Read Online Short-Straw Bride by Karen Witemeyer - Free Book Online Page B

entrance.
    Tightening her grip on the gun, Meredith bit her lip and followed. “Anyone there?” she called.
    The only answer came from the mule, Samson, which was still kicking up a fuss. The milk cow was nervous, too, sidestepping and moaning an occasional complaint. As Meredith strained to hear any evidence of a human threat, her ears picked out another sound altogether—a muffled crackling from within the barn.
    Hurrying forward, Meredith straddled the bottom fence rail and squeezed her body through the opening between the slats, then ran to Sadie’s side. A blast of heat hit her face when she crossed in front of the doorway.
    Greedy flames were climbing the interior walls.
    The thugs had lit the inside of the barn! Anger surged through Meredith’s veins as she hiked up her skirts and sprinted to her bucket line. Travis and his brothers had no way of knowing that their barn was afire when they set off after Roy’s men, so they’d be in no hurry to return. Capturing the men responsible would take precedence. Which left Meredith alone to fight the blaze.
    In case Travis wasn’t too far afield to hear a warning shot and grasp its meaning, Meredith fired the final shell from her shotgun and dropped the weapon on the far side of the trough. She grabbed two of the full pails she’d prepared earlier and walked as fast as she could without sloshing too much water over the edges.
    â€œOf all the times to have an uneven gait,” Meredith grumbled. The moment the words left her mouth, her right foot hit a divot in the earth and water splashed onto her shoe. With a grimace, she redirected her path but didn’t slow her pace.
    Once in the barn, she maneuvered to the east wall, where the fire seemed to be the strongest. She tossed the bucket contents onto the burning wood, rejoicing at the hiss of dying flames. But in an instant, new ones rose to take their place.
    Meredith ran back to the trough. “Lord, help me make a difference. Please. It’s not right for good men to suffer on a wicked man’s whim.”
    Back and forth she ran. Dumping water over and over until the trough was nearly dry. Her arms felt like rubber, and her back screamed at her to stop. Her lungs burned from the smoke and heat, but she refused to quit.
    Wiping a soot-covered arm across her brow, she turned away from the barn to inhale a deep breath of clean air. Then, ignoring the weariness that threatened to claim her, Meredith dropped a blanket into the trough and soaked up the last of the water. She’d beat out what flames she could, then refill the buckets at the pump. Surely the Archers would return soon.
    Circling well out of the reach of Samson’s hooves, Meredith trudged back into the barn and turned her attention to the west wall. She slapped at the flames with the wet blanket, but they seemed to tease her, dancing upward, out of her reach.
    Then, as if a furnace door had suddenly swung wide, light flashed above Meredith’s head and heat swooped down on her in a massive wave.
    Lord, have mercy.
    Fire had exploded across the hayloft.

    Mitchell’s men had escaped. Every last one of them. Travis glared at the cut wire that left a gaping hole in his boundary fence and ground his palm into the saddle horn. If it hadn’t been so dark, things might have been different. But Archers knew better than to endanger a horse by racing over rough terrain at night.
    Would there be another attempt? Without Meredith to warn them next time, Travis held little hope they’d be as successful in thwarting Roy Mitchell’s efforts.
    â€œLook at the bright side—they didn’t get the barn, and none of us were injured in the fray.” Crockett’s quiet statement seeped into Travis. He shifted his focus from the damaged fence to the three hale-and-hearty brothers congregated around him.
    â€œYou’re right.” Travis cleared his throat, buying time to squirrel away his own