searing thickness in her throat.

“Melody! Help me!”

Karen.

The room was swirling with smoke. Flames licked along the exposed ceiling timbers, eating through them with an insatiable hunger. She could hear them cracking over head as she stumbled through the choking haze.

And then she saw her cousin on the far side of the room. She lay sprawled on the floor beneath one of those huge beams. Her fingers were clawing at the floorboards as she tried to pull herself out from under it. Her face was a mask of terror and pain. Her eyes were on Melody.

“Help me, Mel! For God’s sake, help me!”

She started forward just as an ominous groaning sounded above her. She glanced up to see a huge decorative chandelier made of canvas and elk horns plummet toward her, a fireball. Screaming, she lunged back. The fixture hit like a comet, crashing into the floor, scattering debris and flame everywhere. The carpet ignited, becoming a sheet of fire. And on the other side, her cousin began to shriek.

There was no way across the room. No way to reach her fallen cousin. As her head grew light, starved by lack of oxygen, Melody remembered the men on the roof. If she could get their attention, have them turn their hoses…

“Melody! Don’t leave me! Mel!”

She burst out onto the porch, gasping, desperately afraid she’d succumb to the smoke before she could save her cousin. She stumbled down the steps, staggering into the front yard, where neatly groomed flower beds were beginning to wither and fry. She waved her arms and tried to call out for help, but her lungs seized up into a harsh paroxysm of coughing. She could hear screaming over the roar of the blaze, knowing it was the sound of her cousin, her best friend, roasting alive.

“Down here! Help me! There are people inside! Help me!”

One of the smoke wreathed figures on the roof began to turn.