“Make that meat loaf to go,” he said, sliding back out of the booth.

“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” Cassie told him with total insincerity.

He frowned at her. “You know damn well it was. In fact, double the order. I might as well take a peace offering with me.”

She grinned. “Take the roast chicken instead. It’s her favorite.”

“Whatever you say.”

He packed the two dinners into the truck and headed toward Karen’s, anticipation mounting with each mile he covered. He envisioned a little fussing and feuding when she first spotted him, but he ought to be able to get around that with an abject apology. Hell, he’d even help her draw up the papers to sell the ranch to Lauren, if that was what she really wanted.

And once Karen had accepted the sincerity of his apology, they could make up the way men and women had been getting back on track for years-in bed. The prospect had him stepping down just a little harder on the accelerator.

Grady was less than a mile away from the ranch when he thought he smelled smoke. As he rounded the last curve in the road, he spotted an orange glow on the horizon that had nothing to do with the setting sun. Panic crawled up his throat and made it impossible to swallow.

Sweet heaven, he thought, just as a car made a squealing turn out of the driveway onto the highway, nearly sideswiping the truck, before speeding past him in a blur. Shock had him hitting his brakes and staring, first in one direction, then the other.

There was no question about it, the ranch was on fire.

And the person most likely responsible had just come within inches of running him off the road.

Karen had just gotten out of the shower and pulled on her old flannel pajamas when she thought she smelled smoke. No sooner had the thought registered than the smoke detectors downstairs went off in a simultaneous blast of sound.

She jammed her feet into a pair of shoes, grabbed her robe and raced for the stairs. Thick gray smoke was already swirling at the foot of the steps.

“Think,” she ordered herself. “Take just a second and think.”

There was a rope ladder by the bedroom window. She could get out that way. It was safer than risking running straight into the fire the second she reached the first floor. And judging from the number of alarms blaring at once, the fire was already too widespread for her to be able to put it out herself, assuming she could even get to the fire extinguisher she kept in the kitchen.

Turning back to the bedroom, she paused long enough to grab the cordless phone and dial nine-one-one.

“It’s already bad,” she told the emergency operator. “I can’t see the flames, but the smoke is all through the downstairs.”

“Can you get out?” Birdie Cox asked, her manner calm and reassuring, even as she was barking directions to the ranch into a speaker that would rouse all the volunteer firefighters in the area. “Are you on a portable phone, hon?”

“Yes and I’m going out the bedroom window,” Karen said. “I have a rope ladder. I’ll be fine.”

“Look below,” Birdie advised. “Make sure there are no flames coming out of the windows downstairs. Now you leave this line open, tuck the phone in your pocket and go. I want you to tell me when you’re safely on the ground, you hear me?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Karen promised as she dropped the ladder out the window after first looking to make sure it was safe. Smoke was billowing out, but there were no flames.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to climb through the window and onto the ladder. It wasn’t a long drop, but she didn’t look down again until she felt the ground under her feet. Then she stepped back and took a good, long look at the house, trying to assess where the worst of the fire was located.

“Birdie, I’m outside and I’m okay,” she reported. “It looks to me like the worst of this is in the front of the house.”

“I’ve got two fire engines and a dozen men on the way. Don’t try to be a heroine. Sit tight and let them handle this.”

Even as Birdie spoke, Karen could hear the distant wail of a siren and something else-the frantic shouting of her name.

“Dammit, Karen, where are you?”

Dear God, it sounded as if it was coming from inside the house, and there was no mistaking the fact that it was Grady. She raced toward the front door, screaming as she ran.

“Grady, I’m outside. Grady!”

She was halfway up the front steps when she spotted him silhouetted in the thick smoke. He turned slowly, then bent over, coughing. Frantic, she almost ran toward him, but he began moving again, dodging flames and falling debris.

He was still coughing when he reached her, and there were streaks of ash on his face and holes made by burning cinders on his clothes, but she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She threw herself into his arms. They tightened around her at once, and she could feel a shudder course through him.

“Thank God,” he murmured. “I saw the flames just as I turned in.” He held her away from him. “Are you okay? Were you inside? What happened?”

The rush of adrenaline that had kept her on her feet suddenly evaporated, and her knees went weak. She sagged against him.

“Oh, darlin’,” he whispered, holding her. “It’s okay.”

Feeling safe at last, she finally dared to look at the house, where flames were roaring through the roof even as volunteer firefighters began swarming everywhere. Tears stung her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. All of her memories were in that house and they were being completely destroyed in that terrible inferno. It was as if her life were going up in flames. How could anything ever be okay again?

The streams of water being directed at the house merely sizzled and steamed in the heat, doing little to dampen the blaze.

When she moaned at the sight, Grady scooped Karen up and carried her to his truck, tucked her inside, then turned on the heater. He found a blanket in back to wrap her in, then climbed in behind the wheel.

His fingers slid into her hair, and he caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Talk to me, Karen. Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? Did you get burned?”

“No,” she whispered, her voice choked. “What happened? How did this happen?”

Grady’s expression turned grim. “Maybe we ought to wait and see what the firemen have to say about that. And Michael should be here soon. I called him.”

She regarded him suspiciously. “Why did you call the sheriff? You think this was deliberately set, don’t you?” she said, without waiting for his reply.

“Don’t you?” he asked mildly. “Or did you leave the stove on? Or maybe forget to put the screen in front of the fireplace? Or was there a short in some wiring?”

She frowned at his mocking tone. “It could have been any of those things,” she said, not ready to believe the alternative-that someone had deliberately burned down her home.

“Really?” he asked with blatant skepticism.

“Okay, no, I hadn’t turned the stove on all evening. And there was no fire in the fireplace. But it could have been the wiring,” she insisted stubbornly. “It’s old.”

“Whatever,” he said. “Where are Hank and Dooley?”

“I haven’t seen them since before supper time,” she said. “I told them to take the night off.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Why did you do that?”

“Because they’d been watching me nonstop for days now. They needed a break.”

“Sit here,” Grady ordered, looking more furious than she’d ever seen him.

She was shivering too badly not to comply. Even with the heater blasting and a blanket wrapped around her, she was cold. An aftereffect of the shock, she supposed.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the bunkhouse, then to take a look around. Maybe they’ve pitched in to help the firefighters.”

She nodded and watched him go. Only as he walked away did she wonder at the coincidence of Grady arriving for the first time in days just as a fire destroyed the ranch that stood between them.