Lips That Touch Mine (6 page)

"Would you train him? If I brought him over
each day, would you teach him some manners?"

The look on Claire's face told him she saw
right through his ploy, but she didn't order him to leave. She gave
him one of those looks women get just before they take you into the
jeweler's shop and empty your pockets.

"Are you willing to fill my wood bins each
day in return?" There it was. Her payment for services rendered. He
was used to this subtle maneuvering. And good at it.

"Of course." He could barely contain his
grin. He'd had women eager to bed him, women eager to be wooed, but
this was the first time he'd ever had to use Sailor as a
go-between. Claire Ashier was only eager to get her wood bins
filled.

Well, he would change that.

"You'll have to bring him first thing in the
morning. We can start this Friday. Before breakfast."

"Before breakfast? I'm lucky if I wake up
before lunch unless I've promised to work at the mill that
day."

"Morning is the only time I'll be able to do
it."

She was playing him, and he knew it, but he
was playing her, too, and she knew it, so the only way for him to
win—and he intended to win—was to agree to her terms. But before
breakfast? That would be dawn for a woman like Claire. Not even
Sailor got up that early.

"If that doesn't suit you—"

"It's fine," he said, then gave her his most
disarming smile. "But I was hoping we could arrange evening
visits."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible. I'll be
hosting prayer meetings in the evenings."

"Here?" he asked, unable to keep the disgust
from his voice. The thought of a hundred righteous do-gooders,
praying and caterwauling hymns only yards from his door, raised the
hair on his arms. "Claire, it's bad enough having those women visit
my saloon each day. It'll be torture having that noise seep into my
life around the clock."

Her lips curved into a pleased smile. "I
know."

Wednesday
evening Claire prowled her bedchamber, searching for something to
distract her from the yawning emptiness of the house. She wished
she had a dog like Sailor to keep her company, but she couldn't
risk offending her boarders. Maybe a cat. No. No, she could never
have a cat. It would be a constant reminder of...no. No cat.

The vast silence mocked her.

She rested her forearm on top of the
chifforobe and looked out her window at the Pemberton Inn. With the
noise coming from that rum hole, she would be lucky to rent out a
single room this week.

Not only would that leave her without an
income, it would leave her alone in the house. Without boarders,
she had too much time to think, too much time to remember. She
couldn't be alone, especially next week during the Christmas
holiday. It would be unbearable.

A panicky feeling washed through her, and she
closed her hand around the tiny carving. Was there
anything
she could do to convince Boyd Grayson to close
his saloon? Was there anything that would touch his heart, or
challenge his honor, or appeal to his sense of decency?

Failing that, how long would it take for her
to find his Achilles' heel?

Her stomach tightened with dread. She would
have to spend two dollars tomorrow to replenish the items in her
pantry. That would leave her seventeen dollars.

She needed boarders.

She needed that saloon closed.

"What am I going to do, Grandma?" Sighing,
she opened the dresser drawer and trailed her fingers over her
grandmother's diary, then raised the book to her nose. It smelled
of leather, mothballs, and her grandmother's rose sachet.

Swallowing her anxiety, she took the journal
downstairs to the parlor. She sat in a deep-seated rocking chair
near the fireplace and hugged the journal to her chest. The rocking
motion soothed her, and she envisioned herself as a little girl
being rocked in her grandmother's arms. A sense of peace filled her
and she felt more relaxed. She'd loved this creaky old chair and
her grandmother's girlish laugh and the flowery smell of the
house.

This was home.

Her home.

She needed to stay here. She
would
stay here.

"I could sure use your help, Grandma." The
sound of her own voice made her sigh. She was talking to a book.
Maybe she
should
get a dog.

The name Marie Claire Dawsen was written on
the first page of the diary. Claire recognized her grandmother's
handwriting—it was the same slanted script that filled the rest of
the journal. She stroked her fingertips over the page and began to
read.

I am overflowing with confusion and heartache, but I
cannot share this inner torment with anyone.

This morning Abe—I dare not write his real
name—pressed his cheek to my hair. His breath felt warm against my
ear as he said my name ... just my name, but oh, how he spoke it,
soft as a prayer, his voice filled with pain and a passion we are
forbidden. He is husband to another, father to four, prisoner to
his obligations. I am a pastor's wife. But here, in the circle of
Abe's arms, amidst the smell of coffee and wood shavings, I am a
woman for the first time in my life.

A trembling breath of astonishment slipped
from Claire's tight throat. In stunned disbelief she reread the
first page.

Her Grandma Dawsen had allowed a man who was
not her husband to hold and caress her, to breathe his desire
across the bare flesh of her ear? The act was so wicked it raised
goose bumps on Claire's neck to imagine the private, heated moment
from fifty years past.

Judging by the date of the journal entry, her
grandmother would have been in her early twenties at that time, and
her Grandpa Dawsen would have been exiting his forties. Was their
age difference the cause of her grandmother's attraction to another
man? Claire was just a child when her grandfather died, and though
he'd been rather plain and quiet, he'd seemed like a good man who
hadn't deserved his wife's infidelity.

What on earth had compelled a warm-hearted,
honorable woman like Marie Dawsen to have relations with a married
man?

Had Abe taken liberties with her grandmother?
Had he trampled her protests like Boyd Grayson had trampled
Claire's earlier this morning? Had Abe pushed her grandmother into
something she may not have wanted?

Lord knows Claire had tried to dissuade Boyd
from such inappropriate behavior, but he'd been insistent and
persuasive about doctoring her foot. His infringement on her person
had been shocking. He'd frightened her with his nudging and
controlling ways, embarrassed her with the liberties he'd taken.
All she'd wanted was to get him out of her house. But the feel of
his warm hands caressing her foot and ankle had made her shiver
with need.

She never should have let him see her foot,
let alone touch it. She'd been perfectly capable of treating her
own wound. But she was so lonely, so desperate to connect with
another human being, that she'd been unable to pull away from his
touch.

Foolish, but true. Had her grandmother felt
that way too?

The sound of laughter and a firm knock on her
door startled Claire. She glanced at the clock above her mantel and
realized the women were already arriving for the prayer meeting.
She closed the diary and set it on a brass-trimmed tripod table
beside her chair. When she opened the door, Desmona Edwards and
four other women stood on her porch.

"I see we're the first to arrive," Desmona
said, stepping into the foyer at Claire's bidding. "These are my
daughters," she added, waving her wrinkled hand at four women of
Claire's mother's age. "Elizabeth is my youngest daughter. Mary is
my oldest, then Beatrice and Virginia."

"Pleased to meet you, ladies," Claire
said.

They all returned Claire's greeting. The
youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who looked the oldest with her weary
eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, shrank away from Claire's regard.
Her visible discomfort surprised Claire, who glanced at
Desmona.

"I'm afraid Elizabeth has never outgrown her
shyness," Desmona said, exasperation in her voice.

Elizabeth's flushed cheeks elicited Claire's
sympathy. "Are you married, Elizabeth?" she asked, hanging their
coats in the closet then guiding the ladies into the parlor.

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes as bleak as if she
were admitting to being an inmate in Hell. Suddenly Claire knew
that it wasn't shyness making Elizabeth shrink away from people. It
was fear. Women who were beaten didn't often make new friends. They
typically pulled away from family and friends, and shut down their
emotions to protect themselves.

Compassion rushed through Claire, but she
warned herself not to get involved. She had her own troubles. She
was finally free to build herself a safe new life. She would march
for temperance to help women like Elizabeth, but she couldn't
involve herself personally with anyone else's marriage
problems.

With stiff-jointed slowness, Desmona lowered
herself into the rocking chair Claire had just vacated. "Dreadfully
cold this evening."

"It certainly is," Claire agreed, remembering
how the bitter cold had permeated her bones earlier that afternoon
when she and ninety-eight other women had trudged through the
snow-covered streets to plead their case with the saloon owners.
"Do you think Mr. Clark will allow us inside tomorrow?" she asked,
irritated that the drug store owner had locked them out and refused
to listen to their request to stop selling liquor.

"We have decided not to call on Mr. Clark
tomorrow."

Desmona tugged her sweater around her hunched
shoulders. "The men will pay him a visit to see if they can talk
some sense into him."

"Let's pray they're successful." Claire
looked out her window to see several women walking up the street
toward her house. "The rest of the ladies are coming."

"Good to be prompt." Desmona glanced at the
end table beside her chair and lifted her gray eyebrows in
surprise. "What a beautiful book," she said, reaching for the
journal on the table.

The thought of anyone reading her
grandmother's diary made Claire's heart race. Especially after
discovering her grandmother's inappropriate actions with Abe. If
anyone learned of it, her grandmother's reputation would be
sullied, and Claire would suffer as well.

"Is this your journal?" Desmona asked,
tilting the leather-bound diary toward the light while admiring the
gilded lettering.

"No." Claire stepped forward to retrieve the
journal, but Desmona opened the cover.

"Oh. It's your grandmother's," she said, her
eyes focusing inside.

"It's rather dry reading," Claire said,
opening her hand as a request for Desmona to return the book.

Desmona ignored her and turned to the first
incriminating page. "I've always wondered what one would write in a
journal."

"Daily information mostly," Claire said,
trying to distract Desmona from reading further. "She wrote about
the weather and the neighbors and such."

"Really?" Desmona asked, but when she lifted
her head, Claire could see that Desmona had read enough to know
that she was lying. Her heart pounded as she faced the knowing look
in Desmona's eyes. "I should love to read this when you're finished
with it."

"I'm afraid I can't share something so
personal." She boldly tugged the diary from Desmona's gnarled
fingers. "It would breach my grandmother's privacy. I'm sure she
expected to burn this long before she died."

Desmona's lips thinned. "Perhaps she should
have."

Claire couldn't agree more. Why would anyone
document something so unsavory? She tucked the book under her arm
and went to the foyer. How stupid of her to have let Desmona open
the diary. She put the book inside her desk, turned the key in the
lock, then slipped the key into her skirt pocket.

She opened the front door, and a stream of
women flowed inside. After several minutes of holding her door open
to the frigid weather, Claire's house was filled with rustling
skirts and the smell of winter air mingled with lavender and rose
powder.

Women crowded into every room and vied for a
position in the doorways to see Mrs. Barker who was speaking in the
foyer. They complained that they couldn't see her, or hear her,
interrupting so often that Mrs. Barker finally raised her hand for
silence.

She turned to Claire. "Would you mind if we
moved our prayer meeting to the church?"

"Of course not," Claire said with relief. She
had no idea how crowded her house would be, or how invaded she
would feel having a hundred women milling through her home. She
thought to support her cause and taunt Boyd Grayson at the same
time, but she was the one who felt infringed upon.

She retrieved their coats from the closet,
and the women poured out of her home and headed toward town.
Desmona and her daughters exited last, and Claire felt a physical
rush of relief when she stepped outside behind them, pulling her
door closed.

She glanced across the street to the
Pemberton Inn where Boyd Grayson stood on the front steps of his
saloon. "Short meeting tonight?" he asked, his deep, sardonic voice
carrying over to her.

She lifted her chin, irritated that her plan
to annoy him had fallen through. "We're just getting started, Mr.
Grayson. We'll be back tomorrow." She turned away from his knowing
grin and ran straight into Desmona.

"Oh! Mrs. Edwards!" She caught Desmona's arm
and steadied the old lady. "I'm so sorry."

"No harm done." Desmona shooed her daughters
ahead of her, then cautiously planted her walking stick as she
picked her way down the rutted street. "Your grandmother was an
interesting lady," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't know her
better."