Within moments of catching her, both feet steady and not even a wrench to his shoulder, Saul and Mark clambered up onto the remaining and precarious porch roof.
Pep was clinging to him, arms around his neck and legs around his hips. She was breathing hard, her breath hot on his neck.
“Jack,” she said. “Jack.”
“Let us take her,” Mark said. “Come on,” he added when Jack didn’t let go. “This roof’s going to collapse, buddy. Let us take her.”
He loosened his hold and Saul and Mark grabbed her, holding her and leading her to the edge of the roof. He couldn’t even focus on her complaints.
“Come on, Jack!” Saul shouted. “Get down from there!”
He was numb. His legs rooted to the spot.
Some time later, maybe seconds, maybe hours, he heard Deputy Lewis’s voice. “Stand back, people! Medics are here. Two ambulances.”
They were taking her away? In an ambulance?
He moved to the edge of the roof.
Saul reached out to help him down, but Jack bypassed him and jumped.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Is she all right?”
“Take it easy, she’s okay. They’re taking her to hospital. They have to check her out.”
But he hadn’t had a chance to speak to her. He pushed Saul away, took three strides, then halted. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, buddy,” Mark said. “We understand.”
“It’s all right,” Saul said. “You’re worried. Just like we’d be.”
“That was something else,” Mark said quietly as Jack walked away.
There were two ambulances over by the camp ground, lights flashing. He headed for them; for Pep.
A second later he came nose to nose with a reporter he recognized as being a Portal employee. The man’s eyes were wide, glazed with excitement and disbelief. “Mr. Shepperd! Can we have your take on what just happened?”
“Don’t you ever let up?” Jack said, scowling before pushing past him.
“I’m hoping you’re not going to give me any trouble,” Deputy Lewis said, taking Jack firmly by the arm.
Jack swayed, lost of all reason for a moment.
“Medic!” the deputy called and within thirty seconds Jack was being led away.
“Where’s Pep?” he asked when they got him to the steps of one of the two ambulances. “Pepper,” he said to the deputy. “Where is she?”
“Struggling as much as you are.”
The second ambulance took off and Jack’s heart took a bashing. “I need to get to my truck. I need to follow her.”
“Not happening,” Deputy Lewis said.
“But I don’t know how she is!”
“She’s in the best hands. Rest up, would you? I want you checked over.”
“I don’t need to be checked over. I’m standing. I’m breathing. I’m not hurt!” What the hell else did they want from him?
“Jack Shepperd!”
He started at the sound of Marie’s voice.
“Get in that ambulance and let these good men do what they do best or you’ll be answering to me.”
“Marie—”
She put her hands on his shoulders, leaned into him and whispered in his ear. “Don’t make me force you. You know I will, and you know I can.” She kissed his cheek. “God bless you.”
Jack closed his eyes, tiredness making him succumb to her pleading. “I just want to see Pep,” he said as a medic took his arm.
He hauled himself up and entered the ambulance. With so many forceful personalities around him it was the only way he saw himself getting free of them all.
He allowed them to take his jacket off, then reeled up when one of the medics sliced through his bow tie.
“Dammit—that was rented!”
They were about to take scissors to his shirt when he stood. “I can do it myself.”
They took his blood pressure—normal. They took his temperature—normal.
He put up with all their administrations until he couldn’t take it any longer and bounded from the gurney. “You can back off now,” he said, and slipped on his shirt.
“So you keep saying,” the medic said, shaking his head. “Unbelievable night,” he added before turning to collect his gear.
Jack made his way down the steps and onto firm ground where he felt more like himself, yet completely unlike himself.
“Unbelievable all right,” Deputy Carl Lewis said, frowning. “I’ve heard about this kind of thing. I’ve seen it, to some extent. But that was the most incredible thing I’ve witnessed in my thirty years on the force.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his eyes.
“Superhuman strength,” the deputy continued. “The power to lift a burning vehicle to free a trapped child. Or catch a woman as she throws herself out of the top story window of a haunted house that’s on fire but not on fire. A house that was charred and broken until half an hour ago.” He glanced up to the house, which, like he said, was back to being Daybreak Lodge. Intact. Unburned. Whole.
Jack sighed. “I did what anybody would do.”
The deputy threw him a laugh that sounded genuinely amused. “And this is Calamity Valley, where not much out of the usual happens.”
Jack grunted. “Any news on Pep?”
“She’s on her way to the hospital in Amarillo. I needed her to go. You understand that, don’t you? She could have hit her head or fractured a bone. She might have suffered internal injuries.”
And Jack? He didn’t even have a bruised rib. Not a scratch. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with him. Except for his heart. That was hurting big-time.
“Guess you could call,” Deputy Lewis said, checking his watch. “They should be there by now.”
“I’ll do that.”
The deputy left him and walked over to where his officer was standing watch over D’Pee, Slick, and a number of Portal reporters who’d gotten themselves involved in the bust-up half a minute before the cops arrived.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
“I want my lawyer!” D’Pee said.
“You’ll no doubt be getting one,” the deputy responded. “It’s not my place to sort out the issues between you and the Texas Portal, but it will be my pleasure to take you all in for disorderly behavior, not to mention the punch to the jaw I received when trying to restrain your associate here, Mr. Slick Wilson.”
Jack couldn’t care less what happened to them. He had other things on his mind.
Ralph sauntered over, looking a bit uncertain of his welcome. Probably because Jack was scowling, as he had been for the last half hour while everyone fussed over him, asking him how he felt or if anything hurt, when all he wanted was to know that Pep was okay.
“How are you feeling?” Uncle Ralph asked.
“Like I wished people would stop asking.”
“No use getting pissed, Jack. Everyone’s excited. There was more than one fire put out here tonight.”
“Yeah, well.” Jack rotated a shoulder. He still felt the power in his limbs but wasn’t going to mention it. It was true. Something had given him a weird, superhuman strength. No way would he have caught her otherwise. Even though he hadn’t thought about that in the minutes he was telling her to jump. He hadn’t cared if she broke every bone in his body when she landed on him. So long as he cushioned her fall. That was all that had gone through his head—save her.
“I’m going home,” he said, picking up his hat from the ambulance step and fixing it on his head.
“Your tent’s right behind you.”
“I’m going to the ranch.”
“So it’s home now, is it?”
Jack paused. “I don’t know. It’s just where I’m going.” If he stayed out here so would the press, pestering him for the hows and the whys.
How could he possibly explain it? He didn’t know himself.
Ralph cleared his throat. “I might be out all night,” he said, a little red in the face. “Maybe for quite a few nights. Marie’s been talking about building a house. Maybe not far from the signposts, so she’s close to all three towns.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll set down my saddle wherever she is. I’ve a hankering to open that leatherwork shop too.”
Jack nodded. “I’m pleased for you.”
“I’m not out of the woods yet. Marie’s been a difficult woman to pin down.”
Jack found a smile but couldn’t keep it on his face for long. “I guess they all are.”
In the few minutes it took to make his way to his pickup, skirting around the sidelines of the groups still talking up the event, all of his thoughts seemed like memories. Pep in the ranch house kitchen, smiling like she belonged there. Pep’s mouth beneath his when he’d kissed her after chasing her around the back of the barn after she’d stolen his keys. Pep in his arms as he shared her bedroll. Then Pep at the window of Daybreak Lodge, looking for all the world like she trusted him—the man who’d let her out of his sight and put her in that precarious position.
He got into the pickup, glad that the press hadn’t noticed his departure, and called the hospital. After a couple of minutes, he was put through to a nurse who must be in charge of the ward.
“Are you a relative?” she asked in a perfunctory manner.
He could lie, but it wasn’t in his makeup.
“We only give out information to close relatives,” she continued, in a tone that suggested she recited the same spiel day in and day out. “Parents. Siblings. Husbands.”
Well, he definitely wasn’t that. “I’m a friend.” He could have said close friend. He could have said lover, but he didn’t. Because he could also have said he was the man who was supposed to have been protecting her and hadn’t been able to do that one simple thing.