Only You

by Wendy Lindstrom

  Duke had traded his sheriff’s badge for a handsome black suit and starched white shirt to stand as Boyd’s best man.

  Anna stood behind them in her magic dress, slowly but surely building herself a new life. With the help of Duke’s lawyer friends she was trying to divorce Larry, who had been convicted of two murders and would spend his life in prison.

  Claire’s mother, and Lida’s husband and three children, were comfortably ensconced in the warm, welcoming bosom of Boyd’s family.

  Claire stood beside her future husband, eyeing him with open admiration as she spoke her vows. He looked tall and proud in a full-dress black suit and a snow white shirt, his eyebrows black slashes above warm honey-brown eyes as he promised to love, honor, and cherish Claire until death parted them. When he added his promise not to be a toad, the room filled with laughter.

  Claire cried. She couldn’t name a time she’d been this happy.

  After their vows, Boyd’s brothers slapped his strong shoulders to congratulate him. And one by one, each tall, dark, handsome brother-in-law kissed Claire’s cheek to welcome her to the family. Her parents hugged her and wished her well. Her sister and Anna cried. And by the time Boyd’s family finished introducing themselves and congratulating her, Claire’s head was spinning as if she’d had too much wine.

  But she hadn’t had a drop because she wanted to savor every moment with her husband and family.

  They spent the evening getting to know each other’s family, but after three hours of being pulled in opposite directions, Boyd caught Claire’s hand and whisked her off to their new home.

  As he carried her inside, Claire hugged his neck. “No longer will this house be filled with strangers and borders. We will fill these rooms with children, and the sound of their running feet and wild laughter will ring through the house day and night.”

  “Sounds noisy but wonderful.” He grinned. “I can’t offer you a castle, Claire.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “This toad—or prince depending on the day—may have dragons to slay on occasion.”

  “The princess—or Cold Claire—will have her own dragons to slay,” she said.

  His heart beat with happiness as he carried her upstairs to their bedroom.

  Sailor leapt to his feet at the foot of their bed and greeted them with a happy bark.

  Then a tiny, fuzzy-headed kitten popped up off their pillow.

  Claire’s mouth and eyes rounded.

  “Meet Sergeant,” he said. “Your wedding present and the newest member of our family.”

  “Oh, Boyd...”

  He knew he would never forget the tender look in Claire’s eyes or her beautiful face illuminated by joy.

  She hugged his neck. “Sergeant is darling.”

  Sailor gave a petulant bark and nudged the toe of her slipper.

  “No need to feel jealous. I have more than enough love for all of you.” Claire turned her beautiful blue eyes to Boyd and pressed a tender kiss to his mouth as he lowered her feet to the floor. “Thank you. I’m overflowing with love and happiness.”

  She turned to the bed and introduced herself to Sergeant.

  Sailor wasn’t about to be ignored. The mutt wheezed with such excitement, his entire rump moved as he wagged his tail to get Claire’s attention. The kitten leapt off the pillow and batted his tiny white paws at Sailor’s swinging tail. Sailor nudged the kitten away with his nose, sending Sergeant tumbling across the fluffy quilt. Sergeant was tiny but determined and he came back swiping his paws at Sailor’s whipcord tail.

  Claire’s laughter rang through the bedroom, and the empty place that had been in Boyd’s chest for so long overflowed with happiness. He’d reclaimed his art. He’d found love.

  He had Sailor and Sergeant—and his beautiful, loving and courageous Claire with her amazing sense of humor. They were his family, his life, his treasure.

  The End

  Dear Reader,

  Thanks so much for taking the time to read Only You. I am deeply grateful for your support. If you enjoyed this story of new beginnings, and consider it a 5-star keeper, will you please consider helping other readers find my books by writing a review? Your review will help me, too! And if you would like to find out when my next book is available, sign up for my newsletter. I often write about my little Rustic Studio and the magnificent — and somewhat crazy — wildlife that resides in this beautiful little glade that reminds me so much of the Grayson world. I share a lot of other fun information in my newsletter as well (like the fact that I’m working toward my black belt and that I recently got my motorcycle license and that I’m in love with tiny houses). So please sign up and join the conversation!

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  If you would like to read my books for FREE, learn how to become a member of my exclusive ARC group and receive a FREE advanced copy of my books in exchange for an honest review.

  Again, my sincere thanks, and I hope you will read and enjoy the rest of my books about the Grayson family.

  Peace and warmest wishes,

  Wendy

  Turn the page for a preview of Second Chance Brides Series Book Four

  My Heart’s Desire

  He Was The Only Man Who Could Protect Her—And The One Who Could Hurt Her The Most

  Desperate circumstances set Faith Wilkins on the run and straight into Sheriff Duke Grayson’s protective arms. Faith believes they can build a good life together—but their friendship is built on lies because the truth could get them killed. Will giving the dutiful lawman her heart lead to more broken dreams if her shocking secrets are revealed?

  Chapter One

  My Heart’s Desire is the SWEET edition of

  Kissing in the Dark (Grayson Brothers series)

  Fredonia, New York

  June 1879

  The tangy scent of soaps and spices made Duke sneeze as he entered Brown & Shepherd’s store. He grunted in pain and he clapped a hand over his aching shoulder.

  Wayne Archer looked up from the package of medicine he was delivering to the store. The stocky apothecary propped his fists on the counter and eyed Duke with suspicion. “Are you ill, Sheriff?”

  “Morning, Archer.” Duke ignored the man’s question. Archer didn’t care about Duke’s health. He wanted to get elected sheriff in November. Six men were running for the position against Duke, who had been the sheriff of Chautauqua County since he was twenty-three years old. Five of the seven candidates could handle the position. Duke was one of them. Wayne Archer wasn’t.

  Duke stepped away from the soaps and spices and greeted the store owner, Agatha Brown, a kind, elderly widow he’d known since he was a boy.

  “You’re too late for licorice sticks,” she said. “I sold the last one yesterday afternoon to your niece, Rebecca.”

  “That qualifies as a crime, Mrs. Brown.” He’d been buying or begging licorice sticks from her since he was old enough to ask for them, and he was still one of her best customers.

  “My next shipment will arrive tomorrow. Will that keep me out of jail?” she asked.

  “This time,” he said sternly.

  Her laugh lit her eyes and transformed her somber demeanor into that of a softer, more youthful-looking woman. Agatha Brown was six years older than Duke’s mother, and could make some man a good companion, but Duke suspected she would choose to remain a widow. He’d been a boy when her husband died, and he barely remembered the man, but Agatha had never forgotten him. She seemed content to live with his memory and to run their store on Main Street in the Village of Fredonia.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Something
to relieve a headache.” His nagging shoulder pain was bringing it on, but the last thing he would do was announce that fact to Archer. Which was why he wasn’t buying the powder in Archer’s apothecary: Archer would use the information to sway the voters.

  Mrs. Brown pointed to the opposite wall of the store. “Top shelf on the left.”

  “Thank you.” The pine floorboards sounded hollow beneath his boot heels as he wove his way past a rack of ready-made clothing. Heavily laden shelves sagged beneath tins of food, and wooden bins overflowed with everything from shovels and rakes to bolts of fabric. Brown & Shepherd’s carried anything a man or woman could need.

  But as Duke surveyed the medicines, he felt a sharp poke in his ribs.

  “Grayson.” Archer scowled at him. “For being a sheriff, you’re sadly unobservant.” He jerked his chin toward a boy who was examining a lady’s comb and brush set. “That young man is attempting to fill his pockets.”

  The boy took a fancy lady’s brush from the oak box and slipped it inside his shirt.

  Duke’s heart sank. He hated this part of his job.

  The boy cast a furtive glance at Mrs. Brown, who was dusting trinkets then ducked outside.

  Duke ignored Archer’s snide look, and quietly followed the boy. A few paces outside the store, he brought his hand down on the boy’s thin shoulder. “Hold up, young man.”

  The boy yelped and spun to face him. The movement jerked Duke’s arm and sent a hot spear of pain into his shoulder socket. His shoulder was so torn up he couldn’t even detain a child.

  The skinny, long-limbed youth stared at him, dark eyes wide with fear as they locked on the silver sheriff’s badge pinned to Duke’s leather vest.

  “I’m Sheriff Grayson,” Duke said. “You didn’t pay for that hair brush you’re hiding under your shirt.”

  The boy’s gaze darted to either side, as if he were deciding whether or not to run.

  “I’d rather not handcuff you, but I will if you try to run off on me.”

  “I’ll put it back,” the boy said, his voice cracking into a fear-filled falsetto.

  “Looks like you could use the brush.”

  The boy lowered his eyes and raked bony fingers through his mop of brown hair. “It’s not for me.”

  “Are you stealing it for your girl?”

  “I don’t have a girl.”

  “For your mother then?”

  “No, sir.”

  Duke rubbed his aching shoulder, cursing the nagging pain that had made his life miserable for the past month.

  The boy’s Adam’s apple dipped on a nervous swallow. “Are you taking me to jail?”

  Jail wouldn’t teach him anything of value. “I’m taking you home so I can talk to your father.”

  “I don’t have a father.”

  No surprise there, Duke thought, but checked his unfair judgment. “We’ll talk to your mother then.”

  “My mother’s dead.” The boy’s voice was so heavy with grief that Duke’s chest tightened in sympathy.

  “How are you getting along without parents?”

  “I’ve got Faith.”

  “You’ll need more than faith and those light fingers to get by, son. Where are you sleeping?”

  The boy turned away. “At home.”

  Duke gripped the boy’s shoulder and spun him back around to face him. “I’m sorry about your parents and whatever troubles you’re having, but when I ask you a question I expect a straight answer.”

  “I gave you one, sir.” The boy pointed down Water Street. “I live at the old Colburn place with my older sister Faith and our aunts. We moved in three weeks ago.”

  Duke had heard that somebody bought the mill, but he hadn’t stopped to officially welcome the owners to town yet. “Is your sister planning to reopen the grist mill?” he asked, believing it impossible for a woman to do so.

  “No, sir.” The boy squinted as a bright flood of June sunshine washed across the plank and brick buildings on Main Street. “She’s a healer. So are my aunts.”

  “Healers?”

  “Yes, sir. They grow herbs and mix tonics and salves that help people.”

  The warning twinge that tightened Duke’s gut was as unwelcome as Archer’s earlier probing. He did not need another problem right now, not with the election coming up, not while his wretched shoulder was making his life miserable.

  The boy pulled the hair brush from beneath his shirt and handed it over. “I’d like to return this. I don’t want my sister to know what I did.”

  His earnest plea moved Duke, but being soft on the boy wouldn’t serve the young man. “You should have considered that before you walked out of the store without paying for it. Come on,” he said, nudging him down Main Street. “Let’s see if your sister can heal your bent for stealing.”

  “Sir, my sister is... she’ll... I’d rather go to jail than tell her what I did.”

  That was the point in taking the boy home with the stolen item. Shame would be more effective than fear to keep him from repeating the act.

  “What’s your name?” Duke asked, keeping his hand on the boy’s shoulder and guiding him down Water Street.

  “Adam Dearborn.” The boy’s body jerked as if he’d been stuck with a needle. “I mean, it’s Adam... um... dang it all.” He hung his head.

  “Something wrong, Adam?”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right, let’s meet this sister of yours and figure out what to do about your crime.”

  “I’m not a criminal.”

  “You took something from a store without paying for it. That’s theft, and theft is a crime punishable by law.”

  Adam dragged his feet, his shame so acute Duke pitied him. He knew from his own experience how miserable Adam felt right now, but the boy needed to learn the same harsh life lesson Duke had learned at the age of eight from his own father. The burning shame he’d felt that evening nearly twenty-three years ago had been seared into his conscience, and he’d never forgotten his father’s admonishment that honorable men never lie, cheat, or steal. Ever.

  Adam would learn that lesson today.

  “How old are you, Adam?”

  “Just turned thirteen.”

  “You’re old enough to work then.”

  The boy nodded. “I’ve been working in our greenhouse since I was four.”

  They turned down Mill Street, a tiny lane connecting Water and Eagle Streets.

  “Tell me more about this greenhouse of your sister’s.”

  “Faith grows herbs and stuff for healing.”

  “But what does she heal?”

  The boy shrugged. “Everything, I guess, or people wouldn’t buy our tonics and balms.”

  Suspicion tightened Duke’s gut. He did not need some crazy woman selling snake oil and promising miracle cures to his unsuspecting friends and neighbors.

  Adam stopped in front of Colburn’s former mill, a three-story gambrel-roofed building with a towering brick smokestack, and a one-story stone addition attached at the rear. To the left of the huge grist building stood a plank structure that once housed the bales of hay and straw that Colburn had sold. And beyond that was the horse barn, right where it had always been. But Duke’s gut insisted something was different. And his gut was never wrong.

  He’d been inside the cavernous building often enough to know that the interior light was too negligible to successfully contain a greenhouse. The water was plentiful, though. The Canadaway Creek was a ready source of power for the many businesses built along its banks as the gristmill was.

  “Sheriff Grayson?” Adam bit his lip. “I’d rather go to jail.”

  “I’m not offering that choice. Is your sister here?” At Adam’s resolute nod, Duke ushered him inside.

  The first thing to strike Duke was the sunlight streaming through new, large windows that lined three of the four walls. That’s what had looked different about the building when he’d eyed the exterior. The lower floor of the building was filled with windows and flooded
in sunlight.

  The smell of fresh soil mingled with the astringent scent of herbs and an indefinable floral fragrance. The thriving profusion of plants and flowers told him that Adam’s sister knew what she was doing. Maybe the woman was just concocting a few harmless homemade remedies that would save other women the tedious task. Maybe he was overreacting because of his own worries about the upcoming election.

  This was his eighth year as sheriff, and he had every confidence that he would keep his position—as long as he could get his shoulder healed. Just one rumor that he couldn’t do his job could change the outcome of the election and end his hard-won tenure as sheriff.

  From the back of the greenhouse a child laughed and women’s voices tittered. A softer female voice drew his attention to the front of the building. The woman had her back to him, but her quiet singing was laced with such sadness, Duke felt he was trespassing on a private moment.

  Adam stayed by the door and hung his head. “That’s my sister.”

  Faith, Duke remembered. She was watering plants, gently touching the green leaves and inspecting the buds.

  “Please don’t be mean to her, Sheriff. Faith taught me not to steal. She would never steal anything. Not even if she was starving.”

  Shocked by the boy’s plea, Duke eyed Adam. “Why would I mistreat your sister for something you did?”

  “Because she’s responsible for me.”

  “No, son, you are responsible for you. And you’re responsible for your actions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why did you take this?” Duke asked, lifting the fancy brush.

  The boy ducked his head and his ears turned red. “Faith misses our mother real bad. I thought a new brush might make her happy again.”

  That simple declaration sliced through Duke. He’d heard the sadness in Faith’s voice as she sang, and could understand why the boy wanted to make her happy. It was hard for an adult to acknowledge that depth of grief, but far more difficult for a child to witness it in someone he loved and needed. No wonder the boy seemed lost and afraid.