home though.”

Nick slammed the paper to the floor, his lean jaw muscles knotted in anger. “That settles it,” he snapped. “I can face whatever I’m mixed up in, but there’s no earthly reason why you should be subjected to it! I’ll have to get out!”

Beth threw herself into his arms, the ever ready tears welling in her eyes. “No, Nick,” she pleaded. “Whatever it is, we’ll fight it. We’ll make out, but darling, don’t leave me again!”

He held her tightly against him, his hands stroking the warm softness of her back and spine. The perfume of her hair filled him with a heady thought of summer fields of flowers, of sweetness and tenderness, of ... love. Love. Nick Danson, he told himself, you are mixed up. You’re falling in love with your own wife.

[p64]“... and we’ll go away,” Beth was whispering in his ear. “We’ll pack everything and go far away, where we’ll never see these men again. Nick. Please. Oh, please keep me with you.”

[p64]

[p

]

“Going away won’t settle anything, sweetheart. They’ll always be there, just outside the door. I’ve got to do something...”

He broke off suddenly and it flicked into his mind like a film of the past, like a memory. The soft face of the girl, her hair a golden color against the backdrop of the ochre mountains ... the softness of the pale blue-green tree... She spun away from him, the loose, filmy blue dress whirling about her trim ankles ... then she was coming back to him, arms outstretched ... kissing him lovingly...

He shut it off, clamped it from his mind. A memory! A memory that made no sense at all. A tremor of fear ran along his spine and trembled in his flesh. What did it mean? What was happening to him?

“Nick?” It was Beth. “What is it, Nick? You look pale and frightened.”

“Nothing. We’ll go away.”

She beamed. “I know just the place. The cabin. Far up in the mountains. No one will know we’re there. We’ll learn to love each other again.”

“You have to work,” he pointed out.

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