One More Wish - Bonnie R. Paulson Page 0,2

to Nick. Kali wasn’t there.

No one would be rushing to help her when there were other places in danger of the fast-approaching flames.

Nick didn’t care about all the fancy homes or even the not-so-fancy ones. He was more concerned about the animals. The lack of vehicles at the stables had alarmed him so he’d called Kali.

The shock in her voice confirmed she’d be there shortly, but that left Nick with the job of getting her horses freed and on their way to somewhere safe.

Which way was going to be safest? He strode around the north side of the barn and stared toward the abandoned town ruins a good half-mile or so north of the stables. The ruins were almost completely enshrouded with drifting smoke coming south from the source.

Nick licked his lips and then adjusted his cowboy hat. He’d left his vet jacket in the truck. There was no reason to be a doctor right then. What he needed to do was somehow gauge where the fire would end up, so he didn’t send the horses that way. Yet, how did he guesstimate that? He wasn’t a fire expert. As it was, he barely cared about the weather. Yet there he was trying to judge the direction of a fickle element that burned through anything it wanted? Yeah, that sounded sane.

He huffed, placing his hands on his hips as he stared toward the town. Okay, he couldn’t see any flames, but the thick gray and white smoke was thick as it moved upward into the clear blue sky and then also made its way through the town and toward the stables.

The smoke almost looked as if its entire goal was to overtake Mistletoe. It had some distance to cover, but with the dry August weather, there was no doubt the flames could make fast time.

Everything in the area was wood or something equally flammable. Forest fires weren’t something you expected to face in a town called Mistletoe and yet they should be expected. It wasn’t logical to think nothing bad would happen there. A person couldn’t ask whatever happened to Christmas in the summer.

Licking his finger and thrusting it in the air, Nick furrowed his brow and concentrated. The slight breeze seemed to push against the tip of his finger from the east.

If Nick moved the horses to the west pastures, they’d be safe from the majority of the flames, at least until the winds shifted. In Montana the winds shifted without reason. The large skies and open plains made it easy to do exactly that on a whim.

Before he’d gone into animal medicine, Nick had specialized in psychology. If he was going to give the wind a diagnosis, it’d be a culmination of narcissism, bipolar depression, and a manic frenzy.

Not that Nick was a psychologist. He’d decided he would rather work with the less demanding and more humane animals.

Long strides carried him around to the west side of the stables. Okay, there was a fence and it looked like the far gate was open. If he could get the horses headed that direction, he wouldn’t have to lead them there one by one. That would save severely valuable time.

Stable doors were wide open and facing the west. Why weren’t the animals coming out and trying to escape? In Nick’s experience animals were the most sensitive to danger. They knew when to flee and where to go. Domesticated animals were a little different since they relied on humans for everything, but horses should be instinct driven enough they could make it out of there safely.

Nick hoped.

The stables weren’t dark inside with the windows high overhead and he ducked into the first doorway he came to. “Hey, anyone in here?” He didn’t expect for the horses to answer him, but he also felt weird just going into someone else’s space without permission.

No one answered. He wasn’t surprised, but he also wished someone had. There would be less liability, if he wasn’t there alone.

A nervous whinnying drew Nick’s attention and he turned. The horses were kept in the side stalls opposite the open doorways. A broom stood against the wall beside an open stall door. She must have left last minute.

Nick crossed the space between the stalls and opened the stall door. He held his arms out wide by his sides and tried to corral the horses from the stalls out the open stall. Some wanted to go and others fought against his boundaries.

There had to be an easier way. He lifted