It is growing light again.

I sit huddled in a chair, an armchair, overstuffed. 

My feet are drawn up under me. My arms are wrapped around me but I am not cold for I have a bedspread over me, a quilt that is handmade and warm. My head is resting back on the chair and my eyes are watching as the sunrise makes the organza curtain in the bedroom turn a deep shade of orange.

I listen to him sleeping, on the bed with the soft mattress that is in this room.

The one I refused to sleep in. Not with him.

When I said that, that I wouldn't sleep with him, he nodded, like he expected it. Like he had planned already how to deal with this. He'd yanked the spread from the bed, handed it to me even as I was backing away from him. He said, then good thing the chair looks pretty comfortable ... just before he turned off the light.

And as he settled into the bed and I settled into the chair, he said, "We'll talk in the morning. After we're both rested up."

And I thought to myself that I would never talk again. Except even then, I was clear about knowing that was just me on overload. 

After this night when I could worry over things other than animals that might kill me, I realize this is not about me getting revenge on him. This is only about me surviving. It's not about getting justice for what they've done. It's only about how I get out of this quickly. And he is not my lover; he is a criminal who holds me captive.

I know I'm not going to go down like this. I know I'm a fighter. And if it means I have to be sweet to him just to make it out of this, then I'm aware I can't pout and be petulant. I cannot let either my fear or my anger control me ... I have to use them to keep me sharp and aware.

He sleeps so heavily, it seems to me. In the growing light, I look at his form on the mattress. He is sprawled out. He went to sleep in his clothes. That's how tired and fed up he seemed. He has one arm crooked over his face, shielding his eyes from the approach of the day.

His chest rises and falls with disturbing regularity.

He is not in the least afraid that I will try to kill him in the night. He has judged me, correctly, as not wishing to harm him.

Because the truth is, I need him.

It feels raw. To know I am here with all these men of his. That the only thing that stands between us is one man whom I hate for his betrayal. What bargain will I now have to strike ... so he does not throw me to the wolves? How do I stand in the shadow of his protection ... and not give him any more of my soul than I have already let him tarnish?

What happened when I was with Ham, and even with Dibbs to an extent, is an indication of what I'd be facing if not for the fact I am under Ben's control and protection. If he withdrew it ... No, I can't think about that.

Maybe, after all, I really was right about staying if one of us had to stay to be the hostage. If Jeannette had stayed, her treatment at the hands of these men would have been ruthless ... although, now that I say that ... well, maybe he would have still kept her safe from his men treating her rough. Yes, he would have. He would have taken her to his bed, would have claimed her sexual favors for himself.

Like he did with me.

Why is it I keep assuming there is something good and noble about the way he feels about me just because it was me he targeted? It's like Jeannette first said ... he figured I was the weaker one.

I blink my eyes into focus when he groans and shifts on the bed, turning on his side, away from the window. He curls up, holding his arms across his chest, drawing his knees up. He looks cold. He only has a thin sheet over him. The blanket on the bed, the one that had been under the quilt, is cocked to the side. He must have kicked it off at some point. And now he's feeling the cold as he gets close to waking.

It's not until my bare feet touch the cold floor that I realize I'm rising to help him. I roll my eyes at myself but then I think, well, maybe this'll lessen the chances he'll be cranky in the morning from being stiff from sleeping all scrunched up like that.

At his bedside, I reach over his legs to get the leading edge of the blanket. I pull it slowly across his body so I don't disturb him. I'd rather he just sleep on for a while. Give me more time to get my game face on. I gently tuck it around his shoulders. I stand up and watch as his body uncurls and he snuggles into the mattress now that the blanket warms him.

I should hate him. And I do.

But I feel something else, this close to him, his face relaxed. His aura a pull on me, even still.

I am confused.

I am also safe.

To put distance between us, I am in the shower as he sleeps on. The door is closed and separates us. I have privacy.

I have had none for days. It is a luxury and I relish it.

Even last night, when he had me wait in this suite of rooms for him to finish setting up their security for the night, even then I was not alone. One of his men was there. The young one with slim hips. When I went to shower, he said to leave the door open so he could make sure I didn't do anything wrong, anything stupid.

He may be young, that one, but I do not misjudge him. He would not be in Ben's gang if he were soft.

So even though I showered last night, I have craved coming in here again but this time with the door shut. I put my head under the water's stream and let it beat on the back of my neck. I can't get over how good it feels to be clean. To not be sweating. To not have dirt under my nails, ground into my legs and arms.

It was the first thing I wanted to do when I was brought in the room last night. I looked around inside, realized there was a working bathroom and suddenly everything was forgotten but the rush of emotion that came to imagine being clean.

The only clean clothes I had to put on were my own jeans and shirt. It's what I'll wear until I get over the feeling of revulsion to have to wear clothes he bought for me.

We left the shack maybe two hours after Dibbs and Ham returned. I do not know what happened to them, in the end. When Ben led me back out, his hand on my elbow, I did not see them. I presume they were in one of the SUVs already. As soon as we climbed in ours, the entire line took off. We passed the miner's camp and the final SUV fell in behind us.

O'Neil and Josh were standing in front of their mine's entrance as we drove by. I had turned in my seat, watching for a sign of them. And when I saw them, and knew they were alive, I looked back at Ben, his eyes intent on mine. Thank you, I mouthed to him. He nodded.

This trip, I was not blindfolded.

I was allowed to see the entire way.

We left the canyon, driving on a dirt, one-lane road that paralleled the stream all the way to a gravel road that shifted up over a hill before we turned onto a blacktop road. That road, which climbed up higher before dipping lower, led to a highway of asphalt.

The highway traveled for a long time over flat terrain before it led up into mountains. The view was uninterrupted visions of desert crags and drop-offs. When the sunset came, the sky turned blues and violets and oranges, streaks of bold color across a deepening blue-violet sky.

We were still traveling when night clamped in. We passed few other travelers. I asked where we were and he said the Chiricahua. I remembered seeing the range on the map. They went on for a very large part of the mid section of Cochise County.

"Where we're heading is high pasture. A ranch we've used before. The ranch isn't active in the summer. The owner doesn't mind us using it," he said to me.

It was stunning. To be told this. To be given any information at all.

"We won't be there long, Grace. And we won't ever be back. So it's okay that you know. Otherwise, you'd be in a blindfold."

"Where will you go then?" I asked him, curious what he'd tell me.

"We'll go somewhere else safe. You'll be with us."

"I will?"

I could not see him in the night except for what was hazily illuminated by the car's dashboard lights. But I knew he was looking right at me.

"You're with us until the ransom's paid. And then I let you go."

"How far is it? This ranch?"

"The road's not straight by any means, Grace. It'll be a while still."

So I put my head against the window, leaned in and closed my eyes. They didn't need to blindfold me in the dark, of course. Now I understood ... I wouldn't be able to see enough to find the place again anyway. So I could close my eyes and rest ... and not feel I'd be sleeping on the job.

When I woke, at first I thought I was asleep. I was not leaning against the door anymore ... I was laying across the seat ... and my head was in his lap. He was putting his jacket over me. Smoothing it down. I looked right up into his face, watching his expression as he did that. And then his eyes traveled to mine, to find me looking up at him. He smiled, soft and solemn. Ran the back of his fingers down my face.

And then sat up straight and looked off into the night. His hand ended up resting over my ribs, as if to keep me from sliding off if we hit a bump.

For a long time, I just watched him and felt his hand, warm and big, on my torso. I don't know when I fell asleep. He woke me when we'd arrived, shaking me gently, helping me sit up. I felt groggy, drugged.

Then he ignored me. He got out, left the door open so I could follow. As he strode away, he snapped a finger at the young guy and told him to bring me in. Where you want her, I heard him say. And Ben looked straight ahead and said, she'll wait for me in the master bedroom.

And this is what happened. I was in there, waiting. I took a shower and was still waiting. I dried my hair, brushed it out ... still waiting. And then I heard his footsteps coming down the wooden floor.

The door closed behind him. He sat down to take off his shoes. Looked up at me as he rose, ready to undress. And that's when I said, I am not sharing a bed with you.

"Do you ride?" he asks me as I pause outside a low weathered barn that looks cool and inviting through its open doors. "Some of their horses stay up here. They come once a week to put out feed during this season. There's always water in the hold for the horses. If you ride, I can take you out today. Would you like that?"

"I am sorry but I don't ride."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all."

"Ever?"

I shrug. "A few times. In the park near home when I was a kid. I had a crush on a boy who was going through a cowboy phase. But horses have always kind of scared me ... they're so big."

"I've always ridden. It feels odd that it's not still the only way I get around. I feel more at home on a horse than about anywhere. Always have."

I turn and look at him as he waits on me. He has brought me out here so that I will talk with him, away from the others who lounge around the main house or mill around outside a bunkhouse that he says is where this ranch's hands stay in the spring and fall.

Something has changed in the way he is treating me. Like he's got to figure out another way to get to me. Like he's challenged anew that I saw through it all and that I am now a place he can't go too far into. I have been polite to him, unfailingly, this morning. I've even called him 'sir' ... yes, sir, I'd like some toast ... no, sir, I'm happy to do the dishes ... yes, sir, I've got my hiking boots on ... thank you, sir.

But then he said to not call him sir anymore. That it annoyed him. So I stopped. Like a polite person would. And I tried to be polite in other ways, too.

"You wanted to tell me something, Ben?" I ask. My voice is so prim and proper that the word 'Ben' comes out as if I'd said 'Mr. Wade.' I gaze at him with a placid smile. "Isn't that what you said?"

He sighs. Sets his jaw. Puts on his sunglasses. "Drop the act, Gracie. Are you trying to annoy me on purpose or is this just how you pout?"

"I am not pouting. I am trying to get along with you."

"You're upset with me."

He says this as if I have no right to be upset. None at all. I feel myself clinging with the last shred of my fingernails to my morning's persona. "Not at all, I can assure you."

"For pity's sake," he growls. "Will you stop with that? I've had all of this I can take."

"You? You've had all of this you can take?" I snap at him, losing my way. "You ... bastard. How can you stand there and say that after what you've done to me?"

As soon as I start saying it, my voice heated, my chin up, he starts smiling. That smug grin of his that says he's won the very game he was playing without me even knowing the rules. I cannot talk to him like this ... cannot expose myself.

I realize too late that he wanted me to explode, to reveal what is going on inside me. Now he's on safer territory. Now he knows how to deal with me. What mind game to play next.

"You really think you have my number, don't you?" I say to him, unable to stop myself as his grin spreads.

"You're a good girl, Gracie. That's about all you'll ever be."

"And you really are nothing but a bastard. You'll never be more than that no matter how many women you try to fool into thinking there's more to you than that."

"Yeah ... I'm a bastard, all right, Gracie. But at least I'm not the one being taken advantage of, am I?" he asks, now drawing himself up, his voice snapping into steely anger as he steps toward me. "I've done you a favor, honey. Next time some bastard comes into your life, you'll be stronger. You're ready to handle him and any other man ... you'll never trust like this again."

I stop and feel the moment. See into his eyes. Notice his fingers that flit and twitch. My eyes will not release his. I make him see me. See me. And then I say to him, "I will not let you destroy me that way or change me like that. I will not give you that power over me. I don't care if I get hurt over and over because I trust in someone and they prove unworthy of it. I would rather be who I am now than let you destroy that because then you'll have won."

"That's okay, Gracie." He steps in closer. "Be a patsy. But don't say I didn't warn you. Don't say I didn't try to help."

And this is when I slap him. And he lets me.

He wants me to. I see it in his eyes the moment my hand raises.

It gives him all the momentum he's been trying to get going between us. A second later, he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the house until I scramble to catch up to his stride. I have to almost run to keep up with him. We pass two of his men who are grinning, amused, thinking of what he'll do now to punish me. I can see it in their eyes.

"Saddle a horse for me," he growls out to them as we pass.

"A horse, Boss? We going for a ride?"

"One horse, you deaf idiot. There's three been hanging around the feeding trough this morning. Get the chestnut. Do it now."

He's racing me up the stairs, across the porch, through the front door. Down the hall, through the bedroom door. Now my heart speeds with impending doom, thinking of what he's going to do ... but he surprises me. He says, tightly, to get my hat and sunglasses. He stands there, looming in the background as I grab them. "In the kitchen," he says so sharply that I jump before walking out, head high, not hurrying, walking with as much decorum as I can scrounge up.

What's the one thing I said? That I wouldn't anger him. And in just seconds, I've screwed it all up. But I feel ... I don't know ... kind of ... satisfied.

In the kitchen, he barks at me to fill up two canteens with water. He's grabbing things from the pantry and putting them in a plastic bag. When he is done, he takes my hand again and pulls me along with him. I race along and I am breathless by the time we get inside the barn.

There is a horse in there, in that wide open area. The two men have it saddled. I know what's going to happen and I balk. He lets my hand go when we get to the horse. I watch, backing up a step or two, as he stows the things he's carrying in the saddlebags. Canteens, he snaps at me as he comes back ... those he grabs when I hold them out and he ties them up on the saddle.

I know I should not feel this way. But I do.

When he hoists himself up in the saddle and settles in, I am struck by the simple beauty of his movements. And by how simply he becomes one with a horse he's never ridden before. The horse tosses his head but as soon as Ben pulls at the reins to get him to turn, he obeys with a majesty I was not expecting.

Ben walks the horse over toward me. I back up. He holds a hand out. I shake my head. Bring her over here, he says to no one in particular. One of the men grabs my arm and pulls me over. Give me your hand, Ben says. I hear it in his voice. That I have no choice.

I take a step toward him, hold up my hand. The man behind me gives me a boost at the same time Ben leans down to take my hand. Too fast to do anything but cooperate and I am atop the horse. Sitting snuggly in front of Ben in the saddle. And he slowly turns the horse again and exits the building through its back wide doors.

Scrub land is in front of us but off not too far are the next layer of mountains and arroyos. He tells me to hold on to the saddle horn and grip into the horse with my thighs. His arm is around my waist. His other hand holds the reins.

Relax and roll with it, he says into my ear, and then he sets the horse trotting, picking up speed. This is what I never liked about horses. About riding. That you just bounce along. But Ben keeps talking to me, telling me what to do, how to go with the gait. I am still so stunned by this ... by how I've been swept away from my plans, my intentions ... and the ranch.

Eventually, I understand the rhythm by letting him guide me. This is when he says to me, now we're going to really ride.

I don't know what it feels like. Not like freedom because I am not free. I think it is that the space around us is open, wide, no boundaries in sight. And we are just two tiny specs in this vastness, riding into the wind, open to it. Heading off to someplace I don't know so there are no expectations other than survival.

And what I absorb more than anything during this ride is his easy mastery of the horse ... and of me.

A man in his true element, I think as I settle down and let what will happen begin to take shape.

Up close, the mountain is a cloak that gathers you inside it. There is no real demarcation of entering its space. It simply happens and before you know it, you look around and realize ... I'm here, at the place I'd only seen on the horizon. And it is not the impersonal wasteland of rock you saw from the distance.

It is another universe. When you know you can't be hurt by it, it can even be fascinating to discover its subtleties. 

The horse is now picking its way over tumbled shale. Scrub and desert grass has given way to trees that he tells me are sycamores and ashes, as if he knows I was wondering. Then he points out a few mesquite trees, gnarled and weathered, and I say we always put some chunks of mesquite in when we barbecue.

"When I was old enough to ride off from home, this was not that much different than it is now," he says, his voice sounding as if there is nothing behind this revelation. "You can't say that about much else, I suppose. Maybe it's why I like it up here. Down there, too much has changed."

"Like what?" I ask him and feel him loosen his arm around my waist. The horse is going slowly. He puts his hand on my thigh, squeezing lightly.

"Look ... to your left ... you know what a barrel cactus is?"

"No ... that?"

"Yeah. Just about every cactus is food if you know what to look for. Barrel cactus, for instance, has tasty seeds hidden inside."

"I wish I'd known that when I was trying to escape," I say, my voice the perfect mix of sarcasm and truth.

"You wouldn't have survived more than about four hours in the open desert."

"I had water."

"You wouldn't have survived, Grace. They call that part of the desert Coridor de la Muerte ..."

"Corridor of death."

"Lots of illegals coming up from Mexico die there every year."

"Are you trying to get me to promise not to run?"

"Like I told you before, I want you to be afraid of what you should be."

"I can't make any promises. Not anymore. Not to you."

"I am trying to be patient with you. But I'm thinking maybe it's a waste of my time."

When I say nothing, he continues to guide the horse along a dry creek bed. When we find ourselves walking among more trees and shrubs greener than I expect, he stops the horse with a gentle click of his teeth and drawing the reins up and in.

He eases himself off the horse and leads it over toward a shrub that reaches up to about his waist. He loops the ends of the reins around the shrub. Then comes back, puts his hands up toward me and tells me to slide down to him.

My descent is anything but graceful. I try to swing a leg around so I can just jump down but instead I am pitching down backwards. He catches me and then sets me on my feet.

"My god," I groan. "I don't know if I'll ever walk again."

"Don't sit down. Walk it off."

"Now I know why cowboys strut ... I always thought it was the boots ... but it's gotta be a permanent deformation from riding these beasts."

"He's not a beast," he says softly, offended ... and I turn to watch him running a hand through the horse's main as the horse is munching on the shrubs he's found nearby.

"Why don't you get it over with, Ben? Do whatever it is you brought me here for," I say coldly after I realize I am staring at him and he is looking in my eyes.

"To think I was actually anxious to be with you again," he whispers suddenly, shaking his head. "That you had me thinking maybe we could ..."

"We? We could what?"

"Nothing. Look, bottom line, Grace, we are stuck with each other until this is over. I will no longer accept your airs and your ... defiance. You do it again in front of my men and the consequences will be different now. Before, I needed your cooperation and information. Now ..."

"Now all you need from me is to live until you have the ransom in case they ask for a proof I'm alive before they pay."

He looks down. His jaw tightens. I watch the play of his thoughts on his face. Watch as he races through what he can do to get me back on his side, to cooperate, to be a patsy again for him.

But I don't wait him out this time. Instead I step toward him, and feel the force of my convictions, my feelings of betrayal at his hand. My disgust at myself for what I've done that's betrayed my own sense of self.

"I trusted you, Ben. I did. I thought you were a man caught by a life that has made him a criminal but that still didn't rob you totally of your ability to see I was doing what I did because I felt something for you. I didn't think you were a man so base and cruel as to use that against me."

He looks down at me. "You were so easy, Grace. So easy. You didn't even make me break a sweat."

I bite my lip but I swear he sees it quiver. There is a knot inside me and I've been trying to ignore it. Now it tightens again. "Do you have any idea what you have made me into?"

"My accomplice."

"And you expect me to act like before?" I whisper, my voice raw to my own ears. "Did you think you'd come back and I'd open my arms ... after what I heard you tell Jeannette? After you made me listen? Made sure I knew you'd been lying about everything?"

"Still trying to bargain with me, Gracie?"

"Someday, Ben, you will wish you'd realized that your future is up to you ... that you can put your past where it belongs if you want something better."

"What? You think I wanted to change my ways? Because of a few times with you? I'm not ever going to want to change, Grace. Why do women think men like me want that?"

"Because I don't think it's possible I was really that blind when I was in your arms."

He takes a moment to let that hang in the air ... those words I'd take back inside me if only I could. And then he says, "I let you see what I wanted you to believe ... so you'd cooperate."

God. "Then why were you so anxious to get back to me?"

He steps in closer. His voice is that lethal danger that has made me shake in the past. But now, I think, maybe it is the closest he can come right now to facing me ... to do it this way ... hoping I will not challenge him about this. Not make him admit anything to himself.

"What is it you thought you saw in me, Gracie? My good little girl ... who has no experience with a man who knows how to destroy her?"

"I saw that you want to believe you are capable of so much more than I could know that easily. I saw your ability to be gentle. And your fear of being too open. And I saw that you don't have anyone to trust ... and that maybe you'd found someone."

He laughs then. Deep and long. Cocks his head to the side as amusement begins to fade from his eyes. "Is that how you're going to reconcile the fact you took me inside you so sweet and easy? You convinced yourself I'm a good guy underneath it all and only you could see it? Jesus, Gracie, if I've taught you nothing I thought you'd be clear about who I am."

"This is really all you ever want?"

"Are you asking me if I want you? Want what you have to offer me?" He picks up my hand. Looks at it, at where I let it be, resting atop his palm "What is it you think I would do, Grace? You think you'll change me and I'll ride off into the sunset with you?"

"No. I think you're better than this. I think you want more. I think you could do anything and that you ... But you're never going to change for a woman, are you?"

"No."

"You shouldn't," I say, feeling tears now, which surprises me. I am not hurting for me. I am hurting for him. I pull my hand back. "I don't know why I said that. I'm actually not the person you think I am. I have learned that well ... that you should only change if you want but not for another person."

"Forget your illusions about me. And don't keep telling yourself you saw something in me that led you to bed me. It was lust, Gracie, that's all it was. Even good girls lust."

But I know ... I do ... I know it was lust but it was also other things and I am not proud of myself. I suppose I saw what I wanted to see ... what I needed to tell myself to give in to desire with a man I knew was using me to get information.

Whatever I thought, whatever I could not let myself realize I was thinking ... about him ... it's just over. And I realize I feel ... tired, and in some strange way, that this has calmed me. I turn and walk away from him. The dry creek bed is my path. I follow it and pretend I am alone ... and that I will never go home. That I will never have to face myself again back there, where I will see the truth.

Where I will hunger for him despite everything.

And know he's changed me.

But I've walked into a dead end ... literally and figuratively, I tell myself, suddenly amused as I face imposing rock walls around me on three sides. The dry creek led me here. It's funny, isn't it? I kept walking, hoping there'd be another route, another way around the obstacles. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Story of my life.

"You're still holding out hope about me, aren't you?" I hear his voice say.

It's as if I'm dreaming. That's how illusive the moment is.

"I suppose I am."

"Why?"

I shrug my shoulders. 

Then turn to look at him. "I don't really know. I hated you so badly when I heard what you said and then you came in there, like it was nothing. Just kissed my forehead and left. And I hated you so much the entire time you were gone. But then ... Then I was near you again. Why is it you can do that to me?"

"What were you expecting from me, Grace? You've known what I am."

"I thought I saw something else in you."

"It wasn't there."

It's still there. I still see it. But I also know I'm fooling myself ... I know someday I'll wonder what was wrong with my head. And I'll put it down to the emergency, to being his captive, being at his mercy.

"Are you ever totally honest with anyone or is there always something up your sleeve? Maybe you have no one in your life you can trust?" I ask him, strolling around until I am right up against the face of the rock. When I put my hands up on it, on the pitted striated face of the canyon, I feel wetness beneath my palms. It's such an unexpected discovery.

"I have my men."

"You don't trust them. Not really. Do you?"

"I wouldn't ride with them otherwise. Man's got to trust his friends."

"Are they your friends? You seem more ... removed from them than that."

"Did you notice the tracks around here?"

I know he's trying to distract me, not willing to talk about this. It must hit too close to home. I look at the ground near me. There are various scufflings and a few clear prints pressed into the sand. Small paw prints. "Should I be worried? Are they something bad?"

"No. Just small game. But the point is, they came here for water at some point this season. This is how you find water out here when you can't really see it. You look for where the animals go."

"There's no water here."

"Ah. You'd be wrong about that."

"The wall is wet ... I guess you could lick it up. Is that what you mean?"

"No ... let me show you ..."

He comes to where I am and this time I do not back away. It never occurs to me. It is not my instinct, I guess. He puts his hand on the wall and trails it along there as he walks down a few feet. I follow in his wake. He drops to his haunches and points out the white striations ... evidence of water being filtered through the rocks, he says.

"Come here, Grace ... come see,"

"Oh!" I say, smiling ... he has found a tiny collection of water in the sandy floor. This close, I can see that the water has made an area damp. But that's all it is, really ... mud. "You can't drink that, though."

"Now watch ... this is how you get enough to drink," he says.

He builds a little dam around where the water drips ... I wait next to him. In silence. I am rewarded in a short while by a small pool of water. He reaches a hand down, cups some in his palm and lifts it toward me.

An offering. It's odd the little things on which resignation can spin.

A reason to touch his skin.

I cannot look at him while I do. But the water is sweet. It makes me smile.

"Would you like me to show you other things?" he says as he rises, helping me to my feet as he does. "You remember telling me you hated the desert? I can show you things that may make you change your mind. Or at least, hate it less."

I can't figure out what he's up to. "I guess I don't really have anything else to do."

"You'll need more enthusiasm than that."

I shrug and look off.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. Lifts my chin with his other hand. "I don't want anything from you. I don't, Grace. But ... let's make the best of your time left with us. No reason for you to suffer."

"Maybe so."

"And also ... I am sorry they did that to you. You shouldn't have been treated like that."

"It's just for another day or so, right?"

"Did you hear what I said? And I'm not just talking about him touching you ... I also mean where they kept you ... It wasn't right, what they did. I don't like thinking of you there."

I back away. It is too easy to be swayed by him, even now. By the soft eyes and voice.

He clears his throat and puts his hand out. I put my hand in his. He leads us out of there and eventually walks with me up another path, this one climbing higher. There are scattered oaks among the sycamores and ashes. He tells me about the various plants and he even finds a few flowers struggling in the rocky earth. He picks them and before long has a tiny posy to present to me.

At a lookout, we sit to rest. We share water from a canteen and snack on dried fruit and granola he's brought along from the kitchen. Staring off over the wide plain below our perch, he tells me about how this looks in the winter, all white and clean. He leans back, on his elbows, looks up at the sky ... and I remark that I've never seen sunsets like the ones I've seen in the desert. That long after I leave here, they will be my favorite memory.

He says nothing and I don't even notice the silence. It feels easy, safe. For a long time, I look off over the ranch where we are staying. At the foothills beyond the plateau below. And I wonder what I'd be doing if I were in Memphis right now and had never had this interruption in my life. I picture Jeannette and Stewart ... and how they will never give up until they get me back. And how I don't know if I can face them. I can't picture that.

When I think back on this experience, later in my life, what context will it have? Did I really hope for something with him? Was he right about that?

He touches me just then, as if he knew I was thinking about him. That it was not an angry thought. He rubs in at the small of my back as I sit with my chin on my knees. I close my eyes.

"Look what's over here," he says softly. "You know what this is?"

When I feel him roll away from me, I turn to see him on his knees, looking at something on the ground. He turns ... holds his find out to show me.

It is maybe the size of his thumb. And so beautiful. 

"Wow. What a chunk! Smoky brown quartz," I say. He whistles at me, surprised I know this. His response makes me chuckle. "I went through a phase in high school ... thought I wanted to make jewelry. It was a bust, needless to say."

He says, "There's lots of it up here, if you know where to look."

"It just lays out here in the open like that?"

"Sometimes you find it, walking around. I figure it gets washed down from higher up every so often. Most times, you find it when you're mining around here."

"I never think about that kind of mining."

"Well, it's not like gold ... that's what most people think of when they talk about mining up in these mountains. Too bad this wasn't a gold nugget, eh?"

"It reminds me of the geodes my dad used bring me when he'd go to Salt Lake City on business. Look how you can see inside ... it's way more interesting than gold."

"So if I were to get you a present ... like a man does for a girl when he's sweet on her ... I'd pass up the gold trinkets and get you a piece of quartz? C'mon, Gracie ... you have to set a higher price on yourself than that."

He's teasing me. I know that. But this fragile peace between us is not strong enough to really last, I suppose. He once told me I had a quick tongue. And I do. It makes another appearance when I respond. Swiftly.

"Guess you'd know all about me and how low my price is, Ben."

I once told him he had a quick tongue. Should it surprise me he shows it again? He says, "So what's this buy me from you?"

"It doesn't buy you sex, if that's what you're asking."

"Funny how much you seem to think about having sex with me."

"Well, I suppose that's because you've taken everything else you wanted from me. Figure that's what you're aiming for, bringing me up here."

"I didn't take a thing, Grace. You gave it to me. Every sweet step of the way."

I stare at him. He looks away. I keep staring at him, trying to implant in my mind what he's just said. How I should never trust him. Not with any part of me ... why can't I remember this?

Suddenly, he slides back to where he'd been next to me. For a long time, we are both still. Both locked inside ourselves. Perhaps we are both reminding ourselves of who the other is to us. I am his captive. He is my captor. And that's all, when this is over, we will ever have really been.

"I don't know why it matters to me, Grace, but I want you to know something. And I want you to tell me you believe me. And mean it," he says, taking his time saying this, like he's testing each word out for whether or not it fits.

I don't say anything. I don't flinch when he shifts, scooting over until he's facing me. He puts his hands on my knees. I look down at them.

"I did it for you, Grace. It was for you."

"You mean the ransom? No, it was for you and those other pitiful excuses for men," I say to him, my voice a tight growl. I forget that I don't want to look in his eyes.

"It was so you could go home again."

"It was all about the money. Always. Don't lie to me. For once, tell me the truth. I can't feel any worse right now."

"Remember what you said that day ... in the pond? Just before you gave yourself to me for the first time?"

"Stop it. I don't want to ..."

"You said your life would be over when this was finished, once they knew it was you who gave me the password. Remember?"

"Yes," I whisper.

"You think I felt nothing for you. You are wrong. I felt enough to want to give you your life back the way it was, as much as I could. Gracie, I was killing two birds, you see?"

"No, I don't see anything."

"If I just let you go, they'd always suspect you. I set you up before you came out here ... you'd never really clear your name. But if I make them pay a ransom for you, then ... they know you're a victim."

"Why didn't you tell me ... before you left? This is just revisionism." I put my hands over my eyes to shut him out. To concentrate.

"When you go home, tell them I forced you to give me the passwords. That I terrorized you to get you to cooperate. That I said I'd kill you both. Isn't that something that will fit with what Jeannette knows?"

My hands fall and my eyes rise to his. He leans in, his eyes focused and laser-sharp. His voice is calm, his tone flatly straightforward.

"I admit there is a financial upside for me. Plus, I do what my gang expects ... I get them more money they figure they got coming for the risk they took when I said to take the two of you. You see? Two birds, one stone, Gracie. I never claimed otherwise. But I swear to you, I will let you go free even if they do not pay the ransom."

"How can you possibly ask me to trust you?"

"You can't trust me. It's not what I want. I just want you to believe that I've just told you the truth."