'For now.'
'How can that be?' she wondered.
'No time. It wants loose. Very strong. Pushing hard.'
A glistening beadwork of sweat had appeared on his brow. He chewed his
lower lip, drawing more blood.
Heather raised a hand to touch him, stop him, hesitated, not sure if
touching him would shatter his control.
'We can get it,' he repeated.
Harlan damn near drove the grader into the house, halting the plow
inches from the railing, casting a great crashing wave of snow onto the
front porch.
He leaned forward in his seat to let Jack squeeze out of the storage
area behind him. 'You go, take care of your people. I'll call the
depot, get a fire company out here.'
Even as Jack went through the high door and dismounted from the grader,
he heard Harlan Moffit on the cellular system, talking to his
dispatcher.
He had never known fear like this before, not even when Anson Oliver
had opened fire at Arkadian's service station, not even when he'd
realized something was speaking through Toby in the graveyard
yesterday, never a fear half this intense, with his stomach knotted so
tightly it hurt, a surge of bitter bile in the back of his throat, no
sound in the world but the pile-driving thunder of his own heart.
Because this wasn't just his life on the line.
More important lives were involved here. His wife, in whom his past
and future resided, the keeper of all his hopes. His son, born of his
own heart, whom he loved more than he loved himself, immeasurably
more.
From outside, at least, the fire appeared to be confined to the second
floor.
He prayed that Heather and Toby weren't up there, that they were on the
lower floor or out of the house altogether.
He vaulted the porch railing and kicked through the snow that had been
thrown up against the front wall by the plow. The door was standing
open in the wind.
When he crossed the threshold, he found tiny drifts beginning to form
among the pots and pans and dishes that were scattered along the front
hall.
No gun. He had no gun. He'd left it in the grader. Didn't matter.
If they were dead, so was he.
Fire totally engulfed the stairs from the first landing upward, and it
was swiftly spreading down from tread to tread toward the hallway,
flowing almost like a radiant liquid. He could see well because drafts
were sucking nearly all the smoke up and out the roof: no flames in the
study, none beyond the living-room or dining-room archways.
'Heather! Toby!'
No answer.
'Heather!'
He pushed the study door all the way open and looked in there, just to
