since the fire and the lingering smell of smoke still burned like acid in the back of her throat. Annie Hennessy covered her mouth and nose, remembering the days immediately following the fire when they were forced to wear face masks and hazmat suits as they waded through the waist-deep ruins of the inn that had been in her family for the past fifty years.
Like then, she bit back the sobs, afraid even letting one escape would cause her to break down entirely. Where would she and her daughter be then? Her mother and grandmother? Homeless, probably. Or living on the generosity of some relative.
Annie took a tentative step forward, wincing as something crunched beneath the sole of her hiking boot. She dreaded looking down but did anyway.
The charred remains of a picture frame lay in her path, barely recognizable. Whichever room the painting had once hung in was anyone’s guess. During the fire, the roof caved in on the second floor, which had then collapsed onto the first floor.
Only the foundation, parts of the exterior walls and a few blackened ceiling beams remained. All the precious heirlooms, antiques, furnishings and mementoes the Hennessy women had collected over the past half century had been reduced to a giant pile of rubble in a matter of minutes.
No, not everything. As Annie took another step forward, something metallic peeked out from beneath a plank of wood.
Squatting down, she shoved aside the plank, mindless of the grime smearing her hands. One by one, her fingers closed around the object, and her pulse quickened. Why hadn’t she noticed this before today?
Like a miner discovering a diamond in a barren field, she unearthed the discolored desk bell and held it up to catch the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in from overhead. For as long as she could remember, this bell had sat atop the lobby desk. Hundreds, no, thousands of guests had rung it.
Another piece of Annie’s shattered heart broke off.
She clutched the bell to her chest and waited for the strength to rise in her. She would add this to her collection of salvaged treasures. A metal comb, a silver teapot, an iron hinge to the storeroom door, to name a few.
Annie fought her way across the piles of crumbling debris covering the former lobby floor. Staying here another minute was impossible. Why did she insist on torturing herself by stopping every day on her drive home from work?
Because this was her home. Not the tiny two-bedroom apartment in town where she and her family currently resided.
Bracing her free hand on the front entrance door frame, she propelled herself through the opening and across the lawn, filling her lungs with much-needed clean air.
Her SUV stood where she’d left it, in what had been the inn’s parking lot. The vehicle, a pea-green all-wheel-drive monstrosity, bore the logo of the Nevada Division of Forestry on its driver’s side door.
Annie had started working for the NDF only last week and considered herself one of the lucky few. She’d gotten a job, low paying as it was. Too many of her friends and fellow residents were unable to find employment or even a place to live.
For the Hennessys’ inn wasn’t the only structure in Sweetheart, Nevada, that succumbed to the fire’s insatiable hunger. Nine thousand acres of pristine mountain wilderness and two-thirds of the town’s homes and businesses were destroyed—along with all of their livelihoods and very way of life.
Once behind the wheel, Annie didn’t head to the apartment. Instead, she took the road out of town. Her mother wasn’t expecting her for another hour. And as much as Annie wanted to see her beautiful daughter, she needed a few moments of solitude in a place that had escaped the fire. A place where her spirit could mend.
She slapped the visor down as she turned west. Before the fire, she hadn’t needed to shade her eyes. The towering ponderosa pines on both sides of the road would have blocked the sun’s glare. Now, a sea of scorched trunks and branches stretched for miles. Every hundred feet or so, a single tree stood, lush and green and miraculously spared.
What Annie wouldn’t give to have her family’s inn be like those surviving trees.
This wasn’t just the town where she’d grown up and the inn her place of work. Her roots ran deep. According to her grandmother, the Hennessy line went all the way back to the first settlers.
Shortly after the gold rush of 1849, a wagon train passed through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. On it, two young passengers met and fell in love. When the wagon train stopped in what was now Sweetheart, the man proposed to the woman. They married in California but returned to the spot where they’d become engaged to settle and raise a family. The next year, the man discovered gold. Word traveled and people arrived. The small town that sprang up was called Sweetheart after its first settlers and founders of the mine.
Many of the businesses in town, including Annie’s family’s, capitalized on the legend. To Annie, it was more than just a story, it was her heritage.
Ten minutes later, she stopped the SUV at the security gate blocking the entrance to the Gold Nugget Ranch and got out. Several years earlier, after the ranch had been closed to the public, the caretaker had entrusted Annie’s family with a spare key. She was supposed to use it only for emergencies.
She considered mending her broken spirit as good an emergency as any.
To her surprise, she found the gate closed but padlock hanging open. Had Emmett been here and forgotten to secure the lock when he left? Doubtful. The caretaker was as dependable as ants at a picnic. But what other explanation could there be?
Returning to her SUV, she navigated the steep and winding mile-long dirt road to the ranch. Even before she got there, she spotted an unfamiliar Chevy dually pickup parked near the sprawling front porch.
The truck was empty. So was the porch. Whoever was here must be inside or out back. But why would they have a key to the gate?
Annie strode determinedly across the dirt and gravel yard to the porch steps. Every inch of the house and grounds was familiar to her. Not only had she visited on countless occasions, she’d seen it over and over while watching syndicated reruns of The Forty-Niners on TV.
The front door stood partially ajar and creaked loudly when she pushed it open. Her footsteps echoed ghostlike as she crossed the empty parlor.
“Hello? Anybody here?”
She should be nervous. The stranger prowling the house or grounds might be a vandal or a thief or even an ax murderer. Except what ax murderer drove a fire-engine-red pickup truck?
Maybe a real estate agent was here showing the ranch to a prospective buyer. It had been for sale the past several years, though there had been few lookers and no serious offers. Despite the ranch’s claim to fame—a location used to film The Forty-Niners for eight years during the late ’60s and early ’70s—and a much reduced price, it was a bit of a white elephant.
Annie was secretly glad. For as long as she could remember, it had been her dream to buy the iconic ranch.
Since the fire, her only dream was to survive each day.
At a noise from above, she started toward the staircase. “Hello!” Taking hold of the dusty newel post, she let her gaze travel the steps to the second floor.
A figure emerged from the shadows. A man. He wore jeans and boots and a black cowboy hat was pulled low over his brow.
Even so, she instantly recognized him, and her damaged heart beat as though it was brand-new.
Sam! He was back. After nine years.
Why? And what was he doing at the Gold Nugget?
“Annie?” He started down the stairs, the confused expression on his face changing to one of recognition. “It’s you!”
Suddenly nervous, she retreated. If he hadn’t seen her, she’d have run.
No, that was a stupid reaction. She wasn’t young and vulnerable anymore. She was thirty-four. The mother of a three-year-old child. Grown. Confident. Strong.