Ashes and Memories (18 page)

What she needed was a husband to calm her down, give her something else to think about other than saving the world.

Someone like the Thaddeus Stevens -- the thought leaped unbidden to his mind. Doctor Stevens would make a fine husband. He was stable, well-respected, kind-hearted.

Reece truly was in hell. The last thing he wanted in his life was a wife, and he couldn’t have Emma any other way. But he could not abide the thought of Emma in another man’s bed.

Reece tore his mind away from visions of Thaddeus and Emma entwined together in a marriage bed, focusing his attention back on the town that stretched below him.

The outlaws were making their way systematically up the street, bypassing some buildings, ransacking others. They would not pass one with a light in the upper window. It would be like a beacon, a sure sign someone lived there, and he knew they wanted more than to break a few storefronts. They wanted blood.

Another fire broke out, this one closer. The curtain in the apartment above the newspaper office drew back again.

Cursing under his breath, Reece ground out his cigar angrily and strapped on his gun. He grabbed his duster and jammed his hat on his head as he stalked from the room.

At the bottom of the stairs, he was met by a delegation of three wild-eyed men who looked as if they’d just been roused from a dead sleep.

“Mr. MacBride, you’ve got to help us,” the barber, a short, slight, balding man pleaded.

“Get out of my way,” Reece said gruffly, brushing past the man.

The second man, Elias Edwards from the mercantile, grabbed him by the arm. “They’re tearing up the town.”

Reece’s gaze traveled from the man’s hand on his arm up to meet his eyes, and Edwards released him, his face reddening.

“One man’s already been killed and two others hurt bad,” Edwards went on.

“They’ll burn the town to the ground and kill us all!" the barber exclaimed. “You’ve got to help us. You’re the only one who can!”

“You should have thought of that when you decided Garrett should go free." Reece didn’t have time for this right now. The need to get to Emma, to make sure she was safe, suddenly consumed him, overshadowing everything else, even his better judgment that warned him not to get involved, not to care. Caring caused a vulnerability he refused to accept or even contemplate.

“You’ve got to do something!" It was the third man, Mr. Smith who ran the land office. “We admit we were wrong. Please, help us.”

Reece released a sigh of resignation, glancing at Wilson who stood at the bar awaiting Reece’s instructions.

“Leave a couple of men here to guard the saloon,” Reece said. “Send the rest of the men to search both sides of the street.”

Turning back to the men gathered around him, he instructed, “You men go back to your homes and take care of your families.”

Reece spoke again with Wilson, ignoring the trio’s words of thanks as they scurried from the room. “I’ll be back shortly. While I’m gone, you’re in charge.”

Wilson opened his mouth to speak, his face mirroring the confusion inside Reece. But Reece rushed from the room before the other man could ask the question so evident in his eyes.

Why didn’t Reece stay at the saloon to command the men and send Wilson on this fool’s errand? He asked himself that question more than once as he made his way through the mounting violence toward the newspaper office.

Wilson was one of the few men he trusted implicitly. He would trust him with his own life, had done so on more than one occasion. But for some insane reason he didn’t trust the man with Emma’s safety, not tonight.

Emma was the last person he should be getting personally involved with. She’d caused this. Her damned newspaper had spurred this rebellion, he reminded himself as he made his way across the street to the newspaper office.

Reece flattened his body against the side of the building, eyes alert, muscles tense. From every corner of town he could hear the sound of gunfire and men shouting. The smell of burning wood filled his senses, reminding him too much of other nights and other towns, of the bitter rage that came from being hopelessly outnumbered and watching helplessly as war’s fury stole the homes from innocent people whose only crime was providing a sanctuary to a beleaguered army.

But this wasn’t war, and he wasn’t outnumbered. He was in control, had been since the first outlaw had ridden into town that evening.

A man on horseback raced through the center of the street, guns blazing. Reece fired, hitting the man in the leg and causing him to fall to the ground. He fired again, but the gunman rolled away, crawling to the other side of the street where he took cover behind a water trough.

A barrage of bullets sent Reece running for cover. He dove behind a stack of grain sacks in front of the mercantile as the plate glass window behind him shattered.

The silence told him the other man was reloading, or maybe he just wanted him to believe he’d run out of ammunition. Removing his hat, Reece lifted it slowly above the sacks. When the gunman didn’t fire, he rose up and waited, watching the water trough on the other side of the street. As soon as the other man stood, he shot him through the head.

He slipped along the wall until he reached the entrance, and his heart stopped.

The door stood open.

The lock had been forced and the glass pane broken. He stepped across the threshold, a sick fear shuddering through him. Someone was inside with Emma. What if he’d waited too long? What if his stubborn pride had caused Emma to be hurt or killed?

Shadows shifted and lengthened as he crept toward the stairs, his pistol cocked and pointed skyward. He walked across the wooden floor as quietly as possible, his entire body tense as he forced himself to move slowly, urging himself to caution though he wanted to tear the building apart until he found her.

A muffled sound to his left spun him around. Pointing his gun at the phantom, he peered into the empty darkness, his throat dry with terror.

His heart pounded, his mind forming images of what might have happened to her, what might be happening to her now. It was too quiet, too damned quiet. Someone had forced that lock. Someone was here besides Emma, but the building was as silent as a tomb. Reece shuddered at that image, steering his mind away from the possibility that she might already be dead. She was alive and she needed him.

And damn it, he didn’t want to be needed, not like that. The town needed him, but that was a different kind of need -- impersonal, uncomplicated.

Whoever was here might have seen him come in, might be holding a gun to her head at this very minute to keep her from calling out.

She had to be terrified; maybe she was hurt. Maybe she couldn’t call out. Maybe he was too late.

The sound of a gunshot from above rent the air. Reece wheeled around and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He reached her room and froze at the sight of blood on the floor just inside the door, his vision blurring as he struggled for calm.

His eyes refused to focus on the body lying a few feet away, and he blinked in an effort to clear the haze of dread that blinded him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond the blood and the twisted body lying face down in front of him. With all his will he tried to concentrate, but his mind shied away from reality.

Closing his eyes tightly, he clenched his jaw and struggled for control. When he opened his eyes again, he forced himself to look -- really look -- at the body.

A man’s body, not Emma’s body.

His breath escaped in a rush as realization crowded the panic from his brain. Not Emma, it wasn’t Emma, he told himself over and over until his heart beat slowed and he could think clearly again. He still didn’t know where she was, if she was still alive, if she was... safe. He searched the room intensely as he stepped through the doorway, careful to avoid the slick blood.

“Emma?” he whispered, his voice faltering.

A soft whimper drew his attention to a corner of the room. She sat in the dark, her knees drawn up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs, rocking back and forth, her face blank with shock.

He holstered his gun and hunkered down before her, the urge to grab her up warring with the need to remain calm for her sake.

“Emma,” he whispered, his voice breaking. He adjusted the torn sleeve of her white nightgown around her shoulder, speaking softly, soothingly, as if she were a hurt, wild creature, although she didn’t seem to realize he was there. “Emma, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Impulsively he reached out, tracing the outline of a bruise that marred her right cheek where the bastard had hit her. She flinched at his touch, and he drew his hand away, his gut clenching in reaction.

She was in shock, he knew, and he wanted to give her time to recover on her own, but he couldn’t afford to. He had to get her to safety and quickly.

He touched her hand tentatively, and when she didn’t pull away, he gently pried her trembling fingers from around the pistol she still clutched.

“Reece?” she murmured, looking up at him for the first time.

“I’m here,” he assured her, overcome with relief that she had finally spoken. He could reach her now, draw her back to reality. “You’re safe.”

“Is he dead?” she asked shakily.

Reece released a sigh of regret. He had to tell her the truth, that she’d killed a man. He felt sure she had never killed anyone before, and he didn’t know how she would hold up under the shock, the reality of taking a life, no matter how badly the son-of-a-bitch deserved it.

“Yes,” he said softly, still holding her hand between his, “he’s dead.”

A ragged sob shuddered through her body, her eyes brimming with tears. “I... I had to... I...”

“I know." He brushed a stray curl from her face with an unsteady hand. “You did what you had to do,” he assured her.

He didn’t know whether or not to hold her, what to say to her, how to reach out to her. But he did know they couldn’t stay here like this. Even now the chaotic sounds from the streets below grew louder.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he urged. “Can you stand up?”

Emma drew a shuddering breath, her eyes still blank with shock. “I don’t know.”

She placed her hand in his and he drew her gently to her feet, guiding her to a chair in the corner.

Reece positioned the chair so that she faced away from the corpse on the floor before seating her, the need to act quickly at odds with the equally strong need for patience.

He’d seen the effects of shock often enough to know that the worst thing he could do was try and force her back to reality before she was ready. Shock was the mind’s way of protecting itself from the unbearable, and to be forced out of that protective state too early could be devastatingly painful. But at the same time he couldn’t allow her to stay there too long.

She’d been attacked by a man bent on rape. The torn nightgown, the bruises on her arms and face told the story as eloquently as her emotional state. He wanted to hold her until she stopped trembling, but he wasn’t sure if he should even touch her right now. She needed time to get over the shock, to assimilate what had happened, but he couldn’t give her that time. Not now. Not here.

“Your boots, Emma,” he said. “Where are your boots?”

Emma pointed to the floor beside the bed, and Reece quickly fetched her boots and knelt before her. She sat acquiescent as he slipped her socked feet into the boots and then drew her to her feet.

Shrugging out of his duster, he slipped it over her trembling body. “We’ve got to go,” he urged.

He meant to take her by the shoulders and steer her toward the door, but before he could react or think, she came into his arms, her slender body shivering against his in a way that made him want to hold her, to keep her safe and near, forever.

He didn’t want to care so much, didn’t want to feel the nausea twist inside him when he thought of what had happened here and what might have happened had Emma not shot her attacker. The hell of it was he did care, and he knew he would pay a terrible price for that.

Shielding the dead body from her sight, he drew her through the door and down the stairs.

CHAPTER NINE

Emma had no recollection of crossing the street. It was as if she’d awakened from a nightmare to find herself in Reece MacBride’s office, sitting in a straight-backed chair while Reece knelt before her.

“I heard the glass break downstairs,” she said numbly. For some reason it was important that she recount everything that had happened tonight. Maybe she needed to understand or she needed him to understand.

But of course this had to be a dream. Reece MacBride would never look at her like he was now, his eyes filled with compassion and worry. He’d never touch her so sweetly, his warm hands wrapped around her cold ones, massaging them to start the blood flowing again.

Dry sobs wracked her body. She stared transfixed into Reece’s eyes because if she looked away or closed her eyes, another face rose in her mind, the leering face of her attacker, and the terror would overwhelm her again.

“It’s all right,” he was saying, his voice soft and warm and reassuring. “You’re safe now.”

“I reached for my gun,” she continued. “But when I turned around he was there, and he... and he knocked the gun from my hand and he grabbed me.”

“Don’t think about it now, Emma,” Reece said, “it’s over.”

She touched a trembling hand to her swollen cheek. “I tried to get away but he just laughed. And he hit me so hard....”

“I know, Emma, I know.”

Maybe if she could say it, recount everything that had happened, maybe then the trembling would stop. Maybe then she could feel something again besides this numbing anguish.

“He was so strong, and he wouldn’t stop." Her voice broke, and she took a deep, steadying breath, remembering the panic that had possessed her when she’d realized she couldn’t get away and she couldn’t make him stop. “He tore my gown, and he tried to kiss me, but I bit his lip and he let go of me so I grabbed my gun again.”

“He’s dead, Emma. He can’t hurt you now,” Reece told her, his brow furrowed with concern.