Love's Rescue by Tammy Barley Page B

odd brightness flickered up ahead. When Jess saw where it had risen from, she gasped in horror. Dizzying blackness enfolded her. Jake’s hand clamped fiercely on her arm, and he commanded her, “Stay here!”
    “Fire,” she breathed.
    Flames burst across the front of the Hale house. When Jake was almost to the front gate, Jess defied his firm order. She picked up her skirts and started to run in the same direction. From down the road, her father was scrambling furiously toward the house.
    Jess hesitated at the gate, eyes wide in terror. Jake was already in the yard, turning in a circle to look for any of the servants or family members who might have escaped through the front door. He sprinted left and right to scan the side yards.
    Like the face of the house, the sides were walls of fire. The blaze illumined the neighboring houses, its orange flames mirrored in squares of window glass. Above the house, dense smoke rolled upward with the force of the wind.
    Jess’s hood kept the worst of the heat from her face, but nothing could block out the predatory roar of the fire. Jake ran to her and pulled her back several steps. “I’m going around the house to see if anyone has made it out,” he yelled in her ear. “Stay here!”
    Instead of turning away, Jake glanced over her head, then lunged for the walkway.
    Jess was immobilized by a howl of pure rage. Her father had cleared the fence and was furiously striking Jake as the younger man fought to keep him away from the house. Jess shook her head, tears streaming down her face. Why wouldn’t Jake let him go in? Her father had called her mother and Emma’s names. Jake knew they were in the house. Surely, there was still time to save them! Her father yelled something, swinging at Jake like a madman. Jake struggled to hold him, yelling something in response. Flaming boards were falling to the yard from the rooftop high above. Isaac broke free of Jake’s hold and bolted for the front door. Jess ran after him. If her father couldn’t get to her family, she would! A long timber dropped from the edge of the roof and hit the ground, spreading flames as it tumbled toward her. She screamed and leapt aside, and it crashed into the fence behind her, instantly igniting her mother’s withered roses.
    Jess’s head snapped up. Mother! Emma! Already, one precious minute had flown by. Emma’s nursery window revealed angry spears of flame and billows of smoke within. Above, fast-multiplying flames stabbed through the roof, which shrieked and groaned as it was consumed. Unconsciously, Jess reached up toward her mother, who was dying right this moment, burning. She knew it. In her mind, she could see her trapped upstairs, twisting away from the fire that rolled over her. Rolled over her, devoured, and won.
    Jake threw a thick arm around Isaac’s throat, fighting to drag him back from the inferno. Isaac broke free again and thrust a boot against the front door, scattering blackened boards and flames onto the already burning carpet and stairs.
    A gale screamed past, scattering white-hot embers into the yard and spreading them to other homes, driving the blaze onward. Somewhere above Jess, a window burst. It was too late. Jess ran forward again, this time to stop her father. Then she froze. Her father drove an elbow into Jake’s gut, which loosened the rancher’s hold on his throat. He wrenched free, then faced Jake at arm’s length and shouted at him once more. This time, unbelievably, Jake stepped back and let him go. He let him go.
    For one clear moment, her father faced her with apologetic desperation in his eyes, his cheeks black with soot, the once-elegant black trousers and coat burned in a dozen places. Then he spun and ran into the burning house.
    Sparks fell between Jess and Jake in a shower of embers. The roofline sagged. The front wall near Jess began to give way.
    Her eyes drifted, as if in a dream, to Jake. He darted off the porch and ran toward her as more timbers