Lips That Touch Mine (48 page)

“Yes, ma’am.” Adam headed toward the back of
the greenhouse, leaving Faith with Sheriff Grayson—a man she did
not want to be alone with.

His powerful body was overwhelming, but it
was the close inspection the ruggedly handsome sheriff was giving
her that completely unnerved her. If she wasn’t careful with this
man, he would see through her thin veil of pretense to the hard,
ugly truth no one could know.

“I’m sorry about your loss, Mrs. . . . ?”

“Dearbo—oh . . . oh my, how rude of me not to
have introduced myself.” She stuck out her trembling hand. “I’m
Faith Wilkins.” A necessary lie. “Pleased to make your
acquaintance, Sheriff Grayson.”

“Likewise.” He closed his long, warm fingers
around her hand, making her stomach flutter. “I’m sorry about your
tragic loss.”

She pulled free of his firm grip and curled
her fingers into her palms, hiding her green fingernails. “Are you
in pain, Sheriff?” she asked, noticing that he’d been rubbing his
shoulder.

He lowered his hand as if she’d caught him
revealing an unpardonable weakness. “Just a sore muscle,” he said,
but she suspected it would take far more than muscle pain to bother
an obviously strong man like the sheriff.

He surveyed the greenhouse, then returned his
scrutiny to her. “What exactly do you do here, Mrs. Wilkins?”

“I grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers.”

“Adam tells me you’re a healer.”

“Adam is a boy who overstates the importance
of things. I make healing balms and teas from my plants. Simple as
that, Sheriff. If you’d care to sample them firsthand, I have a
balm that might ease the pain in your shoulder.” The sooner she
could appease his curiosity the sooner he would leave. And the
sooner her heart would stop hammering in her chest.

She headed to a small counter in the north
corner of the greenhouse. He followed, then watched while she
opened a large glass jar and scooped out a spoonful of yellowish
balm.

“Gads, is that chicken fat?” he asked, his
voice laced with disgust.

She laughed. “It’s a mix of resins and oils.”
She lifted the gluey-looking balm to her nose, and inhaled. “I add
herbs, and salicin, which is harvested from the buds of poplar
trees—part of the willow family.”

“I know trees,” he stated bluntly, as if
she’d insulted his intelligence. “I own a sawmill with my
brothers.”

Her cheeks burned. “Forgive me. I’m used to
teaching Adam and Cora this way”

“I’m not offended. I’m curious to see what
you do here.” He gestured toward the balm. “You made this, I
presume?”

She nodded. “The salicin and herbs reduce
pain, fever, congestion, and inflammation. The balm even smells
good.” She put the spoon beneath his nose. “It’s not bay rum, but
it smells better than an onion pack.”

His mouth quirked up on one side. The slight
lifting of his lips surprised her and made him seem less
formidable. Their gazes met over the spoon. He openly inspected
her, but unlike most of the men who’d crossed her path, there was
nothing lecherous in the sheriff’s eyes; he seemed to appreciate
her boldness, as if there weren’t many people who would dare to
shove something beneath his nose. Her nerves had made her careless.
She hadn’t meant to challenge him. But apparently she had, and
apparently he’d liked it.

She plopped the small glob of ointment into a
jar and handed it to him. “Two or three applications should ease
your muscle pain. After you rub it into your shoulder, you’ll feel
a soothing warmth in that area.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” He braced his
large, long-fingered hand on the counter. “Will I get my money
back?”

“You haven’t paid me anything.”

“I intend to.”

“I’ll refuse it. This is the only way I can
thank you for being so kind to Adam today.”

“I wasn’t being kind.”

“The way you treated him was more than fair.
In my book, that’s being kind.”

“I would have done the same for any boy.”

“But you did it for my brother, and that’s
what matters to me. Please, take the balm.”

“What other treatments do you offer?”

He seemed sincere, but she sensed he was
digging for something. The pleasantly warm day suddenly felt close
and hot with this giant of a man leaning on her counter asking too
many questions.

.”It would depend on the severity of your
problem. But I would first suggest that you see a doctor.” She
closed the jar of balm and placed it back on the self.

“I’ve seen the doctor. He says there’s
nothing to be done for my shoulder but to rest it.”

“Then it is more than a sore muscle?”

His lip quirked up again. “You have a knack
for recalling details. I could use your help when questioning
suspects.”

She’d hoped to put him off with her nosy
question, but instead of urging him out the door, she’d invited his
closer observation. “Forgive me for taking up your time.” She
stepped around the counter and called toward the back of the
greenhouse, “Adam! Come up here, and bring Cora and the handcuffs
with you.”

Adam swept Cora into his arms, pushed through
a maze of plants, and deposited the girl a few feet from the
sheriff.

“Cora, give the sheriff his handcuffs,” Faith
said, then frowned as Cora duckwalked across the plank floor. “Why
are you walking so oddly?”

Cora leaned back on her heels, pressed her
brown gingham dress to her knees, and lifted the toes of her tiny
brown shoes. “I hooked ‘em on my own self.”

The metal handcuffs were locked around Cora’s
skinny ankles. A quiet chuckle rumbled in the sheriff’s chest, his
thick-lashed eyes crinkling at the outside edges as he looked down
at her.

Cora squatted, grabbed the chain between her
ankles, and grinned up at him. “Aunt Iris says to keep these on me
until I get married.”

With her hands between her ankles, and her
knobby knees jutting upward, Cora looked like a little brown frog.
Her stockings were twisted around her ankles, her hair in wild
disarray, but Faith could not have adored her more.

Nor could the sheriff, if the tender look in
his eyes meant anything.

“She reminds me of my niece Rebecca at that
age,” he said. “Too smart, too curious, and a smile so bright she
could melt a heart of ice.” He sighed and shook his head. “Rebecca
turned thirteen last week.”

With Cora’s rosy face beaming up at them,
Faith understood the sheriff’s melancholy. She wanted Cora to stay
an innocent, if precocious, little girl forever.

Faith spied her Aunt Iris around the corner,
and cringed as Iris lunged from behind a cluster of lemongrass to
tickle Cora’s ribs.

“There you are, you little imp!”

Cora screeched with laughter and threw
herself against the sheriff’s legs.

Iris, who had crouched to grab Cora’s ribs,
took her time looking up the long length of the sheriff’s body. By
the time her frank, appraising eyes lifted to his face, Faith’s own
cheeks were burning with embarrassment.

“Mercy . . .” Iris said, rising to her feet
with a fluid grace Faith envied. Iris carried her mother’s Japanese
blood in her veins, and men paid exorbitant amounts of money to bed
the rare onyx-haired beauty. Faith knew little about Iris or how
she had come to be in America. She was seven months older than
Faith, but Iris had seen too much to pretend an innocence she’d
shed long ago.

“Is there a woman waiting at home for you,
Sheriff?” Iris asked, extending her hand to him.

Faith’s jaw dropped, but the sheriff smiled
and lifted Iris’s hand to his lips as if too-bold women
propositioned him every day. “I’m afraid so, ma’am. My mother is
expecting me home for supper.” His gaze lingered on her silky black
hair and the pretty Oriental tilt of her eyes, and Faith knew Iris
was as novel to the sheriff as she’d been to Faith when first
arriving at the brothel eleven years ago. Iris said a small colony
of Japanese people had come to America in 1869, but Faith still
hadn’t seen another man or woman like her. Apparently, the sheriff
hadn’t either.

Iris laughed the way she talked, without
reservation. Her exotic eyes sparkled like black diamonds as she
assessed the sheriff. “Not only handsome but charming.” She winked
a thick- lashed eye at Faith. “Marry this man.”

“For heaven’s sake, Aunt Iris!” Novel or not,
Faith wanted to shoo the woman out the door. They couldn’t afford
to have their reputations questioned. Drawing a breath to calm
herself, Faith gave the sheriff a wobbly smile. “This is my aunt,
Iris . . . um . . .” Dear God, she hadn’t given thought to a last
name for her aunts. They had never used last names at the brothel,
and they had flown from that life in such a rush of terror, they
had never discussed taking last names.

“Wilde with an ‘e’,” Iris said, mischief
twinkling in her eyes. “Miss Iris Wilde, not to be confused with a
wild Iris.”

The sheriff laughed.

“Are you getting married, Mama?” Cora asked,
looking up at Faith with hopeful eyes. Faith wanted to turn green
and disappear among the plants.

“See what you’ve started, Aunt Iris?” she
said.

Iris gave the sheriff a friendly wink. “My
niece is so shy she’ll never get herself a suitor or a marriage
proposal. I’m just letting you know she’s looking for a
husband.”

Faith choked on her outrage.

Iris ignored her warning look and pouted her
lips at the sheriff. “I was hoping to beg your assistance for a few
minutes. Adam is our man about the place, but he doesn’t know about
gas lines yet.”

Faith tried again to convey a message with
her eyes, silently warning Iris to clamp her red lips shut. “As
soon as the sheriff removes these cuffs from Cora’s legs, he and
Adam have business in town. I’ll hire a man to take care of the gas
line.” She lifted Cora into her arms and forced herself to face the
sheriff. “I apologize for wasting so much of your time.”

“It’s not a waste of time to welcome new
residents,” he said. “I’ll look at that gas line as soon as I free
this little frog girl from her chain.”

Cora giggled and lifted her feet, asking six
questions in the time it took him to unlock the cuffs.

“The cuffs are made of steel,” he said,
answering her first question. “Because steel is strong. I put them
on bad people so they can’t get away. Yes, my shoulder hurts. Yes,
I’ll come play again. And no, I’m not marrying your mother
today”

For the first time since the sheriff arrived,
Faith willingly met his eyes. “I’m impressed.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Lots of
practice. I have six nephews and two nieces.”

“Any unmarried brothers?” Iris asked.

“Two older, one younger, all married,” he
said. “I’m the last man standing.”

“Not for long, Sheriff.” Iris linked her arm
with his and turned him toward the back of the greenhouse.

Faith stared openmouthed at her aunt’s
swinging backside, wondering if Iris was matchmaking for her, or
worse yet, if the ex-prostitute was angling for the handsome
sheriff herself.

Duke rolled up his shirtsleeves, then showed Adam how to hook the
gas pipe to the old boiler. The boy seemed interested in learning,
but there wasn’t room for him to help connect the gas line to the
burner beneath the metal tub. Colburn had tried using natural gas
eight years earlier, but the supply from his gas well on Mill
Street was insufficient to power the grist mill. So, like other
business owners, he’d diverted a feeder stream from the creek and
used water and steam for power.

Colburn must have needed the water reservoir
for his grist mill, but Duke couldn’t understand why Faith would
want to heat this enormous bin of water. The deep, rectangular
vessel had to be nearly eight feet long and four feet wide, and the
copper had aged to an ugly greenish black.

Puzzled, Duke squeezed his aching shoulders
between the cold stone wall and the tub. By the time he finished
the back- wrenching work, his shoulder throbbed so painfully he
wanted to knock back a quart of whiskey and sleep until the damn
thing healed.

After Adam fetched a cake of soap, Duke
rubbed water on it, then applied a soapy lather to the gas pipe
connections to see if any bubbles developed.

“How often should I check for leaks?” the boy
asked, like a man, even as he shoved his mop of hair out of his
eyes like a schoolkid.

“A couple times a day for the next day or
two. If you can’t see any bubbles in the soap, you can assume the
connections are secure.” Adam nodded, and Duke struggled to his
feet, realizing the boy was missing school. “Why aren’t you in
school today?”

“There’s only two weeks left of the year,
sir.”

“Well, if you were in school, Adam, you
wouldn’t have been in Mrs. Brown’s store, and you wouldn’t have
gotten yourself in trouble.”

“I was running an errand for Faith. She
needed some cheesecloth.”

“I want you to go to school next week.”

Adam lowered his chin. “Yes, sir.”

Iris strode into the stone room and
flirtatiously brushed dust off Duke’s shirtsleeve. “Finished
already?” she asked.

Her boldness surprised him as much as her
appearance had, and it seemed to fluster Faith who had followed her
into the room. “I just need to light the burner and I’ll be done
here.” He’d traveled some during his years as sheriff, but had
never seen anyone like Iris, or any woman as beautiful as
Faith.

Iris clasped her hands in front of her. “Let
us repay you by sending a few herbs home to your mother. Or perhaps
you’d rather choose a few for yourself? We grow special herbs for
men,” she said with a saucy wink. “Ginseng and passionflower—”

“Basil!” Faith blurted, crowding Iris away
from him. “We grow basil and valerian and aconite.” Pink stained
her cheeks, but she didn’t spare Iris a glance. “We grow healing
herbs like comfrey, chamomile, feverfew; that sort of thing. But
your mother would probably prefer cooking herbs like chives, basil,
or bayleaf.”