Crushing Desire (32 page)

The room was filled with torture items, but he hardly noticed them. He blocked the array of knives from his mind along with the whips and chains that lay about. Didn’t want to see the medieval torture devices. All he saw was the woman he loved covered in blood, and the bastard who had killed her. As he advanced on Martin, however, the sizeable branding iron that he jerked from the flames did catch his attention.

Martin used the hefty rod like a sword, lunging at Joshua, trying to impale him on the molten tip. Joshua leaped out of the way, avoiding the searing metal. The burning rod swung in a wide arc, moving steadily toward him, and Joshua slid back, narrowly avoiding the weapon.

Joshua kicked out at Martin’s leg and knocked him off balance, spilling him backward onto the floor. The heat-reddened metal came free from his hand and landed on his throat, searing into the flesh and imbedding itself deeply into his neck. The horrid screams that came from the man as he lay on the ground, convulsing and clutching his throat, reminded Joshua of the horrors he’d seen on the battlefields. Many times he had put a man out of his misery rather than let him die a slow and painful death. Anger and hatred stole his compassion this time, and he turned to where Reena lay.

Reena was sitting, held secure by Gunner who was helping her to her feet. Relief tore another cry from his throat, and he rushed to her side. The blood on her face, he could see now, was not her own. Blood covered her clothes, but didn’t seem to penetrate them. Pulling her from Gunner’s arms, he dragged her close to him, holding the warmth of her body against his.

“You’re alive.” He squeezed her. “Thank God, oh thank God for it.”

Reena put a hand to her forehead as though trying to clear it. She blinked rapidly and then gaped at the screaming, twitching man on the floor.

“Oh Joshua do something. He’s in pain.” She cried.

Joshua turned to watch the man, once again remembering that he was there. He paused long enough for Gunner to take Reena, steadying her body with his own. He saw at the man afresh. No longer Martin, the old rival. No longer Martin, the man that had tried to harm his wife. This was an anguished little boy that was in terrible pain. Pity swept through Joshua’s heart, making his jaw convulse. He should want this man to suffer. Reena should want him to suffer. Yet all they could think about was the sadness of the situation. The loss of his brother and now the terrible pain that his own folly had brought him. Joshua glanced once more at his wife. She gave him a pleading expression right before he turned and grabbed the blood covered knife that still stuck out of the floor.

The moment Joshua’s gaze met Martin’s wide, desperate eyes, he knew that this was what Martin wanted. Holding the knife secure, he plunged it into the man’s waiting heart.

Chapter Thirty-two

Reena snuggled into Joshua’s embrace as they entered the house full of concerned family and friends. The blood that covered her dress was hidden beneath the long grey coat that Joshua had put on her before their return home. The horror that filled her mind was fading at the notion of seeing the people she’d thought lost to her forever.

Her family came rushing up and embraced her, holding her close in between them.

“Howard told us that Michael was dead,” her mother managed to say, despite her quivering chin. “When they’d heard you’d gone with Martin under such false pretenses…” She shook her head and clasped Reena’s cheeks with her hands. “We thought…” Carolyn’s gaze held Reena’s, then turned to Joshua’s. “Oh God, thank you for bringing back my baby.”

The large group held on, relief causing them to cling together. Silent tears and words of thanks filled the small room for a long while as they stood together.

“You’we sqwooshing me.”

The quiet words coming from her small son set the room into teary giggles, which slowly escalated until everyone was laughing so much that their tears came faster. After a moment, when the laughter had subsided, and the room had quieted again, Roger leaned in.

“You’re woefully late for dinner, sis.” Her brother teased.

“Just trying to make a fashionable entrance.” She laughed at her dirty, disheveled appearance to keep from crying again. “If you should excuse us, my husband and I should go get cleaned up.”

“Gunner can fill you in on what happened,” Joshua added, pressing a protective hand on the small of Reena’s back as she turned toward the hall that led to their room.

She took Joshua’s hand, and the exhausted couple moved toward their bedroom. When they closed the door behind them, she found herself swept into Joshua’s arms. The tears that filled the deep blue depths of his eyes spoke of the intensity of his love for her. The pain she saw there was nearly too much. She reached up, cupping his cheek lovingly.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, a single tear slipping past his defenses to slide down his cheek.

That solitary teardrop nearly broke her, and Reena leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips. “I told you before, my love, I’ll always be with you. Always,” she whispered against his lips. Reena leaned back in his arms, looking up into his eyes. “Our love is too strong to break,” she said.

“And my wife is too stubborn to not get her way.” A grin split his face.

“Too true, my love, and don’t you dare forget it.” She wiped the tear from his cheek. “Now, let me go. If you hold me like this much longer, it will be morning before any of our family sees us again.”

Tugging her firmly against him, he lowered his head, keeping his gaze on hers as he spoke.

“Let them wait.”

Biography

Hello, my name is April Dawn. I live in California with my loving husband and a beautiful baby boy who was born in ‘08. I enjoy reading, travel, and music. I have always loved to read. I have read voraciously for more than twenty years now. (OOPs, guess I’m showing my age there.) I have a love of suspense, fantasy, PI and police crime novels, and so many others, but I have a real soft spot for historical romance.

I think I wrote my first official romance scene when I was about fifteen or so. It consisted of a girl being taken aboard a pirate ship and falling madly for the captain. I wish I still had that writing, because it would be real fun to read what I wrote like back then. I started writing seriously in 2002, and finished my first novel that year which retained the title “Romance Novel” for more than five years. I hope to publish it within the next year or so. I have since finished two other novels that were lucky enough to be named something other than “Romance Novel”.

In the future, I hope to be able to bring more of my characters into the world as I work to finish and publish the other novels that I have begun. Stay tuned to meet all the pirates, gunslingers and thieves that run through my head. Hopefully you will love them as much as I do.

Other Books by
April Dawn

Crushing Desire

Bound by Love