Chapter 1
June
“Stay right here,” Police Chief Ryan Wells commanded.
Jace chuckled at his friend.
“I’m not joking, Jace. Stay put. I’m not picking your ass up off the ground, and you can’t walk for shit right now.”
Jace couldn’t keep the smile from his face. It had been quite a while since anyone had spoken to him like he was a five-year-old. He blinked and tilted back his head to look at the stars above him. For a heartbeat, the sky spun out of control, but it eventually righted itself.
He didn’t know what Ryan was doing in the truck. Jace heard the stray cat he’d been feeding for a few months now meow and looked toward the sound. The black and white feline stood by the front door, staring at him. It wasn’t a long walk from where Jace had propped himself against Ryan’s truck. He could make it.
Jace pushed away from the vehicle and took a tentative step. He didn’t fall or even wobble, which meant that Ryan didn’t know what he was talking about. Jace took another few steps while remaining on his feet. With a smile on his face, he proudly walked along the curving path to his door as the cat turned in a circle, waiting for him. Only when Jace decided to bend down to pet the cat did he get dizzy.
“That wasn’t a good idea,” he mumbled to himself.
Jace used the doorframe to straighten and took a couple of deep breaths. He twisted the knob, and the door opened easily. Had Ryan already opened it? Jace decided that he didn’t care. He wanted inside.
It had been a few months since he had gotten this drunk. Sometimes, the only way to dull the pain that the past continued to throw at him was to become so numb that he couldn’t feel anything. Alcohol was just the fix he needed when things got to be too much.
And today had been one of those days.
“Dammit,” Ryan grumbled. “Where are the keys?”
Jace didn’t bother looking behind him. He entered his house, stumbling slightly over the front step. Thankfully, he still had a hand on the door. He released the panel and careened into the table his mother had insisted he needed against the wall. Jace then grabbed hold of the wall and watched the table—as well as the lamp—wobble before settling back in place, thankfully without falling. He was grateful because he didn’t want to explain to anyone why the table was broken.
With that taken care of, Jace tried to swallow, only to find his mouth dry. He wanted water. He turned his head to look across the foyer to where it intersected with the kitchen. It seemed so far away, but he was thirsty. Jace decided to try and make it, but things spun again when he let go of the wall. That’s when he realized that the water wasn’t worth the hassle of falling—and proving Ryan right.
Instead, Jace turned to the living area that was much closer. He frowned, wondering why the kitchen light was on and shining into the room. He must have forgotten to turn it off. Suddenly, his feet were too heavy to lift. And nothing sounded as good as sleep.
He blinked and tried to focus, but everything was blurry and getting worse by the second. Something moved in the shadows, drawing his attention. His dulled senses still warned him to be wary. Jace tried to make his brain sort through what was happening. As if conjured from his mind, Taryn materialized from the shadows. His heart skipped a beat. It always did when she visited him in his dreams. No matter how much she had hurt him, he couldn’t stop loving her.
In an effort to bring her into focus, Jace blinked once more. And just like that, the vision disappeared. The pain that lanced through him made him rub his chest as his heart broke all over again. Would he ever stop pining for her? When would he be able to let go of his love for her and move on? Everyone kept telling him that he’d be over her someday, but it had been years, and he loved her still.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Despite the amount of alcohol he had consumed, the pain and emptiness he tried to bury rose to swallow him. He knew firsthand there were no guarantees in life, but he’d thought he had found the love of his life with Taryn.
“Jace?” Ryan said from behind him.
Jace reached out his hand, wishing and hoping he could touch Taryn. His eyes filled with tears as he realized that he couldn’t will her image to return, just as he hadn’t been able to make her love him. Jace felt himself pitching forward. Ryan called out his name seconds before Jace slammed into the floor.
He groaned, his head pounding from hitting the hard wood. Ryan rushed to him. Jace closed his eyes, seeking the comfort of sleep, where he knew he would find her and the love they’d once shared.
Taryn.
* * *
Jace tried to hold back the bellow of agony as the guards beat him with their hands and wooden batons. He was strapped to a chair, unable to twist away or defend himself—or land a punch of his own.
Between the beatings and the lack of food and water, Jace knew he would likely die in this godforsaken hellhole. It was one thing to die where his family could learn what’d happened to him and possibly have his body returned. It was an entirely different matter with prisoners of war. His family might never know that he was no longer alive. His mom would hold out hope of his return until the day she died. He didn’t want to hurt his mother like that. She deserved better.
“Jace.”
He opened his eyes at the sound of the soft voice he knew all too well and looked past the guards with their gleeful smiles to Taryn’s beautiful form. The prison was dirty and dank, infested with rodents and the stench of death so powerful it was difficult to remember a time when he had inhaled fresh air. Yet Taryn’s skin and clothes were spotless, as if the grime knew better than to get near her.
She wore a cream-colored shirt that made her skin glisten. Her deep brown hair that bordered on black brushed her shoulders in soft waves. A full skirt in the same cream as her shirt swirled around her bare feet. He sighed when he realized that he could see through the thin fabric.
Her lips curled into a soft smile as she held out her hand. “Come with me. You don’t have to stay here.”
He desperately wanted to go, but he was bound. Still, he pulled at the ropes. To his shock, they loosened, and he was able to get to his feet. He waited for the guards to come at him and force him back down, but they let him pass without any struggle.
Jace swung his head back to Taryn to find her waiting for him. He hurried to her, reaching for her hand. Just as he was about to take it, he held back when he saw his fingers. He was filthy. He didn’t want to get any of the grime on her.
She laughed and grabbed his hand. “I’ve been waiting all day to go for a ride. Are you going to make me beg?”
He had never been able to refuse her anything she wanted. “No,” he said, shaking his head.
Jace wrapped his fingers around her hand. The moment he did, the prison and the hell that he had endured as a POW faded away, replaced by the beautiful wide-open spaces of his family’s ranch. When he looked down, he saw he was in clean clothes, his many and various injuries now healed. The sound of Taryn’s laughter brought his head up. She was already on the chestnut mare, looking back at him from beneath the cowboy hat atop her black hair, now in its natural state of curls. She wore jeans and a red plaid shirt that was his favorite.
“I’ll race you!” she shouted before nudging the horse into a run.