out the cell tower generator at ground level, which meant it could be a long time before phone service was restored.
Shannon tossed her phone aside and gripped the steering wheel. An overwhelming anxiety began to build up inside her, waking up every fear she had that something terrible was going to happen, that she would fail, that the animals she was responsible for wouldn’t make it out alive. Then she heard Luke’s voice inside her head.
The more stressed out you get, the less effective you are. Take it easy, and things will turn out fine.
She took a deep, calming breath and prayed that he was right.
Luke was still an hour and a half outside of Rainbow Valley when he realized something ahead was terribly wrong. At first he thought the billows of gray near the horizon must be clouds, only to realize there was a faint orange glow beneath them.
He clicked off his CD player and turned on the radio. A wildfire had been spotted early that morning north of Hardison County. The deadly combination of dry brush and strong winds had escalated the blaze so quickly that five counties to the southeast had already received evacuation orders. Danforth County was one of them, and Rainbow Valley was dead center in the middle of it.
Luke grabbed his phone, his heart beating wildly. He dialed Shannon’s number. It rang three times, and then he lost the call. He tried again and got nothing. He tried Freddie Jo and the same thing happened. He had no idea if the cell towers were overloaded with people making calls, or whether only emergency calls were being allowed through.
Shannon had to be evacuating the animals. To where, he didn’t know. All he knew was how worried she had to be at that moment. He hit the gas and crept his truck up to eighty. Anything to get back to Rainbow Valley as fast as he could, because he knew she would do whatever was necessary to get those animals out of there or die trying.
He just wanted to make damned sure it didn’t come to that.
On their second trip to the shelter, Shannon and Angela worked their way up to the bigger dogs. They loaded as many of them as they could into Angela’s SUV and the stock trailer. As they headed back to the vineyard, Shannon watched the horizon in her rearview mirror and listened to the radio. The wind was fierce, fanning the flames, and the weatherman said the fire was now moving fifteen miles an hour. Shannon did the math and knew they had to hurry.
On their third trip, they got the rest of the dogs out. When they arrived back at the vineyard, Shannon told Angela to leave her SUV there and ride with her for the last trip to the shelter since the only animals left were the horses, the llamas, and Daisy the donkey. One more trip, and they were done. But as they headed back to the shelter, Shannon could actually see flames on the horizon.
“It’s getting close,” she told Angela. “Once we’re there, we’ll need to hurry. But stay calm. The horses will read your mood, and if you’re too shook up, they might not get into the trailer. Okay?”
Angela nodded.
“And if we have to come back for any reason after that, you’re staying at the vineyard.”
“You know I’m eighteen, right?”
“Yes, and I also know your father would kill me if anything happened to you.”
When they got to the shelter, they grabbed lead ropes from the barn and put the llamas into the trailer. They were going back for the horses when it struck Shannon that one was missing.
“Manny,” she said. “Where’s Manny?”
She scanned the pasture anxiously, all too aware of the dark gray clouds of smoke that were moving closer.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” Angela said. “He must have gone into the trees.”
“I’ll have to go find him. Can you get everybody else loaded up?”
“No problem.”
Shannon raced into the barn, dumped some grain into a bucket, and ran into the pasture in the direction of the trees. She could see flames towering in the distant treetops, chewing up the landscape so fast it wasn’t going to be long before they overtook the shelter.
When she reached the trees, she forced herself to walk quietly down the overgrown path when she really felt like running, but the last thing she wanted to do was chase Manny away. Slinging branches right and left, she made her way down the