Chapter 3-1
969 Words
Chapter 3
AUSTIN DRAPED COLORED TWINKLE lights around the tree. “That was so awesome! Did you see the way Jace used that axe? Chopped this thing down in three strikes. Someday I’m gonna be big enough to do that.”
Yes. Yes I noticed. Tara told herself her mouth was watering over the popcorn she was stringing onto fishing line. She hadn’t been able to avoid noticing the flex and bunch of muscle as he’d wielded the axe to fell their tree. She’d never known she had a secret lumberjack fantasy until this morning. A lumberjack with big brown eyes and a mile wide soft spot for kids.
It wasn’t what she’d expected from a twenty-four year old grad student. She’d done her homework, too. Not that it’d been hard. Her boss, Cassie Callister, was the self-declared Princess of Gossip in Wishful, second only to Mama Pearl Buckley, who owned Dinner Belles Diner. The two were in a constant competition to find out the scoop on anything and everything before anybody else. In this case, Cassie had given a hopeful eyebrow waggle that the inside scoop was about Tara being interested in Jace. She’d shut down that assumption in a hurry. Even if Wishful was the family seat, he didn’t live here. Not permanently. And aside from that, she didn’t have time for dating or relationships. Besides, what guy in her age bracket would want a package deal?
The kind of guy who would go out of his way to take you all out to pick a Christmas tree, even though the farm was closed.
She’d wondered initially if Jace was just being nice to her siblings to try to get to her since his more direct flirtation hadn’t worked. But he’d seemed to genuinely enjoy hanging out with them. Austin and Ginny hadn’t stopped talking about him or the farm since they got back in the car.
“Do you think we could maybe go back sometime and take Pepper and Rupert more carrots?” Ginny asked. “Horses ought to get Christmas presents, don’t you think?”
“Oh, well, we’ll have to see about that.” Tara took great care not to make promises she wasn’t positive she could keep. They’d had far too many broken in the past.
Jace may have been kind enough to give them all a great Christmas memory, but that certainly didn’t mean he was ready to entertain them again.
Still, Tara couldn’t regret the expressions of sheer delight on Ginny and Austin’s faces. This was the most excitement she’d seen from her brother in the year and a half they’d been under her care. It was the first time he’d really acted like the kid he was. Tara figured she owed Jace something for that. If she baked him cookies would he read too much into it?
“Are you done with the popcorn garland?” Austin asked.
“Not by half. Ginny keeps eating the components.”
Her sister giggled and stuffed another handful of popcorn into her mouth.
Shaking her head with a smile, Tara headed for the kitchen. “I’ll go make another batch.”
An enormous boom shook the house. Tara automatically dove to cover Ginny, yelling for Austin to get down.
But no glass rained down. There were no aftershocks. No scent of smoke.
Austin peeked out from behind the Christmas tree. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a transformer blew.” It totally wasn’t a transformer. That explosion had been way too loud. “Everybody okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“I’m okay.” Ginny squirmed out of Tara’s hold and made a beeline for the window. “There’s smoke over there.”
Tara followed where she pointed, seeing billowing smoke in the distance above the treeline. “Y’all, put on your shoes and coats. We’re gonna go find out what’s going on.”
While the kids gathered their stuff, she stepped out onto the porch. Whatever was burning was far enough off she didn’t feel like the house was in immediate danger. They’d had a wet autumn, so the woods between here and there shouldn’t go up like tinder. But something big had blown.
Bundling the kids into the RAV, she locked the house and headed up the road. As soon as the trees cleared, she could see the huge towers of flame fanning the sky.
“Holy crap!”
Tara was too shocked to correct her brother. Holy crap, indeed.
Even as she stared, a fire truck approached from the rear. She pulled over to the shoulder behind another vehicle to let it pass, then just sat there. The driver of the car in front got out and walked up to the window.
Tara rolled it down and heard the roar. “Any idea what’s going on?”
“Gas line exploded,” he said, turning to look back toward where the firemen were unfurling hose and spraying down the blaze. “I heard it over the scanner. They’re calling in fire crews from all over the county.”
“Gas? Oh man, our house runs on gas. Is it safe?”
“Tara! Lump!” Ginny wailed from the back seat.
“Hush, honey. Lump will be okay.”
“The damage to the line is two miles from here. If they haven’t already, the gas company will be shutting down the supply to help contain the fire. Thankfully there aren’t any houses right around the fire.”
“Thank God for small mercies.” They weren’t equipped to recover from a fire.
“The bigger question is how long it’ll take them to repair it. I don’t think that’s one of the main lines, but that was a pretty big mess. It’ll take some doing to get it back up and running.”
That introduced a whole new set of worries. They had gas heat, gas water heater, and gas stove. She could manage the cooking via microwave and toaster oven. And she’d bundle the kids into the living room for a family snuggle fest with the couple of space heaters they had. But they’d only be able to rough it for a couple of days. If the repairs took longer than that, they’d be screwed.
- Writer
