“Zeke, listen,” Dena said, her voice hoarse and shaky. “Someone tried to kill me—”
“What? Where?” He was out of bed in a flash, looking around the floor for his jeans. He pulled them on and hopped from one foot to the other, heard her say something about a knife, and a pillow, and the door to the casita.
He pressed the speaker button. “Hang on,” he said, and zipped up. “I’m on my way. Call 911.”
He grabbed his cell phone and took off at a sprint. Damn it. He’d thought he’d seen someone earlier and in his own indignant response to Dena’s assertion he’d ignored it, placed her in danger. He ran harder.
The minute he burst through the back door of the hacienda he smelled the acrid smoke and scanned the perimeter of the property then back to the casita. Smoke curled up from behind it, somewhere near the bathroom.
Dena. He couldn’t see any flames, but there was an eerie glow behind the building. Was she inside? His bare feet slapped on the path as he ran.
A horse whinnied. They’d have smelled the smoke. There’d be bedlam soon. When he got to the casita, Dena was in a pair of boxers and a tank top, attaching the hose to the hose bib.
“Oh, Zeke, I didn’t know…the fire,” she said, and waved one hand around. “He must have come back and lit it. I just smelled the smoke after I hung up with you, and then I ran outside to wait, and I saw this.”
Her eyes were wide and scared as she looked toward the back of the casita. He grabbed the hose, turned the faucet full on, and ran.
“Call 911 again,” he yelled over his shoulder, and tossed his cell phone to her. “Get fire trucks.”
He sprinted across the garden dragging the hose. Flames met him at the rear of the casita; damn fire was spreading, and he shaded his face from the heat. He sprayed the water over the nearest flames, but they were heading fast toward the back wall of the casita. The roof was Spanish tile and pretty heat resistant, and it would slow the fire down some.
Dena ran around the side of the casita. “Fire trucks are on their way. Is there another hose somewhere?”
He tried to reassemble his thoughts, aimed the stream of water to the center of the blaze. “Yeah, in the stables. If this spreads, they’ll be the next thing to go, they’re all wood.”
“I’ll let the horses into the back pasture,” Dena said.
“Dena,” he yelled, above the crackle of the flames, his throat parched from the heat and the smoke. “Close the front door to the stables before you open the back door.”
The last thing he needed were horses running in this direction. She raised a hand in acknowledgement and ran.
****
Dena got the horses out, dragged the hose from the stables, propped it in the branch of a tree and angled the stream toward the nearest flames on the opposite side of Zeke. She ran back to the stables, emptied out the bucket that held the horse’s treats, grabbed one of the workers bandanas and put it over her mouth and tied it in back.
She ran to the pool and filled the bucket with pool water and carried it, water sloshing over her legs, to the rear of the casita where she tossed it onto the walls.
Zeke was wild eyed. He’d climbed onto the roof and was hosing down the wall from the top. He was barefoot, and she knew the heat that would be on those tiles, but he was making good progress. His wiry body was silhouetted against the dark of the sky, and the glow from the fire. She ran back and forth to the pool, dragging bucket after bucket of water, not knowing what else to do.
Sirens sounded, but she couldn’t see lights. They must be a couple of miles away. She pulled up the bandana. “Get down, Zeke,” she yelled. “It’s getting too hot up there.”
He raised a hand. She took in a ragged breath and coughed, replaced the bandana. Her chest was tight. Her feet ached from the roughness of the pavement, but she refused to slow down.
Zeke moved across the roof, closer to the back edge. There was a crack of timber on the other side, and he went down onto his knees with a loud curse.
“Zeke,” she yelled.
She couldn’t see him. Her eyes stung from the heat, and the smoke,