Coffee With You: Small Town Romance

Chapter Five

**Not edited or proofread!**

Drew

I jerked awake to my phone ringing in my pocket. With a grunt, I pulled it out, my bleary eyes staring at the screen.

Crap. It was Alan, the fire chief.

"Yeah?" I grunted, my voice thick with sleep. I didn't want to wake Kaecee, but I knew he wouldn't call me on my days off unless he really needed my help.

"Got a fire out of control. Could really use your help. I'm getting ready to head out now."

I sat up at that. "Give me five minutes," I told him. "Let Chase know to not have anyone pull me over. I'm on my way to the station."

I hung up and jumped out of bed, rushing to get dressed. I'd crashed as soon as I'd gotten home at three this morning. Kaecee and I had spent the night star gazing and talking about what we wanted out of the future.

And looking at the clock now, I realized I'd only gotten an hour's worth of sleep.

"Jesus," I muttered.

When I got to the station, Alan and I jumped into a truck together and rushed off to wherever this fire was at. Looking at the GPS, I cursed when I realized it was right on the edge of Grayson's property. The poor man couldn't catch a break, I swear.

"Any idea who started it?"

Alan shook his head. "Kids were having a party. My guess is a bonfire got out of control."

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. When I was growing up, we knew and understood fire safety. It was too windy to be having any kind of bonfire. These kids were destroying people's livelihoods.

"We're going to Grayson's place. We're going to beat it back while the other crew works on the other side. Hopefully we can have this contained in a few hours."

I nodded in agreement. I was sure hoping so, too.

~*~*~

When we got to Grayson's place and down in the bottom field, I was surprised to see Kaecee standing in a pair of leggings that clung perfectly to her bottom and thighs and a sweatshirt. She was covered head to toe in soot, and her hair was a tangled mess.

"Oh, thank God," she breathed when she saw me. "It's bad. And it's spreading too fast."

Alan and I were already unwinding hoses. "Get back," I told her.

Farrah grabbed her arm, a bandana over her nose to protect her breathing since she was pregnant. I wouldn't have had her out here in the first place, but God knew that woman did whatever she wanted.

"Come on," she told Kaecee. "They've got it from here."

Grayson marched over to her, his face a storm. "Both of you get up to the house," he ordered. Farrah glared at him and opened her mouth, but he gripped the back of her neck and rested his forehead on hers, shutting her up. "Farrah, please. Just go up to the house, baby."

Something in his eyes had her obeying, and with a kiss, she and Kaecee walked up to the house, weariness clear in the way they held their bodies.

"Didn't want her to see what you're going to see," he told me.

Oh, boy.

"What happened?" I asked him as I sprayed water into the treeline.

"Dead animals. Burnt alive. The noise of them bellowing is what woke me and the ranch hands up. We couldn't save them. They were surrounded and already burning by the time we got out here. All I could do was just put them out of their misery."

"How many?"

"Seven that I know of. Got two ranch hands doing a count now for this field. We'll be moving them into another field once this dies down some and gets more in control."

"Go," I told him. I knew how important the livestock was. "Get them out of this field. Alan and I can handle this."

He nodded, tipped his hat at me, and whistled, rounding up his cowboys.

I stared back at the flames we were slowly pushing back. He was worried about Farrah seeing them, but I knew enough about Kaecee to know this would hurt her, too. It was better if they didn't know.