Ashes and Memories (23 page)

Unfortunately, because of the design of the building, the lobby was open to the entrance way, and anyone who wanted to reach the dining room had to get past the sight and stench of wounded bodies.

He caught sight of Emma as she placed a hand on a wounded man’s brow before straightening and turning toward Reece. Something turned over in his chest as she looked at him and he thought he saw her expression soften. But in the next instant, her chin went up and her eyes shot arrows at him.

Reece tucked his hat under his arm and tugged his gloves off as he walked toward her. She tried to avoid his gaze, channeling her energy into fluffing a pillow with the kind of violence one normally reserved for an enemy. She blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and straightened, watching him disdainfully as he came to stand before her.

“How are you?" He hadn’t meant to ask that. He’d meant to come directly to the point, tell her what he’d come to say and get on to his meal.

“I’m fine,” she said caustically.

His gaze settled on the bruise on her cheek that had turned an ugly yellow during the day. It was all he could do not to reach up and touch it, but he knew she would pull away. He swallowed convulsively at the memories the mark evoked -- Emma huddling on the floor in terror, Emma trembling in his arms, Emma sleeping in his bed.

“Good,” he said, forcing his thoughts away from their dangerous path and forcing a smile to his lips. “Your room is, um...." He didn’t want to mention the body again. She seemed to have recovered from her ordeal, and the last thing he wanted to do was remind her. But there was no easy way to tell her that the body had been cleared out and the blood scrubbed from the floor and wall, so he didn’t try. “If you need anything there, you can go back now,” he told her.

She nodded her understanding, avoiding his gaze. “Thank you.”

He wanted to touch her, hold her. He wanted to forget the way she’d looked at him that morning at the gallows and only remember the way she’d clung to him last night. Closing his eyes, he drove those memories from his mind. She was like poison to him, like a drug to an addict.

“You shouldn’t try to sleep there yet,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I haven’t been able to spare the men to make the repairs to your door. I’m sure you can get a room here at the hotel.”

“Thank you for your concern,” she said insincerely, “but I’d prefer to sleep in my own bed.”

Emma instantly regretted her words. A slow heat spread over her body as she remembered waking that morning in his warm, soft bed, remembered the fantasies that still filled her body and her soul with longing.

“I wouldn’t expect you to pay for lodging,” he assured her. “After all, you are my tenant. It’s only fair --”

“I can lock the door upstairs,” she interrupted, reminding herself that nothing had changed. He hadn’t changed. He was exactly what he seemed to be -- cold, ruthless, beyond redemption, and she had no intention of taking charity from him. “You needn’t concern yourself on my account.”

Her perception of him had been shaken, but during the day she’d managed to regain her objectivity. It didn’t matter what he’d once been; it didn’t matter how he’d come to earn two war medals or why he kept a damaged family Bible or what had made him the man he was today. All that mattered was the Reece MacBride who stood before her now.

“Emma....”

Emma waited for him to speak, yearning to hear him say he didn’t want her to go back because he cared. If he cared for her, maybe she could influence him, make him see what he’d become, what he was becoming.

She waited, but he never finished what he’d begun.

Instead his eyes hardened and he sighed deeply. Turning away with a nod of resignation, he walked back through the front door into the cold night.

What a perverse creature she was. She wanted to believe, even now, wanted to have him look at her again as if he would risk everything, even his life for her. He
had
risked his life for her.
 

Oh God, she had to stop this or she would go insane!

She wanted to soothe the hurt inside him, whatever had caused it, to tell him she understood. But she didn’t understand, not at all. And she sensed that she could very easily be destroyed herself if she insisted on trying to save him.

She remembered the dog she’d had as a child. When the animal had been badly injured by a kick from a cow, her father hadn’t let her get near him. The poor creature had been crazy with pain, so crazy he couldn’t tell they were trying to help him. He’d tried to bite anyone who got near him, and in the end they couldn’t save him. His own fear had caused his destruction.

A heavy sadness settled in Emma’s chest. Reece was like that. He wouldn’t let her near. Every time she tried, he lashed out, hurting her because he couldn’t understand that she only wanted to help, or maybe he didn’t believe she could.

It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Reece would destroy himself, and there was nothing she could do to stop him, and she wasn’t sure she could stay here in Providence and watch.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Emma turned back inside, resolving to find a way to leave this place as soon as possible.

#####

“Damned woman!" Reece muttered as he stepped onto the porch outside the hotel. What the hell did she want from him? Since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d been nothing but considerate and downright thoughtful toward her. He’d allowed her to challenge him with her infernal newspaper. He’d comforted her when she’d broken down over her father’s death. Hell, he’d started their acquaintance by burying her father. Then last night he’d risked his life and gone against his word to save her. And she acted as if he’d killed her best friend.

Drawing his duster closer around him against the cold, he turned and glanced back at the hotel, considering going back inside for that meal. But suddenly his appetite had completely deserted him. He could have coffee back at the saloon -- and whiskey. He might have a lot of whiskey tonight.

He might need it if he were going to sleep in that bed instead of lying awake all night fantasizing about the woman who had slept there last night. What he needed was another woman to share that bed and erase the memories imprinted on his mind. He could send someone to the whorehouse for Lorraine, but somehow that prospect didn’t hold the same appeal it once had.

Damn it! The woman was ruining his life!

Reece slipped his gloves back on and headed across the street. He’d take a turn around town to confirm that everything was quiet and in order. Then he’d check with Wilson to make sure the men were in position. He really didn’t expect Garrett to come back so soon, but he didn’t want to take anything for granted. For the time being, Providence was a town on alert, and he couldn’t afford to let down his guard.

Reece walked to the sheriff’s office for a cup of coffee and to make sure Ryker knew what was expected of him tonight. The men posted outside town should be able to keep the outlaws at bay, but an inner defense was crucial as well. If there was trouble, it might come from within. As unlikely as it might seem, one or two very skillful or very lucky men might be able to breach their defenses.

He left Ryker and walked behind the row of buildings that lined the opposite side of the street. At the newspaper office, he stopped. There was no light tonight, no movement at the curtain. Would she go back there so soon? She couldn’t really want to, the memories would be too fresh. If she spent the night in that room it would be to spite him.

He’d keep an eye out to see if she followed through. Hell, he might as well. He obviously wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

He turned and was about to walk away when a shadow in the alleyway caught his eye. Pulling his gun, he walked forward cautiously, his eyes adjusting to the deeper darkness between the buildings. A faint light glinted off something. His throat tightened. Flesh. Someone lay huddled against the wall.

“Who’s there?” he asked, moving along the building, his back to the wall. His arm tingled all the way down to the fingers that wrapped around the pistol, as his body prepared for battle.

Whoever was there didn’t move or speak, and it occurred to him that they might be dead or injured. Then again, it might be a trap.

His grip on the pistol tightened as his pulse increased. “I’ve got a gun pointed at your head,” he warned. “Identify yourself.”

He stepped out of the shadows and drew a sharp breath at the sight before him. “Ralphy!”

His heart pounded in alarm. Holstering his gun, he rushed to the boy and knelt beside him. “Ralphy! Oh my God!”

Touching a trembling hand to Ralphy’s chin, he turned the boy’s head to look at his ashen face. Ralphy’s skin was cold to the touch. Reece expelled an alarmed breath at the boy’s blood-soaked shirt.

A sick dread gathered in Reece’s stomach. He held a hand to Ralphy’s throat and felt a faint pulse. His relief mingled with anger and confusion.

“What are you doing here?” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “Damn it, you’re not supposed to be here. Why didn’t you stay at the mine?”

Carefully Reece slipped his arms under Ralphy’s frail body. He stood, holding the boy’s slight form tightly against him, struggling to maintain his emotional distance. Ralphy worked for him. That was all.

But with each step, his barriers crumbled, his fear undermining his resolve. His control was slipping away with each breath. He looked down into the pale little face and moaned deep in his throat.

God help him, he didn’t want to feel this raw, burning dread and grief churning in his chest. Not again. Never again.

Blinded by a growing panic, he stumbled toward the hotel.

“Don’t do this to me, Ralphy,” he said over and over. “Damn you, don’t die on me. Do you hear me?”

How long had he been there in that alley, bleeding, slowly dying? Reece wondered with the only part of his brain that was working. How much blood had he lost?

Reece was frantic by the time he reached the hotel and kicked the door open. Emma and the doctor started at the same time, their eyes widening at sight of him.

“Ralphy!" Emma cried, rushing to his side. “What happened?”

“He’s been shot. “Reece panted, out of breath, overwhelmed by the pain deep in his soul that nearly drove him to his knees. He would not feel this helplessness. He would not feel.

“Bring him over here,” the doctor instructed, indicating a vacant cot in the corner.

“Ralphy,” Emma cried. “Oh God, Ralphy.”

“How bad is he?" Reece asked, laying Ralphy on the cot and straightening.

Stepping back, he tried to erect a protective wall of indifference, but it was no use. He couldn’t stop the fear and compassion from overwhelming him.

“
Emotion makes a man weak
,” his father’s voice assured him. “
Kill it before it kills you
.”
 

“I don’t know yet." Doctor Stevens pulled Ralphy’s coat back and probed his bloodied chest. “Right there. Yes, it’s a bullet wound.”

“He’ll be all right though." Reece said, as if by saying it he could make it so. He tried to sound nonchalant, tried to detach himself from the situation.

“Help me get his coat and shirt off,” the doctor instructed. “Emma, get some fresh water and my bag.”

Emma rushed to do the doctor’s bidding, and Reece knelt beside the cot, handling Ralphy as gently as possible as Thaddeus pulled the coat from his small, wan body and then cut the shirt away.

He was so small, why hadn’t he ever noticed how small and fragile Ralphy was? Seeing his little body broken and bleeding stirred a seed of compassion buried so deep inside him he felt as if the pain of disturbing it might be more than he could endure. He could not control it, could not keep it from overwhelming him.

Ralphy had to be all right, he had to, Reece kept thinking. But he knew in the depths of his soul that things seldom worked out for the best and that people died without a reason.

Had he caused this? Had his arrogance brought this about? He’d been so determined to leave the town to fend for itself. If he’d acted sooner, could he have saved Ralphy and Emma?

“
Everything you do, every decision you make has consequences."
His grandfather’s voice vied with his father’s for control of his mind and his soul.
 

“Mr. MacBride.”

The doctor’s voice jerked Reece back from his dark thoughts. He stared at Stevens in absolute incomprehension.

“Mr. MacBride, you need to wait in the dining room. I’m going to have to operate, and frankly, I don’t need any distractions.”

“Of course,” Reece agreed, though he wanted to stay. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to insist, to explain and hear himself explain that he couldn’t leave Ralphy, that he needed to know every moment that the boy was all right. Instead, he did as he was told, stalking from the room as he cursed Ralphy for coming back too soon, cursed Emma for looking at him as if she understood his pain, cursed God for allowing this to happen.

He wanted to run away, to walk out that door and never come back. He wasn’t supposed to care about anyone so much that losing them would cause this downward spiral of grief and rage and sorrow that threatened his sanity.

Like amputating a gangrenous limb, he’d cut off the part of himself that was capable of being hurt by something as uncontrollable as losing another person. That kind of loss had nearly killed him once before.

What a Yankee prison hadn’t been able to do to him, the destruction of his family had. He’d lost the will to live, and it had taken nearly a year to get it back. And he’d vowed that nothing would ever come so close to destroying him again.

Reece stood with the dividing blanket pulled back, gazing at Emma and the doc as they worked together to save Ralphy, his gut in so many knots he could hardly breathe. He couldn’t tell what they were doing and he couldn’t hear the whispers that passed between them and the not knowing gnawed at his insides.

With a muffled curse, he dropped the edge of the blanket and stalked to the large picture window that looked out on the main street. The town was dark and peaceful tonight, waiting breathlessly to see if there would be a repeat of last night’s violence. Not tonight, Reece knew without knowing how he knew. They wouldn’t come back tonight.