to Denver without going back first to tell her how sorry he was for the things he’d said. To tell her what a fool he’d been for leaving.
To tell her he loved her, too.
He pulled out of the convenience store parking lot, made a U-turn under the freeway overpass, and headed back to Rainbow Valley.
A few hours later, Shannon’s phone rang. At first she ignored it, willing whoever it was to go away. Her head throbbed and her body ached and she didn’t want to talk to a solitary soul.
Go away, go away, go away…
It rang again. She fumbled around and grabbed it from her coffee table. Freddie Jo.
God, no. No more sympathy.
She tossed the phone back down again, only to have it ring a third time. Finally she punched the Answer button.
“Freddie Jo?”
“Shannon! Thank God you finally answered!”
At the sound of panic in Freddie Jo’s voice, Shannon swung her legs around on the sofa and sat up. “What’s the matter?”
“Go outside. Look to the north.”
“What?’
“Just go!”
Shannon tossed her phone to the coffee table, yanked on her boots, and went outside. Rita and Tasha and some of the other residents were already there, staring at the horizon. And what Shannon saw there made her stomach turn over with dread.
A wildfire.
“I just saw a report on television,” Rita said. “It’s coming this way, and fast.”
Shannon raced back to her apartment and turned on her television to a local news station. She found out that the fire had started in the early morning hours only forty miles north and was heading their way. High winds and dry conditions were causing it to move at least ten miles an hour, so there was already an evacuation order in place for Danforth County, and that meant Rainbow Valley.
Shannon grabbed her phone and called Eve, who had just heard about it. She told Shannon not to worry about their parents. She would load them up in her truck and take them to their vacation house on Lake Travis where they’d be safe.
Shannon hung up, relieved that Eve was taking care of that. But what about the animals? The shelter was between Rainbow Valley and the fire, which meant it would be threatened first.
For a solid minute, panic overwhelmed her, and she couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Then she took a deep, calming breath and waited for answers to come.
They did.
She called Marc Cordero, and he agreed to let her bring the animals to the vineyard. It was south of Rainbow Valley on the other side of the river. The drought meant the river was down considerably from where it usually was, but it would act as a firebreak for at least a short while if the flames got that far. Marc told Shannon he and his employees who weren’t threatened by the fire were heading into town to help people who couldn’t evacuate themselves, but that Angela was ready and waiting to help her with the animals. He warned Shannon, though, about staying too long with the fire approaching, about taking too many chances if things got bad. Shannon read between the lines. You’d better make sure my daughter comes back all right.
With the town being evacuated, Shannon knew every available truck and trailer would be in service, so she and Angela shouldn’t count on any additional help. That was okay. There was time, as long as they got moving now.
Freddie Jo called Shannon back to tell her Carl was evacuating them from town, so she could help with the animals. Shannon told her to head to the vineyard so she could watch over the animals as she and Angela brought them there. In the meantime, Shannon asked her to call all the shelters she could get in touch with south of Rainbow Valley, asking them to be prepared to take as many animals from the vineyard as they could should it become threatened, too.
Shannon took Goliath and met Angela at the shelter, where they hooked up the stock trailer to Shannon’s truck. Using their assortment of cages, crates, and boxes, they managed to get most of the smaller animals into the trailer and Angela’s SUV on the first trip. As they were driving to the vineyard, though, Shannon was having a hard time getting through to Freddie Jo. Then she lost phone contact altogether. Either there was too much cell activity because of the fire, or calls were being prioritized in favor of emergency services. The worst possible scenario was that the fire had taken