A Rancher's Vow

She couldn’t move.

The fire raged closer…its greedy heat licked her.

Stunned, she watched a spark land on the tip of her silk wrap.

Like a fuse, it ignited.

Chapter Three

“Alcina!” Reed cried again as the bay shot through the opening, scattering a handful of men who’d converged around the perimeter of the fire.

Fire…

Her shawl…

And Alcina wasn’t moving!

Fear squeezed his gut as Reed ducked into the corral even as she untangled herself from the material and rolled away from the new burst of flames. Mere seconds later, Reed was at her side, stomping on the burning silk. Voices rose behind him—Pa and Bart shouting orders to control the fire before it spread to the storage shed or bunkhouse.

Alcina was struggling to sit. Doused in the orange glow of the reflected flames, she appeared strangely calm.

“I’ve got you,” he muttered, swooping down and pulling her to her feet. “Can you walk?”

She choked out, “I think so,” but Reed realized she was having trouble breathing.

Cursing, he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of what had grown into a nearly complete ring of flames.

Men and women in their Sunday best had pitched in to fight the fire. A bucket brigade formed from a nearby horse trough and a stream of water from the garden hose hit the flames. People scraped an area ahead of the fire bare so it had nothing to feed on, while others shoveled loose soil over burning grasses or used wet burlap feed sacks to beat back the smaller flames.

And Bart seemed to be everywhere at once. In charge. In control. As usual.

But Bart’s being in the saddle was after the fact. He hadn’t been able to stop that fire from starting. Certain that he’d heard something weird, Reed was wondering exactly what had happened, when he noticed one of the guests leaving alone.

Vernon Martell.

Reed guessed the newcomer didn’t want to get his fancy leather jacket or new boots messed up.

Alcina pushed at his chest. “Reed, you can let me down.”

“If I did, I would probably just have to pick you up again.” His temper flared. “All that dry brush catching fire, whatever possessed you to go into that corral, woman?”

“That’s Alcina to you,” she said icily. “My being a woman has nothing to do with it. I was merely trying to save one of your precious horses from being added to Felice’s platters of barbecue.”

Reed figured Alcina hadn’t intended to be funny, but the black humor of her comment got to him, and he couldn’t help himself. He snorted. He couldn’t stop, either. Not all the way to the ranch house, where he carried her straight inside. The whole time, she lay in his arms, stiff as a cord of wood. Her lips didn’t even twitch once that he could see.

Reaching the deserted kitchen, he set her down and was relieved that she was steady on her feet. He probably could leave her alone in good conscience. After all, everyone was outside fighting the fire.

Everyone but the two of them.

Torn between a sense of duty and pity for the woman who had taken him away from it, Reed took a good long look at his older brother’s childhood friend, the daughter of their pa’s former partner and current enemy.

Grime streaked her dress and dappled her creamy skin. He skittered his gaze away from the top of her bodice where ash marbled her breasts, and let his eyes wander up her long, elegant, black-striped neck. Her hair was soot-laden, as well, and dirty strands tumbled from their pins. A regular bird’s nest, only not so neat.

“You’re a mess,” he stated flatly.

“You don’t look so great yourself,” Alcina grumbled.

Reed rubbed a smudge from her chin and then held it steady so he could gaze deeply into her eyes.

He was looking for a concussion…

What he got was caught.

He didn’t quite know how it happened, but when Alcina’s gray eyes went all wide and soft on him, Reed felt his mouth go dry and his gut knot.

“I—I really am all right,” she said. “Thanks to you. I do thank you for rescuing me.”

Alcina sounded oddly breathless.

Reed felt a little short-winded himself.

Still, he said, “Knowing you, you would have rescued yourself, given another minute or two.” He found himself smoothing a thumb over her grimy cheek. “But I’m glad I could be of service.” A little soot couldn’t hide her sheer beauty and Reed wondered why her looks had never impressed him before. “Dollars to doughnuts you really are all right, but I think you should see Doc—”

“No. Really. I’ll probably be bruised and stiff in the morning, but nothing’s broken,” she insisted. “He’ll merely tell me what I already know to do, sensible things like take a couple of aspirin, get in a hot shower and then apply an ice pack to the sore spots.”

She’d always been that beautiful, Reed guessed…but had she always been so stubborn?

He said, “If you won’t agree to see the doctor, maybe I ought to inspect those sore spots myself.”

Not that he normally worked on people; he usually kept his doctoring skills to ranch animals.

“I don’t think so.” Alcina’s gaze narrowed on him and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Our relationship isn’t that personal.”

Getting her drift, he muttered, “Oh.”

“Yes, oh!” she said with extra emphasis.

Which made him want to check all the more.

He was having a moment of clarity, Reed realized. Normally ambivalent about the women who passed through his life, he was more interested in Miss Alcina Dale than he should be, considering the way her daddy and his pa had been fighting mad at each other for years.

She shifted uncomfortably under his close gaze. “So maybe you’d better get back outside.”

“Right.” He backed off a bit, but suspicions were niggling at him. “Before I go, answer me something, would you?”

“If I can.”

“You beat everyone else to the barn.” He didn’t want to think the fire was anything but an accident, but after the cryptic hints about this and that going wrong on the spread that he’d gotten from Bart, he had to assume the worst. “You didn’t see anything unusual, right?”