you haven't heard a word I've said," she chided him, "because I fear I've told you more than any decent girl ought to tell a gentleman." She leaned toward him and flashed an enticing smile.
He put down his glass and took her hand, gliding his thumb across the inside of her palm. "On the contrary, sweet, I've heard every word. I shall prove it should you care to test me and, on my word as a gentleman, none of your skeletons shall ever pass my lips without your prior consent. Does that meet with your approval?"
She put her other hand on top of Fletcher's and broke into a hearty laugh as if she had never been so amused in her life. Her hand squeezed his; it was warm and soft.
While he couldn't for the life of him see what she'd found amusing, her laughter was easy and infectious and he found himself laughing with her, laughing being something else he had not done in a long time; beasts never laugh. For an instant he feared he wouldn't remember how—it had been that long. But the moment was genuine and sweet and awakened in him a feeling from another time when things had been different, he had been different.
Turning his head for the moment, an acute melancholy swept over him. He had sat long ago with another young woman and delighted in her laughter...
Pressure on his hand brought his mind back from its wandering. He looked at the petite fingers that had squeezed his, the gaze traveling up her arm, coming to rest on the face above.
"I didn't realize I had such power to entertain," he said with a wry grin.
Sage Jurrell tossed her head and the mountain of sandy curls piled atop danced with the movement. "Well I didn't know there were still men in the world who could be gallant and charming and who, for once, could make an obstinate woman like me feel that it might be fun to try being a damsel in distress. Who knows what white knight in shining armor might appear?"
He wrinkled his brow. A knight in shining armor! Kyndee. A different time. A different place.
"Who knows indeed?" he said, hoping his rueful cringe wasn’t obvious. The feeling of melancholy deepened, and he hurried to take his leave. "I should retire as I'm planning to leave early tomorrow. The meal and the company were most enjoyable, and I thank you for a truly delightful evening." He lifted his glass to her. "Good luck with your hotel, Miss Jurrell. I give it my highest rating."
As they stood, he lifted her hand and kissed it. Holding it a moment longer than was proper, he then pressed it to his cheek. "Thank you again," he whispered and left her.
CHAPTER TWO
˜
He sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees and hung his head in his hands. While having given him a warm feeling in the dining room, the wine was now causing Fletcher to wallow in pools of doubt. It had taken away the razor edge of control, his protection against the images that still had the power to strangle and confuse him. Even his pent up anger was not enough to seal the wound.
"Why, Kyndee? Why did you want me gone? What did Buck tell you that you would have wanted to hurt me so?" he wailed, hoping yet again that uttering the questions aloud might sometime provide the answers he had yet to find.
He groaned as he scanned the sparsely furnished room. Everything was sturdy and practical. There was no warmth, no color, only an impersonal coldness. He shivered and closed his eyes, staying that way until his head grew heavy in his hands and tilted sideways as his muscles relaxed toward sleep.
Rising, he undressed where he stood, his clothes falling in a disheveled heap beside the bed. Sliding under the cover, he pulled the pillow under his head and hoped tonight would be different—that the wine had sufficiently dulled his brain to hold the nightmares at bay. His last thought was that he had forgotten to lock his door.
The hell with it. No one wants me anyway.
The nightmare torment always seemed to wait until he was the most vulnerable. This time Fletcher was drifting, floating on a sea of searing pain, the waves of it lapping at him from all sides. A monotonous jostling motion jarred his agonized limbs. A hot glare burned through his closed eyelids.
Thirsty! So thirsty!
He felt material binding his head and neck, choking him.
It’s tight! Too tight!
His confused beleaguered brain told his hand to remove the binding, but the throbbing appendage wouldn't obey the command. Every movement brought a fresh wave of pain, causing him to cry out but only guttural sounds surfaced. To move his head brought on such dizziness that he was attacked by dry heaves which forced his muscles to convulse, making the torture a vicious excruciating circle.
Fletcher knew he had died and gone to hell. At church, the minister had always talked of a place for wicked people. Now he was there, in that dreaded underground, waiting for the master of sin to tell him what his sins were. His mind faded into blackness and when the blackness cleared the air was cool, yet the jostling motion continued endlessly...endlessly, until the hot glare returned to scorch his skin. How long he drifted—how many minutes, hours or days he'd been there, he had no way of knowing or caring. He only knew the jocular voices droned in his ears oblivious to his moaning. Finally, the excruciating movement stopped.
"Here's your man," he heard someone say. "Talk to whoever's in charge. Everything's been arranged. He's to stay here until he's well. It's supposed to take a long time—a very long time if you get my meaning."
"The way he looks, he ain't goin' t' be here long; he'll be dead. He's bleedin' like a pig," someone else said. "Come on. Let's bring him in."
They were lifting him.
No! Please, God, no!
Stakes of burning agony shot through him. His back arched, and his eyes flew open with the shock of it. Faces were spinning; the world was careening. Of their own accord his arms flailed, his fingers splayed wide, grasping for any steady object to give him a base. Other hands gripped him and held him down hard.
No—stop—don't move me.
He vomited, but he had nothing to expel. The heaves tore through him again and again. The agony was exacerbated by their rough handling as he felt them strip him, bandage him, splint him without regard to his intense suffering. They pushed, turned and prodded him—the whole time talking and joking as if he were a slab of meat. While they pulled and set his broken bones, his writhing and hoarse gasping seemed nothing more than an inconvenience.
Fletcher drifted in and out of consciousness.
"Y' know, they never told us his name." The voice came blurred to him as if from under water.
"It says 'Zachary Brown' on the door," someone answered.
"Is that him or the fella what was in the cell before?"
The first voice sounded irritated. "I don't know an' I don't care. Zachary Brown it says, so Zachary Brown he is!"
Who's Zachary Brown? I'm not Zachary Brown, am I? No, I'm—who? Think! Can't...too hard. Head hurts...cracked...broken. Hurts to think.
"I'm layin' claim t' his boots," another voice said. "He ain't goin' t' be needin' anythin' that good where he's stayin'."
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, they stopped torturing him.
"That's
