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.
"Damn!" She'd been expecting this, knowing how unreliable the electricity was here in the mountains during a storm. She'd light the kerosene lamps and keep the fires burning in all the fireplaces and in her wood-burning kitchen stove. The generator that protected the precious environment of her greenhouses had probably already kicked on. She would check to make sure the generator was working before she gathered all the ingredients for Reece's treatment.
An antiseptic to clean his head wound would be needed, birch perhaps, along with some powdered comfrey to promote the healing. Mullein would do nicely to help with the frostbite.
Having made her mental list of necessary herbs, Elizabeth double-checked to make sure Reece was covered completely before adding another log to the fire.
"Stay and keep watch, Mac. If he needs me before I return, come for me."
The antique grandfather clock in the living room struck the midnight hour. Resting in a brown leather wing-back chair by the bed, Elizabeth tucked the colorful striped afghan about her hips, letting it drape her legs. She had done all she could do for Reece, cleaning his cuts and bruises, then applying powdered comfrey. The mullein had served several purposes in its various forms of healing aids-as an oil to treat the frostbite, as a bactericidal precaution and as a decoction to calm Reece's restlessness. While he'd been partially awake she had persuaded him to drink the warm mullein brew.
MacDatho lay asleep to the right of the fireplace, in a nook between the wood box and the wall. Elizabeth dozed on and off, mostly staying awake to keep vigil, unable to refrain from staring at the big, naked man resting uneasily in her bed. This man was a stranger, an escaped convict, guilty of some horrible crime. In her mind's eye she kept seeing his large, well-formed fingers dripping with blood. Had he killed someone? Was she harboring a murderer? Obviously her visions of his being caged came from the fact that he'd been imprisoned, locked away securely behind bars.
She had been trying unsuccessfully to break through the mental shield he kept securely in place, even while he slept fitfully. Occasionally Elizabeth caught a glimpse, a glimmer, a sliver of emotion. She simply could not believe Reece was a murderer.
Perhaps she didn't want to believe him capable of murder. After all, the instincts within her feminine heart pleaded with the logical side of her brain to protect him, to heal not only his body but his soul. How could she argue with her unerring instincts? But this was the first time she'd ever been unable to read a person, at least partially. Even Sam Dundee, obstinate, rigid, controlled, self-sufficient Sam, hadn't been able to hide his thoughts and feelings from her all the time. Perhaps it was because Sam trusted her.
Reece was different. He didn't know her, had no reason to give her his trust, to open up his thoughts and feelings to her. Most people had little or no control over her ability to sense things about them, a curse for her far more than a blessing. But Reece seemed to possess a shield that kept her out. Odd that the only man she had ever allowed in her bed was the one man who refused her admittance into his private thoughts and feelings.