Lips That Touch Mine (37 page)

Claire left them to their chess game and went
outside. The rhythmic chopping of an ax came from behind the
Pemberton Inn. She crossed the street, hoping it was Boyd splitting
wood.

Her spirits lifted when she saw Sailor pawing
through a pile of firewood, and they lifted higher when she saw
Boyd raising a long-handled ax above his head. He brought it down
with a smooth stroke that split a fat pine stump in half. She
stopped and watched, admiring Boyd's strength and precision, the
ease at which he worked. Sailor was too busy sniffing and digging
in the chunks of wood to notice her.

The dog and the man captivated her. After
Boyd split a stump, Sailor would clamp his teeth around one of the
chunks and carry it to the mounting pile as if he knew exactly what
to do. Claire smiled at the silly dog, wondering how long it had
taken Boyd to train him.

Her attention swung back to Boyd, and her
heart melted. Somehow he had gotten her hardheaded, stubborn father
to forgive her, and even more surprising, to get on a train to come
see her. Because of Boyd, she was slowly reuniting with her father,
and hopefully would renew her relationship with the rest of her
family in the spring.

She waited until Boyd had finished splitting
a stump, then crossed the yard. The instant Sailor spotted her, he
tore across the crusty snow and lavished her with wheezy
attention.

Boyd looked up as if expecting to see Pat
rounding the corner; then his nonchalant expression changed to
surprise. He rested the ax head on a huge stump he'd been using as
a chopping block, and watched her walk toward him, his gaze
sweeping her from her eyebrows to her ankles.

She liked that he was looking. It gave her
the confidence to lift up on her toes and brush a kiss across his
lips. "Were you planning to avoid me forever?" she asked, easing
down onto her heels but not away from him.

"I wasn't avoiding you. I've been
working."

"Sailor says you've been avoiding me," she
said, hoping to tease a smile from him.

Not a flicker of humor touched his face. His
lips didn't quirk, his eyes didn't crinkle, he just stood stiff and
unyielding in front of her. How could he be so cool? Had Martha
reclaimed his full attention already?

Desperate to keep his affection for herself,
Claire boldly placed her palm against his heart, feeling the
scratchy wool of his coat, wishing she were touching the smooth
skin and springy hair on his chest. "Would you be interested in
having a visitor late this evening?"

He frowned and stepped away from her. "If you
can't trust me enough to marry me, then you shouldn't be inviting
me into your bed. It's insulting."

She gasped as if he'd struck her. "You could
have simply said no."

"I don't want to have an affair with you,
Claire."

She never considered that an experienced man
like Boyd might be insulted by her proposal. Of course, she'd never
imagined that she would be proposing something so illicit.

What had happened to her morals? What had
happened to her desire for a simple and safe life? From the minute
she first met Boyd he'd sent her into a spin, and now she couldn't
tell north from south, or right from wrong, because with Boyd, it
all felt right.

"Why are you here?" he asked, his coolness
cutting into her but reminding her why she refused to marry again.
Right now she was free to walk away from his displeasure. If she
married him, she would spend each day of her life striving to
please him.

She pushed her hands into her coat pockets
and backed away from him, from another mistake. "I wanted to thank
you for bringing my father to Fredonia."

"He should have come on his own." Boyd yanked
his ax from the stump.

"I shouldn't have turned my back on him."

He nodded, as if to agree with her. "Step
back," he said, then raised the ax above his head.

"Daddy wants me to move home with him."

Crack! The chunk of wood split in two.
"Perhaps you should go." Boyd's jaw clenched, and he kicked a thick
piece of wood away from his feet. "You wouldn't have to worry about
your income if you lived with your parents."

"I'd go berserk within hours," she said
truthfully. "Until this week, I didn't realize that Daddy and I are
so much alike."

"I knew it the minute I met him." He swung
the ax and it connected with a hard crack against a round piece of
pine. "You are both too hardheaded for your own good."

"Exactly," she said, agreeing with him
because it was the truth. She was every bit her father's daughter
and she knew it. "Daddy and I would be at each other's throats if I
lived with him."

He stopped and propped the ax on his cutting
stump, cupping his hand over the top of the handle. "Does that mean
you two aren't getting along?"

"We're doing as well as we can under the
circumstances. Daddy is used to giving orders. I've gotten used to
living my own life. That causes friction. But we love each other
and are happy to be reunited." She slipped her hand over Boyd's
cold knuckles, wanting to connect with the tender side of him. Even
if she couldn't have him as her lover, she wanted him as her
friend. "Thank you for bringing him back to me."

He shrugged as if it were nothing.

Yet, despite his present coolness, his
thoughtfulness in visiting her father meant everything to Claire.
"You must have had a devil of a time convincing Daddy to come here.
Is that why you were gone so long?" she asked, wanting to know if
he spent the time haggling with her father, or if he'd spent it
with Martha.

"When your father heard that you were putting
yourself in danger, he insisted on taking the first train to
Fredonia."

Her stomach grew queasy. If her father had
immediately agreed to come back with Boyd, what had kept Boyd in
Buffalo so long? More important, why did Boyd tell her father about
her temperance work?

Her father had nagged her relentlessly since
he'd arrived. She avoided the subject and talked about her mother
and sister, but Bennett kept swinging their conversations back to
her temperance work.

Suddenly, Boyd's motivation in visiting her
father seemed suspect. "Why did you tell Daddy about my
marching?"

"I'm worried about you."

"Are you worried about
me
? Or your
business?"

He scowled. "How can you ask such a
ridiculous question?

"It doesn't seem ridiculous, especially since
Daddy has been nagging me all week to stop my temperance work."

With a snort of disgust, Boyd turned and
split another hunk of pine.

"Did you ask Daddy to talk me out of
marching?"

"I was hoping your father could reason with
you."

A wrenching pain gripped her stomach. She
once suggested to her fellow marchers that they find each saloon
owner's weakness. Boyd had turned the tables on her. He found her
most vulnerable spot and exploited it. "How could you do that?" she
asked.

"How could I not?" He slammed the ax into the
wood, then whirled to face her. "You've been deaf to my warnings.
You refuse to stop marching. And you won't marry me. What else was
I supposed to do?"

"Nothing," she spat. "Exactly nothing. You
have no right to meddle with my life."

"You're meddling with mine."

"I'm trying to do something good in our
town."

"So am I," he said just as adamantly. "I'm
trying to keep an overzealous woman from getting hurt or
killed."

"I am
not
overzealous."

"Your father thinks you are, and so do I."
The wind flipped his hair into his eyes, and he shoved it back with
an angry swipe of his fingers. "Claire, your father supported
saloons long before he met me. He told me he's a member at several
clubs in Buffalo. Of course he's going to disagree with your
temperance efforts."

And Boyd would have suspected that and found
a way to enlist her father's help. Her father was a man's man. He
liked his whiskey and cigars. He liked Boyd. Of course he would
give him support.

Her throat closed, and she curled her fingers
into her palms, digging her nails into her skin. Focusing on the
pain there instead of the pain in her heart was the only way she
could squeak out her next words. "You brought my father here for
your own purpose."

"I brought him here because you needed him,
and because we both want to keep you safe."

"Bosh," she said. "You asked me to marry you
because you wanted to control my actions and decisions. When I
rejected your proposal, you sought my father's help. Now that
Daddy's here, he wants to control my life too."

"You can't believe that."

She laughed and sobbed at the same time,
because she did believe it. She had become friends and lovers with
Boyd during this war, but this battle had gone to him.

"I'll never learn," she whispered, and turned
away before he could see her tears.

"You want to forget the past, Claire? Then
quit living it." He caught her sleeve and pulled her around to face
him, his eyes flashing. "I'm not Jack, damn it." He threw down his
ax and stormed into the saloon through the back door.

After her
argument with Boyd, Claire's relationship with her father grew more
awkward. It was clear to her that she was no longer his little
girl. She'd lost her innocence. Her father was no longer that tall
tree with outstretched limbs that offered her refuge; he was a man
with faults that troubled her and opinions she didn't agree
with.

They spent a tense afternoon together while
several men from the hardware store installed a huge pane of glass
in her parlor window. When it was finished, Claire built a hearty
fire in the fireplace to warm the room and chase the chill from her
bones. After too many minutes of silence, she scrounged up the
nerve to tell her father about the journal and her grandmother's
affair with Abe.

Her father was horrified.

Appalled.

And angry.

He condemned his mother's actions and refused
to read the journal. He didn't want to know about her infidelity,
or the name of the man who had sired him.

Claire met Addison in the foyer and quietly
told him about her father's reaction. Addison was disappointed, but
he went to the parlor to visit with his hardheaded, narrow-minded
son. The two men spent a good part of the afternoon playing chess
and discussing the pleasures of good whiskey and fine cigars.

Claire sighed and went to the kitchen. Were
sin and vice the only things men thought, or cared about?

She prepared a roast chicken and chestnut
stuffing for her father, who would be leaving for Buffalo the next
morning, and for Addison, who wanted to spend the last evening with
Claire and her father. The kitchen felt cozy and warm from the
oven, and the aroma of baked chicken and stuffing lent a festive
air to the evening. They had just sat down to eat when someone
banged on the front door. Sailor tore through the house with a yelp
of excitement. Claire followed more sedately, but each step of the
way she wondered if it was Boyd.

To her shock, Desmona stepped into the foyer,
tainting the air with the smell of rose water.

Her red-rimmed eyes were full of anger. "I
should like to speak to my husband," she demanded, her voice
ringing through the foyer.

Addison hobbled in and leaned on his walking
stick, wearily patient. "What are you doing here, Desmona?"

"That is the question I've come to ask you."
Her lips thinned. "Have you lost your good sense, Addison? If the
gossips see you here, there will be no end to the scandal."

"Nonsense. I'm visiting friends."

Sailor sniffed Desmona's hand muff, and she
gave him an irritable nudge. She thrust a gnarled finger in
Claire's direction. "This girl is trouble. Just like her
grandmother."

"Go on, Sailor," Claire said, shooing the dog
into the parlor.

"What's going on here?" Claire's father's
imperious voice boomed through the foyer as he strode in and
stopped beside Claire.

Desmona's eyes darkened with hatred as her
gaze swept him. Her lip curled and she turned to Addison. "I'm not
going to let this girl and her father ruin our family name, or
steal our daughters' inheritance because of a book that chronicles
your unsavory behavior."

Addison's bushy eyebrows beetled above his
angry blue eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Desmona ignored him and spoke to Claire.
"Where's the journal?"

Suddenly, everything came clear to Claire.
"You were the one who broke into my home. You were looking for the
diary, weren't you, Mrs. Edwards?"

Desmona lifted her chin. "Where is it?"

Her brazen demand outraged Claire. How dare
the woman push into her home and demand something so personal?
Claire turned to Addison. "Your wife is obviously distressed, Mr.
Edwards. Perhaps you should take her home."

"I'm not leaving without that diary," Desmona
insisted.

"Is she referring to your grandmother's
journal?" Claire's father asked.

Claire couldn't think of a worse way to tell
her father the truth, but she couldn't avoid it. She nodded.

His forehead furrowed. "Why would she give a
damn about that?" he asked. But in the next instant, his eyebrows
lifted and he stared at Addison.

The two men resembled each other so much with
their lanky builds and sapphire blue eyes, Claire was surprised her
father hadn't realized before now. He sagged against her desk,
utterly flummoxed by the revelation.

"I see the cat is out of the bag," Desmona
said, irritation grating in her voice. To Claire's utter
astonishment, Desmona pulled a revolver out of her hand muff and
pointed it at Claire's stomach. "Where is it?"

"What are you doing?" Addison asked in
shock.