Read Online Firelight at Mustang Ridge by Jesse Hayworth - Free Book Online Page A

snacks.”
    â€œWe’re going to need ’em,” Midas said. “Get a load of this place. It’s a disaster area.”
    â€œSo the mayor tells us.” Axyl frowned at the barn, where streaks of gray paint and white trim were interspersed with blackened char and blasted-out windows. “But the plan is to have the riding school back up and running by winter.”
    â€œThe sooner the better,” Sam agreed, struck once more by the randomness of the destruction. The fields on one side of the drive were untouched, with even the fine layer of ash mostly blown away and horses and cattle grazing like nothing had happened. On the other side, though, the earth was black and barren, thefencing turned skeletal. “Come on.” He climbed out and snagged a tool belt and a sledge from the back of the truck. “I’m betting there are some smashables with our names on them.”
    Sure enough, after a quick check at the food tent, where the mayor and her terrifyingly efficient assistant were keeping things on track and handing out safety gear and lectures on using it, they split up to the spots that needed extra hands.
    Boots thumping on the platform that had been cobbled together to span the burned-out wreck of the front porch, Sam stepped through an empty doorframe into the main house. He found himself in what used to be a sitting room, with a mangled flat screen on the wall over a stone fireplace, and rectangles of less-burned hardwood where couches and chairs used to be. The bulk of the debris had been cleared, but a few odds and ends remained. A soggy stuffed dog with only one eye. A half-melted toy car. A single pink bunny slipper, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.
    â€œDamn,” he muttered behind his respirator. “Eerie.” So was being alone in there. Most everybody else was working on tearing down the charred remains of the outbuildings, clearing the way for the big barn raising that was being planned, which left the main house feeling empty and strange.
    As he moved deeper into the house, past a cordoned-off bathroom where nothing was left except a whole lot of porcelain shrapnel, a
thud-crash
echoed from a back room, followed by a few unintelligible words in a woman’s voice. Following the sounds down a hallway that was mostly intact, save for a thick layer of soot on thewalls, he stepped through a wide archway into a big, bright kitchen, where sunlight poured through to illuminate broken tiles, burned-out cabinets, a snakelike mess of dead wiring. There, a dark-haired woman swung a wood-handled sledgehammer like it was the bottom of the ninth and she was aiming for the walk-off homer as she nailed a caved-in section of the scorched Formica countertop.
Wha-bam!
    And darned if he didn’t recognize her right off the bat. The book-wielding, revolver-toting beauty had her back to him, and should have been unrecognizable in a yellow hard hat, clear safety glasses, earmuffs, and alien-looking respirator, but he recognized her just the same. Mostly because he’d thought about her off and on, wondering how she was doing, and whether he should ride over and see for himself. Turned out luck was with him, though, because here she was.
    Before he could step through the door and say hi, she lifted the sledge over her head and hollered, “Jerk!”
Wha-bam
went the sledge against the countertop. “Idiot!”
Rattle-slam
, and a cabinet door went flying. “Stupid to care.”
Crash-bang!
    â€œUh-oh,” Sam said under his breath, realizing that he had walked into something more than community service.
    But then she made a muffled noise and rubbed one wrist with the opposite hand. “Ow. Damn it.”
    Just go,
he told himself.
She wants to be alone
. Heck, she thought she
was
alone. But she was hurting, too, and he couldn’t just walk away from that. So, summoning a look that he hoped said
I just got here, didn’t see a thing,
he