Free Ashes and Memories by Deborah Cox Page B

FOUR
     
    A red haze of fury blurred the edges of Reece’s vision and the boundaries of his restraint. His heart pounding, he stepped out of the office and walked across the landing to the stairs. He took several deep breaths, struggling to regain a degree of control, trying to concentrate on whatever awaited him downstairs instead of the woman in his office and the things she’d nearly goaded him into admitting, things he’d sworn never to mention again, never to even think about again.
    It was no use. Wave after wave of fury, new and remembered, crashed over him as if a dam had broken and nothing stood between him and the raging torrent it had held back until now.
    In the barroom below, men wrestled, shouting and cursing, crashing into furniture and overturning glasses and bottles. The noise pounded inside his head like a dissonant drum.
    Two men lay on the floor, their blank, lifeless eyes staring sightless at the ceiling, their bodies broken and bleeding. With shocking clarity, those strangers suddenly became familiar faces, young men barely out of the schoolroom, dead now, their gray uniforms soaked with blood.
    A cold, gray mist dampened the leaden air. The smell of wet earth and death filled his senses as grief and anger possessed him.
    “They walked into a trap, Major,” the lieutenant told him.
    “Any survivors?" Reece asked, his voice carefully unemotional.
    “Just Corporal Prescott,” came the answer.
    Reece shook his head to obliterate the image, gasping for breath as he beat down the memory and focused again. He grasped the pistol tightly and clenched his jaw, forcing himself back to the present.
    Stanton and Grady managed to capture a man and slam him back against the bar. They held the stranger between them, each grasping an arm while the man struggled to break free.
    Reece fired his pistol in the air and the crowd turned as one to face him, their expressions ranging from surprise to anger to annoyance.
    “What the hell is going on here?" Reece demanded
    A cacophony of voices bombarded him as everyone tried to explain at once.
    “Wait a minute!" Reece shouted, holding up a hand for silence as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
    His whole body shook with rage. Focus, he told himself. This is reality, this is what matters. One moment of distraction could cost a man his life, how well he’d learned that lesson.
    Emma Parker had called him a coward. She’d challenged him as few people would have dared. And the hell of it was if she were a man, he’d have beaten her senseless or had her run out of town or both by now.
    “Stanton!" he shouted, turning his fury on his most trusted man. “What happened?”
    Reece moved closer, his gaze never leaving the captured outlaw’s eyes. The outlaw didn’t look away, and Reece recognized the madness in his eyes. The man before him liked to kill and would do so without hesitation. His stare challenged Reece and pushed his fury dangerously close to the breaking point. He’d been challenged enough for one night.
    “This saddle tramp come in here with his friend there looking for trouble,” Stanton explained.
    The explanation did nothing to dispel Reece’s irritation. Damn it, he shouldn’t have to get involved in these incessant brawls, shouldn’t have to handle everything personally. And he never should have let Miss Parker get to him the way she had. She had no idea who he was, what his life had been like. Her opinion meant nothing to him -- less than nothing.
    “What am I paying you men for if you can’t even handle a minor altercation?" Reece asked tautly. What good was a leader if his men were incompetent?
    Incompetence got men killed. At the very least, it diminished his prestige in the eyes of the town and made him seem foolish. And that was something he would not -- could not tolerate.
    “Mr. MacBride --” Stanton began, but Reece held up a hand, silencing him.
    “What do you have to say for yourself?" Reece asked, glaring at the