Joanna felt herself rebelling.
The dream was back to haunt her. The one where everything and everyone was obscured. The one that had her running barefoot, in her nightgown, through an open field enshrouded in fog and mists.
Everything was hidden from her. Hidden and threatening.
But this time, it wasn’t fog, it was smoke that curled around her legs and crept stealthily along her body.
It didn’t matter, the effect was the same.
She was lost, so very lost. And then she began running faster, desperately searching for a way out. Looking for someone to help her.
There was no one.
She was alone.
Every time she thought she could make out a shape, a person, they would disappear as she ran toward them. The resulting emptiness mocked her.
It was a dream, just a dream, she told herself over and over again as she ran. Her heart twisted within her, aching in its loneliness.
She’d be all right if she could just open her eyes. Just bridge her way back into the real world. Over and over again, she told herself to wake up.
With superhuman effort, she forced open her eyes.
They began to smart.
Joanna woke up choking. Her lungs began to ache. Had the nightmare taken on another dimension? Groggy, she sat up in bed. Her bulk prevented her from making the transition from lying to sitting an easy one. She felt as if she’d been pregnant since the beginning of time instead of almost nine months.
Your own fault. You asked for this.
Her eyes were seriously tearing now. This wasn’t part of her dream. She smelled smoke, felt heat even though she’d shut the heat off just before she’d gone to bed more than an hour ago.
And then she realized what was happening. Her house was on fire.
Stunned, her heart pounding as she scrambled out of bed, Joanna grabbed the long robe that was slung over the footboard. She was hardly aware of jamming her fists through the sleeves.
Barefoot, Joanna hurried to her bedroom doorway, only to see that her living room was flooded in smoke. A line of fire had shadowed her steps, racing in front of her. It was now feeding on the door frame, preventing her flight.
Flames shot up all around her.
Something came crashing down right in front of her, barely missing her. Backing up, she screamed as flames leaped to the bottom of her robe, eating away at the hem. Working frantically, Joanna shed the robe before the flames could find her.
Driving quickly, Rick took the next corner at a speed that almost made the Mustang tip over. He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket and hit 911 on the keypad with his thumb.
The instant the dispatch came in the line, he snapped out his location, adding, “Two houses are on fire, one’s almost gone.”
As the woman asked him to repeat what he’d just said, he heard someone scream from within Joanna’s house. Rick tossed the phone aside. It landed on the passenger seat as he bolted from the car. He barely remembered to cut off the engine.
The scream echoed in his brain.
Somehow he knew it wasn’t her mother, wasn’t some renter or some trick of the imagination.
That was Joanna’s scream.
She was in there, in that inferno. And he had to get her out.
The last house on the corner, next to Joanna’s, was already engulfed in flames. It looked as if the fire had started there and had spread to Joanna’s house. So far, from what he could see as he ran toward the building, only the rear portion was burning.
That was where the bedrooms were, he remembered. And she was in one of them.
Racing to the front door, he twisted the knob. It was locked and there was no way he could jimmy it open. His talents didn’t run in those directions. But he could think on his feet.
Stripping off his jacket, Rick wrapped it around his arm and swung at the front window as hard as he could. Glass shattered, raining down in chunks. Moving quickly, Rick cleared away as much as he could then let himself into the house.
He stopped only long enough to unlock the front door. He left it open, a portal to the outside world. He had a feeling he was going to need that to guide him out. Inside, the inferno grew.
“Joanna!” Cupping his mouth, he yelled again. “Joanna, where are you?”
The flames had momentarily frozen her in place as her mind raced on alternative routes of escape, trying to assimilate what was going on.
Was she dreaming?
She had to be. Why else would she be hearing Rick’s voice calling to her? Rick was gone. Had been gone for eight years.
Without a word to her.
Maybe she was already dead. Maybe the smoke had gotten to her and she was having some kind of out-of-body experience.
A fireman. It had to be a fireman. She only thought it sounded like Rick.
“Here,” she screamed. “I’m in here.” Smoke crowded its way into her throat, slashing at her words, sucking away her breath. “In the back bedroom.” Eyes smarting, she couldn’t make out the doorway anymore. “I can’t get out. Help me!”
Like a behemoth, the fire snarled and groaned, playing tricks on his ears, his eyes. He was sure he heard her, heard her voice, muffled but still strong, calling out. Flames belched out of the rear of the house now.
Despite the temperature, his blood turned cold in his veins.
Think, damn it, think.
And then an idea came to him. Running to the kitchen, he passed through the dining room. Rick stopped only long enough to grab the tablecloth and yank it off the table. He soaked the entire cloth in the sink, then hurried with it to the rear of the house.
Toward the sound of her voice.
There were curtains of fire everywhere. He couldn’t see more than a foot in front of him. “Joanna? Joanna where are you?”
“Here, I’m here,” Joanna called out. She couldn’t get out the door and when she ran toward the window, she found her way blocked there as well. There was no way to get to the window. The rug beneath her feet was burning.
And then suddenly, something came rolling in on the floor, crashing through the flames. As she stared, the figure took shape, rising up to assume the full height of a man.
The room began to spin. She thought she saw Rick Masters, her tablecloth wrapped around his head and shoulders, reaching out to her.
The next moment, she felt herself being wrapped up in the tablecloth. He was pressing it to her face, over her mouth. It was dripping wet. Joanna tried to drag in air and only felt smoke clogging her lungs.
“Let’s go!”
The order echoed in her head, sounding so like Rick. She was going to die in some stranger’s arms, remembering Rick.
The man’s arms were around her as he urged her blindly on through what felt like an entire wall of fire.
Joanna tried to protest that she couldn’t make it, but the words never rose to her lips. The man who looked like Rick was pushing her.
She felt herself stumbling. Falling.
The next moment, she felt his arms encircling her. And then suddenly, she was airborne. He was carrying her, carrying her through the inferno.
The heat was everywhere. She could hear it, feel it. And there was pain everywhere as well. Pain that was radiating not from the outside, but from within.