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comanchero standing in the doorway of her schoolroom, blocking the only means of escape. The fact that he knew her name terrified her even more. This wasn’t Texas, yet the nightmare of her past had somehow found her.
    Mouth as dry as dust, she stared at him, trying to think what to do. Were there others outside? She felt the uncertainty of her students, knew that they were frightened because they could see that she was, but courage, if she had any, eluded her. Fear consumed her, a cold, clawing fear that paralyzed her.
    The man took a step closer, his spurs chinking on the wood floor. The sound swept Amy back through time, to that long-ago afternoon when the comancheros had kidnapped her. To this day she could remember the feel of their rough, hurting hands on her breasts, the cruel ring of their laughter, the endless haze of pain as man after man took his turn violating her child’s body.
    The floor dipped under her feet. In her ears, echoes from the past jostled with sounds of the present, a deafening cacophony that beat against her temples.
    The comanchero moved closer, step by relentless step, the rowels of his spurs catching on the floor planks. She couldn’t move. Then, coming to a halt a scant few feet away from her, he removed his hat. Amy stared up at his dark face, once so familiar, now chiseled by manhood, each line etched upon her heart yet changed so by the years that it had become the face of a stranger.
    “Swift. . . .”
    The whisper trailed from her lips, barely audible. Swirls of black encroached on her vision. She blinked and reached wildly for support, her groping hand finding only open air. As if from a great distance, she heard him repeat her name. Then she felt herself falling, falling . . . into the blackness.
    “Amy!”
    Swift lunged forward, snaking out an arm to catch her around her waist before she fell. She hung limp against his body, head lolling, arms dangling, eyes half-closed with the whites showing. No practiced swoon, this, but a genuine, out-cold faint.
    Swift knelt on one knee to lower her to the floor. His heart slammed with unreasoning fear as he pressed his fingertips to her throat to find the uneven and weak thread of her pulse. Her pallor frightened him. Cursing beneath his breath, he grasped the high collar of her dress and struggled to unfasten the tiny buttons, frustrated by the ruffle of starched muslin sheer that formed an overlay at the neckline.
    “Take your hands off her!”
    The voice cracked on the last two words and squeaked. Swift threw up his head to find a knife blade gleaming inches from his nose, held in the steady brown hand of a boy he guessed to be about fifteen. Dressed in a buckskin shirt and blue jeans, the youth reminded Swift of someone, but with a knife nearly shoved up his right nostril, he couldn’t concentrate on who. Swift studied the boy’s sun-burnished features and dark, wind-tossed hair.
    “Don’t try me, mister. I’ll slit your throat quicker than you can blink.”
    Swift slowly lifted his hands from Amy’s collar, eyeing the knife. Normally he wouldn’t have been worried by a boy, no matter how vehement his threats, but the way this youth balanced the knife in his hand told Swift he could not only use the weapon, but with deadly accuracy.
    “Just keep calm,” Swift said softly. “There’s no point in anyone getting hurt. Now is there?”
    A little girl’s frightened sob punctuated the question. Tension ran so thick in the air, Swift could almost taste it. He panned the room with a quick glance, discovering that every student, even those knee high to a jackrabbit, had stood up and looked ready to do battle. The thought crossed his mind that the infamous Swift Lopez could very easily meet his end in this schoolroom, mobbed by children.
    A slow smile crossed his mouth. “The lady fainted, and I’m just trying to help her.”
    “The lady doesn’t need help from the likes of you. Keep your filthy paws off her,” the boy returned.