Free Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay) by Janet Chapman

sobs, he tied the mare to a branch, veered off the path, and snuck through the forest as quiet as a field mouse. He stopped at the edge of a small clearing just as he saw Maddy draw back and swing a large stick, striking a tree so violently that pieces of dead bark flew some twenty paces away.
    But it wasn’t until he noticed the tears streaming down her cheeks that he finally understood what was going on. Trace might have pushed Maddy to see if she still had some fight in her, but what the man couldn’t have guessed was that the only target the woman dared push back at was some old dead tree.
    It was then William realized that while holding her family together for the last four years, Maddy had quietly been coming apart inside. She was alone in a sea of people, having no broad shoulder to lean on when the journey got difficult, no one to discuss things with in the wee hours of the night when problems appeared far worse than they were, no partner to confide in who could hold her in his arms and whisper that everything would be all right, then make love to her until she couldn’t remember what had been bothering her in the first place.
    No, the only witness to her tears was an old dead tree.
    With the growl of a wounded animal backed into a corner, Maddy took another mighty swing at the well-battered trunk, hitting it so forcefully this time that the stick flew from her hands, and she fell to the ground—her cry of surprise turning to heart-wrenching sobs as she lay there weeping in utter defeat.
    Feeling as if he’d taken the blow to his chest, William dropped to his knees. Not since burying his family had he felt such despair, as he knew from personal experience that Maddy wasn’t angry at the world near as much as she was angry at herself.
    It was obvious to him from what she’d said at the table tonight, that she felt like a dowdy old spinster going through the motions while her ex-husband had retained his youthful vitality. She may have tried to defend her life to Trace, but in actuality, the people she cared for at the nursing home were emotionally younger than she was.
    And she knew it, and it hurt.
    William understood far too well the hopelessness of feeling that sort of isolation. Hadn’t he himself repeatedly lashed out when he’d been a dragon, only instead of an old tree that couldn’t fight back, he’d gone after a mangy old bear, or any other entity—animal or demon—he could find, in an attempt to ease the gnawing in his gut?
    William silently watched Maddy cry herself out for several minutes, the pain squeezing his own chest nearly unbearable, until she finally straightened to a sitting position and wiped her eyes and face with the palms of her hands.
    And that’s when he decided that if he accomplished only one thing with this second chance at life he’d been given, he would see that Maddy never had to take out her frustrations on a tree again. If she had the urge to lash out at something, he would stand as her target; if she required a shoulder to lean on, he would give her his; and if she needed to whisper her fears in the wee dark hours of the night, he would be the one to hear her. Kneeling there in the bushes, William vowed on the souls of his dead mother and sister that whenever Maddy felt old and saggy and heavy of heart, he would do everything in his power to show her how young and alive and vital she was.
    She finally stood up, finished drying her face on the hem of her blouse, and then ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it. With a deep breath that ended with a lingering sob, she squared her shoulders and started walking toward home.
    William quietly got to his feet and silently ran back through the woods. He untied the mare and led her trotting several hundred paces back toward the house before he turned around and began casually strolling toward Maddy.
    She stopped when she rounded a corner and spotted him, her eyes widening at the sight of the large horse before