Lips That Touch Mine (19 page)

Jack hadn't just left her scared. He left her
empty and aching, unable to trust or believe in love. He silenced
that youthful, hopeful part of her, and that was the worst sin of
all.

Claire's chest tightened, but she refused to
weep any more tears for Jack or herself. She'd cried a river of
them during her marriage. It was time to move beyond her loss and
sorrow.

But she hurt too much tonight, felt too
lonely to see any joy in her future. Watching Boyd and Martha
together had been painful. She wanted love and passion in her life.
But she needed safety.

She opened the journal, wanting to understand
her grandmother's affair and why two seemingly honorable people had
lost their way. Maybe her grandmother's story would help Claire
understand her own confusing feelings about life and love.

I begged Abe not to leave me. I was beyond shame. I
was desperate. I couldn't lose him. I couldn't face each day
without his smile, without the stolen moments that kept us alive. I
needed Abe and I begged him not to end our affair. He asked me to
meet him the next day in the meadow on Barry Road.

I left early in the morning after Joseph had gone to
work. I walked down Barry Road, then ducked into a stand of trees.
From there I Picked my way to the far edges of the fields, praying
nobody would see me. I climbed down a creek bank where I was hidden
from view. Then I followed the creek until I saw Abe sitting
beneath a stand of leafy maple trees.

We were hidden there, far away from prying eyes. I
longed to run to him, to rush into his arms and never let him go.
But it was August, and I was flushed with heat. I stopped on the
opposite side of the creek and dipped my hands into the cool water.
Abe watched me wash my warm cheeks and cool my heated neck. I
unbuttoned my bodice and trickled water between my breasts.

He stepped into the water and walked toward me, his
eyes dark and intense. I knew we would cross that last threshold
today, but I couldn't turn away, couldn't deny either of us our one
moment in time.

He stopped before me, but didn't speak. He didn't
need to. I could read the love and desire in his eyes.

I released another button.

Abe took off his wet boots.

I opened my gown, and he slid it off my
shoulders.

We made love beneath the maples in a bed of fragrant
summer grass and clover. Our emotions overflowed and we wept
because there was too much to express. We loved deeply and
desperately, believing our first time would be our last time.

Abe held me against him and told me he'd fallen in
love with me the first time he'd seen me in my kitchen. It was the
day after Thanksgiving and I was wearing a green dress when I
offered him a sandwich for lunch. He wasn't hungry, but he'd said
yes because he couldn't bear for me to leave the room.

Despite its heavy fabric, I wore the green dress the
next time I met Abe in the meadow. Skin to skin, we savored each
other, capturing tiny details with each second that slipped by.

I can still picture Abe's eyes that afternoon, as
blue as the sky above us. His shirt was a worn and faded green like
the grass we were lying on. His cheeks were sunburned and he needed
to shave. The skin on his shoulders felt smooth beneath my palms,
his hip muscles flexing beneath my hands as he loved me. Oh, how he
loved me, this man of my heart.

Claire closed the book with a snap. Her
stomach felt tight, and an ache throbbed deep in her heart. She
wanted love and passion...a man who would love and cherish her as
much as Abe had loved her grandmother. The journal was proof that
love existed.

But that depth of love required immense
trust—something she was no longer capable of.

She was alone in her boardinghouse with a
woman who reminded her that it was safer to live a lonely life.
There were too many men like Jack and Larry in the world. With her
poor judgment, she would be more likely to find another Jack rather
than an Abe.

Sighing, Claire took the journal upstairs and
shoved it beneath her mattress. Delving into her grandmother's
feelings for the man she loved was making Claire long for more
fulfillment in her own life.

A woman was entitled to miss her marriage
bed. But it was inconvenient and scary business she did not need to
get involved with. She needed to forget about her grandmother's
affair, and to control her own pathetic yearnings.

But when she slipped beneath her heavy
comforter, the ache of loneliness slipped in with her. It wasn't
Jack she was longing for, though, or the prince of her girlhood
dreams. It was that man in the shadow of Boyd Grayson's reckless
smile that made her yearn to be touched and kissed and loved.

Anna
attended the temperance meetings and marches with Claire, but they
shied away from Desmona Edwards, who was relentless in her
questions about Anna. She even called on them at home under the
guise of discussing temperance business. But Claire suspected the
woman was digging for something.

Claire raised a debate about state licensing
for liquor sales, and suggested pleading their case with the
government agency who issued the liquor licenses. Her idea was
roundly applauded, as were her convictions that a woman should have
a rightful say in her life and the management of her home.
Temperance was only the beginning of her fight for liberation.

Claire and Anna worked the ladies into such a
frenzy, their singing shook the rafters on Tuesday morning as they
marched into Don Beebe's Saloon. He refused to close his tavern for
New Year's Eve, or sign their pledge, but the women moved on with a
sense of purpose.

The proprietor of Taylor House locked them
out.

Mr. Smeizer barred the doors to his saloon
too.

They entered Boyd's saloon without a problem,
but his short, rude bartender was the only person in the bar. He
was chucking wood into the stove, and when he turned to look at
them, Claire gasped.

His eye was grotesquely swollen and bruised,
and his lip was puffed out like he had a fat plug of tobacco
stuffed between his lower teeth and lip.

"There's no one here to pester, ladies, so go
on home," he said, banging the stove door closed.

"We'd like to talk with Mr. Grayson, please,"
Mrs. Barker said courteously in the face of his rude greeting.

"He's busy. Now, go on. You women have no
right to come in here and put your nose in our business." He
clasped Mrs. Barker's elbow and nudged her toward the door. "Get
back to your kitchens and children." He nudged Mrs. Cushing along
behind Mrs. Barker.

But when he reached for Claire, she slapped
his hands away. She suspected he was the cur who had told Mr.
Carver that she offered private amenities for a fee, but she
couldn't confront the wretched man without embarrassing herself and
starting gossip that could hurt her business.

"We have a right to protest the sale of
liquor and to protect our homes," she said.

"Well, you don't have a right to swarm in
here and interrupt me every damned day." Karlton grabbed her by the
shoulders and forced her toward the door. "Get out."

"Karlton!" Boyd's reprimanding voice cracked
through the room as he stepped from a small room near the back of
the bar. "That's enough. These women have every right to come here
and speak their minds."

"I have a right to speak my mind, too,"
Karlton said, releasing Claire with a small shove, "Especially when
they're sticking their noses in my business,"

"You don't have a right to manhandle
them."

"They're just trying to find a way to control
their husbands and get their hands into his money pouch."

Several women gasped at the insult.

"Excuse us a moment, ladies." Boyd pulled
Karlton aside, wondering what had riled a man who was usually in
control of himself. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I can't lose any more money because of these
harpies," he said. "I've got debts to pay."

"Is that what your bruised eye is all about?"
Boyd asked. But Karlton didn't answer. "Your debt isn't their
concern."

"Well, it sure as hell concerns me. My mother
is going to lose her house if my liquor sales drop any lower. I've
already had some trouble making payments."

"Then why the hell have you been gambling?"
Boyd shook his head and lowered his voice. "No wonder you're in
trouble, Karlton. You've been making wagers every damned
night."

"I'm trying to get caught up."

"You aren't going to do it by gambling." Boyd
glanced at Claire and the group of women who were growing restless
waiting for him. "I'll give you an extra night of tending bar, but
for God's sake quit gambling, and layoff these women. They can come
here as often as they like. You got that?"

Anger flared in Karlton's eyes, but he
nodded.

Boyd turned back to the ladies, expecting a
scowl from Claire, but her eyes registered concern.

When Mrs. Barker asked him to close his
saloon tomorrow for New Year's Eve, he apologized and said he
couldn't close on his busiest night of the year.

Claire scowled.

o0o

Not one of the rum holes would close for the
holiday.

Undaunted, the women resumed marching. Claire
and Anna returned home after one long, cold jaunt, but when they
entered the foyer, they stopped in stunned disbelief.

"Oh, Lord," Anna whispered, her gaze taking
in the open desk drawers that had obviously been ransacked.

Claire couldn't utter a word as she hurried
to her bedchamber. Her chifforobe had been gone through as well,
but her precious eight dollars were still there.

"What could they have been looking for?" Anna
asked, shaking her head at the obvious trespassing someone had
done.

Claire didn't know, but it terrified her to
know someone had been in her house, had gone through her few
personal possessions.

"Do you have any valuables?" Anna asked.

"I have one necklace that I'm wearing, and
exactly eight dollars to my name," she said, her voice trembling
with fear and anger. "Whoever went through the house must have been
gravely disappointed."

"Who could have done such a thing?" Anna
asked, her voice filled with sympathy.

A thunderous pounding on the front door
jolted them.

"Open the door, Anna!"

Anna gasped and pressed a hand to her
stomach. "Oh, my God..."

Claire's blood turned ice cold. It was
Larry.

"I know you're in there, Anna. Now open this
door."

"He'll pound it down," Anna said, her voice
quaking.

"Let's slip out the back and go for the
sheriff."

Anna's gaze darted through the bedroom as if
seeking a hiding place, "He didn't know about you. How could he
have found me?"

"Let's hurry out the back."

She shook her head. "He knows that trick. We
won't get by him."

"I have a gun. Maybe we can scare him
away."

"You'll have to pull the trigger or he'll
kill both of us."

Could she shoot Larry? She froze in
indecision, Maybe. No. No, she couldn't. But how would she get rid
of him? She couldn't endure another violent man like Jack, like the
man outside shouting obscenities. Her only protection was her gun.
But she couldn't bring herself to shoot any living thing, no matter
how dangerous.

Her mind whirled as she and Anna hurried
downstairs to the foyer. She would get the gun and make a run for
Boyd's saloon. He'd know what to do, how to handle Larry.

The door burst open with a splintering crash.
Larry appeared.

Anna screamed.

Claire's knees turned to water.

Larry backhanded Anna across the face so hard
it drove her head into the wall panels. "Stupid woman! Do you think
I'd sit in a stinking cell and not have someone keep an eye on
you?" He jerked Anna onto the porch. "Gary followed you right to
the damned door of your little hideout."

Tears leaked from Anna's eyes, but she didn't
utter a sound as he dragged her out and across the porch.

Claire followed them outside, her entire body
shaking with fear. And fury. "Mr. Levens! Please don't do
this."

He stuck his finger in Claire's face. "You
mind your business, lady, or you'll find out what sort of man
you're dealing with,"

She knew what sort of man she was dealing
with, and it terrified her. She shrank from him, worried about her
own safety, but terrified for Anna. "You're hurting my friend."

He caught Anna's chin and jerked her face up.
"You have a friend, Anna? How charming."

"Mr. Levens, please—"

He glared at Claire. "If you stick your nose
in my business again, I'll break it." He turned to leave, jerking
Anna's arm so hard she fell to her knees.

Claire reached out to help her stand. Larry
slammed his palms into Claire's chest so hard it shoved her against
the wall of the house. The impact knocked the breath out of
her.

Black dots danced through her vision, and
pain radiated outward from her spine. She heard a shout from across
the street, then the sound of feet thumping across the snow-covered
road.

A second later, Boyd Grayson vaulted her
porch steps with a murderous rage blazing in his eyes. He grabbed
two fistfuls of Larry's coat and drove him into the wall beside
her. The house shuddered, and Claire sagged away from the men. "If
you've hurt either of these women, I'm going to break your arms,
mister."

Larry swung his fist into Boyd's side just as
Sheriff Grayson mounted the steps. Several patrons from Boyd's bar
stood in the street watching.

"What's the problem here?" the sheriff asked,
helping Anna to her feet. He was tall like Boyd, but broader and
thicker-limbed, a virtual bull of a man. Larry stood a good three
inches shorter than Boyd and the sheriff, but he looked like a wild
dog with his fur up and his teeth bared.