Claire opened the door, her eyes guarded and cool. Sailor barked and wagged his tail, wheezing like an overheated boiler. Boyd rubbed his dog's head, but spoke to Claire.
"Has Sailor picked out his own room yet?"
"What?" Her brow furrowed. "Oh." Her confusion melted instantly, and though she released a breath that resembled a gasp of embarrassment, she didn't smile. "He followed me inside while I was carting wood."
"Did he carry his share?"
Her lips pursed. "He tracked up my floor."
Boyd pointed to several chunks of wood beside the wood bin. "Where are your manners, Sailor? Bring in some wood for Mrs. Ashier. Go on."
Sailor lunged out the door. He swiped Boyd's knees then skidded to a stop before the wood scraps. After two seconds of rooting in the pile, Sailor bit into a hefty hunk of wood that he struggled to keep clenched in his mouth. He made it as far as the kitchen, then dropped it on Claire's foot.
Her eyes shot open as she gasped, or maybe Boyd did—he couldn't discern who was more shocked. Her grip tightened on the door handle and she shifted as she extracted her slipper-covered foot from beneath the heavy chunk of wood. Her accusing eyes met Boyd's, but she didn't say a word.
"Claire—Mrs. Ashier—that wasn't supposed to happen."
She didn't look convinced. "Good-bye, Mr. Grayson."
She tried to close the door, but Boyd braced his hand against the hard flat surface, feeling terrible that she'd been hurt. "I'm sorry. Truly, Mrs. Ashier. Sailor lugs wood around all the time at the saloon. I'm always tripping over pieces of kindling that he drags out of the bucket." He reached down and grabbed the hunk of wood before Sailor could get his teeth around it again. He tossed it into the bin behind him then faced Claire, who was pale. "I'd better look at your toes."
She reared back. "You will not!"
"That was a heavy piece of wood, Mrs. Ashier. I really think—"
"My toes are fine," she said, but her voice was thin, as if she were in pain.
"Then it must be your slipper that's bleeding."
She jerked her gaze to her feet then gripped the doorknob with both hands.
He caught her elbow and turned her toward a small oak table in her "kitchen. "At least allow me to help you into a chair." He nudged the door closed with his foot. "I hope your toes aren't too damaged. I'm not very good at stitching."
"I fail to see the humor in this." She tried to tug her arm free, but he maintained his grip as she limped toward a high back cane-bottom chair at the table.
The light sheen of perspiration on her forehead told him she was in far more pain than she was admitting. The split piece of firewood had been heavy, with a jagged edge that had hit her square on the top of her foot.
The instant she was seated, he knelt at her feet. "Would you mind lifting your gown?"
She clapped her hands over her knees and glared at him. "Take your dog and go home. I'm capable of tending to my own toes."
"I'm afraid I can't leave without making sure your foot isn't badly damaged."
"I told you, it's fine."
He ignored her and tugged the slipper off her foot.
"Mister Grayson!"
"Your toes are still attached. That's a good sign."
"How dare you be so...so impudent."
He fought to hide a grin as he sat back on one heel.
"Now, is there really cause here to malign my male prowess, Mrs. Ashier?"
"Your what?" As if she suddenly realized what he'd said, her face colored. "I suggested no such thing. I called you impudent, Mr. Grayson. That means arrogant, audacious, disrespectful—in case you didn't know."
He did know. He'd been accused of being impudent on many occasions, but he enjoyed getting her stirred up. "Well, it sounded like something far less desirable." He propped her foot on his thigh, but she gasped and yanked it away.
"What are you doing?" she asked in outrage.
"Trying to make sure your foot isn't broken."
"It's cut and bruised. Nothing more. Now please leave me to tend to my personal business."
"What if your foot is broken?" he asked, looking up at her. "If you can't walk, how will you hail the doctor? How will you care for yourself or your boarders?"
"I don't have any boarders, thanks to you."
"I'm sorry about that," he said, retrieving the clean handkerchief he'd tucked in his pocket before leaving the saloon. "Let me satisfy my curiosity, and I'll leave you in peace." He pulled her foot to his thigh, but she jerked away.
"I'm afraid your curiosity will have to go unquenched."
"Honestly, Claire, you would think I was trying to ravish you." He slipped his hand over her slender foot and smiled up at her. "Your pretty feet are most tempting, but I can control myself for a minute or two." He pulled her foot back to his thigh, and held firm when she tried to tug away. "If you keep kicking and tussling you will make me impudent, or whatever that word is."
She snorted, and he looked up in surprise, wondering if he'd really heard the hint of a laugh. Her lips were pursed, but her eyes...her gorgeous blue eyes sparkled.
"You look like your grandmother when you laugh." Because he knew she would deny her laughter, or reprimand him for using her given name, he lowered his head. "Please, Claire. Give me a minute to look at this. I need to be certain you aren't badly hurt." To his relief she gave in and let him feel her foot through her stocking. It was warm against his thigh, slender, and delicately sculpted at her ankle. He wanted to tug her stocking off and feel the smoothness of her skin, trace the line of her shinbone beneath his fingers.
"Is it broken?"
"I don't believe so. But I think the chunk of wood split the skin on your hallux."
"My what?"
"Your big toe." He smiled at her. "I assumed if you knew what impudent meant you would surely know the word hallux."
Instead of frowning, she tilted her head to study him.
"What truly baffles me is how you know the word."
He liked that she was turning the tables on him. "I took a bad fall in the gorge when I was nine. I'd broken a rib, but when the doctor told me I'd also broken my hallux, I thought he meant my back. After he told me I'd only broken my big toe, I was so relieved, I never forgot the word."
She studied him, and he returned her scrutiny. In the sudden stillness he could not only hear Sailor panting, but his own heart-pounding like a drum. He wanted to kiss her. Really kiss her. The kind of kiss that burns deep in the gut, that stops time, that makes two people cling and beg and go insane with lust.
"You're hurting my toe."
Her whispered complaint jolted him and he realized he'd been gripping her toes. "Sorry." He drew a shuddering breath and released her foot. "Do you have any iodine?"
"I'll put some on after—"
"Where is it?"
She sighed and pointed toward a door on the far wall of her kitchen. "In the water closet cabinet."
"Take off your stockings."
"I will not." She started to stand, but he caught her hips and pushed her back down. She gasped, her expression outraged.
"You go too far."
"I'm doing what I have to." He winked. "Stay put. I'll get the iodine."
"You are insufferable."
"So I've been told." He stood up, and Sailor leapt to his feet. "Stay, Sailor."
Sailor's ears drooped and he blinked at Claire. She held out her hand. "Don't let him bully you, too."
The dog's tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth and he ducked beneath her hand. She scratched his head and he horned in closer.
The damned mutt was right where Boyd wanted to be.
The unfairness of it rankled as he crossed the kitchen to retrieve the iodine. He could barely share a civil word with Claire, but his weasel of a dog was flopped against her sweet curves, basking in her affection like she owned him.
Well, maybe Sailor wasn't as smart as Boyd thought. If Boyd were a dog, he'd climb right into Claire's lap and start licking her from
the neck down.
Whoa. The thought stopped him mid-stride.
Claire pulled off her stocking then glanced at him. "What's the matter?"
He stood in the middle of the kitchen, warning himself to calm down, to rein in and slow the horse before he frightened her away.
"Are you all right?"
He was ready to ride for the finish line, but he hadn't even gotten Claire out of the gate yet. But he would, he decided. If it was the only thing he accomplished in his life, he was going to make love to Claire Ashier.
He clenched the iodine in his fist and knelt at her feet.
"I'd like you to address me as Boyd," he said. He repositioned her bare foot on his thigh. She didn't fight him this time or comment on his request.
While he cleaned the blood off her toe, she continued petting Sailor. There was a tenderness in her touch, a warmth in the way she stroked the dog's head that was so natural and unguarded, Boyd peeked up at her face.
The shadow of loneliness dulled her eyes. He'd seen that same forlorn look in his mirror for years, but to see the pain and emptiness in Claire's eyes bothered him. In that brief glimpse, he knew that she'd experienced loneliness, that she'd suffered loss, that she knew fear.
What tragedy was it that left the residue of those emotions in her eyes?
"I know it's going to sting," she said. "Just get it over with."
He ducked his head and saturated a corner of his handkerchief with iodine. "You like Sailor," he said, trying to distract her from the sting as he dabbed at her toe.
"Does that surprise you?"
"Maybe."
"Why? I had two dogs when I was a girl, and I trained both of them myself. I could make them lie down just by snapping my fingers. I named them Shakespeare and—ouch."
"Sorry. Just a touch more," he said. "Why?"
"Because I want to make sure it doesn't get infected. I think you're going to have a bruise on your instep."
"I was asking why you're surprised that I like Sailor?"
He finished wiping her toe, replaced the cap on the bottle and rose to his feet. "Because he's a weaseling, ill-mannered maniac. And because you seem to prefer your own company. "
Her lashes lowered like window shades, and Boyd knew he'd struck a vein.
He set the bottle of iodine on the table. "Is it too forward of me to ask how long you've been a widow?"
"Yes." Her chin lifted and she met his eyes, but he sensed that behind her brave front she was hiding something. "It's not that I prefer my own company, Mr. Grayson. It's that I prefer not to subject myself to the games, petty judgments, and humiliating exchanges that most relationships contain."
"Relationships also contain companionship and joy." "That's why I like Sailor. Despite being clumsy and a bit rambunctious, I don't have to wonder if his actions are sincere." She stroked the dog's bony back. "He just needs some training to polish his manners."
"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."
Chapter Four
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."
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