Smoked (The Invincibles 5)

“Not too much farther,” said Smoke, pulling away and sitting up. “I can see the creek that runs alongside the road and starts up at the ranch.”

“The creek starts there?”

I closed my eyes, picturing what it would look like. An image of a stream flashed in my mind. There were no trees around it, just rolling meadows. When I tried to keep it in focus, it vanished.

“Everything okay?” Smoke asked.

I opened my eyes and looked into his. “A memory…”

“Of?”

“It wasn’t much. Just water.” Suddenly overcome by sadness, I closed my tear-filled eyes.

“We’re here,” Smoke said as I felt the helicopter descending. Once it landed, he gathered me in his arms and lifted me from the gurney.

“We’re on top of a mountain.” I gasped, looking out at the miles and miles of mountain views.

“We’re not on the highest peak in the range, but it’s close.”

I smiled at the pride I heard in Smoke’s voice. “What is that?” I asked, motioning with my head at a large structure that sat near the bank of a pond.

“My house.”

I was stunned. It looked more like a large mountain lodge.

“Let’s get you inside and settled.”

“For feck’s sake, Smoke, you can put me down. I can walk.”

“We’ve been traveling for going on eighteen hours. You’re more tired than you think.”

“It’s also time for your pain medicine,” the nurse, whose name I couldn’t recall but who was walking beside us, said.

“I don’t want it,” I whispered in Smoke’s ear. “I don’t need it.”

“We’ll talk about it once you’re in bed.”

He carried me up to the front door and waited for the man who’d met us at the airfield, to open it.

“I’ll fetch Ms. Wynona, and then the boys and I will start bringing stuff in,” Smoke said once we were inside and he set me in a chair.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“She takes care of the place when I’m not here.”

“It’s about time you showed your face.” A very short woman with hair that looked more blue than gray approached. “Welcome to the Blazing T,” she said.

“Ms. Wynona, this is the woman I told you about, Siobhan Gallagher.”

The woman raised both eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. “You best get Ms. Siobhan into bed, Mr. Smoke. She looks near-dead tired.”

“We’ll set up in the master,” said Smoke, turning to the nurse. “This way.”

I shrugged my shoulder when Ms. Wynona winked. “You and I will have plenty of time to get to know each other later,” she said as Smoke plucked me out of the chair.

He opened a door and walked into a room that was larger than any place I’d ever lived. “Is this your bedroom?”

“Yes.”