Ashes and Memories (29 page)

“Get out.” Her breath turned shallow as she pressed a hand against his chest in an attempt to put some distance between them. Her heart threatened to leap from her chest any moment, and she trembled beneath his hand. So many emotions bombarded her all at once she couldn’t sort them out -- anger, desire, fear.

“This is my building,” he reminded her with a smile.

Anger won over the other feelings roiling inside Emma. She jerked her arm with all her strength, and he released her. “Then I’ll get out,” she said, stalking to the rack beside the door to retrieve her coat.

“Emma, stop.”

His voice was so authoritative she responded in spite of herself, halting in the act of getting her coat.

He stood for a moment, not looking at her, his nostrils flaring with the power of his breathing, his lips curled in anger. “There’s no need for you to go. I’m leaving.”

He turned at the door, his gaze piercing her composure and her resolve.

“Think about what I said, Emma,” he whispered, his gaze caressing her body from head to foot and back. “Think about it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Reece stood in the darkened barroom, gazing out the window at the newspaper office. His throat tightened as he recalled the last time he’d stood like this, watching, waiting. Emma’s light was still on as it had been that other night, and he wondered if she was preparing for bed, brushing her long, fiery  hair, or lying in the bed they’d shared.

Turning, he gazed up the staircase at the door above. It was a damned shame when a man couldn’t sleep in his own bed, but he hadn’t been able to exorcize her from it. Every time he looked at it, he saw her sleeping there, her expression peaceful and relaxed because she felt safe here, safe with him.

He wanted her, not just a woman but Emma. He wanted Emma, and the very idea, the notion that no other woman would do, terrified him. He could lose her and go on living, he told himself. He could walk away and never look back. He just didn’t want to.

He’d handled everything badly, though he’d meant well in his own way. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever mishandling a situation with a woman any worse. Why couldn’t she see the advantage an alliance between them would give her? She wouldn’t have to worry about money or survival or taking care of herself. He would provide for her, protect her.

In return he would have access to her beautiful, passionate body. He would pleasure her as much as she would pleasure him. It was a perfect arrangement. And she had no idea what he risked to give her even that much permanence.

Why did she have to be so stubborn and prideful? And yet, it was those very qualities that drew him to her as much as anything else. He admired her courage, her spirit, every bit as much as he admired her beauty and her softness. He wanted, needed, to possess it all, and he would not rest until he did.

He wondered vaguely what her reaction would be if he asked her to marry him. Was that what she wanted? Respectability? And why couldn’t he force himself to take that last step? If that was what he had to do to have her, why couldn’t he give her that? He didn’t love her, and he’d vowed long ago never to marry again.

“
Find out what’s personally important to the other man and use it.
” His father’s words returned to him, chilling him with their implications.
 

Of course, Reece’s answer to that philosophy had been to make sure nothing was ever that important to him again. He’d made a lot of enemies in his life, and he didn’t want anything to be so valuable to him that it could be used against him. A man couldn’t lose something he didn’t have.

Besides, marrying Emma wouldn’t be fair to her. He lived over a saloon, for God’s sake, and he wasn’t ready to indulge in any of the comforts he worked so hard to attain. Yes, he had the money to live extremely well, but luxury and comfort dulled a man’s drive, as did a family. His goals were too important to jeopardize them by getting too comfortable too soon. Luxury wasn’t his goal, power was.

Emma’s light went out, and he wondered if she would sleep any better than he would tonight.

Moving away from the window, he turned out the last lamp, casting the room in total darkness. The shadows held nothing but loneliness and pain. For the first time since the war, he wanted someone in his life, and her absence left an empty place in his soul.

He was acting like a green boy. Hell, even when he was a green boy he hadn’t acted like this.

Taking hold of the office door, Reece vowed to leave Emma’s memory outside. But as he took a deep breath and pushed the door open, he knew he’d failed.

The office was dark, but he didn’t have to see to remember. And he did remember. He remembered every moment she’d spent in this room, every time she’d come here to challenge him about something else he’d done that violated her code of ethics.

Reece smiled slightly, thinking of Emma angry, her blue eyes flashing. She knew what she believed and she knew what she stood for.

What did he stand for, he wondered, turning the question aside as he stalked into the room and made his way toward the lamp on the desk.

Something moved in the darkness, a shadow, a whisper of sound. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and he drew his gun. His head exploded and the gun slipped from his numb fingers. Someone shoved him against the wall with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs. Stunned, he struggled against unconsciousness.

 “Will you look at that?” a voice said from the darkness. “Mr. High and Mighty himself.”

“It’s a shame to mess up that pretty suit,” a second voice said with a laugh.

How many of them were there, he wondered hazily. His heart pounded as terror, new and remembered, coursed through him. He couldn’t think past the shock and pain. All he knew was that unarmed he was helpless.

He contemplated the bowie knife secreted inside his boot, struggling to clear his mind and formulate a plan for getting to it. Whoever had attacked him had the advantage of surprise and maybe numbers, but it didn’t matter. He’d rather be dead than helpless.

He could hardly stand, and his mind refused to clear. Nausea rose in his throat, and his head throbbed.

Whoever they were, they were enjoying his pain and he knew with the part of his brain that had recovered that they would inflict as much as possible before they were finished with him unless he stopped them somehow.

He didn’t even know where his gun was anymore, and he was too weakened and dazed to fight back, even if he weren’t outnumbered.

This couldn’t be happening. The thought kept flashing through his dazed mind. A kind of helpless despair he hadn’t felt in a long time surged through him, leaving him trembling with rage and horror.

This couldn’t be happening.
 

“What do you want?” he asked, trying to see the other man.

One of them punched him in the lower back, the pain flashing through his body like a brush fire.

“I’ll ask the questions here MacBride, you got that?”

Garrett. Of course. If he wasn’t so dazed, he would have recognized the voice. Things were beginning to make more sense now. He wanted revenge, for the beating he’d received that night in the saloon, for his brother’s death, for the routing of his men.

“Come on, hurry up,” another man said, the shaking of his voice revealing his nervousness.

Reece’s gaze fell on the water pitcher on the washstand just within his reach, and in that instant a plan took shape. He might be outnumbered, but he had to take a chance. He didn’t know where this was going, but he knew they wanted more than robbery, and he wasn’t going to die without a fight or allow himself to be mishandled by these cowards who didn’t even have the guts to face him in the light of day.

He grabbed the pitcher and turned, tossing it at Garrett’s head. The outlaw ducked out of the way, but his reaction gave Reece enough time to swing around and deliver a fist to the second man’s gut. He fell backward, and Reece turned to face Garrett, but his reflexes were off. He wasn’t fast enough. The other man landed a blow to his already throbbing jaw.

Reece tried to grab hold of something to break his fall, but only succeeded in overturning his desk chair as he fell. A foot between his shoulder blades pinned him to the floor. “Where are your bodyguards now, MacBride?” Garrett taunted.

“Where are your guerrilla friends now, MacBride?”

Reece lay flat, his chest pressed against the floor so hard he could scarcely breathe. He tried to think, to concentrate, but the voices of the past and the horror of the present bombarded him. And the ringing in his ears and the bile in his throat threatened to overwhelm him.

“I heard tell how much you hate banks, don’t trust them,” Garrett was saying. “I’ll bet there’s a safe in here somewhere. And you’re going to tell us where.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Reece panted for breath, struggled against the darkness that threatened to devour him.

Garrett hit him on the head with the butt of his revolver, the pain exploding with the force of a cannon. Not satisfied with that, the outlaw kicked him in the ribs, and Reece grunted in pain, tried instinctively to rise and found himself pinned to the floor again.

“Wrong answer,” Garrett said with a laugh.

Through the haze that surrounded his brain, Reece could hear the sound of someone ransacking the room, overturning the desk, then the sideboard.

Garrett’s partner laughed. “Looks like we got us a safe.”The pressure on Reece’s back disappeared and he was jerked up and onto all fours by the collar.

“Let’s see what’s inside.”

Reece started to rise, but Garrett stopped him. “No, I want to see you crawl.”

“Where are your guerilla friends now, MacBride?” The question was followed by cruel laughter
.
 

He’d been running from that voice, from the memories assaulting him, for thirteen years. He couldn’t think, couldn’t deal with the present and the past at the same time. The room swam before him, and suddenly he wasn’t in Providence at all but a stone cell in a Union prison.

They hadn’t come to beat him today, he knew, only to mock him, to humiliate him. They never let up. Every day they’d come, demoralizing him, reminding him how hopeless his situation was, how helpless he was, reminding him what would happen to him in a few days when they would beat him again, laughing at his futile rage and the fear he tried so hard to conceal.
 

Garrett’s laughter shivered down Reece’s spine as the outlaw pulled him forward by the hair. Garrett’s partner kicked him in the buttocks and they forced him to crawl across the floor toward the safe.

“On your knees, Major.”

Reece stood straight, glaring his defiance at the guard who had issued the order.

The second guard moved to his other side. “Didn’t you hear the captain, rebel filth?”

The guard drove the butt of his rifle against Reece’s head and he fell to his knees. Their laughter ricocheted off the cell walls.

“He’ll learn,” the first guard said with a laugh. “I don’t care what you were before today. As of this minute, you’re nothing. I own you, do you understand, Major?”

He would kill them for this, or they would kill him. It was that simple. His mind refused to accept the fact that it was happening again, the thing he’d feared most in his life had happened to him again. He was completely and totally at their mercy. There was no escape, no defense.

They always came in threes, so that there was no chance of escape, no means of defense, only a dark, empty helplessness that gnawed at him day and night. They wouldn’t even allow him the dignity of being killed trying to defend himself, they never gave him even that much of a chance.
 

When they came, they brought with them unbearable reality. When he was alone, his only companions were agonizing memory and hideous anticipation, day and night, night and day. No escape, no relief, no recourse. And there was no reason for any of it aside from hatred and frustration. They wanted nothing from him but submission. They wanted to break him, destroy the only thing he had left, his self-respect, and his greatest fear was that they would succeed in the end.

It was happening again. He tried to focus on the gun in the safe and not on the humiliation of being forced to crawl across the floor like an animal while Garrett and his partner made whooping sounds and forced him forward.

At least this time there was a chance. He would kill them or they would kill him, he reminded himself.

They reached the safe and the second man shoved his head to the carpet. Pain radiated through his body as Garrett kicked him in the back, and he lay sprawled on the floor.

Garrett pressed a gun to the back of his head. “Don’t think I won’t kill you, MacBride.”

Reece held up a hand for patience, pushing the hair out of his eyes and struggling to his knees.

The gun, if he could get to the gun without them seeing....

Slowly he turned the lock, first right, then left, then right again, taking time to clear his thoughts and picture in his mind from the sound of their voices where everyone stood in the room. He would die for what he was about to do, but he would take at least one of them with him, he vowed.

“Hurry up!” someone demanded.

Reece gritted his teeth and suppressed the fury that blurred his vision. There it was, a Colt revolver, loaded and primed. He clutched it in his hand, took a deep steadying breath, turned and fired.

One of the men went down, and Reece turned the pistol on Garrett, but before he could fire again, the third man kicked him in the side and he fell in a heap of pain and frustration. Garrett kicked the pistol away, then grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to sit upright.

The outlaw pressed a pistol to his forehead. “Beg me for your life.”

“Say please,” the guard urged. “Ask me to stop and I’ll leave you alone, MacBride. All you gotta do is say please stop. You’ll break eventually, but you can save yourself a lot of pain if you just do what I say.”