Hidden Treasure (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I
t was the
first day of harvest, a process that would take weeks, and Brielle wasn’t as confident as she should have been in her ability to help. But she was bound and determined to give it her best. Though she knew Joe was worried, Colt had told her that a combine was easy-peasy. It was just like driving a car, really — a really,
really
big car.

Hey, what could go wrong?

After her shower, Brielle dressed and came downstairs in a hopeful mood. The sun was just beginning to rise in the sky and she was ready to get started with the workday. Before her job at the mall last year she hadn’t worked for a paycheck once in her life. She’d gone to school and she’d done a lot of service work with her brothers when she was younger, but she hadn’t punched a time clock. It was one of the advantages of being raised in wealth.

So Brielle was completely surprised by how much she was enjoying running this ranch. Sure, there were some tasks and projects she despised, but she adored others, and all in all, she was happy with her large spread here in the middle of Montana.

Once she made it outside, she watched as her large crew gathered together. She didn’t know whether she was relieved or sad when she didn’t find Colt among them, but it didn’t matter. She would prove to him today that he hadn’t been wasting his time on her, that what he’d been teaching her over the last month was sticking.

“Hi, Brielle. What are you doing up so early?”

“I’m going to help harvest the fields, Joe,” she said with a confident smile. If she appeared to know what she was doing, then surely the men would welcome her help.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“You showed me what to do. I can handle this,” she said, sending him a look that told him he would be unwise to argue with her. He looked as if he was about to object, but he finally just shrugged and muttered under his breath. “What was that, Joe?” she asked.

Quickly turning back to her, he flashed her a big grin. “Nothing, boss.”

She knew he was being cheeky, but she couldn’t prove it, so she decided to let it go. After all, they’d be working together all day.

“All right then. Let’s get started.”

When Tony stepped out and saw her standing there, he was wise enough not to say a word to her. “You all know what to do,” he told everyone. “Let’s have a productive day, because this will be a long three weeks.”

And then Brielle followed the crew out to the harvesters. Man, were those machines intimidating.

It didn’t matter. She could do this. Climbing up into one of the giant beasts, she tried desperately to remember how to get it going. When she started it on only the second try, she was feeling pretty damn accomplished. When the others pulled out and she was still sitting there, she picked up her pace, and soon, though the combine jumped a little, she had it moving and a satisfied grin split her face.

“You take the field on the right.”

Looking down, Brielle found the CB that Joe’s words had just come through. She’d never used one before, but picking up the handle, she pushed the button. “Roger that,” she said and then a giggle burst from her mouth.

For some strange reason, she’d always wanted to say that. Oh, how her old friends would mock her if they could see her now. But as she sat there, she realized how vain an existence they had all led. Yes, she’d traveled to numerous other countries, lounged on beaches around the world, and sat in the VIP section of all the best clubs, but she had nothing to show for it.

Today, she was doing something that mattered. The wheat would be harvested and then used all around the world to fill bellies, to provide nourishment. That was something much more important than lying topless on the sands of Brazil.

She felt pretty dang cool sitting in this behemoth harvester. Taking a few minutes, she watched what the other men were doing, and soon, she was on the edge of the field and cutting away. As the blades on her combine knocked down row after row of wheat, Brielle knew there was no way the men could say she didn’t know what she was doing anymore.

Sure, her rows might not be as smooth or straight as the men’s, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was out here working. She was being productive, and she was learning something new.

Halfway through the field, Brielle grew concerned. She couldn’t quite put a name to the odor, but it was certainly a burnt smell. But it had to be that the machine was working so hard. Not that big a deal. She continued on for a few more minutes, until smoke began drifting inside her cab.

Panic filled her when the smoke became overwhelming. When she looked back and saw flames, she reached a whole new level of terror. She opened the door and looked down at the moving ground.

Not knowing what else to do, she jumped out and found herself rolling in the field as the combine continued moving forward with smoke billowing from the undercarriage and cabin.

Fear driving her on, she leapt to her feet and began running, looking back over her shoulder to see the combine light up on fire, and the wheat field go up like a torch. The flames reached out toward her like demonic fingers, moving closer and closer. What if she ended up burned to a crisp in this giant wheat field?

That would be the perfect ending to her perfect life, she thought as she tried to run as fast as she could through the field, disoriented as the smoke swirled all around her. Not taking the time to look back over her shoulder again, she ran as fast as she could, the smell of the smoke making her cough and causing her lungs to burn.

Then she tripped and went skidding face first into a cut row. It was the end. Struggling to her feet again, she glanced around — the wrong move.

The fire was right on top of her, flames only a few feet away. Screaming, she began running again. Was it too late already?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

D
o you smell
something?”

Colt looked over at Tony as the two men walked from the barn. He had his own fields to harvest today, but instead of hopping into a combine and blaring his favorite country tunes, he found himself once again at the Ponderosa Pines Ranch.

Colt was bowled over by the transformation he’d seen in Brielle. Sure, he knew that much of the way she’d behaved when she’d first arrived had been an act, but she still hadn’t known a thing about running a ranch. This last month, though, she’d soaked up everything he was telling her, and she’d learned eagerly and efficiently. When Tony told him she’d decided to take out one of the combines and harvest a wheat field, he’d laughed. Not at her, but with delight.

She was doing an excellent job of learning how to run the ranch, and she wasn’t happy just sitting idly by on the couch anymore. She was getting her hands dirty and she was earning the respect of her employees.

Wait. Yeah, Colt did smell something. “What
is
that?”

“It smells like burning rubber.”

The two men picked up the pace and looked over the ranch. One of the combines seemed to be smoking.

“What the hell?” Tony exclaimed.

The two men stood in shock for a few seconds, neither of them moving as one of the wheat fields slowly began smoldering. Next, they saw flames shoot from the bottom of the combine, setting the smolder to a full-fledged blaze, and then the door to the combine opened and out rolled Brielle.

“Is she trying to get herself killed?” Tony took out his cell phone to call out an SOS to all local ranchers.

Colt watched the combine go up in a fiery ball while still moving in slow circles in the dry wheat field. It wouldn’t take long for this blaze to get out of control.

It took him a moment to find his voice again. “Call the fire department,” he shouted to one of the men outside the barn, and then he was sprinting toward the field as fast as he could, because even though Brielle was running away from the fire, she wasn’t going fast enough. The blaze was in a hurry to catch her, and there was no way Colt was going to let that happen.

Leaping over a ditch, he made it to the field just in time to see Brielle face-plant, then get back up off the ground and scream. By now the field was ruined, and in the distance Colt could hear the sounds of the engines as several ranchers bringing their fire tenders in — huge diesel trucks with mammoth containers filled with water in the beds, basically private fire trucks.

One of the hands already had the Ponderosa Pines fire tender out on the field and was spraying away, but it wouldn’t be enough to contain the blaze. He continued doing what he could as a couple of neighbors arrived and then the trucks soon surrounded the field. Men were jumping out to pull out the hoses and begin pumping thousands of gallons of water onto the blaze in hopes of keeping it to one field.

As those trucks began hosing the wheat, even more smoke appeared, and Colt lost sight of Brielle for a few seconds. Shouting her name did him no good, so he ran forward at full speed, making himself just about the only person running into the fire instead of away from it.

“Get out of there!” Martin Whitman shouted as he sprayed water at the leaping flames less than fifty yards in front of Colt.

“Can’t. Brielle’s out here,” Colt shouted back. A huge plume of smoke covered his vision again, and Martin disappeared from view. Shouting for Brielle again, he heard another scream and he changed direction.

Someone upstairs must have had both their backs, because the smoke cleared in front of him just in time for him to see Brielle running forward, her eyes shut, water running down her soot-covered face. She tripped again, but Colt reached her just in time to catch her.

There was no time for words. The blaze was less than twenty yards away from them now, and the smoke was so thick, they’d be lucky to make it to safety. Holding his breath, Colt lifted her into his arms and rushed from the field just as the last couple of rancher fire trucks arrived and finished the circle on the field, all of their hoses pushing out water full force.

By the time Colt got Brielle back to the barn, the soot on her face had streaks in it from her eyes watering, and her coughing had died down just a little as fresh air filled her lungs. Colt could hear the town’s fire engines rushing toward the field, but the ranchers already had the blaze under control. Still, it would be good if the paramedics looked at Brielle. She’d taken in a lot of smoke.

“What happened?” she asked, looking up at Colt with wide, fearful eyes.

“I don’t know. Somehow your combine caught fire,” he said. “The men have made sure that the fire won’t leap to other fields, and soon they’ll be able to go in and look at the machine to try to figure out how this began.”

When Hawk Winchester arrived in an ambulance, hopped out with his bag, and came rushing forward, Colt tensed just a bit, but that was ridiculous. Hawk was his friend.

“We got the call from Andy. It looks like you guys did an excellent job containing the blaze,’ he said as he approached. “Are you okay, Brielle?”

Brielle nodded, but when she tried to speak, she started coughing again, so she sat silently as Hawk had her open her mouth and looked at her throat. After he put an oxygen mask on her for a few moments, Hawk removed it and asked a few more questions. This time she was able to answer.

“My lungs still feel as if they’re on fire, and my throat is killing me, but I think I’m fine,” she told him as he looked into her ears and eyes and took her pulse.

“I think you took in a lot of smoke, but you weren’t burned. You’ll have a cough for a few days, and it wouldn’t hurt to go into the doc’s office, but I don’t see any major damage,” Hawk assured her.

“I don’t need to go to the doctor.”

“Well, then, it’s a good thing he makes house calls, ’cause I think he should do a better exam,” Hawk said.

The two of them glared at each other for several moments before one of the ranch hands ran up. “Hiya, Hawk,” he said with a smile before turning toward Colt just as Tony approached. “We figured out the problem.”

“Well, what happened?” Tony demanded.

“Um...” He looked at Brielle with apology in his eyes before looking back at Tony, who wasn’t amused at the delay. “The…um…parking break was left on the combine and, well, it overheated, and, well…you know the rest.”

Dead silence greeted his words. Brielle’s eyes widened and she sat up straight. “I caused this?” she gasped.

“It’s a rookie mistake,” the kid said in what he might have thought was a soothing voice.

“No! It’s just another thing I’ve done wrong,” Brielle snapped.

Colt didn’t know what to say. He could see she was beating herself up. There was no need to lecture her on the importance of making sure the equipment was ready to go. It
had
been a mistake, and it was a pretty expensive one — the combine and field of wheat was unsalvageable.

“It’s okay, Brielle. It happens,” the kid said.

“No. I thought I could help, but obviously, you would have all been much better off without me,” she said, getting up. “The ranch can’t afford this kind of loss!”

“Really, it does happen.” All of them turned in surprise as Tony reached out and placed a hand on Brielle’s shoulder. “I did it once too when I was a new buck out there on a combine. I thought the boss was going to have my hide for sure. But he gave me a second chance.”

Colt watched as Brielle fought against tears at Tony’s first kind words to her. “Thank you,” she said before she threw her arms around him and clung tightly.

At first, Tony seemed to be in shock from such physical contact. Then, to the shock of everyone there, Tony lifted his arms and hugged her in return, patting her back awkwardly. Colt had never seen the man show affection to any other human being.

“It’s okay, Brielle. At least you were trying,” Tony said, and she moved just a little closer.

When she finally let go, the tears were gone, and a watery smile was in their place. “I promise I’ll do better,” she told him.

And from the determined glint in her eyes Colt could see that she was serious.

She wasn’t just looking at this job as a punishment anymore. She had been proving herself over and over lately. Colt looked around at the land he’d wanted for so long, and he said a silent goodbye to it, because now he didn’t want to take it from her. Now, he wanted to help her succeed. That was more important to him than adding an extra 10,000 acres to his deed.

“Equipment can be replaced; fields can be replanted. As long as no one is killed, it’s not an unsalvageable day,” Colt told her before pulling her close for a hug.

Hawk decided to ruin the moment. “Well, hell. We had a fire and no one even thought about bringing out the hot dogs.”

“The barbecue begins after the harvest,” Tony said. “We now have one less field to burn when it’s all over.”

“You burn the fields on purpose?” Brielle gasped.

“After the harvest, to get ready for a new planting season,” Tony told her.

Joe piped up. “It’s my favorite job!”

“How is that safe?” Brielle asked.

“You saw how quickly we subdued this fire. In the right conditions, field burning is the safest way to purify a field. Don’t worry, Firestarter, we’ll teach you,” Tony said, and guffawed in his strange way before turning toward the men. “That’s enough gawking, you guys. Get back to work.”

The men scattered, and Colt found himself stepping back as Brielle moved away.

“I’m going to shower,” she told them all before leaving.

“You going to join her?”

Colt turned to look at Hawk, who was laughing at him outright. “Maybe,” he said with a wicked smile. Hell, why try to hide the fact that he wanted her? It wouldn’t do him any good. It wasn’t as if the entire town didn’t know about the two of them now.

“Attaboy,” Hawk said, clapping Colt on the back.

Colt didn’t hesitate to follow Brielle back to her house. He’d had to face the reality of possibly losing her today.

Though she was his
now
, he had to tell her the truth, had to lay all his cards on the table, and that scared the hell out of him, because Colt didn’t think he’d ever be the same without her. She was that woman his father had spoken about so many years earlier, the woman who made him feel like a better man, the woman he didn’t want to spend another single day without.