Panic filled her when the smoke became overwhelming. When she looked back and saw flames, she reached a whole new level of terror. She opened the door and looked down at the moving ground.
Not knowing what else to do, she jumped out and found herself rolling in the field as the combine continued moving forward with smoke billowing from the undercarriage and cabin.
Fear driving her on, she leapt to her feet and began running, looking back over her shoulder to see the combine light up on fire, and the wheat field go up like a torch. The flames reached out toward her like demonic fingers, moving closer and closer. What if she ended up burned to a crisp in this giant wheat field?
That would be the perfect ending to her perfect life, she thought as she tried to run as fast as she could through the field, disoriented as the smoke swirled all around her. Not taking the time to look back over her shoulder again, she ran as fast as she could, the smell of the smoke making her cough and causing her lungs to burn.
Then she tripped and went skidding face first into a cut row. It was the end. Struggling to her feet again, she glanced around — the wrong move.
The fire was right on top of her, flames only a few feet away. Screaming, she began running again. Was it too late already?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Do you smell something?”
Colt looked over at Tony as the two men walked from the barn. He had his own fields to harvest today, but instead of hopping into a combine and blaring his favorite country tunes, he found himself once again at the Ponderosa Pines Ranch.
Colt was bowled over by the transformation he’d seen in Brielle. Sure, he knew that much of the way she’d behaved when she’d first arrived had been an act, but she still hadn’t known a thing about running a ranch. This last month, though, she’d soaked up everything he was telling her, and she’d learned eagerly and efficiently. When Tony told him she’d decided to take out one of the combines and harvest a wheat field, he’d laughed. Not at her, but with delight.
She was doing an excellent job of learning how to run the ranch, and she wasn’t happy just sitting idly by on the couch anymore. She was getting her hands dirty and she was earning the respect of her employees.
Wait. Yeah, Colt did smell something. “What is that?”
“It smells like burning rubber.”
The two men picked up the pace and looked over the ranch. One of the combines seemed to be smoking.
“What the hell?” Tony exclaimed.
The two men stood in shock for a few seconds, neither of them moving as one of the wheat fields slowly began smoldering. Next, they saw flames shoot from the bottom of the combine, setting the smolder to a full-fledged blaze, and then the door to the combine opened and out rolled Brielle.
“Is she trying to get herself killed?” Tony took out his cell phone to call out an SOS to all local ranchers.
Colt watched the combine go up in a fiery ball while still moving in slow circles in the dry wheat field. It wouldn’t take long for this blaze to get out of control.
It took him a moment to find his voice again. “Call the fire department,” he shouted to one of the men outside the barn, and then he was sprinting toward the field as fast as he could, because even though Brielle was running away from the fire, she wasn’t going fast enough. The blaze was in a hurry to catch her, and there was no way Colt was going to let that happen.
Leaping over a ditch, he made it to the field just in time to see Brielle face-plant, then get back up off the ground and scream. By now the field was ruined, and in the distance Colt could hear the sounds of the engines as several ranchers bringing their fire tenders in — huge diesel trucks with mammoth containers filled with water in the beds, basically private fire trucks.
One of the hands already had the Ponderosa Pines fire tender out on the field and was spraying away, but it wouldn’t be enough to contain the blaze. He continued doing what he could as a couple of neighbors arrived and then the trucks soon surrounded the field. Men were jumping out to pull out the hoses and begin pumping thousands of gallons of water onto the blaze in hopes of keeping it to one field.
As those trucks began hosing the wheat, even more smoke appeared, and Colt lost sight of Brielle for a few seconds. Shouting her name did him no good, so he ran forward at full speed, making himself just about the only person running into the fire instead of away from it.
“Get out of there!” Martin Whitman shouted as he sprayed water at the leaping flames less than fifty yards in front of Colt.
“Can’t. Brielle’s out here,” Colt shouted back. A huge plume of smoke covered his vision again, and Martin disappeared from view. Shouting for Brielle again, he heard another scream and he changed direction.
Someone upstairs must have had both their backs, because the smoke cleared in front of him just in time for him to see Brielle running forward, her eyes shut, water running down her soot-covered face. She tripped again, but Colt reached her just in time to catch her.
There was no time for words. The blaze was less than twenty yards away from them now, and the smoke was so thick, they’d be lucky to make it to safety. Holding his breath, Colt lifted her into his arms and rushed from the field just as the last couple of rancher fire trucks arrived and finished the circle on the field, all of their hoses pushing out water full force.
By the time Colt got Brielle back to the barn, the soot on her face had streaks in it from her eyes watering, and her coughing had died down just a little as fresh air filled her lungs. Colt could hear the town’s fire engines rushing toward the field, but the ranchers already had the blaze under control. Still, it would be good if the paramedics looked at Brielle. She’d taken in a lot of smoke.
“What happened?” she asked, looking up at Colt with wide, fearful eyes.
“I don’t know. Somehow your combine caught fire,” he said. “The men have made sure that the fire won’t leap to other fields, and soon they’ll be able to go in and look at the machine to try to figure out how this began.”
When Hawk Winchester arrived in an ambulance, hopped out with his bag, and came rushing forward, Colt tensed just a bit, but that was ridiculous. Hawk was his friend.
“We got the call from Andy. It looks like you guys did an excellent job containing the blaze,’ he said as he approached. “Are you okay, Brielle?”
Brielle nodded, but when she tried to speak, she started coughing again, so she sat silently as Hawk had her open her mouth and looked at her throat. After he put an oxygen mask on her for a few moments, Hawk removed it and asked a few more questions. This time she was able to answer.