“You OK?” I said.
“Yeah,” Kelly said, but both her and Charlotte were coughing. Not so much that I thought they might collapse and die, but they’d clearly inhaled some smoke. “I don’t know where Bucky is.”
“Inside the house?”
“No, the fire started before I got him in. I heard him barking, and then he just…stopped.”
That at least left the possibility of him being alive. But if my suspicions about the start of this fire were true, the odds weren’t great then either.
“And was the fire an accident?”
“No way,” she said.
“It’s fucking Sean,” I growled, already feeling like murdering this asshole in a gruesome, painful fashion.
The fire department pulled up a second later. One of the firemen hurried over to us while the rest took care of the house.
“Ambulance is on the way,” he said. “Are you all hurt?”
“They are,” I said. “I just got here.”
“We can take them—”
“Make sure they’re protected,” I growled. “I think that this was the cause of an arsonist. An asshole ex.”
It didn’t matter that technically, it was Emily’s ex. The fireman didn’t need a fucking backstory to know that this was not an accident.
“Go find Bucky, Liam,” Kelly said. “Please, do whatever you can.”
“I’m on it.”
“Ma’am, we—”
“I said, I’m on it, you take care of the house best you can.”
The fireman got the picture well enough. Sometimes, it paid being a DOM—even people normally used to having authority tended to bow to you when you spoke strongly enough.
The fireman escorted Kelly and Charlotte over to an oncoming ambulance. Meanwhile, I started looking at everything around the house—where would Sean have come from?
It was unlikely to be at the front. I didn’t know if Kelly had cameras or not, but a place this nice would have had some sort of home security system. The back seemed unlikely, though a little bit less so, given that, as far as I could see, the back only extended to rugged terrain and mountains.
I walked around the perimeter of the place until I saw it.
Footprints.
Footprints not mine, a bit smaller, perhaps someone wearing a size 10 shoe.
Fucking Sean.
They came from the woods on the east side of the house. If Bucky was anywhere…
“Bucky!”
I had to prepare myself for the worst. I hated to see a good dog die, but this wasn’t the time to let myself get wrapped up in the emotions of losing an animal. The only thing that mattered was keeping Kelly, Charlotte, and by extension, Emily, safe. Everything else, while ideally untouched, was secondary.
“Bucky!” I yelled, getting closer to the woods.
I heard no response. Granted, the noise of the firetrucks working behind me made it somewhat difficult to hear, but…
I got to the edge of the woods.
“Bucky!”
I took two steps in, sighed, and bit my lip. I was about to turn around, but I knew how much Bucky meant to Kelly. He might have been secondary to me, but he was not secondary to my primary.
“Buck—”
I heard a whimper. I turned around. Hidden behind the tree, in a spot I wouldn’t have seen from the house, lay Bucky.
He was bleeding and looked dazed, but he was not fatally injured. He needed veterinary attention, but he should live, so long as Sean hadn’t forced poison on him. That seemed unlikely—not because Sean wasn’t capable of such a heinous act, but only because it would have taken more time than it was worth.
“Oh, you little Bucky,” I said, leaning forward and petting him. “Bet you tried to warn Kelly, but that fucking asshole…”
I hoisted him on my shoulders, doing my best to take care of him. His front leg was cut, and he’d probably been smacked in the head by the confusion he seemed to show. I took him back to my truck, laid him in the front, and got inside, ignoring the looks of the first responders.
I got in the car and began driving back to the heart of Breckenridge. As long as Bucky was with me and the two of them were at the hospital, they’d be safe. But Emily…
Well, for a very small window, I had to first take care of my priorities. I found the emergency vet clinic and dropped Bucky off. I told them I’d found him in the woods and to do whatever they needed to take care of him. God help them if they recommended putting him down.
Fortunately, they felt they could treat the shepherd. I then headed to the hospital and found Kelly and Charlotte resting. Surprisingly, they looked fine physically, but Kelly had obviously been shaken. I walked in, kissed her on the forehead, and smiled.
“Dog’s fine,” I said. “Too fucking tough to just die like that. He’s at the emergency vet now.”
“Thank God,” she said. “You have no idea how much that dog means to me.”
Good thing I didn’t leave him to focus on Kelly and Charlotte.
“At this point, I know Sean’s here,” I said. “I don’t care that I don’t have hard proof. Your house doesn’t just go up in flames and your dog doesn’t get hurt because a grizzly bear got an addiction to fire. I’m going to pull in some help to take care of this.”
“And Emily?”
“She’s at her hotel room, loaded up with weapons to take down the entire staff if she has to,” I said. “You’ll be safe here. But your finger had better never leave that call button. We can’t put it past Sean to try and ‘coincidentally’ walk by to send a message to you.”
Kelly nodded. She was holding it together, but I could tell she was struggling in that regard. I wanted to spend time with her, but I also felt an obligation to at least check in on Emily, something that felt more
