Zack’s throat felt hoarse. He’d been screaming Allison’s name while also breathing in smoke and tossing buckets of water. This business of filling five-gallon construction buckets with a garden hose to put out a fire was not just useless, it was exhausting. His arm muscles were permanently contracted and he couldn’t feel his legs anymore.
Cain now held the fire hose and was making progress on one side. Ty, Garza, and Luke were tossing buckets on the other side when Rafe and Nate ran toward the front door with heavy pry bars. Zack dropped his bucket and followed them, meeting Vane along the way. The front door wasn’t engulfed in flames yet, but it was hot as Hades.
“We found these in the hurricane shed.” Rafe took his bar and shoved it behind one of the three heavy planks that had been secured across the double doors.
Nate did the same. Zack stood behind Nate and grabbed the upper part of the bar, while Vane took Rafe’s side.
Rafe held the lower half of his bar. “Pull.”
All the men groaned and, despite the force of four ex–Green Berets, the board refused to budge.
“Again,” Rafe ordered.
Zack lost track of how many times they pulled, but just as his arms were about to fall off, the board moved.
“Again!” Nate yelled.
They strained again and again and again until the board gave way. Nate tossed it aside and they went to work on the second.
Precious moments passed until, finally, this board splintered off.
Then it was onto the third. When it broke in half, they all tumbled down the steps. Zack jumped up and yanked the doors open. The flood of fresh air fed the flames and blocked his view—but not before he saw Allison up on the altar, chopping—like a girl—at a wall.
The fire roared down the aisle, and she turned. When she met his gaze, she ran toward…someone on the floor.
Nate handed him a wet cloth to cover his mouth and nose, and he raced through the flames. He’d forgotten, until that moment, that he was shirtless. The fire was burning the hair off his chest.
Allison reappeared, holding the arm of a limping woman. Isabel?
Heat and smoke blinded him, making everything around him hot and dark. But he didn’t care. Not about Isabel or fire or treasure. All that mattered was Allison. And she was alive.
* * *
Allison struggled to hold on to Isabel and breathe at the same time. The heat burned her face and hair, and her eyes watered. When the door had burst open, all she’d seen were flames and smoke—until Zack appeared with his bare chest, soot-covered muscles, tattooed arms, and his hair undone and smoking, as if it’d been singed. Her wild man.
He wrapped something around his face and forced his way in as if not caring about the flames and smoke and imminent danger. She stumbled off the altar and into the aisle. The pews were burning now, and one of the windows cracked. Smoke swirled, sending her and Isabel to their knees.
“Allison!”
She heard his voice but couldn’t see and couldn’t move. Isabel crawled ahead but Allison’s breath got caught in her dry throat. Panic began and her hands and legs shook.
Suddenly, she was airborne. Someone had picked her up and was carrying her outside. Fire reached for her, heat melted the rubber soles of her sneakers, and the hair on her arms burned off.
“I’ve got you.”
Zack? She wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed her face against his neck. “Isabel?”
She coughed out the word and wasn’t sure he even heard until he said, “We have her too. You saved her.”
* * *
Zack carried Allison toward the rectory, where Rafe had parked his truck. Rafe had Isabel already on the ground, his emergency medical kit out, and was seeing to her wounds. Pete lay nearby, shirt off and a bandage around his chest, eyes closed.
One good thing about ex–Fianna warriors and ex–Green Berets? They had decent combat medic skills.
Zack laid Allison on the ground near Rafe and fell onto his back next to her, his arms wide. The morning light had appeared and he’d hardly realized it.
Nate came over to check Allison, and Zack forced himself upright. “How is she?”
Nate helped her sit so she could cough, and he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Then she drank two bottles of water, four gulps each. “We should get her, Pete, and Isabel medical attention. The women may have suffered smoke inhalation. And Isabel has been shot.”
“I’m okay.” Allison coughed for another thirty seconds.
Zack pulled her into his arms and he could hear her labored breathing.
While Zack held her, Nate took off her sneakers. The soles had melted and he needed to check her feet. They weren’t burned, but they were red, like her arms and the rest of her exposed skin. Even her hair had been singed. “Do you feel faint? Or nauseated?”
“No.” She coughed again. “Emilie?”
“Safe.” Nate brushed her hair out of her face “We need to get you checked out by a doctor. Just to be sure. We have one we trust, but we have to take you to him.”
She burrowed against Zack and shook her head.
Zack glanced at his buddy still lying on the ground. “How’s Pete?”
“He’ll be okay—oh shit.” Nate pointed across the street.
Zack turned to see three men step out of an SUV. “Why is Kells here with Horatio and Fortinbras?”
“Don’t worry.” Nate gripped Zack’s shoulder. “Take care of your woman. I’ll deal with Kells.”
Nate crossed the street, and Kells walked with the warriors who, despite having their hands tied behind their backs, moved freely, with no gags or blindfolds.
Nate and Kells engaged in a convo that required lots of hand motions.
Many minutes later, Allison asked, “Where’s Isabel?”
She moved against his chest and he bit his bottom lip. His skin wasn’t severely burned, but it was sensitive. Like a bad sunburn. Still, no amount of pain would make him release her.
“Rafe tended to her shoulder and Luke took her to the rectory. It’s also used as the part-time sheriff’s office and there’s a one-person cell in there.”
“She’s locked up?”
“Until we get her medical treatment, we need to keep her safe from Remiel and figure out what to do with her.”
Allison flung her arms around his neck. Her tears soothed his skin. He knew, in a then-and-there kind of way, that even if he had to move to Virginia, he was never ever letting her go.