She remembered then that she’d brought almond oil. “Don’t leave me. I don’t care about the oil.” She tightened her arms around his neck and fit their bodies closer together.
“I’ll never leave you.” He nipped her chin, then rose until her arms slipped from his neck and he stood in the tub, rivulets of water streaming down his bronze, muscled body like tiny rivers cutting down a craggy mountainside.
Mesmerized, she stroked her palm up his rock-hard thigh to the sinewy, rippling muscles in his abdomen, awed and intrigued with his reacting body, with him, with this man who was revealing himself one layer at a time with each look, each caress, each word he spoke. His breath sailed out and he jerked his hips back as if her touch scalded him. He clutched the edge of the tub, leaned over and grabbed the jar of oil off the table, then submerged himself to his chest in the bath.
“Back off, woman.”
She smiled at his playfulness.
He blew out a shuddering breath, uncapped the jar and filled his palm with oil. “Sit on the stool and give me your foot.”
“What?” She laughed. “I’m not concerned with my feet right now, darling husband.”
He pointed to the end of the tub. “Humor me.”
She sat on the stool and lifted her foot out of the water.
He knelt in front of her and slathered the oil over her foot. “Gads, what is this stuff?”
The scent of lavender rose from the water. “I must have I picked up the wrong jar.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Wonderful. I’ll smell like a flower tomorrow. Just give me a dress and I’ll be able to sashay up and cuff the bad guys before they suspect a thing.”
Her laugh sailed through the room. “Want me to run out and get the other oil?”
“No. I want you right here with me,” he said, kneading her foot.
She leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, enjoying the massage and the feel of his hands stroking up her calves. “You know what I thought when I first met you?” she asked.
“That I was a hard-nosed, inconsiderate lawman who was trying to take advantage of you.”
“No, I thought you were a hard-nosed, very handsome lawman who could easily seduce me.”
A crooked grin slanted across his mouth. “Believe me, you weren’t easy to seduce.”
She lifted her foot from his hands and trailed her big toe down his chest to his stomach. “I wouldn’t have resisted if I’d known how tender and loving and playful you are.”
He released an exaggerated sigh. “And here I’d thought my big, bad sheriff act attracted you.”
“That tough, commanding side of you is a bit titillating.”
“Then stand up, sweetheart.”
“As you wish, Sheriff.” She rose to her feet, waiting for his instruction, willing to give him anything—everything. She would be the perfect wife, the perfect playmate, the perfect lover.
He moved to sit on the stool, then poured more oil into his hands and rubbed his palms together. Gently, he circled her waist with his hands and pulled her onto his lap. His body was hot and hard beneath her legs, against her bottom, everywhere. He pushed the pads of his thumbs on either side of her spine and slid them up to her shoulders, soothing her, exciting her, making her body surge forward and fall back into the cradle of his thighs with every delicious stroke. Over and over again he swept his hands across her shoulders and down her back, slipping around her ribs to caress her breasts, then back again and down and around and oh . . . everything in her melted.
“You have magical hands,” she said, sighing with pleasure. “I noticed them the first time I met you.”
“Ah . . . another confession. I think I’ll keep rubbing your body until you divulge all your secrets.”
She wished she could divulge everything, to ease her conscience, to be truthful with her husband, to rid their marriage bed of the lie that slept between them. But she could only give him love.
She pushed off his lap and knelt in front of him. “Let me rinse this oil off.” She slipped under the water, but two large hands clamped around her waist and lifted her back to the surface.
“Leave it,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion. He kissed the side of her jaw and she sought his mouth, hungry for him. Slowly, he moved his palms down her back and over her bottom, then up and around to her breasts. She moaned and arched toward him, but he continued that languorous rubbing down her back and over her buttocks, driving her crazy with longing.
Finally, his large, work-roughened hands cupped her bottom and lifted her onto his lap. She embraced his neck and twined her legs around his waist, sighing as he filled her. He moaned low in his throat, and her head fell back in ecstasy.
Could something this beautiful really last? This man in her arms was so good and steady, and she was lying to him every minute of every day with every word, every kiss, every caress.
Water sloshed around them, lapping at their bodies as they clutched each other breast to chest, their mouths fused, hot and urgent as they brought each other to that blissful, soaring release Faith had come to know so well. Shattered, she lowered her forehead to her husband’s shoulder, loving the man who had claimed her heart, who trusted her with his friendship, with the intimacy of his most private self. She bit her lip, but tears of mortification leaked past her defenses because she didn’t know how to protect him without betraying him.
Chapter 29
The urgent pounding on the front door brought Duke to full attention. He tossed aside the newspaper, and headed to the foyer. “Adam, stay in the parlor, and keep Cora with you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Duke opened the door to find a woman he didn’t know standing on his porch, white-faced and trembling. “I’m Millie, and I’m staying with Anna. Her husband b-broke in and he has a gun.”
“What the hell?” Fury rushed through Duke. Larry Levens was in prison for life. The bastard had killed two men, one of them a deputy sheriff. He’d beaten Anna half to death five years ago and could only be out for revenge now. “Wait here with my wife.”
The terrified woman stepped inside as Faith hurried into the foyer.
Duke opened the closet. “Anna’s husband broke out of prison,” he said, wondering why the hell he hadn’t been notified of the man’s escape. He took his gun belt off the top shelf and strapped it on. He opened the chamber, made sure the revolver was loaded, and asked Millie if anyone else was at Anna’s house. It would be safest if it was only Anna and Larry, but Duke half-hoped someone like Boyd, who lived across the street, was there to distract Levens until he could get his hands on the mean son of a bitch.
“Dahlia’s there,” Millie said, “but Larry hit her with his gun. I ran out the back door like Anna told me to do.”
“My God,” Faith gasped.
Anna and Dahlia could already be dead.
“Stay put, sweetheart. I’ll send Dahlia home as soon as I can.”
He gave Faith a quick kiss, then bolted outside, cutting across lots behind several buildings. He came out on Main Street and jogged up West Hill. Slowing his pace, he crept close to the old Pemberton Inn that had once housed hi g brother’s saloon. He crouched beneath the windows and stayed close to the building, hoping to get into Anna’s home through the small storeroom in the back. Anna’s cry, and Dahlia’s vivid, angry curse, bled through the plank walls.
With light steps, Duke eased inside and crossed the storeroom. He inched open the door that led into Anna’s community room.
Levens had Anna bent backward over her sofa, with his hand pressed to her throat and his gun barrel planted between her eyes. Dahlia sat frozen at the piano, her face contorted with horror.
“Please,” she croaked. “She’s your wife.”
“Shut up, bitch, or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes, too.”
“Don’t do this,” Dahlia begged.
Duke drew his revolver. He needed to be fast and accurate. Because Levens would shoot; he had nothing left to lose.
Gu
n cocked, breath even, Duke slipped inside, one silent step at a time.
“Five goddamned years I sat in that hole because of you,” Levens said, his nose an inch from Anna’s face.
Duke raised his revolver and locked his elbow.
The flash of surprise in Anna’s eyes gave him away: Levens swung his pistol and fired, shattering the plaster behind Duke’s head. Duke ducked into the storeroom. A second shot splintered the pine door. Finger on the trigger, he leapt back into the room, but the coward was shielding himself with Anna.
Levens fired again, and the bullet whizzed by Duke’s right ear. The man’s aim was getting hotter.
Duke angled for a clear shot that could bring Levens down, but before he could squeeze the trigger, a wild screech filled the room, and Dahlia swung the piano bench into the back of Levens’s head. The wood cracked on impact, and the man stumbled forward but didn’t fall. He grabbed Dahlia and slammed her to the floor so hard the windows rattled.
Now, Duke fired.
The bullet hit Levens in the shoulder and spun him sideways. Lunging like a tiger, Duke dove into the man’s side, taking him to the floor and knocking the gun from his hand.
Levens scrabbled for his pistol, but Anna kicked it away. With a howl of outrage, he lunged at her, fist raised. “You traitorous bitch!”
Duke hauled him back before the man could slam his fist into his wife’s already-bloody face. Pain screamed through his shoulder as he forced Levens’s arm up and snapped a handcuff around his wrist.
The monster’s enraged howl filled the room, and he tore away, lunging at Anna with a vicious growl. Duke grabbed the cuff dangling from Larry’s wrist, but before he could haul him down, the crack of a pistol sent Levens to his knees. Blood stained the thigh of his trousers where Dahlia had shot him.
The man growled like a rabid dog and tried to get to his feet, but his injured leg collapsed and he fell to his knee. Duke slapped the other cuff around Larry’s wrist, binding the man’s hands behind his back.
“I’m not going back to prison!” With an enraged growl, Levens lunged at Dahlia, yanking the cuffs on his bound wrists, and wrenching Duke’s shoulder.
“Neither is Anna,” Dahlia said. And she pulled the trigger.
The bullet knocked Levens backward over his boot heels, and yanked the metal chain linking the cuffs from Duke’s raw hand. Larry’s head cracked on the coffee table as he crashed to the floor.
The front door flew open, and Duke reached for his revolver, but it was Boyd who stormed inside. His brother gave the room a sweeping glance and rushed to where Duke crouched beside Levens.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Duke’s breath shuddered out. “Anna’s husband paid her a visit.”
“What’s he doing out of prison?”
“Getting himself killed.”
Boyd had met Levens five years ago when the man tracked Anna to Claire’s house and threatened both women. Shortly after jailing the man, Duke had taken Anna to Pittsburgh to testify against her husband.
Levens lay in a pool of blood. Duke checked for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one; Dahlia had shot straight into Levens’s black heart. Levens had fought too hard and pushed too far. Maybe he’d known Dahlia would pull the trigger and end his miserable life. The bastard deserved the bullet in his chest, but Duke felt a crushing weight settle on his shoulders. Dahlia had knowingly and willingly killed a man.
o0o
Faith put the children to bed, then waited in the silent parlor with Millie. They were too tense and scared to talk. Duke had been gone for an hour, and Dahlia hadn’t arrived yet.
Someone knocked on the door at nine-thirty, and Faith’s heart nearly stopped when she found Doc Milton on her porch.
“Larry Levens is dead.”
“Dear God . . .” Faith pressed trembling fingers to her dry throat. “Is Duke . . . is he all right?”
The doctor nodded. “Anna and Dahlia are at Boyd’s house. You’ll have to ask Duke what happened,” he said, then offered to walk Millie to Boyd’s to be with Anna.
Shaken and shivering, Faith grabbed a lantern and followed them outside. Alone with her worry, she buttoned her sweater against the chill, then sat on the porch swing, listening to dry leaves scuttle across the ground and praying for Duke and Dahlia to hurry home.
When they finally approached the house, Duke’s stride was shorter, his shoulders stiff. He wore a deep scowl and had his thumb hooked in the front of his gun belt, a sign that his shoulder was hurting. Dahlia was limping, and she pressed her hand to her hip as she slowly climbed the steps ahead of Duke.
“Thank goodness you’re all right!” Faith leapt from the porch swing and threw her arms around her aunt. “I was worried sick about you two.”
“I’m not all right.” Dahlia stared across the porch, her face ravaged by grief or pain or both. “I killed a man.”
Faith’s heart stopped, and then she saw the anguish in Duke’s eyes and the strain around his compressed lips. Something awful had happened.
“I had to.” Dahlia clamped her lips together, but couldn’t hold back her tears. “He wouldn’t have stopped,” she cried. “They never stop.”
Faith pulled Dahlia onto the swing and sat beside her. “What happened?”
Breathy sobs shook the woman’s shoulders. “I begged Daddy to let me come home. He said, ‘Obey your husband.’”
Faith frowned, confused by Dahlia’s rambling.
“I tried, God help me I did. But Carl wouldn’t stop.”
As understanding dawned, sickness washed through Faith. Dahlia was telling her own story. She said she’d witnessed a woman being beaten by her husband, and that a minister refused to give her refuge. But that beaten woman was Dahlia, and the minister was her own father.
“Oh, Dahlia. . . .” At a loss for words, Faith rocked her aunt.
“I didn’t want any man to touch me ever again.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Your mother let me stay in her house anyhow, and it was a whole year b-before I could work upstairs.”
Faith’s heart contracted, and she pulled Dahlia close. “Shhh . . . ,” she whispered, comforting her and warning her not to divulge any more in front of Duke, whose bleak expression had changed to a sickly, suspicious scowl.
Dahlia stiffened and sat up by degrees, as if she knew she’d said too much. “I want go home.” She wiped her palms across her cheeks and looked at Duke. “Unless you’re taking me to jail.”
“What? Why would he?” Faith pressed her hand to her churning stomach. “Are you arresting her, Duke?”
His somber look terrified her.
“You can’t . . . that man killed people.”
“I know, Faith, but . . .” He released a hard, shuddering breath. “Go home and rest, Dahlia.”
The torment in his eyes killed any relief Faith expected to feel. Whatever had happened at Anna’s was torturing him.
Dahlia got to her feet. “I’m sorry about everything,” she said, but Faith didn’t know if she was apologizing for saying too much, or for what she had done at Anna’s.
She walked Dahlia across the street. Tansy was out with Cyrus, but Aster fixed Dahlia a cup of tea, and Iris rubbed balm on her sore back. When Faith returned home, Duke was waiting on the porch. She gave him a hard, thankful hug, needing to touch him to know that he was okay.
“I was so worried about you,” she said. She sensed he wouldn’t talk about what happened at Anna’s, so she simply held him and listened to the peepers.
“Faith, what kind of work did Dahlia do upstairs at your mother’s house?”
Fear drizzled down her body like a freezing rain, coating her with ice. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak.
“Who are those women you call your aunts?” he asked, his voice flat, controlled, cold.
This was the moment she would crash to the hard unforgiving ground, and everything would shatter: her body, her heart, her life.
“They’r
e my aunts, like Rebecca is Evelyn’s daughter,” she said, wanting him to understand her love for them.
His nod acknowledged her right to claim the women as family, but she could see the truth dawning in his eyes.
“Your mother didn’t just sell roses, did she?”
She shook her head.
“Did all your aunts work upstairs at your mother’s house?”
She nodded because she couldn’t speak past the shame clogging her throat.
He inhaled sharply, as if the truth had speared him in the chest, and his appalled expression broke her heart.
“I knew you would look at me with disgust.”
“How would you expect me to look?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“For God’s sake, your mother ran a brothel!” He stared at her as if seeing an unwelcome stranger on his porch. “Did you . . . were you . . .” His breath rushed out as if he couldn’t bear to ask the question.
“No.” She shook her head. “I only gave massages.”
o0o
“Stop!” Duke raised his hand, unable to listen to his wife any longer. He couldn’t stomach the thought of her hands on another man. To know she’d massaged their bare bodies twisted his heart into a painful knot. This was why his gut had kept insisting there was something she was hiding. And he suspected she was hiding more.
“I had to think of Adam and Cora,” she said, tears brimming her eyes.
Two hours ago her quavering voice would have wrenched his heart with sympathy. Now it left him cold.
“Duke, I needed to get them away from the brothel. How could I do that by announcing where we came from?”
She couldn’t have. He understood that. If anyone had known Faith’s mother ran a brothel and her aunts were prostitutes, Faith and her family would have been run out of town. Hell, if anyone discovered the truth now, their lives would be ruined. Her life. His life. His mother’s and brothers’ lives.
And she’d married him knowing this.
Her betrayal sliced through him. One slip of the tongue, and Faith’s reputation, and his own, would be ruined. His family’s reputation would be shattered, and the sawmill business would suffer as well as Radford and Evelyn’s livery. All because he’d been a blind, lust-deceived fool.
Wendy Lindstrom Page 25
