encountering the crusted blood that marked a line between his eyebrows and down his straight, patrician nose. She lifted a lock of brown hair, matted with blood.
Elizabeth would never have been able to explain to anyone else how she felt at this precise moment, for indeed, she could not explain her feelings to herself. All she knew was that she must help this man, that she and she alone could save him from not only the immediate physical pain he endured, but from the agony of being trapped like a caged animal, doomed to suffer for wrongs he had not committed.
With utmost haste Elizabeth divested the stranger of every article of clothing except the white boxer shorts that were plastered to his body. Where earlier the stranger had felt cold, nearly frozen to the touch, he now felt somewhat warmer.
Elizabeth rubbed his face. 'Please come to, just a little. I don't think Mac and I can get you to a bed without your cooperation.'
Why couldn't he have stayed unconscious when he'd first passed out in the living room? At least it was toasty warm in there, the roaring fire close. She could have made him a pallet on the floor until he'd regained consciousness. But no, he had to pass out in the cool, dimly lit hallway leading to the kitchen.
Elizabeth slapped his face gently at first, then a bit more forcefully. 'Come on. Wake up.'
Reece moaned. Elizabeth smiled.
'That's it, come on. All I need is partial consciousness. Just enough to get you moving.'
Reece moaned again. His eyelids flickered. He heard a feminine voice issuing orders. She was demanding that he awaken, that he get on his feet. Why didn't she leave him alone? He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to stand. He didn't want to move. But she, whoever the hell she was, kept prodding him, kept insisting that he help her. Help her do what?
Elizabeth said a prayer of thanks when she had roused the stranger enough to get him to sit up. His head kept leaning sideways, resting against his shoulder. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes open. Finally, summoning every ounce of strength she possessed, she helped him to his feet. He slumped against her, his heavy weight almost sending her to her knees. She struggled against her body's insistent urging to release the burden far too enormous for her to carry.
'Come on. Help me, dammit! I can't carry you.' Elizabeth encouraged him, both physically by squeezing her arm around him, and mentally by concentrating on discovering his name.
For months she had been, unwillingly, a part of this man's life. She had witnessed his suffering, his anger and his degradation at being caged, but she had never been able to delve deeply inside him. She had sensed fragments of his emotions, caught quick glimpses of his past, present and future. But nothing concrete. Not even his name.
He leaned more and more heavily against her as she tried to force him to take a step. Finally she shoved him up against the wall, bracing her body against his, trying to keep him standing. If only she could get through to him. If only he wasn't shielding his mind.
She ran her fingers over his face, gently, caressingly. Lowering her voice she spoke to him, pleadingly, with great concern. She felt the breach, the slightest opening in his mind.
'I want to help you. You need me so much. Don't fight me.'
Reece! His name was Reece. He had given her that much. If he hadn't been so weak, so helpless, she doubted he would have let down his protective barrier long enough for her to have gained even that small piece of information.
'We need to get you in a warm, soft bed, Reece. You're sick, and I need your cooperation so I can help you get well.'
The voice spoke to him again. So soft and sweet. The woman cared about him. She wanted to help him. Was she his mother? His mother had been the only person who'd ever given a damn about him. No. It couldn't be Blanche. Blanche was dead. She'd died years ago.
'Reece, please, take just a few steps. My bedroom is right through that door.'
Her bedroom? Was she one of Miss Flossie's girls? Was she trying to seduce him? No. That couldn't be it. Miss Flossie had gone out of business ten years ago, and it had been longer than that since a woman's tempting body had been able to seduce him into doing something foolish. He chose the time, the place, the circumstances and the woman. Reece Landry was always the one in control.
'Take one step. Just one.' If she could persuade him to take a step, then he'd realize he could still manage to walk, and she might have a chance of getting him to bed.
MacDatho sniffed around the discarded clothing that lay on the floor, pawing at the coveralls, his sharp claws ripping the material.
'Reece, listen to me. You're safe here with me. No one's going to put you back in a cage. Can you hear me?'
'No cage.' He slurred his words, but Elizabeth understood.
'Let's walk away from the cage.'
'Away from the cage,' he said.
If she couldn't get him to walk soon, she'd just have to lay him back down on the floor and do the best she could for him.
Reece took a tentative step, his big body leaning on Elizabeth for support.
'That's it, Reece. Walk away from the cage.'
She guided his faltering steps out of the hallway, through the doorway leading to her room and straight to her bed. He dragged his feet, barely lifting them from the floor, but he cooperated enough with Elizabeth that they finally reached her antique wooden bed, the covers already folded back in readiness. Trying to ease him down onto the soft, crochet-lace-edged sheet proved impossible. Elizabeth simply released her hold around his waist, allowing him to fall across the handmade Cathedral Window quilt she used as a coverlet.
MacDatho stood in the open doorway, guarding his mistress. Pushing and shoving, tugging and turning, Elizabeth managed to place Reece's head on one of her fat, feather pillows. His boxer shorts were as damp as his other clothing, but she hesitated removing them. Feeling like a voyeur, Elizabeth tugged the wet shorts down his hips, over the bulge of his manhood, down and off his legs. With a speed born of her discomfort at seeing him naked when he was unable to protest, and the need to warm his shivering body, Elizabeth rolled Reece over until she was able to ease the covers away from his heavy bulk. Quickly she jerked the top sheet, blanket and quilt up over his hairy legs, sheltering him from the cold. Then she reached down to the foot of the bed where a wooden quilt rack stood, retrieved the heavy tartan plaid blanket hanging alongside a Crow's Foot quilt and spread it on top of the other cover.
Sitting beside Reece, she laid her hand on his warm forehead. As long as he'd been exposed to the frigid weather there was every possibility that his injuries had created serious health problems.
He looked so totally male lying there in her very feminine bed, his brown hair dark against the whiteness of her pillowcase. Even in sleep, his face was set into a frown, his eyes squinched as if he'd been staring into the sun. His face was long and lean, his mouth wide, the corners slightly drooped, the bottom lip fuller than the top. His stubble-covered chin boasted a hint of a cleft.
Mentally, Elizabeth began sorting through her knowledge of herbal medicine, taught to her by her great-aunt Margaret, a quarter Cherokee. If only Aunt Margaret was here now, but she wasn't. The old woman was past seventy and stayed close to home during the winter months. Besides, with the roads in such deplorable condition, Elizabeth doubted she could get into Dover's Mill and back, even in her Jeep.
Reece had so many problems with which she would have to deal. His ears and nose and hands had begun to regain some of their color but still remained unnaturally pale. The best remedy to reverse the hypothermia and possible frostbite would be to keep him warm.
Reaching under the weight of the covers, Elizabeth lifted Reece's hands and laid them on top of his stomach, elevating them slightly. Then she slipped a small pillow from a nearby wing-back chair beneath the cover and under his feet.
Glancing across the room to the well-worn fireplace surrounded by a simple wooden mantel, Elizabeth realized the fire needed more wood. It would be essential to Reece's recovery to keep her bedroom warm. Just as she rose from the bed the lights flickered, then dimmed, returned to normal and suddenly flickered again, this time dying quickly. The warm glow from the fireplace turned the room into golden darkness, shadows dancing on the walls and across the wide wooden floor.
