A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  “Did you say something?” asked Hitch. “I didn’t catch it.”

  Ben didn’t know if he had spoken or not. “Probably thinking aloud. Was there anything else?”

  “Well, the doc came by. She wanted—”

  “What?” When Hitch repeated himself, Ben asked, “Was this before or after Jeremiah was here? And please tell me it wasn’t at the same time.”

  “After. She was here afterwards. You don’t look happy about that answer either.”

  “She was supposed be home resting. There was the robbery and then the delivery and then—” He stopped himself before he mentioned she had also tended to Lizzie and Lily. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What delivery?”

  “You don’t know? She didn’t say anything while she was here?”

  “Um, no. She told me that she had been to the Songbird and treated Buzz for his gout, George for a splinter, and Hank Ketchum for plugged ears. No mention of a delivery. Now, I did deliver a soup bone to her, and she thanked me for it. Is that what you meant?”

  Ben felt like cradling his head in his hands or banging it against his desk. Dr. E. Ridley Woodhouse needed a keeper.

  “Sheriff? You all right?”

  Smiling thinly, Ben nodded. “Fine. Phoebe gave birth to a daughter yesterday. No, come to think of it, it was already today when it happened. I thought the doctor would have said something.”

  “Nope. She was only here long enough to examine the prisoners and leave some medicine for Mr. Michael Gordon.”

  “You didn’t let her in the cell, did you?”

  “Oh, she tried to wheedle me, but I stood fast. I think you would have been proud. She’s not an easy one to resist and she knows more words than me.”

  “I’m learning that.”

  “I made both of them belly up to the bars, so to speak, so she could examine them. One at a time, mind you, and I had my gun drawn, which she didn’t like, but which I thought was a prudent precaution.”

  “I see.”

  “Doc couldn’t have been here more than a quarter of an hour and that includes the time she spent asking about Ma and me.”

  Ben just didn’t want to know, and he hoped Hitch wouldn’t tell him the nature of that conversation. “All right. Fine job.” When Hitch beamed, Ben gave him the less palatable news. “I need you to spend the night. I was not too worried about leaving them alone last night, but I don’t want them to think that’s what they can expect. I looked at the calendar. Judge Miner is in Stonechurch this week. The circuit brings him here on the Wednesday before Christmas. He’ll want to make short work of this. I’m not expecting a lengthy trial.”

  “Mr. Tom Gordon was asking about a lawyer.”

  “That didn’t take him long.”

  “Isn’t Mr. Frost a lawyer?”

  “Yes, but my brother writes and reviews contracts for the ranch. He doesn’t defend criminals.”

  “Oh. Then I guess we should get Chris Whitt over here to talk to them. Or will they each need a lawyer?”

  “That’s up to them.” He got up, went to the door, and threw his coffee outside. “You know where the mattress roll is?”

  “On the top shelf in the supply closet. I don’t think we gave all the blankets to our prisoners.”

  “If we did, take a couple back.” Ben replaced the empty mug on the shelf. “Get some shut-eye. You’ve been awake all day. I don’t expect you to stay awake all night. Keep your ear to the ground just the same.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Not going to, Hitch. I’m really not going to.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Ridley dropped the medical text she was reading when Ben surprised her by coming in the front door. She leaned over the sofa to pick up the book and put it on the trunk. “I thought we agreed you’d used the surgery entrance.”

  “Did we?” He stripped out of his coat and gloves and tossed his hat at the newel post. It missed its target and landed on the stairs. He left it where it fell.

  Ridley watched his careless toss and the lack of concern for the outcome. Twin creases appeared between her eyebrows. She looked at him over the rim of her spectacles. “What’s happened?”

  He walked into the front room. “When I walked you over here earlier, it was because you said you were going to make your notes and take a nap. I left you with that in mind. Didn’t think I had to caution you not to go anywhere because you never mentioned that you would be stepping out. I took you at your word. That’s an agreement, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know if it is or isn’t, but I also said I would be checking my slate to see if anyone left a message for me.”

  “There wasn’t a message. I looked.”

  “That’s because the slate was turned over. There was indeed writing on the other side.” She paused, eyes narrowing, and pressed a forefinger to her chest. “Are you angry with me?”

  “Isn’t it evident? Please, tell me what I have to do to make that clear.”

  “Oh, dear. I think you better sit down. This is not what I was expecting when Mrs. Rushton told me you would be dropping by.”

  “It wasn’t what I had in mind either.” He didn’t sit. He remained where he was, framed in the archway between the vestibule and the front room. There was a concession of sorts when he tucked his thumbs into his belt and leaned a shoulder against the arch. The stance he struck was not as casual as he meant it to be, but neither was it threatening. “I had to go down to the jail, talk to Hitch about taking the night shift. Found out you were there earlier.”

  “I would have told you. It wasn’t a secret. I was at the saloon before that. Mr. Winegarten’s gout had flared. That’s what the message was about.”

  “I know you were there. I know you removed a splinter from George’s thumb and did something to Hank’s ears so he can hear again.”

  “Well, then. You know everything.”

  “But you don’t. Jeremiah Salt was in my office looking for me before you arrived.”

  Ridley felt some of the warmth drain from her face. Her fingertips were suddenly cold. She curled them protectively in the folds of her robe. “Hitch never said. What did he want?”

  “Nothing related to Lily or the children. It was a business matter.” He watched Ridley release a breath that could only have been prompted by her relief. “Do not miss my point, Ridley. He was there and you could have easily crossed paths.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  “But you could have.”

  “But we—” She caught herself and then used removing her spectacles and cleaning them to give her time to compose herself. “I understand that your anger is in proportion to your concern, and when I look at it in that light, it’s deeply touching. At the same time, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask you to respect that I have work to do that’s different from yours but no less important. You can’t truly expect that I will never cross paths with Mr. Salt. Frost Falls isn’t that big. We both visit the mercantile and the leather goods store and half a dozen other places. I find it uncommonly odd that we haven’t had to step around each other already. The rumor that sent him into a rage is behind us because Frankie Fuller fell on his sword for you and took responsibility for what Amanda Springer made up because she enjoys knocking over the first domino to see what will happen.”

  Ridley resettled her spectacles on her face. “Seeing Mr. Salt at the jail would have presented almost no risk. Besides Hitch being present, it’s unlikely that he would have already learned about our visit to his home. I don’t think he and I would have exchanged words beyond a few pleasantries to maintain appearances.”

  Ben was quiet, taking it in. “Hitch was right. You do know a lot of words.”

  “I’m not sure why he said that, but all right.”

  “You were correct about my anger being proportionate to my concern.”


  “I know,” she said gently. “But I appreciate you saying so.”

  Ben’s chuckle tickled the back of his throat. “And it’s nice how you can take the credit and give something in return.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t wish you’d have come to get me before you left the house.”

  “I understand, but you had your brother and his family with you. I wasn’t about to disturb that. Do they know you’re here now?”

  “I told Remington I was going to the jail, and I did. I didn’t tell him I was going anywhere else.” He unhitched his thumbs from his belt and pushed away from the wall. “You think maybe . . .” His eyebrows lifted as he cocked his head toward the stairs.

  Ridley got to her feet. She was already opening her robe as she walked toward him. “I think maybe . . . yes.”

  Ben caught her by the waist when he saw her intention was to walk right by him and lead him in a merry chase to her room. “Are we in a hurry?” he asked, pulling her close. He touched his forehead to hers. “Hmm?”

  “You’re steaming my lenses.”

  He removed them with the same care she always showed and fit them to the crown of her head. He anchored the ear stems in her hair. “Better?”

  “I can see you now. That’s always better.” She laid a palm against either side of his jaw. He hadn’t shaved; his stubble was agreeably abrasive. “I love your face. You have beautiful eyes. Have women told you that? I can’t be the first.”

  Ben’s features took on a stricken expression. “It would be better if we didn’t talk about my mother.”

  Watching him, taking in that perfect balance of horror and humor that shaped his features, Ridley recognized how securely he held her with a quirky smile and mischief in his startling blue eyes. A rascal lived inside there, and she loved him. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him hard on the mouth. “Don’t make me wait,” she said. Spinning away from Ben’s loose embrace, Ridley hurried up the stairs.

  “Hey! You stepped on my hat!” Ben paused long enough to mourn the damage to the crown and then followed his nephew’s example of charging up the hill.

  “I’m sorry!” In her room, Ridley backed away as Ben shortened the distance between them with his long stride. She threw out her hands to ward him off. His smile wasn’t quirky now. It was wicked, the kind of wicked that made her heart thrum and her breathing quicken.

  “You crushed the crown,” he told her.

  “I’ll have it blocked again. It will be as good as new.”

  “I don’t want it as good as new. It’s taken me five years to get it good as old.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to. It’s my hat.”

  “You didn’t make this much fuss when you put Colt on your shoulders and he smashed it.”

  “He’s four. And his parents were there.”

  Ridley felt the bed at the back of her knees. When Ben put his forefinger against the tip of her nose, she dropped like a stone. He hadn’t exerted any pressure. She just went down. She kicked off her slippers, lifted her spectacles from where he had placed them on her head, and set them aside. The robe slid off her shoulders. She didn’t think he helped; it simply happened. She watched him shuck his boots, his socks, and then everything else except his drawers. He never sat. It should have been amusing to watch him hop first on one foot and then the other, but it wasn’t. It was endearing, and exciting, and she didn’t want to look anywhere but at him.

  She scrambled back on the bed when he advanced, but it wasn’t to get away. It was to make room. Ridley threw back the covers and crawled under them, then she held them up to invite him inside.

  “Lamp?” he asked.

  Ridley glanced at the small steady flame under the glass globe. “Leave it,” she said, and when he smiled, she knew it was what he wanted, too.

  Ben got under the covers. The first thing he did was try to insert his bare feet between her calves. She made that difficult, wriggling out of his way. Once she kicked him. “Ow!”

  “Your feet are freezing.”

  “That’s because I was standing on your cold floor. You need to get a rug in here. I can’t believe Doc didn’t have one.”

  “He didn’t sleep in here. There’s one in the other room.”

  “I’m moving it in here first thing tomorrow.” Ridley’s quiet laughter warmed him in a way that creature comforts could not. He leaned in until his mouth was just inches above hers. He was glad for the lamplight because he could see the smile edging her lips and the gradual darkening of her eyes. Her gaze encompassed him, welcomed him, and he was not proof against the invitation.

  Ridley thought she knew how much she needed him to kiss her, but when he did, she realized how little she understood her nature. Her hands slipped under his arms and around his back and she arched into him, flattening her breasts against his chest, and giving him her neck to savage with his mouth.

  She twisted, fell back, and when her mouth parted on a cry that had no sound, he took her again, slanting his mouth hard across hers. Ridley thought she recognized some of his earlier anger in that kiss, but there was also a proportionate expression of caring in the way he touched her. He caressed her shoulder with gentle fingertips and sifted through her hair as though he were examining the quality of silk. Sometimes he whispered against her mouth. He knew a lot of words, too, most of them not fit for mentioning outside of a bedroom, maybe not outside of a bed. Here, though, under the cover of dim light and the shadow of intimacy, he could say whatever he liked and it would all sound as tender as yearning.

  The tip of her tongue darted across his upper lip. He caught it, drew it into his mouth. He kissed her slowly, deeply, and didn’t stop for a very long time. When she needed a breath, it seemed that he gave her his.

  He opened the neckline of her shift and slipped his hand inside. At first it lay above her breast so she could anticipate its slow advance, and when it covered her breast, she sighed with a mixture of relief and pleasure. The rough pad of his thumb made a pass across her nipple. It swelled to attention. He flicked the rosy bud with his thumbnail, and Ridley sucked in her lower lip along with her moan.

  “Don’t make me wait,” she said when his mouth hovered above hers.

  “You said that downstairs.”

  “But now I mean it,” she whispered. “I truly mean it.”

  He chuckled, and they both felt the vibration. When he moved over her, she tugged at her shift and drew it up to her thighs. Her knees lifted, parted, to make room for him. He loosened the string on his drawers. Ridley did everything else, inserting her fingers under the waist and pushing the drawers past his hips and over his taut buttocks. She wrapped a hand around his erection and returned his wicked, satisfied smile when it pulsed warmly against her palm. She used her thumbnail to score the hard, rigid length of his penis until he growled at the back of his throat.

  “Don’t make me wait,” he said.

  She didn’t. Couldn’t. Ridley guided him, though she suspected he knew the way on his own, and the errant thought lifted the corners of her mouth as she closed her eyes.

  Ben eased into her, pushing at the very last when he couldn’t help himself. He bent his head, nudged her lips. They opened on a soft exhalation of air. Now that he was snug inside her, the first wave of urgency ebbed. He kept himself still. She didn’t move. Nothing happened except they felt everything in those moments. There was the weight of her hand on his shoulder, the smooth curve of her thighs against his hips. She knew the touch of his mouth at her forehead and the exquisite lightness of every breath he drew.

  As it had to, this moment of simply being passed. Ridley moved, and then so did Ben, and the wave of urgency washed over them more powerfully than before. She lifted her hips as he thrust, and she contracted around him as he withdrew. The rhythm beat as
a pulse in her temple, in her throat, and where she held him most securely, in her heart.

  She clutched the sheet beneath her, pressed her heels into the mattress. He rocked her back hard. She felt all of him. Everywhere.

  He dipped, pushed, wanted to see her undone and know it was because of him. He had seen her pleasure rise before, but this time it was different. There were no increments, no steps that were greater or fuller than the one before. She found gratification in staccato notes, quick pulses of pleasure with the first being as deeply satisfying as the next and the next and the next until the rapid firing of nerve endings could no longer be sustained. He was watching her, but he did not have to see the change in her expression to know when she was about to tumble. The violence of her release was something more than he’d anticipated, and when she shuddered hard under him, it snapped the tight rein he had been keeping on his own pleasure.

  He stretched, arched, and thrust with short strokes, his entire body moving to the same swift beat that had propelled Ridley’s deep pleasure. He shouted, part groan, part garbled utterance, and had no embarrassment about either, even when he heard her low rumbling laughter. That laughter grew a little louder when he rolled away, and the only explanation for the increase in volume was that he had been smothering her. It was no wonder that she didn’t ask him not to move this time.

  “All right,” he said, once he had righted his drawers and was lying comfortably on his back. “Tell me.”

  Ridley shifted and wriggled and pushed at her nightgown until it was under her backside and below her knees. She turned on her side and propped her head on an elbow so she could see the whole of his face and not only his profile, although she thought there was a great deal to recommend about his profile.