Authors: Cora Blu
Men ran past them up to the pasture where the horses were, to round them up to get into trailers lining the far side. Whinnying and stomping the spooked horses ran from the fire. Some they walked out to the street where more trailers were pulling up to collect the ponies. Kenya shoved hair out of her eyes standing on tip toe attempting to get a glimpse of the face she couldn't stop searching for, Jamie. The man had grown on her over the past two months since she's met him, not to mention how much he resembled Jonathan.
People came from around the front of the barn crying, clinging to one another, some were even knelt on the ground praying. Feeling no pains, just smoke in her mouth had been enough for her to be thankful for.
“Kenya!”
Her eyes darted around the landscape scanning the face for Jamie. That voice bellowing for her through the crowd. After she was satisfied her parents would be taken care of by a paramedic, she moved through the throng of people to search for Jamie's face. Straining to see it terrified her to think something happened to him.
Kenya cupped her hands and called out into the sea of faces, “Jamie!” Turning in a circle, pushing past people milling in huddles she saw smoke covered faces and a few minor burns being attended to but no Jamie. A woman lay on the stretcher having her ankles wrapped and another man with a burn down his arm, but no Michael or Jamie. A hand grabbed onto her shoulder, whirled her around and crushed her body to a hard chest. Jamie hugged her tight to his body, cursing in Gaelic. The best thing she's heard since the fire started. She looked up, a lump the size of the barn formed in her throat, as she couldn't hold him tight enough. When they separated, she had blood on her face from blood dripping down his temple. She reached up and smoothed it off his face in his hairline. Eyes wide she begged, “Where's Michael and Steve and Gretchen? You're bleeding.”
“They're okay,” he told her jerking his head back toward the barn. “I left them up front with a paramedic. Busting out a wall I must've gotten caught by one of the boards sticking out.”
She wiped the blood back off his face examining the swelling cut, her eyes wide. “Gretchen, she's okay,” she caught her breath to calm herself, looking down at his wet shirt, “where's your jacket?”
He smiled at her mother hen hands checking him over. “Burnt,” he said nonchalantly, yet the words shivered down her spine. “When I went looking for Gretchen, I found Glasgow lifting her up to set her out a window by the watering trough. Some of the other men had made a big enough hole to where they were shoving people out the side of the barn. People were scraped and cut by the wood, but we got everyone out. I dunked my coat in the cooler of ice water so Gretchen could wrap around her face to breathe. He and Michael busted out the window and as much of the sill and we got her through. We got the doors open, that's when you saw the horses running out.”
“Did we lose any?” She inhaled calming her shaking body then blew it out. “Horses...?”
“I don't know. Michael was getting them out as fast as he could without trampling people. I'm certain there's a few sprained ankles the way everyone was dodging horses running wild an scared out of the barn.”
It was better than losing their lives. She stepped back took a second look at his smutty face, burnt shirt and singed jeans revealing a bloody wound on his leg.
“Jamie! Hold still you have glass in your leg.” Kenya ducked down grasping the shard, well lodged in his flesh, seeping blood around the edges. She braced a hand to his thigh then felt the sucking pull as blood and flesh held onto the slippery surface. The slow rain washed the blood down his legs but also made the glass slick. She looked up his leg and grabbed his other leg digging her nails into his thigh. When he gritted out a curse giving her dark eyes, she extracted the glass from his leg. Blood oozed down his jeans and she waved over a paramedic. Jamie's fist balled at his side. “Lord you Blakemore's get more scrapes and cuts...”
Jamie looked down at her. “Where did you learn to do that? Distract me with a different pain?”
“I watched my mother take glass out of one of my uncle’s arms when I was little.”
“Gonna tell me about this dark side of your family?”
“Back then nobody thought of taking one for your family as dark. It was how you protected the inner circle of the family. Some on the edge stayed between the family and trouble.” She took a breath, held a corner of her sweater with her thumb over the wound while the paramedic squat down, and began cleaning Jamie's leg. Jamie helped her to her feet. She whispered close to him as the lady worked on his legs. “I have uncles that rode dirty, shot guns in the car, pistols strapped beneath the car. When Marcus was a young man, Claiborne's were a violent family and if you needed someone dealt with they were the men you called. Katherine's known the Claiborne’s all her life along with her sisters. By the time I came along and we were adopted the only things being shot were ducks and deer and,” Kenya twisted her mouth, “raccoon.”
Jamie agreed and frowned along with her. “The true reason you gave Jonathan a second chance is you honestly understand families have all sorts of ways they live or personalities not just bad seeds, but you deal with them?”
“And not just slap a label on people. That and I love him, Jamie. Your cousin is my world not just because I'm carrying his child; I have so much respect for Jonathan.”
Jamie said, pushing his wet hair off his face, “You know he's not a Boy Scout right?”
Was that a real question?
“Oh, please. He didn't kill Graham, and we both know that. And we both know my husband wasn't in the States when those three men went missing that were helping Graham.” Jamie turned her away from the crowd and Kenya angled down to look at his wound. “I'm not blind Jamie, just in love.”
Jamie pivoted at the waist scanning the crowd, taking in the injured, Kenya noticed. “I bet Brian's behind this. Somebody tipped him off about what was going...”
“Jamie--the testimonials? They’re on the computer that's in the stable.”
He frowned giving her sad eyes. “They couldn’t be saved. They were already burning by the time we got the last man out of the side of the building.” She cursed. “We lost the handwritten ones. How are we gonna get these people to write 'em over? Half of them are freaked out right now.”
The Paramedic cut away the bottom portion of Jamie’s jean leg and tended the wound before standing to move to the next patient. Jamie gave an appreciative nod and turned back to Kenya.
“Have you been seen by a Paramedic?” he queried eyeing her from head to toe, picking something from her hair and tossing it out into the air. Slivers of barn board fluttered in the breeze.
“I was about to but wanted to find you...see if you all made it out,” she said, still coming down from the adrenaline rush coursing through her when she couldn't find him in the sea of dirty faces.
“Come on,” he said ushering her over to the ambulance getting her settled beside her family. “We’ll figure something out. Didn't several people send them to yer email?” That brought her head up. In all the mayhem, she'd totally forgotten several had hand written them uncomfortable using her laptop.
“I'm so frazzled, I nearly forgot about that.” She rolled her sleeve up watching the young man unwrapping his medical equipment. “I'll check on Jonathan's computer when we go back to the estate. Right now I wanna find out who had the balls big enough to burn down a barn full of people?”
Before either could get the name out two officers walked up while the tech strapped a blood pressure cuff to her arm and slid the cool metal of the stethoscope beneath the prickly strap.
“I'm looking for a Mr. Jamie Blakemore?” The tallest one said his solid steps screamed authority.
Jamie stepped forward. “Aye, here officer,” he replied. “I'm Jamie Blakemore.”
He angled in as the spattering rain started to dry up all together, until it was just a mist in the air. “Mr. Glasgow says this was your party,” the officer said, pulling out a notepad. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“A regular party with family and friends,” he told the officer, before shaking his hair and pieces of glass and wood fell out to the ground.
The officer stepped back brushing at his shirt. “How many people attended the party?”
“I didn't do a head count, but we invited approximately what, Kenya...fifty people,” he said then turned back to the officer. “My cousin here and I held it together but no one inside would've done this,” Jamie urged.
The officer stopped writing to look up at Kenya. “Cousin...and you are?” his skeptical stare questioned the cousin comment noticing that she was black.
“Kenya Blakemore,” she said as if she'd lived in Ireland all her life and he should know who she was. Scarily enough he answered her as if she looked familiar.
“Blakemore...Jonathan Blakemore's wife?” he questioned almost hopefully.
“Ah, yes, do I know you?” Kenya angled her face up to Jamie than back to the officer. Okay, this was the twilight zone.
The man tilted his head and gave a gallant smile. “No, your husband is well known in Ireland. I'm glad yer okay.”
She brought the water bottle to her lips and took a long drink before clearing her throat. “If this gets back to him please let him know his family is alright.”
The officer's eyes followed her hand down to her stomach. “Yer pregnant, Mrs. Blakemore?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how the fire got started?”
“We were talking and eating and then we smelled gasoline, seconds before the doors were shut and flames started rolling in under the doors.”
He made a sound in his throat. “Did you try opening the doors or get a look at anyone outside running from the scene, maybe,” the officer said jotting in his little notepad.
She hadn't had a reason to look out the door it was the back of the barn. “When I thought that somebody was barricading them from the outside. Some of the men tried, but they would nae move.”
Jamie stepped closer to the officer. “Can we answer these questions down at the station, officer? Me cousin needs to get out of this weather.” He tipped his chin toward her stomach as if her being pregnant would make the man write faster. It hadn't.
The man kept writing in his notepad. “Mr. Blakemore, this party was your responsibility; can you tell me who you believe wanted to torch the barn?”
Jamie wiped a hand across Kenya's forehead brushing the smut off on his hands. “Oy, any number of people. Me uncle's fighting my cousin, Jonathan for the estate. He's the only person I could think would stoop that low, with his daughter-in-law, mother, and father inside.”
“I’ll get with Mr. Glasgow and get a formal report, but I’ll need one of you to come down to the precinct and fill out a police report. If this was arson, we’ll need as much information as possible to apprehend whoever did this.”
Jamie said, “I’ll go. Kenya you need to get checked out and then take a few days to rest.”
“I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to feel a little shaky and could use a bed soon.” Feeling lightheaded, she gripped Jamie’s arm before he picked her up and then lowered her gently on the gurney beside the ambulance. “Oddly enough, I’m hungry,” she admitted closing her eyes as exhaustion pushed at her body.
Kenya couldn’t believe someone wants to stop her that bad to burn down the barn with all those people in there. After her release from the hospital, Kenya along with the family felt it safe for her to leave the estate. Months went by and all she could do was make calls from the estate under strict orders from the doctor that she come in for monitoring every month or recoup in the hospital.She’d seen enough of the sterile institution to abide by the doctors' rules. The altitude and the smoke and excitement took its toll on her body and pushing the limits had her wiped out.
Katherine received a text from Morgan telling her she was fine, just needed to get away for a while. Kenya found that bogus, but she had other problems.
Glasgow proved to be a bigger asset than Jonathan had said he would. A number of fishermen were more than willing to show Brian’s men held less than proper meetings on his boat at the shore line. He and Graham met often no one thinking anything of it because everyone knew Graham worked for the Blakemore, but when the farmer’s charges began to rise, the two were seen together more at the marina on Brian's yacht.
Jonathan’s attorney appeared to eat up the information they squeezed from the towns people.
The days slipped by in a blur of morning sickness and tired legs.
~~~
Lying on his back in the cell, Jonathan eyed the single sheet of paper on the wall marking off the day’s since he’d seen his wife last.
“Men swap many things in prison,” the man in the cell across the aisle said, and Jonathan had to push up off the lumpy mattress.
“I’m good,” Jonathan offered, wondering what took this day so long to arrive, covered in scars and tats.
“Dinna worry, Red, you’d put up too much fight for my taste. I’m talking cash for a visit with your girl.”
His body locked up tight hearing this man knew he had a wife. “Not necessary.”
The man laughed and it echoed around his cell. “Yer donna hear yourself at night. Kenya must be one hell-of-a-woman.” He jumped to his feet bolting to the bars separating the cells and gripped his knuckles around the steel until they bleached out white.“Keep me wife’s name out of yer mouth or I’ll break yer fucking neck.”
“Hey Red, it’s cool, I’m just telling you I can offer you a way to take the edge off…for a price.”
In a split second his mind put together a way to get money into the prison.After Jamie told him about someone trying to kill Kenya in a barn fire, seeing her is all he can think about. Not taking this thug up on his offer wasn’t easy. He’s lasted all these months, barely, and to jeopardize his chance at freedom for five or ten minutes in an office with his wife, wasn’t worth what he’d lose.
He rubbed a hand over his chest, pushing the ache away. “I’ll pass.”
“Sure, Your Kenya sounds hell-a-fine listening to you over there?”
“Two men lay dead in a parking lot for touching me wife and two in the hospital…don’t add to the count,” Jonathan’s blunt nails dug into his fists. A manic pulse ramped up his heartbeat and he couldn’t stop the fire filling his chest.He stared at the man across the aisle, tattoos wrapping around his throat, a few Celtic symbols he probably has no idea what they mean. The plastic house shoes slapped over the concrete as he moved back to his bunk and sank onto the mattress. Stretching his arms out over his knees Jonathan clasped his fingers together. He’d give a million dollars to have three minutes with his wife, but no one in there needed to know that. According to Hines, he hasn’t lost one client in the states or in Ireland. He could wait this out. He scrubbed a foot back and forth and stared up at the calendar. What was Kenya doing?