Conquer the Memories

could get out of bed in a day or two, the nurse had told him. Until then, he was to stay quiet.

He’d waited until the woman had finished her long list of orders and left to deliver more general-like commands to the rest of her patients. She really didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, anyway.

He’d made it to Sonia’s room. Walking up a flight of stairs and down a corridor hadn’t been the easiest project he’d ever taken on, but it was hardly impossible.

Sonia’s black curls were nestled on the pillow; stark white sheets were tucked under her chin. Her bed was right next to the chair he had collapsed into. Pale morning light was gradually infiltrating the hospital room; in another hour the rays would reach her curled-up form on the bed.

She was curled up, her knees nearly touching her chin, cocooned under the sheet in the fetal position. The position where one was safe…

Craig tried to shift and couldn’t. Whoever had kicked his kidneys should enter a competition for skill at the craft. The two cracked ribs weren’t bad. They only hurt when he breathed. The broken nose he found almost humorous. When he’d looked in a mirror, he’d found that his whole face had been rearranged. The flesh around one eye was vaguely purple; a spot on the opposite cheek was green and swollen.

None of that was of any serious concern to him. His post-concussion head was another matter. He couldn’t think, and he needed to think, but that carpenter’s apprentice kept hammering. If he moved too fast, he was annoyingly aware he would be sick.

Sonia shifted just slightly, her eyes fluttering open and then closing again. Her face was lovely in sleep, flushed and soft and vulnerable.

Vulnerable…the word twisted like a new pain, this one not in his head. Guilt and rage lanced his heart. The same picture kept materializing in his mind. A tall, lanky blond punk with strange light eyes, wearing dark, filthy jeans and a dark shirt. Young. Thick jowls and not much of a chin, a thin, arched nose.

He’d been working on a mental picture of the bastard for the past two hours, until it was exactingly clear, until he was positive of every detail. Yes, it had been dark, but the moon had been full and the park had had lights. Craig was sure he would know the filthy bastard again. Pianist’s fingers, long and thin. For the rest of his life, he would remember the shape of that hand on Sonia’s stomach, her horrified cringe at the cur’s touch, the sick helplessness in her eyes.

Craig closed his own eyes. He was the one who had let it all happen. Skipped out on the bodyguard. Taken Sonia where he knew there was potential danger. A city park, dammit. Charming in the daytime but-he should have known-risky at night. But he’d had it with the asphalt jungle, and had been hungry for grass and trees and privacy. The lake had beckoned…

No excuse. He had no excuses for himself.

His mother had died when he was nine; his father when he was seventeen. Craig had fended for himself and fought tooth and nail to make the ranch solvent. Shale, rich in oil, lay under his grazing land, and at the time he found it, the government had been willing to back anyone who could develop a process for extracting oil from shale. Craig knew as much about oil extraction as every other rancher in the area: nothing. Hard and fast, he learned. Hard and fast, he’d learned everything. For years, he’d needed no one, though the tough, hard veneer had worn off once he was old enough, and experienced enough, to no longer need a protective wall around himself. He’d never been able to define precisely his attitude toward Sonia. He’d played a long, wide field before he met her. With no other woman had he ever felt such intense, instinctive surges of protectiveness.

Sonia was vulnerable. He loved that in her. She believed in people, in their basic goodness; she had such perception and compassion and love in her. The first time he’d touched her, he’d felt a violent urge to destroy anyone who would hurt her, who would dare to harm her. She delighted in teasing him that she’d “been around.” She’d been around like a newborn kitten without claws. Her trust-that gut trust that came from the sweetest core of her-she’d never given to anyone before him.

He’d failed to earn that trust last night.

“Craig.”

His eyes blinked open. Her sleepy ones met his, soft and shadowed, wrenching his heart.

“Good morning,” he whispered. He had to use both hands to get up from the chair, and ignored the apprentice going wild in his head at even slow-motion efforts. He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Fine. Maybe a little sore. Everything’s…fine, except that I feel pumped full of drugs.” She smiled groggily, and then frowned. “Honey, what on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be flat on your-”

He motioned to the empty bed next to her, his choice of where he preferred being flat on his back totally clear.

Sonia’s smile was sleepy. “This is the women’s ward.”

“I like women.”

“You’d better not. You’re already in trouble with me, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Oh?” He made it back to the chair when he felt he could no longer stand, tugging it closer to her bed so he could touch her.

“You all but promised to make love to me last night,” she joked groggily. “Lord, what a tease. What kind of way was that to end the evening?”

“A frustrated one,” he said wryly.

Slowly, she eased herself up to a sitting position, letting the sheet fall to her waist. The hospital gown made her figure disappear; she looked ten years old with her disheveled mass of blue-black curls and huge turquoise eyes.

Totally disoriented from the sedatives the doctor had pumped into her, Sonia was finding it a monumental task to concentrate. “Craig, you have a concussion-”

“A light one,” he lied.

“Did they tape the rib?”

He shook his head. Slowly. “They don’t always do that anymore. It’s nothing, Sonia.”

It wasn’t nothing. As her vision cleared, she could see the terrible bruises, and beneath his natural tan there was a grayish pallor that terrified her. She reached over to touch his fingers. Their hands matched, forming a tent, fingertip to fingertip. “If you don’t lie down, I’m going to tickle you till you cry uncle,” she whispered.

Slowly, he raised himself up to a standing position. “You need breakfast. And coffee.”

He reached behind her to push a button near the head of her bed. She saw the tiny row of perspiration beads break out on his forehead at that small effort, and wanted desperately to force him to lie down. But how? His eyes had a strange, haunted cast to them she’d never seen before, something that was more than the physical pain she knew he must be suffering. She felt as helpless to do anything for him as she had the night before.

Of their own volition, her fingers groped at her neck.

“Where’s my…they took my opal!”

His jaw turned to stone. “I know, honey. The nurse will be here in a moment.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” But she wasn’t. Memories of last night flooded through her with sudden dizzying speed, and the sedative hangover only accented those nightmare images. “How could they? How could they take my opal?” Such a stupid thing to say, such a stupid thing even to think. It was just…she had always been a giver. No one had ever taken anything from her-no one had had to; there had never been anything she hadn’t been willing to give freely for the asking. The opal seemed a symbol of other things the blond bastard had threatened to take-although he hadn’t really touched her. He’d only touched the opal, something personal and precious to her, something that could never be retrieved.

Suddenly, she recalled all too clearly her unforgivable hysteria, the burst of uncontrollable crying that had started once she’d gotten Craig safely into the hospital the night before. Why then, when she was finally certain he would be all right? Her own loss of control had felt alien and strange, and for an instant she felt that terrible panic again.

Until Craig’s hand linked warmly in hers, until his lips came down on her cheek. The anguish in his eyes…was her fault. His touch was soothing, sensual, reassuring. So like Craig. She blinked back the tears and pressed his hand with a small smile. “They looked like a rock group. I may permanently take up classical music,” she whispered.

“Just don’t take up country.” His palm brushed her cheek, then lazily pushed back her hair. Her heart gradually stopped pounding.