Kissing in the Dark (11 page)

The temperature of the water, maybe, but her swirling hands and jiggling breasts were bringing his desire to a slow simmer. Duke tried to distract her by pointing to a linen bag floating near the spigot. “What’s in that sack?” he asked.

“Chamomile, lavender, agrimony and mugwort, with a liberal dose of almond oil. The herbs relieve stiff muscles and aching joints. The oil softens and soothes the skin. The warm water relaxes you. The oils also help keep the tub from rusting.” She lifted her hands out of the water. “That should be more than comfortable, Sheriff. Please sit down.”

Good idea. His aroused body was too exposed in the clinging wet linen. He lowered himself cautiously until he was submerged to his neck.

“Are you sitting or floating?” she asked.

“Floating.” And aching in every way possible.

She leaned down and picked up a short-legged metal step stool, causing the fabric of her shirtwaist to pull tight across her breasts. Long-limbed and lithe, her movements were as graceful as a dancer’s, and he couldn’t look away. Her slender fingers circled one of the sturdy round legs of the stool, and his mind went crazy remembering the feel of her fingers massaging his back and sliding over his skin, and he couldn’t help imagining her hands touching him in other places.

“Sit on this. I’ll get your tea and a towel to put behind your neck.” She dropped the stool into the water and turned away.

Getting splashed in the face was startling but deserved. He grabbed the submerged stool and dragged it under his bare bottom, feeling both excited and ridiculous in her big steamy bath.

“Pull it away from the edge so you’re forced to lean back,” she said, placing the cup of tea on the stand near him. “You need to keep your shoulders submerged.”

He scooted the stool out several inches and leaned back against the side of the tub. She rolled one of the linens and tucked it behind his head. “It must have taken you a week to fill this tub.”

“Six days. Now drink your tea and relax. I’ll come back in fifteen minutes.”

“Stay.” He caught her hand to keep her from leaving. “If you can, that is. If you’re not too busy.”

“I think you’d be the first to note that it’s improper for me to be in here with you.”

“It will be more improper if I fall asleep and drown in your bathtub, Mrs. Wilkins.”

“Which is highly unlikely. But you’re the sheriff,” she added. She picked up the stack of linens, sat on the chair, and parked the towels in her lap. “What’s going to happen to that man who stole the horse?” she asked.

He sipped his tea and found it surprisingly pleasant. “He’s going to jail.” Why was she talking about Covey, for God’s sake?

“That’s sad. He looked young.”

“He’s twenty-three, and he’s been a troublemaker since childhood. He’s had ample opportunity to change his ways. Covey chose his path, and it’s led him straight to prison. And it’s about damned time.”

“I take it you’ve dealt with him before?”

“Many times. Five weeks ago Covey walked out of Taylor Hotel and stole a horse belonging to one of the guests. When I caught him in the act, he ran the horse at me like he did today in the park. I made the mistake of grabbing the horse’s bridle instead of Covey. When the horse reared, it jerked my arm up and wrenched my shoulder. Covey got away with the horse, which he promptly sold.”

“And you got a nasty shoulder injury.”

“Doesn’t feel so bad at the moment.”

She smiled. “I told you the bath would help.”

“Maybe it’s your pretty smile that’s making me feel better.” What the hell? Why not enjoy his visits? He was attracted to her, and he could keep his duty separate from his personal business with Faith. And just to make sure he didn’t get preoccupied and miss something, he would make that call on Anna Levens and ask her to visit the greenhouse.

Faith’s lashes swooped down to cover her eyes.

“I meant to compliment you, not embarrass you.”

She straightened the stack of linens on her lap, and asked: “What made you want to be a sheriff?”

So much for compliments. “I wanted to redeem myself in my father’s eyes.”

Her lashes swept upward, her face lit with interest.

“It’s true,” he said, wanting to take their conversation to a personal level, admitting and accepting that he couldn’t resist her shy smile and pretty whiskey-colored eyes. He flexed his shoulders in the warm water, enjoying the heat that had nearly cooked his bacon earlier. “I was eight years old when I committed my first and last crime. I stole a reel of fishing line from Brown & Shepherd’s store.”

“Well, that explains why you went easy on Adam.”

“Mrs. Brown has had more wayward boys working in her store to pay their debts than any store owner in town. I wasn’t the first boy to work off my mistake. I’d wager that Adam won’t be the last.”

“Did the sheriff make you work to pay for what you took?”

“My father did. He told me nothing can justify lying, cheating, or stealing. I promised him I’d live an honorable life from that day on, and I went right to the sheriff’s office and volunteered to be his deputy”

She smiled as if she appreciated his boyhood sincerity.

“The sheriff was kind enough not to laugh at me. He let me run errands for him when I wasn’t in school or working at my dad’s sawmill. When I turned fourteen, he had me sit as guard on weekends. Mostly I guarded an empty cell, or sometimes a local drunk who’d gotten tossed out of a saloon. I spent most nights reading law books. I got my deputy’s badge when I turned seventeen.”

“Your father allowed this?”

“I had spent nine years running errands for the sheriff, babysitting drunks, and studying law to get that badge. Dad knew how much I wanted to wear it.”

“But that badge put you in danger.”

“The sheriff kept me away from the nasty side of the job until I was nineteen. I helped him track down a bank robber. We put the man in jail, and I earned the sheriff’s respect. When he took a job in Buffalo four years later, he pushed me to run for the sheriff’s job. I won the election.”

“That must have been a proud day for your dad.”

“It would have been, but he didn’t live long enough to see me pin on my sheriff’s badge.”

She brought her hand to her chest. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize.”

Her compassion warmed him. Having lost her husband and mother, she must understand how the loss of his father tortured him.

“Dad died knowing I was fulfilling my promise to live an honorable life. I think that was enough for him.”

“I’m sure it was,” she said, but her eyes filled with sadness. “You can leave the bath now, Sheriff.”

As he inched himself out of the water, her gaze dropped from his shoulders to his chest to his waist. He took his time, wanting her to look, wanting to know if she felt the vibrations traveling between them, because for all his good intentions, he wanted to do more than investigate her business.

When his hips cleared the water, she vaulted from the chair and put her back to him. Laying two thick towels over the table, she asked, “Do you mind waiting to dress? It’ll make it easier to massage your back.”

He wouldn’t mind at all. He’d like nothing better than to help her out of her clothes and into the tub with him. “Maybe you should stretch my shoulder, too.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I would recommend it, but it’s up to you.”

Forcing his sore muscles to stretch was the last thing he wanted, but he couldn’t wait for his shoulder to improve on its own. Resigned, he sat on the table. “Let’s get it over with.”

o0o

“You’ll have to lie on your back,” Faith said, then turned herself away while he did so. When she turned back, she opened another linen and draped it over Duke’s hips and legs.

The sheriff glanced down and back up. “What’s that for?”

“I don’t want you catching a chill,” she explained. But she was the one shivering. Lord, she had to get away from this half- naked warrior. “Sheriff, I . . . I think Iris can do a better job with your shoulder,” she said.

“I don’t want Iris.”

“But she’s better at—”

He wrapped his long fingers around her wrist. “I want you.”

She looked down at his handsome, water-speckled face, and couldn’t force another word from her throat.

“My name is Duke.”

He spoke softly, but she heard the command behind his words, and saw the hunger in his eyes. This man wanted more than a massage.

“May I call you Faith?” he asked.

Her flutter-birds beat their wings in panic. He was flat on his back, but the sheriff could easily overpower her. He could make her life hell, run her out of town even, but it wasn’t his strength or position she was afraid of—it was her sense of being out of control, of being governed by her body rather than her brain. She should never have offered to treat his shoulder.

“May I?” he prodded.

“It’s inappropriate, Sheriff. We’re just partners in healing your shoulder.”

“I like the partners part.”

Lord, there was nothing to do but get this over with as quickly as possible. She slipped her fingers around his wrist and lifted his arm at the elbow to form a right angle. “I need to stretch your muscles while they’re warm and relaxed.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “All right. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

She worked silently and slowly, wincing when he grunted, biting her lip when she saw perspiration bead on his forehead, battling her own tears when the corners of his eyes grew moist from pain. She rotated his forearm to the side, and returned it slowly. Then she straightened his arm and lifted it above his head, pressing and pushing his stiff muscles to stretch until neither of them could bear it a moment longer. With her breath held, she lowered his arm in tiny increments, sighing with relief when she finally laid his arm to rest beside him.

His broad chest shuddered as he exhaled, but his eyes remained closed and he didn’t move.

She spooned balm into her hand and warmed it in her palms before smoothing the thick ointment over the front of his shoulder. With gentle strokes, she rubbed it down his biceps muscle to his elbow and forearm. The tension in his body ebbed slowly away, his breathing growing less ragged as she walked her fingertips across his muscles.

“Roll over, Sheriff, and I’ll do your back.”

He didn’t say a word, didn’t open his eyes, didn’t even argue about his name. He just rolled onto his good arm and over onto his stomach, twisting the linen around his waist—and leaving his firm buttocks in full view of her greedy eyes.

Did he realize . . . ? Had he done this on purpose?

Faith whisked a linen off the dwindling stack, snapped it open, and draped it over the enticing distraction. He wasn’t the first undressed male she’d seen, but he was by far the most affecting. Her hands were sweating!

“Something wrong?” he asked, his voice muffled in the scrunched linens.

“I’m getting more balm,” she said, but her heart pounded so hard her voice quaked. Would he feel her trembling?

She slathered the ointment over his broad back and forced her thoughts to the methodical process of weeding her garden, one section at a time, one plant at a time. She kneaded his muscles and imagined her hands working the soil. The scent of herbs, oils, and resins rose from the bath and his damp skin. She pressed the heels of her palms at the base of his spine and pushed them up his back as if she were creating furrows for seeding.

He moaned low in his throat. She hesitated.

“Did that hurt you?”

“It felt even better than the bath.”

A smile tugged her lips. “I knew you’d like it.”

“This or the bath?”

“The bath.”

“I did. But your hands feel better.”

She had no idea how to respond without encouraging or offending him, so she kept silent.

“Where did you learn to do this?”

“In my garden,” she said, uncertain if his question was sincere interest or intentional probing. “Working muscles is similar to working the soil. Planting and weeding take patience and practice. After a while your hands learn what to do without needing instruction from your brain.”

“Thank God you’re not a blacksmith who manipulates iron with fire and hammers.”

His analogy made her laugh. “Do your brothers have your unique sense of humor?”

“Unique?”

“Teasing. A bit cryptic. Sometimes a tad odd.”

His lips quirked. “I preferred unique.”

“Then you shouldn’t have asked me to clarify.”

He chuckled. “We’re as different from each other as a willow is from a poplar or an aspen or a cottonwood. Same family, very different trees.”

She leaned on the heels of her palms and moved them up his back. “You and your brothers look remarkably alike.”

“Trees are trees. Men are men. The difference is in their grain. My oldest brother Radford is a deep thinker and peaceful man. But he’s the only man I’d ever steer clear of. When he came home from the war, you could look in his eyes and feel tortured by the pain he was carrying. He wouldn’t even pick up a gun to go hunting with us. Still won’t, and it’s been fifteen years. But he’s not so jumpy since he married Evelyn.”

Faith nodded. “She has a way of making a person feel like a friend the minute you meet her.”

“She does, but she was engaged to my brother Kyle when she fell in love with Radford.”

“Oh, dear, what a horrid situation for them and your family!”

“It was tough. Kyle was so enraged when Evelyn broke their engagement, he tore into Radford. By the time Boyd and I got to the livery, Radford was so out of his mind he nearly killed Kyle. He—” The sheriff lifted his head. “If this is boring you, I can stop.”

“No. I’m intrigued. Really,” she insisted. And she was.

“Then please don’t stop working on that muscle. It’s just beginning to un-cramp.”

She hadn’t realized she’d stopped massaging his back. Amazing, but his story had shifted her mind away from touching his bare skin. “I’ll massage as long as you talk.” She pressed her thumbs into the hard latissimus dorsi muscle and used deep, slow strokes to release the tension.

“Best offer I’ve had in years,” he said with a sigh.

She massaged for several seconds then paused. “Moaning doesn’t count as talking.”