“You’d have got him out.”
“Maybe.”
“He’s going to be okay, Quinn.” Her face was pale and smeared with dirt, but there was no mistaking what lay beneath that dirt. Quinn Harper had grown up pretty, he thought as his pulse kicked up a beat.
“I’m Luke Trainer. You probably don’t remember me.”
No reaction came over her face to suggest she remembered the reputation he and his brothers had had.
“Thanks for helping us.” She held out her hand, and he took it. It was slender inside his; he shook it gently.
“Let’s go check on your dad.” Luke reached for her.
“I got it.”
“Sure you do.” He picked her up and helped her stand. “But after something like that, you have to be a bit rattled.”
He put her height at about five foot seven, as she came to his nose and he was six foot three.
“I don’t get rattled easily, but thanks anyway.”
“A person who can be calm in the face of crazy is a treasure,” Luke teased her.
“Thanks.”
“I can see the girl you were in that face. Just the pigtails missing these days.”
She winced. “I hated those pigtails.”
“Yeah, well, we all have stuff from our youth we don’t like.”
Her eyes skimmed over his face, and he knew she was remembering who he’d once been. “I remember you had a left cheek dimple, and I have a right one. Miss Marla used to call us her dimple twins.”
“I’d forgotten that,” Luke said.
“Plus, you still have those eyes.” Quinn’s words came out fast, running over each other as if he made her nervous.
He studied the dimple that bracketed her mouth. His did the same on the right, and he’d always hated it. On her it looked real nice though.
“Eyes?” He nudged her toward the ambulance and kept pace.
“Really green, and long lashes that seemed a crime for a boy to have,” she said.
“I’m trying to work out if that’s a compliment or not.”
She snorted.
He went back to check on the fire briefly and walked around the now incinerated barn. What had started the fire? Heading back to the ambulance, he spoke to Mr. Harper.
“You doing okay, Mr. Harper?”
“Thank you, Luke.” He held out a hand. “You saved my life, and that of my daughter.”
“Quinn would have got you out.”
“She would have.” He nodded.
“How did the fire start?” Luke asked.