Kissing in the Dark

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Chapter 36
  
• Chapter 37
  
• Chapter 38
  
• Chapter 39
  
• Chapter 40
  
• Chapter 41
  
• Chapter 42
  
• Chapter 43
  
• Chapter 44
  
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
  

"The fourth 1870s Grayson historical romance (see LIPS THAT TOUCH MINE, THE LONGING and SHADES OF HONOR) is a fabulous tale that brings to life Upstate New York through the eyes of a beleaguered woman trying to start over. Wendy Lindstrom is in top form with her latest Grayson gold. " —
Harriet Klausner

KISSING IN THE DARK

Recipient of Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award and a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee.

by Wendy Lindstrom

Copyright © 2005 Wendy Lindstrom. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Originally published by Leisure Books 2005

Note: This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Though it contains incidental references to actual people and places, these references are merely to lend the fiction a realistic setting. All other names, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Fredonia, New York

June 1879

The tangy scent of soaps and spices made Duke sneeze as he entered Brown & Shepherd’s store. His breath hissed out, and he clapped a hand over his aching shoulder.

Wayne Archer looked up from the package of medicine he was delivering to the store owner, Agatha Brown. 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 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?”

“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. Damnation! 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, damning 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 toward 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 hell.

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 . . . urn . . . 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 les-son 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.