Running to You: Small Town Romance

Chapter Nine

**This has not been edited or proofread.**

GRAYSON

Farrah slept peacefully last night, thank God. I didn't mind being by her side, but I needed a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

Still, when my alarm went off at four thirty A.M., it felt too early.

I rolled out of bed and managed to get myself woken up with a shower before I swallowed down two cups of scorching hot coffee. When I stepped outside, I frowned. It was still dark, but something felt off.

Then, I saw it.

The field where I was growing corn. I shouted a curse and rushed down the porch, shouting for the ranch hands to get up. My phone was already in my hand by the time I got in the tractor I had to get down there and turn what ground I could to create a break until the fire department got there, or I was going to lose all my crops.

Farrah ran out of the house, her eyes wide with panic. "Stay back!" I shouted at her as the operator connected the line. I quickly informed her of what was going on as I slammed the door on the tractor shut and got it going as fast as I could.

"How bad is the fire?" she asked me.

"It's bad," I told her. "I'm going to try to create a break now, but it's spreading fast."

Once she assured me she had trucks enroute, I hung up and set to work on getting this ground turned. It hurt my soul to see my crops going to waste like this. This was going to hurt me so bad this year.

Whoever had done this was looking to hit where it hurt.

The heat was almost unbearable, but I got as close to the fire as I could, turning the ground. But the flames kept spreading further where I hadn't gotten to yet.

It didn't take long for multiple trucks to come barreling down the hill. I move my tractor aside as they began working on putting out the flames. I stumbled out of my tractor, coughing, the smoke almost too much.

"Come on," Chase said, gripping my shoulder. "Get up the hill where you can breathe comfortably."

"Check the woods," I rasped, pushing him off of me. "There's got to be something."

He nodded and rushed off, gathering some of my ranch hands to help him search for anything that might give us some inkling as to what started this. And maybe, if I were lucky enough, they'd find the guy responsible for this.

Farrah was a sobbing mess when I got up the house. She rushed down the steps towards me in just her sleep shorts, tank top, and bare feet. I quickly caught her in my arms, both of us sinking to the ground.

This was crushing. I'd lost over half that field.

And she had just been sitting here terrified that she was going to lose me.

"I don't know why he can't just leave it be," Farrah sobbed. "What is he getting out of this?" she wailed.

"He's making you scared," I told her honestly. "That's what he's doing, baby girl."

She tightened her arms around me, her face buried in the curve of my neck. I blew out a soft breath and continued holding her as the sun broke over the sky and the flames in my south field finally, finally, got put out.

~*~*~

Farrah was asleep on my lap when Chase strolled up to the porch looking tired and worn out. His clothes were dirty, and he looked like he go for an entire pot of coffee.

"Nothing," he told me. "Found some shoe prints. Got measurements. Took pictures. Flagged them. But there's nothing else there. Looks like the guy made it back out to the main road where he had a vehicle waiting. There's tire prints in the grass."

I leaned my head back against the rocking chair, not saying anything. Chase glanced down at Farrah. "She okay?"

I just shook my head. She wasn't okay. I wasn't okay.

We were hanging on by a thread. Today, we'd both been hit where it hurt.

"I'm going to ask around town, see if anyone passed the vehicle this morning," Chase quietly told me. "I know you've got things to do today, but just – stay with her, yeah? She was screaming when I pulled up. She thought you'd gone out to get yourself killed."

With that, he spun on his heel and walked back down the porch to his truck. I tightened my arms around Farrah and stared down the hill at the still slightly smoking field.