And it wasn’t a fight he was winning.
Sound shattered through him, its impact almost physical. His eyes sprang open only to squeeze quickly shut against a glare of dazzling light. In a heartbeat he recognized the danger.
They were under fire.
Mortar shells lit up the night sky as they screamed toward their encampment like banshees. Dodge scrambled out of his tent into the chaos of men dying. He tried to call out orders to organize the panicked soldiers, to ready them to return fire, but his words couldn’t compete with the deafening roar of the artillery barrage cutting them to pieces. Within moments he was the only one standing among a litter of corpses.
Brightness continued to light the sky in eerie flickers as Dodge knelt beside the first body lying facedown in the mud. He gripped the man’s shoulder and rolled him over, rocking back in horror at the sight of his friend Reeve Garrett’s face twisted in a grimace of death. Dodge stumbled back, bumping against another of the fallen. His breath coming in hoarse, anguished bursts, he flipped that
man over, revealing the face of another friend. And so it went as he crawled through the mud and gore among the dead, turning over man after man, staring down into the still faces of not only those he’d commanded, but friends from childhood, faces of family, until the sobs of grief and guilt choked him.
A tremendous punch of agony tore through his back, propelling him facedown into the sea of mud. He wallowed helplessly until he managed to tip his face up to the flashing heavens. He tried to lift himself out of the mire.
But he couldn’t move. His body was as useless as a length of cordwood, the muscles deadened, unresponsive.
“No.”
That’s when the smell reached him. Above the scorch of gunpowder, over the stink of the mud.
The scent of death.
It rose all around him, the mud and rain becoming a fast-rising tide. He struggled to get his elbows under him, to find enough leverage to lift his head out of the ever-deepening pool. But his body wouldn’t obey the frantic commands of his mind.
It rose up to his ears.
“No.”
He lifted his chin, fighting to keep his mouth and nose clear, but the level surged up too fast, closing off his light, his air.
As he drowned in the blood of those who’d fallen.
“Dodge?”
It had taken all her courage for Starla to enter
the darkened room, to sit on the edge of the bed beside the thrashing man.
His stark cries had awakened her—horrible, harsh sounds of dread and pain and fear that scared a rash of gooseflesh along her arms and had her trembling. Horrible memories of her own made her cower in the dark while shocks of lightning heightened the nightmarish quality of her recall: memories of another man’s voice, wild and rambling in the throes of narcotic delusion, of irrational temper and sometimes violence when she dared to interfere. Those reminders held her helpless for a long moment until she recalled that this wasn’t that man; this was Dodge. And he’d promised never to hurt her.
But what if in response to his pain, Dodge relied on the same opiates that she’d watched destroy another?
Don’t go to him! No man is as good as his word! He’ll make you regret it if you intrude. Didn’t he say he didn’t need or want you?
But her conscience betrayed her, goading her into snatching her robe and creeping down the stairs, hugging close to the rail as the low, anguished sounds led her toward the back bedroom.
She could see him tossing in a tangle of sheets, eyes closed, his features taut beneath a sheen of sweat as he struggled against whatever haunted his dreams. Asleep, not insensible. Relief left her weak. She should have withdrawn then and left him to his subconscious battle, but something about those tortured pulls of breath played harmony upon her own remembrances of what it was to feel helpless
and alone. She crossed over to him, all the while chiding herself for becoming involved in his nightmares. She’d had enough of her own. She didn’t need to fight his as well.
At the first light touch of her hand upon his shoulder, he came awake. His eyes flashed open, his gaze darting wild and disoriented about him until it fixed on her face with a desperate fear. She jumped in alarm as his fingers clamped over the top of hers, squeezing convulsively into an inescapable grip.
“Reeve? Is Reeve alive?”
Though his question seemed ludicrous, his fractured tone had Starla answering with a gentle assurance.
“Reeve is fine. You were dreaming.”
“Dreaming,” he repeated both in doubt and tremendous relief.
Starla tried to twist her hand free, but his hold on her tightened until her panic began to grow.
“Dodge, let me go.”
Her increasingly urgent pulling had no effect.
“Let me go!”
The fright in her voice finally reached him. His hand opened, allowing her the freedom to surge back, to scramble warily to her feet, rubbing her wrist.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, scrubbing shaking hands over his face to dry the sheets of cold terror clinging to his skin. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I have dreams sometimes. I’m fine now.”
But a sudden crack of thunder had him cringing back, his fists balling over his eyes to shut out the
light that accompanied the sound. His breath escaped him in a jagged rush.
“It’s just a storm.”
He nodded, understanding her explanation, yet still responding to the next flash and rumble with irrational panic, crossing his arms over his head as if to protect himself against some sort of expected fallout.
“Dodge?”
“I’m sorry I woke you. I’m—I’m all right. These things never used to bother me—
oh, God—
” He braced against the next rattle of sound, tensing until it was over, then letting go in a shuddering relief. He was breathing hard—distraught, still caught in the fearful throes of his nightmares.
Cautiously Starla sat beside him, clasping her hands together to restrain herself from the want to touch him, to soothe his fears, imagined or not. Abruptly he rolled onto his side, tucking up against the wall, rocking himself in short, hard thrusts as the foundation of the house vibrated from the fury of the storm.
“I can’t make it stop. I can’t make it stop.”
The torment in his wrenching claim broke Starla’s reserve. She touched his shoulder, feeling shivers of reaction as she slowly rubbed the taut muscles of his arm. Another sharp crack and sizzle made him clutch at her, dragging her down across him. The threat of that sudden closeness eased with the evidence of his distress.
“I can see their faces.” He moaned in despair.
Carefully Starla fitted herself to his strong contours, encircling him with her embrace as she had
her brother, when they were younger and he was troubled by fitful dreams.
“Close your eyes.”
He rolled toward her then and she held his dark head to her breast, blocking out the lightning dance with the wrap of her arms. His jerking breaths blew hot and uneven against the curve of her bosom, heating through thin silk, warming deeper with their erratic pattern of anguish. She pressed her cheek to the soft bristle of his hair and murmured, “It’s all right. Just close your eyes. It’ll all go away.”
She held him while the storm raged, absorbing the fierce shocks racking him with each loud percussion. Finally the roars ebbed to a gentle timpani, and his breathing slowed and deepened into restful slumber.
She should have returned to her room, but while giving him comfort, she’d begun to receive it in exchange. As her fingertips stroked from her husband’s brow to his stubbled jaw and back, she took a quiet pleasure in the repetitions. The cadence of his breathing, the steady throb of his pulse, calmed her spirit. The act of easing his demons helped quiet her own.
She thought of what he’d said, that their marriage was a partnership, like brother and sister, where each could depend on the other. For the next few hours, while rain tapped on the glass and Dodge slept in her arms, Starla let herself relax and enjoy the simple act of closeness without fear.
Which perhaps was why, when she woke to the pastels of dawn with the feel of his kiss on her lips,
she responded with a quiver of curiosity.
In all her flirtations, in all her coy encouragements, never had she allowed the familiarity of a kiss. Just the thought of that grinding pressure mashing tender lips against her teeth, the slobbering aggression of a tongue thrusting down her throat, startled feelings of helplessness and invasion. It was a gesture of greedy domination that sickened her more than all but the most personal of exchanges, one she swore would always have to be taken from her, never given.
So why was she giving back to Hamilton Dodge as they lay side by side in the warm haven of his bed, when it was threat, not capitulation, that should have controlled her reactions?
He’d awakened to the unfamiliar delight of not being alone.
The realization that it was Starla sharing his sheets shocked him to his soul, until, with an embarrassing flush of memory, he recalled what had drawn her into his room. He hadn’t had that particular nightmare for a long while. It must have been the stale scent of blood in the bank, the frustration of his own helplessness, that had lured it back to taunt him.
Starla had come to comfort him and had stayed to console him.
Looking into her face scant inches away on his pillow, he was neither comforted nor consoled. A strange, shivery panic flooded through his chest and closed fistlike around his heart. A more primal heat scorched along his veins, trailing fire and longing,
then stopped just short of full-blown passion. What stirred his emotions into a frenzy of need left his loins frustratingly unaffected.
Right now, it was for the best. He would never have dared touch the soft spill of her hair if not in complete control of his more basic responses. It wasn’t his intention to claim his bride with ungovernable lusts. He needed to win her with restrain and respect … and trust.
But wisdom couldn’t quite win out over the desperate desire to taste the soft mouth denied him before the judge … a quick taste to satisfy all that massed in complex yearning as her warm breath caressed the part of his lips.
Sweet. She tasted sweet as his every urgent dream, as tender as the uncertain sentiment unfurling in his heart as he lingered just a bit too long to savor the sensation.
Dodge felt her intake of breath and knew she was awake. Refusing to react with a guilty withdrawal, as if he’d intended to steal something he knew would not be given freely, he made one more soft sweep of her lips before starting to pull away. And that was when her hand slipped to the back of his neck, halting the movement, holding him there as her eyes opened to gaze into his with a wonder her wariness couldn’t conquer.
“Kiss me like that again,” came her breathless whisper.
So he did, softly, slowly, searching out a response from her guarded heart, seeking an answering pressure with his unhurried exploration of each tempting swell and tender indentation. Her hand
never moved on the base of his neck, her fingers lax but the support never lessening as gradually she kissed him back.
Dodge had kissed his share of women, but never had he been as moved as he was now by the innocent response of this woman he’d wed. A woman pregnant with another man’s child who parted her lips as if she’d never done so with any other.
How could that be?
Either she was a splendid actress … or she’d never given herself willingly to the father of her baby.
He pulled back, agitated by his thoughts and by the feelings threading through him in strands of fire and fierce possession. If he didn’t encourage some distance between them, he feared he’d push past the limits of her willingness as well.
“You should go now,” he advised. The husky urgency in his tone must have convinced her of that wisdom. She slipped across him and was out the door before he could draw another breath to thank her for her compassion.
Starla brushed her hair until the trembling in her hands made continuing impossible. Clutching the brush as if to still the frantic pounding of her heartbeat, she regarded her reflection in her bedroom mirror, shocked by the sight of her wide, green crystal eyes and the pale parchment skin now tracked with tears. She wasn’t ever one to cry silly tears over something so trivial as a kiss.
Or was the cause of her distress the fact that the kiss wasn’t trivial?
She’d believed herself safe beneath this roof, with this man. She’d taken his assurances as truth. She let herself begin to trust the man she’d married because he posed no physical threat, believing that without having to endure his touch or his intimate possession, there was no danger in letting him get close.
What a fool she was to have underestimated him so—and herself as well.
The danger Hamilton Dodge posed wasn’t to her body; it was to her heart.
It was time for Dodge to say hello to his new in-laws.
The visit wasn’t one he looked forward to, but he couldn’t escape its necessity if he was ever to understand his bride. So much mystery was kept locked inside her, and he’d have to find the answers himself if he wanted to know the whole truth.
It shouldn’t have been difficult to learn about a family as prominent as the Fairfaxes. Everyone in Pride was usually free with an opinion, whether it was close to the truth or not. But mention the Fairfax family and no one had a thing to say. What caused the fear and unhappiness his wife had tried to hide with her fiercely contrived flirtations? It had something to do with the neglected mansion on the far side of Pride, where her father, the reclusive Cole Fairfax, stayed behind closed doors, locking the gossips of Pride out and the secrets of the Fairfaxes in.
A harried-looking black woman answered his
knock at the front door with suspicion instead of welcome.
“Whatchu’ want here?”
Dodge ignored her wariness and affected his most winning smile. “You must be Tilly. I’m Hamilton Dodge. I’m Starla’s husband.”
“Miss Starla wouldn’t go an’ marry a Yankee. Get your lying self outta here.”
He was quick to brace his hand against the door. “I’d like to see Cole Fairfax.”