Chapter Sixteen

"Please?" the woman's aged voice pleaded as tears cut across her lined face. Wet, gray eyes blinked up at him. "Please, kill me too."

Ezekiel shook his head roughly. "No..."

"Please?" she whispered. Her voice was hollow. Broken.

Ezekiel backed away from the woman who sat clinging to her husband's lifeless body. The moonlight seemed to darken around him. Blood covered his hands. Blood he couldn't wipe off no matter how hard her tried.

"Please..." Her plea echoed again and again.

Shadows emerged from the darkness around him. They closed in on all sides, leaving him trapped. Ezekiel spun in circles, recognized each and every face as the shadows materialized and became the faces of those he'd killed.

"No... please..." he whispered, tossing down his guns. "Please don't...."

They came closer and closer. Their silence was deafening. Their presence suffocating.

Ezekiel couldn't get away. His limbs felt heavy and useless. A hand reached out and he shied from it, causing him to fall on his backside in the dirt.

"I'm sorry!" he yelled, but the shadows, the dead faces, they didn't care.

The became thick. Too thick to pull into his burning lungs. Ezekiel's head whipped around, watching the faces coming toward him, powerless to stop them.

"Kill me too..." the old woman whispered.

Ezekiel shot straight up in his bunkhouse cot and drew in deep gasps of air. Sweat slicked his dark skin and he feared his heart might burst straight through his chest.

As his stomach flipped and his pulse thundered in his ears, Ezekiel knew he needed air. Standing quickly, he slipped silently past the slumbering men and out into the cool night air.

He kept walking until he reached the river that ran behind the main house and barn.

Staring down into the water, Ezekiel breathed deep and tried to fend off the nausea swirling in his gut.

He was lost in fighting off the memories of his dream and didn't hear anyone approaching him when suddenly two arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

"I can't believe I got stuck with a man so much like my damn brother."

Ezekiel let out a long contended sigh as he leaned back against Craig's strong body. "Why am I like your brother?"

Craig pressed a kiss to the nape of Ezekiel's neck causing him to let out a warning growl. "You're both bossy, have a tendency to brood and, for some unknown reason, you seen to like staring into rivers."

"They're peaceful," Ezekiel replied, covering Craig's hands on his stomach with his own. "They make me feel peaceful."

The two men remained in that warm embrace for a long while of peaceful silence. Two weeks had passed since they'd shared that hotel room in town and their relationship had truly changed and become something real.

Ezekiel had never allowed himself to feel such a closeness for a man. He'd never opened himself up enough to be vulnerable. But something about Craig had made it impossible for him to remain guarded.

He was fairly certain he was in love with the man. But he wasn't going to say that word—not until Craig said it first. There was only so much vulnerability Ezekiel was willing to show.

"For the last couple weeks, I've held you like this most nights after you've bolted out of the bunkhouse like a man with demons on his heels. Every time I ask you what's wrong, you always say you don't want to talk about it."

"But you're going to ask again, aren't you?" Ezekiel grumbled.

Craig poked his head around Ezekiel's shoulder and grinned. His boyish face temptingly handsome in the moonlight. "I'm nothing if not persistent."

Ezekiel was terrified to share his past with Craig. What if Craig looked at him differently once he knew? What if he no longer wanted to hold Ezekiel by the river when nightmares kept him awake?

Ezekiel didn't want to lose him.

Craig sighed and moved away from him. He went to the oak near the water's edge and sat down, leaning his back against the rough bark.

"You could start by telling what the dream was about," Craig offered.

Ezekiel remained where he was, his arms crossed tight over his chest as he stared at the water and chewed at his cheek.

"Or you could chew a hole through your face and be much less fun to look at."

Ezekiel knew he had to open up about his past eventually. Hell, if him and Craig were going to be together for the long haul, Craig needed to know who he was sharing his life with.

"I've killed people," Ezekiel whispered, his voice seeming incredibly loud in the silent night. "A lot of people." He didn't dare look at Craig as he continued. "A few in self-defense but most simply because I could. Men who looked at me the wrong way or had something I wanted—some just so I could prove how fast or tough I was."

Talking about his past felt as if he were talking about a stranger—but it wasn't a stranger. It had been him. Ezekiel had been a cold blooded killer.

He took a breath and trudged on. "I lost my parents when I was far too young to be on my own but I ran away to avoid the orphanage. I was half-starved and getting closer to death every day when Colten Haywood and his gang found me.

"They took me in, fed me, kept me alive and began teaching me about life—or their version of it. I was only eight years old and I learned how to lie, cheat, steal, kill....."

Ezekiel let his gaze go to the star-dotted sky. "I was too young to know better—at least that's how I try to justify it now. I was with those men for over a decade... closer to two decades. I went from too young to know better to too rotten inside to care. But as I got older, something inside me kept rebelling against the lifestyle I was living. A part of me knew it was wrong. I was a murderer and I was lonely—you see, the men I ran with, it wasn't like the gang you talk about. We weren't family... weakness was a death sentence and survival of the fittest ruled us.

"One night....." His voice shook but he cleared his throat and continued. "One night I was out riding with another man named Clearwater. We were looking for trouble to get into and we found it. An elderly couple was traveling in a real nice cart after dark. It was too easy to pass it up. They were dressed fancy and we knew they'd have something to offer us."

Ezekiel fell silent a moment as his stomach swirled and his heart twisted. Craig didn't say a word. Hell, Ezekiel didn't think the man had even moved a muscle since he'd started speaking—though he was still too afraid to look at him.

"We stopped the cart and they were terrified. The husband kept begging us not to harm his wife. We heard someone else approaching in the distance so Clearwater rode back to take care of them. I stayed with the husband and wife and demanded they get off the cart and give me their valuables.

"The man was beside himself. He just kept begging and pleading for his wife and.... And then he began groaning and gripping at his chest. He fell to the ground and I watched his wife cling to him as he died right there in the dirt.

"I wasn't sure what I was feeling. It was as if all the years of bad I'd been doing came crashing down on me all at once. The monster I was suddenly became clear to me. The old woman, hell she'd probably spent her entire life with the man lying there dead, she begged me to kill her too. Pleaded with me to end her life. I couldn't.

"I dropped my guns right there. Took the gun belt off and let it fall into the dirt. I hopped on my horse and I took off into the darkness. I heard a gunshot. Just one. A revolver round. I was fairly certain of what the lady had done with it but I didn't turn back to see.

"I rode for months, only stopping to eat and sleep. I was lost and angry and confused and broken. That's when Edison found me. I was nearer to death than you were when I found you thanks to a drunken fight I'd managed to get myself in.

"I've been here quite a few years now and Edison knows all about my past. He gave me a chance even with I didn't want to give myself one. He helped me get my past record erased in the eyes of the law—something I still don't quite believe I deserved. But I've made the most of the second chance I was given. I try to be level-headed, fair and help when I can. And I no longer carry a gun. Haven't picked one up since I dropped mine on the ground.

"Yeah, it would seem I'm an entirely new man and the past has been forgotten—until I fall asleep."

Silence fell. A thick, heavy, suffocating silence that made it difficult to breathe.

Ezekiel clenched his fists and swallowed hard. "I'll understand if you want to put distance between us."

He heard movement but didn't dare look to see what Craig was doing. Then he felt that familiar hand on his, unclenching his fist and entwining their fingers together.

"I might not know quite what to make of what you just told me but I ain't going anywhere," Craig assured him. "I'm right here."

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