Lips That Touch Mine (41 page)

"I can't fix it!" he shouted, his voice
circling the room and returning to torment him.

He'd failed everyone. He couldn't fix his
father's masterpiece. He couldn't fix Claire's injuries or the pain
he brought her, any more than he could fix his father's shredded
pride.

Tears flooded his eyes and burned down his
cheeks. "I can't fix any of it," he whispered, his throat so
clogged with remorse he couldn't breathe. He fell against the wall,
his chest gripped by a relentless claw that crushed the air from
his lungs.

"I can't fix this," he sobbed, "Oh, God...I'm
sorry." He slid down the wall and crouched beside the piano,
bleeding and weeping and wishing he could take back all the
mistakes he'd made in his life.

o0o

The sound of a crash startled Claire. She'd
been sitting on the sofa with Anna, trying to calm down after the
deadly scene with Karlton. Sailor barked and raced to the
foyer.

Anna followed him. The doctor was upstairs
working on the two men Karlton had shot.

Claire clutched her sore ribs and stood. Her
head grew light from the pain, but she hobbled to the foyer to look
out the window. The saloon was dimly lit, but someone was
definitely in there.

What if one of Karlton's friends was angry
with Boyd for helping her? She looked at Anna. "Something bad is
happening over there."

"Stay here," Anna said. "I'll get Pat." She
hurried toward the kitchen where he was filling the stove.

Claire took her revolver off the desk then
opened the door. The cold blast of air took her breath away, but it
cleared her head and helped steady her as she stepped outside. All
she could think about was someone driving their fist or foot into
Boyd's body like Karlton had done to her. Boyd had no one to step
in and help him.

Sailor sprinted across the street and bounded
onto Boyd's porch. Gasping in pain, Claire hobbled behind him and
climbed the steps.

She marshaled her strength and entered the
saloon with her gun held directly in front of her. She would pull
the trigger if necessary.

But as she surveyed the destruction, her
breath rushed out and her arms fell to her sides. What on earth
happened here? The sight sickened and terrified her. Who'd done
this awful thing? And where was Boyd?

A hoarse sob from the corner of the room
startled her. Sailor bolted forward with a yelp. Boyd was crouched
against the wall, bleeding and sobbing.

She went to him. "Are you hurt?" she asked,
lowering herself to her knees with a jerky, pain-filled
movement.

He looked up, his eyes ravaged with tears and
sorrow. "I can't fix this."

"Can't fix what?" she asked, her hard
breathing wrenching her bruised ribs, the pain so sharp it made her
nauseous.

"You. My father. My bar." Tears streamed down
his face. "I'm sorry, Claire. I should have protected you. I should
have hugged my father. I didn't do either."

Pat rushed into the saloon, his stance
indicating he was ready to take on an army of men. But when he saw
Claire kneeling beside Boyd, he stopped and stared. "What the hell
is going on?"

Boyd gawked at Claire as if just realizing
she wasn't safe on her sofa where he left her, but was here
kneeling in the debris on his saloon floor. He looked at Pat. "Why
did you let her come here?"

"He didn't," she said in Pat's defense.

Boyd raised his bloody hand to stop her
explanation. "Nevermind. I'm taking you back right now." He dragged
his shirtsleeve across his eyes, then reached for her hand.

She drew away and spoke to Pat. "Will you
please wait outside with Sailor?"

"The doctor said—"

"Please," she interrupted. "Give us a
minute."

He nodded and took Sailor outside.

"Boyd, wait." She laid a hand on his arm to
stop him from standing. She put the revolver on the floor and
pointed it away from them. "What happened here?"

"It's not important. You need to be in
bed."

"I feel better sitting on the floor. Really,"
she said. It wasn't an outright lie. She was in extreme discomfort,
but nothing worse than she'd experienced at home on her sofa. She
leaned her shoulders against the wall, fighting to disguise her
pain and the raspy sound in her voice. "You can take me back as
soon as you tell me what happened."

"I can pick you up and carry you home."

"Please don't. It would be painful to be
manhandled again."

He sagged back against the wall and released
a weary sigh. "This should have never happened. And it's my fault,
Claire."

"You didn't beat me."

"I may as well have." Tears filled his eyes,
but he seemed unaware of them. "I should have protected you. I'm so
sorry I didn't." He slipped his blood-splattered fingers over her
hand. "Karlton should never have been able to touch you."

"It isn't your job to protect me."

"The hell it isn't. It was my own damn
bartender who was threatening you, and I didn't know until it was
too late." He met her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't get there before he
attacked you."

"So am I," she said wryly.

He leaned his head against the wall, as if he
were too weary to move.

"Boyd, why didn't you...hug your father?" she
asked, sensing this was Boyd's cross, that this was what had taken
him to his knees tonight.

"Because that would have given him permission
to die." He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his
nose. "Let me take you home now."

"Please don't. I'm fine. Really." She
squeezed his wrist to keep him still. "I can put the ice pack on my
face when I get back. And my ribs are going to ache whether I'm
sitting on my sofa or on your floor. Tell me about your
father."

"Will you go home, then?"

"If you want me to."

He bent his knee and draped his elbow over
it. "My father had a disease that crippled him. None of the doctors
he saw were familiar with the disease, but it was something that
attacked his muscles."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"None of us had." He sighed and pushed his
hair off his forehead, showing a smear of blood where Karlton had
struck him with the gun. "What I didn't realize," he said, "was
that while Dad was growing weaker, I was growing stronger. When I
was fourteen, we were horsing around and I caused him to fall. He
broke his hip. When he learned he'd never walk again, he said it
was time for him to leave us. He asked me to give him a hug. In
other words, he wanted my blessing to die." He sighed and stuffed
his handkerchief back into his pocket. "I wouldn't hug him."

"Of course not. You were a boy who needed his
father."

"My brothers hugged him. They understood what
it would cost him to live. I thought he'd heal, that he'd learn to
walk despite the doctor's diagnosis."

"Did he?" she asked, suspecting she knew the
answer.

"He tried, but the disease wrung every bit of
strength from his body, and every drop of pride from his soul. He
got so weak we had to help him on and off the commode."

"How sad for all of you."

"The day before he died, I went to the
bathroom to check on him, and he was sitting on the commode with
tears running down his face. Paper was scattered over the floor
near his feet, and I knew he'd been unable to take care of
himself."

Claire's heart filled with sympathy for a man
she didn't know, but somehow cared very deeply about.

"He said—" Boyd's voice cracked and his lips
pursed as if he were holding back a sob. He inhaled and continued,
but his voice came out in a pain-filled whisper. "He said, when a
man can't wipe his own ass, it's time to die."

Her eyes watered with sympathy. "That poor
man."

"I couldn't help him, Claire. I walked out of
the house and didn't come home until the next morning." Tears
slipped down his face, but she couldn't think of a single word that
would offer him comfort. In the awkward silence Boyd grew eerily
calm. "He was dead when I got back."

A wave of sorrow filled her throat and choked
off any words of comfort she might have offered.

"Mom said he understood why I wasn't there,
but how could he? A son is supposed to be at his father's side at a
time like that."

The self-condemnation in his voice broke her
heart. He was falling apart, and she had no idea how to help him.
She wanted to put her arms around him, to assure him he was a
decent, honorable man, but that wouldn't be enough. Because nothing
right now would be enough.

"Surely your father understood you were
scared?"

"I was his son. I should have been
there."

They sat in silence, Claire feeling a fierce
need to relieve the pain in Boyd's eyes. But words were
inadequate.

He reached out and picked up a piece of
broken mirror. "It took me and my Dad two days to piece these
sections of mirror into that shelf that used to hang behind my
bar."

She saw the gaping, empty space on the wall
and the twisted pieces of wood lying across the bar. "What happened
here?"

He shook his head, as if he couldn't bring
himself to say. "It took us half a year to build it, and one long,
sweaty day to hang it." His lips tilted to one side. "He bought me
my first ale that day, and we sat right over there at the end of
the bar." He pointed to the place where she'd seen him sitting the
night she brought Sailor back and had her first nasty confrontation
with Karlton. "That afternoon, I promised myself I would someday
own this place and the back bar we worked so hard on."

Now she understood Boyd's attachment to his
saloon. He became a man while building the huge shelf with his
father. He celebrated that passage in this bar by drinking an ale
with his dad. To preserve that memory, and the masterpiece he and
his father had built, Boyd had bought the saloon.

He slipped his blood-spattered fingers over
hers. "I didn't realize it would cost so much, Claire. I would
change it if I could, but I can't undo it. I can't go back and hug
my father and let him die with his pride intact. I can't take back
Karlton's beating or the pain I've caused you. God knows, I'd
sacrifice anything to do so."

"We all do things we wish we could change,"
she said, knowing she would undo her own mistakes if it were
possible. "Most times we do those things with good intentions. What
boy wouldn't want his father to live?"

He tipped his head back against the wall and
closed his eyes, his cheeks wet from grief.

"Boyd, sometimes it's not enough to know what
you've done," she said softly, "but to know why you've done
it."

"I do. Everything I've done has been for
selfish reasons."

"I don't believe that." She shifted her
weight to her left hip, trying to relieve the pain in her ribs.

He stretched his legs out, unmindful of the
glass and debris scattered across the floor. "I'm closing the
saloon," he said, pools of sadness in his eyes.

At one time his statement would have thrilled
her. Now, she felt a deep sympathy for all he lost. He lost his
business, his income, and his refuge, the place where his
patrons—many of whom were his friends—had gathered. Worst of all,
he lost the project he'd made with his father.

"Will you go to work for Addison Edwards
now?" she asked, shifting her weight again but finding no relief
from the throbbing ache in her side.

"I'll go back to the mill. I've missed it,
and there's more than enough work waiting for me."

"What about your carving?"

He stared at his wrecked saloon. "I can't see
the treasures in wood anymore."

She felt her heart sink. "Maybe you're trying
too much. Maybe you should do what Michelangelo did with his block
of marble, and just chip away everything that isn't David."

He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. "I
wish I could. More than you know." He got to his feet and held out
his hand. "Let me take you home."

Pain radiated through every bone in her body
and spilled out through her pores in a cold sweat, but her heart
hurt the worst. Too much had been lost this night. And she was
responsible for all of it.

Claire woke to bleak sunshine and a bone-deep pain she'd thought
she'd never have to experience again. She picked up her house robe,
but was too stiff and sore to pull it on. She hobbled to the window
to see what was going on outside. The sound of several raised
voices had jarred her awake, but she couldn't see through the
frosted panes.

Someone tapped on her door. She turned,
expecting the doctor, who'd been checking on her and his other
patients throughout the night. He kept the injured men at her
house, explaining that they needed a day or two of healing before
he could move them. She didn't mind; but their presence, and the
sight of her bruised, swollen cheek in the mirror, was a
frightening reminder of last night's violence.

Anna entered the room, brow creased with
worry. "How are you feeling?"

"Miserable. What's going on outside?" Claire
scrubbed her fist over the window, trying to clear a section of the
glass.

"Our temperance friends are down there and
they're outraged. They heard about Karlton attacking you last
night, and they're outraged with the saloon owners for serving men
like him liquor. They're blaming Boyd because the trouble started
at his saloon."

Claire frowned, then winced at the soreness
in her cheek. "This wasn't Boyd's fault. Karlton doesn't even
drink."

"Our friends don't know that."

"Then it's up to me to set them straight.
Help me get dressed."

"You're in no condition to go outside."

"Help me, Anna. I'm too sore to dress
myself."

Anna got Claire's day gown, but Claire's ribs
were too tender to suffer the tugging and pulling motions of
getting dressed. "This isn't going to work." Anna tossed the
garment onto the bed, then left the bedroom. She returned a minute
later with Claire's longest wool coat and her highest pair of
boots. "No one will be able to tell that you're wearing your
nightrail under this."