Burning Barriers (Barriers Series Book 3) (20 page)

I see Jake’s truck sitting in the parking lot as the evening sky over the mountains begins to darken with storm clouds. The blackness is a sure sign of an impending storm, and I immediately regret not taking my car here, especially if the sky opens up. There’s no telling what might be lingering in those clouds. A typical summer afternoon storm can produce anything from flash floods to golf ball sized hail. The only good part of the weather in Breckenridge is that the storms don’t last for very long.

The minute my hand reaches out to grab the handle to the front door of the fire station, my heart feels like it’s about to jump through my chest. My face instantly flushes, and I have no idea why I’m feeling as though a panic attack is going to transpire any second. This is just Jake. I’ve known him all my life. We love each other, but something isn’t settling right, and I don’t know why. It’s an unnerving feeling that something is about to happen, and I don’t know what it is.

I step into the lobby, and I hear a group of men laughing in what I assume is a lounge or something. The smell of sesame oil instantly makes my mouth water and my stomach growl. Stir-fry has obviously been cooked somewhere in the building. I’ve eaten nothing all day, and I wonder if that’s why I’m so on edge and not feeling right at the moment.

All of a sudden, the laughter from one guy gets louder, and then a guy no older than me walks through the door shouting some crude remark at another person through the door. It takes a moment before he realizes I’m standing at the door, and his expression drops when he realizes that I must have heard him talking about screwing some chick last night.

He runs his hands through his messy blonde locks as he walks in my direction. When he stops just short of me, I see the embarrassment written all over his face. He pushes his hands into the pockets of his navy work pants and leans back, slightly swaying on his feet.

“I’m so sorry about that. We normally don’t have guests in the building, so the front door is usually locked, and we listen for the doorbell. One of the guys must have forgotten to lock it a little while ago. Regardless, I’m Regan. What can I do for you?”

“Sorry… I’m Lucy. Lucy Wyatt,” I say as I extend my hand toward him. His eyes narrow as he processes the name and shakes my hand at the same time. I’m sure Jake has mentioned my name recently to the guys here. I help him process it a little faster when I pull back my hand. “I’m here to see Jake.”

“Oh! Yeah… okay… you’re his girlfriend. Come on out back. He’s cooking dinner.”

Wait. Did he just say ‘girlfriend’? I follow Regan to the other room while my head still spins over the word ‘girlfriend’. I mean, I guess in some ways it would appear that we are together, but we haven’t exactly slapped a label on it just yet. I don’t even know where we will be in a week, let alone a month from now.

My feet stop as I pass through the doorway and see the makeshift kitchen and living room filled with a number of men. Some of them are slightly older and not nearly as fit as they probably should be. I hear the snap of food on the stovetop, and my head shifts to see Jake’s back turned to me. Regan marches over to him and slaps him on the back, making him jump slightly. Jake’s head tilts around to see me standing nervously. I pick at my nails and wiggle my toes around in my shoes, two key elements that tell me I’m anxious about being here. I look around aimlessly until I see the peppers and onions cooking in a wok with noodles. Chicken sizzles in another pan as steam rises into the cooking hood. Everything smells so good that I almost forget why I’m here or that Regan just called me Jake’s girlfriend.

“Hey, Luce,” Jake says, making his way over to me before leaning down to give me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Oohs’ and ‘Awws’ mix with coughs throughout the room. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting to see you.” I run my fingers through my hair as I look up into Jake’s eyes and wonder how the hell I can ever choose to leave him again. He’s been my heart and soul since I was a teenager. His arms snake around my waist as he turns off the knobs on the stove so the food doesn’t burn.

“I came by to see where you work. I hope I’m not intruding. I’ve been home for a while, and it just dawned on me that I haven’t met anyone you work with.” I blink timidly before running my hands around his waist to pull him closer.

“Well, you’ve met Regan.” Jake points as Regan waves from the sofa while the other guys continue to watch some comedy that has them all laughing. “These other guys are Grady, Ron, and Chip, and that old fart in the corner covering the call station is Trip.”

Chatter over the static-filled speakers prompts Trip to pick up the phone and start talking to someone on the other line. Jake returns his attention to me as everyone else has refocused their attention on the movie. He pushes a piece of hair from my face and pulls me back into his embrace. “Okay, Luce, what’s the real reason you’re down here? You’re acting all fuckin’ nervous, and I know it probably has to do with the letter I left you this morning. So, tell me. What’s going on?”

As I attempt to say that I can’t stand the thought of leaving him, but I don’t know if I can stay either, I’m interrupted by the guy at the call station asking for Jake. At the same moment, Jake’s cell phone starts ringing in his pocket, and he quickly pulls away from me to answer the call. I hear him ask his mom how things went today with the investment, and then his voice bellows through the entire room.

Trip yells for Jake again from the other side of the room. “Jake! I really think you need to hear this!”

Jake instantly ends the phone call, and the alarms in the station sound at a deafening level. Pushing my fingers into my ears, I try to hear what’s going on. Jake is moving frantically, kicking off his shoes and beginning to undress while all the other guys except for Trip are running for the door.

“Jake! What’s going on?” I shout so he can hear me.

“Luce, I have to go. It’s bad… really bad.”

“I didn’t think you were working today. Where are you going?”

“Luce! That was my mom. I’ve got to go. I need to get changed and head out with the crew.”

“What do you mean? What does your mom calling have to do with you taking off with the crew?” I continue to shout loudly so he can still hear me over the blaring alarm. The chaos surrounds me as a million moving parts are occurring. Off in the bay area where the fire truck is parked, all the other guys are feverishly throwing things around.

Jake moves around me to the door and pulls his truck keys from the pocket of his jeans. “Take my truck and head home, Luce. I don’t know what time I’ll be home.”

“Jake, what’s going on? Why are you acting like this?”

“Because Ten Peaks is on fire, Luce!” He snaps at me. “Mom just called because the entire barn is engulfed in flames. That’s everything I have going up in flames right now. I’ve got to go. Just take the truck home, okay?”

He rushes over to me and places a cold peck of a kiss on my forehead.
And just like that, he takes off through the door, leaving me behind while his words still remain in the room.

Everything I have going up in flames.

As I choke back the tears that threaten to fall, I whisper under my breath, “I guess I’m not your everything. Am I, Jake?” I drop the keys to his truck with his shoes and jacket onto the dining room table and walk out the same way I came in.

I don’t look back. I hear the sounds of the fire engines roaring down the main road toward the ranch, and my heart breaks for Andrea and Jake. The sirens scream through the streets, alerting everyone around of the impending doom
.
I know what this means for them. I just don’t know where I’ll fit into the picture after this.

One step after the other brings me back to my parents’ house. Thunder cracks overhead as I walk up the front steps and into the house. When I shut the door behind me, I hear the sound of Dad’s guitar. I walk to the back door and glance at the sight before me. Dad strums on his guitar an acoustic version of “Wild
Horses”
by the Indigo Girls as Mom taps her fingers gently against her wine glass. I hear her singing along to the chorus when Dad feels the depth within the song. It’s soft yet powerful at the same time. His foot taps the ground as his head bobs with each note.

My heart suddenly skips, and a lump forms in my throat. I swipe away a stray tear that slowly trickles from my eye because I realize how much they love each other. They complete each other in ways I never thought possible. They are everything I want out of life. Love. Peace. Happiness. Why are those three simple things so hard for me to grab? I’ll tell you why. Because life likes to throw me curveballs every single day of my life.

As Dad strums the last notes on the guitar, thunder rumbles again, and I feel a vibration coming from my purse. I pull out my phone and slide my finger across the screen as I see a missed call and text message from Sam.

Dad’s voice interrupts the words I see on my screen. “Hey, kiddo, is everything okay?” As my head rises to see both my parents’ eyes staring at me, I know I’ve just been dealt another curveball. The only problem is this curveball will hurt more people than I ever wanted to hurt.

I need to leave Breckenridge.

The water in the fire hose continues to drip and drain as everyone sits around the spot where the barn once stood. My eyes burn from the smoke and the tears that continue to stream down my face. While Mom talks to the police chief, I run my blackened hands over my face and stare at what’s left of my dad’s legacy. He built that barn with his own two hands, and it’s all gone. All the memories. All the laughs. All the good times growing up. They’re all gone. Even with the unpleasant memories in that barn, it was still a part of who I am now.

I watch as the EMTs roll the gurney out of the barn with the remains of a life that was cut too short despite how much I hated her. Laurel might have been a bitch, but I never wanted her dead. I see SJ sitting on the lowered tailgate of his truck. His head drops as he watches the EMTs remove her body. I can see the grief etched across his face. He tried to save her, but she wouldn’t listen to him.

From what I’ve been told from the chief, SJ and Laurel got into a huge fight in the barn after I left earlier. SJ said some things that led to Laurel throwing something across the barn at him. This ultimately knocked the oil lantern hanging on the hook to the ground. With the dry hay bales everywhere, it was only a matter of seconds before half of the barn was overcome in flames.

SJ went into panic mode and began unlatching all the horses’ pens, leading each horse out individually. He kept yelling at Laurel to get out of the barn, but she was too distraught and worried about what she had done that she stayed in the barn until SJ pushed her out of his way. He didn’t know where she went as the smoke and flames tripled in size.

When he finally got the last horse, Pumpkin Pie, out of the stall, he doubled over outside the barn and coughed, trying to inhale clean air into his lungs. Once he finally came to his senses, he looked around for Laurel outside the barn, but he couldn’t see her. He heard wood crumpling and falling, and then he heard her scream.

He ran back to the barn, but it was too engulfed in flames to enter. He could hear Laurel screaming for help, but he couldn’t see her through the thick smoke and flames. SJ dropped to the ground and tried crawling, but so much of the dry hay was already smoldering that even crawling along the ground wasn’t an option to find her.

I listened as he recounted the final moments before we arrived. SJ drew back away from the barn shouting Laurel’s name. She called back only a couple of more times to him, but he knew there wasn’t anything he could do to save her by himself.

When the trucks rolled up quickly on the property, my eyes couldn’t fathom the sight. I felt nothing at the moment. I only knew I had a job to do. The barn was consumed in flames, but at least it hadn’t spread beyond that. At that point, we could only contain it from moving beyond the barn. There was no way I was letting Mom’s house go up as well. I wouldn’t let it.

I double-checked to make sure I had my full bunker gear in order just as we unloaded frantically from the fire truck. As I ran around the truck, I grabbed the hose Regan was already pulling out and did my job as the other guys hooked up to the tanker truck. The moment I turned around with the hose in my hands I watched as even more of the structure collapsed and cinders rose into the sky. I knew then nothing left in the barn could be salvaged.