LITMIR.BIZ

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“I just hate to owe anyone anything.”

      “Keep cooking like you did today, and you won’t be in debt to me even a little bit,” he told her. He bent and touched his lips to her forehead, then felt shame wash through him as she jolted, moving away from the bed.

      “Sorry, Sarah. I didn’t mean to scare you off. You just smell so good and look so pretty, I couldn’t resist. I won’t be bothering you.”

      “Oh, you’re no bother, Sheriff. And you haven’t scared me off. I’m just not used to a man’s touch on me.”

      Now, what he was supposed to make of that was a conundrum, Brace decided. The lady might have run off in a fit of panic had he kissed her as his body was prompting him to do. He lifted a hand and brushed it against her cheek. She stood silently, shivering a little, as if she readied herself for flight. Her eyes held questions he was not ready to answer, he decided. Yet for this moment he found it difficult to resist the woman.

      Bending just a bit, he allowed his mouth to touch hers, brushing their lips together in a chaste kiss that would have satisfied even his own mama, who had forever told him how to treat a lady. And Sarah Murphy was a lady, if ever one existed. “I’ll just take this upstairs,” he said quietly. “I hope you’ll be happy here, and safe, Sarah. Mostly safe, I guess. But if you found a little comfort in staying with me, I’d sure appreciate your ideas on the subject.”

      She looked up at him—a considerable distance, since Brace stood well over six feet tall. “I like you,” she said simply. “You would have made a hit with my mother and father. I just wish there had been men like you around the place when I was considering marriage, long ago before I was old enough to know better.”

      “Have you given up on the idea?” he asked. “You’re too young to spend the rest of your life alone, sweetheart. Surely the right man will come along one day.”

      A strange look of yearning touched her features and she looked aside. “Perhaps.”

      The luggage was quickly stowed in the attic and a mattress was carried to the storage room for Stephen. Brace stood at the top of the staircase, looking down into the library. From his vantage point he could see just a few feet inside the door, but he heard Sarah’s low tones distinctly, almost as if she spoke to herself, naming books and then rustling the pages as she apparently took them from the shelves and looked through them.

      He went down quietly, unwilling to disturb her, and took a stance in the wide doorway. She was curled in the window seat, her legs tucked beneath her, glancing through the pages of a leather-bound volume he’d often yearned to read. Only the fact that the woman who’d taken on the task of teaching him that particular skill had left, returning east to Boston, kept him from his dream.

      “Enjoying it?” he asked softly, and then walked to the desk and lit the lamp there. “I’ll bet you can see better with a little light on the subject,” he teased, and was rewarded by her upward glance as she smiled in his direction.

      “I’ve never seen so many wonderful books in one place in my life,” she said, holding the volume against her breasts. Brace thought for a moment that Charles Dickens was a lucky fellow, for she held one of that author’s works. And then he banished the thought as unworthy. Yet the urge to set her book aside, lift her from the window seat and surround Sarah with his arms in order to hold her against his yearning body was almost more than he could resist.

      The man’s thoughts were easy enough to read, Sarah thought. He’d stayed away from her, but his hands had been stuffed into his pockets, as though he must keep them in line, away from the woman before him. The memory of his lips touching hers, of his hand brushing the skin of her cheek, was clear in her mind. And so, for long seconds she wondered how his arms would feel, strong against her, circling her waist, drawing her against his long, dark-clad body.

      The book she held lay now in her lap and she looked down at it, tracing the gold letters on its cover with one fingertip. “Have you read this?” she asked.

      She thought his answer was reluctant. “No, not yet.” And then he admitted to a lack in himself she would not have believed, had another person stated it as fact. “I don’t read well,” he said. “In fact, up until a couple of years ago, I was without any reading skills at all. A friend helped me, and I can handle whatever comes along in my job, and even some of the newspaper. But I’m afraid that Dickens is still out of my class.”

      “He’s not difficult to understand,” she said. “I’d be happy to help you, if you like. Or else I could read to you and you’d have a chance to enjoy some of his work that way. Stephen loves to have me—” She halted her words in midthought and blushed.

      Very becomingly, Brace thought. “I’d like to hear you read, Sarah,” he said. “When you sit down with Stephen, if I’m here, I’d like to listen in.” Her smile of response made him bold. “And if you feel up to the challenge, I’d like to sit at the kitchen table with you during the evenings and have you work on my—”

      “I’d be pleased to help you, Brace.”

      Well, he thought, smiling as he looked down to where she sat, he’d come a long way. From “Sheriff” to “Brace” was quite a step for one day. “And I’d appreciate the effort on your part,” he told her.

      “Aunt Sarah?” Stephen’s voice echoed through the hallway, and Sarah leaped from the window seat.

      “I’m here,” she called out. “In the library, Stephen.” And then in a softer tone, “Are you all right?”

      He skidded to a halt before the warmly lit room, and his eyes sought her out. “What’cha doin’?” he asked, and then stepped forward, almost hurling himself into her arms. “The kittens were hungry, Aunt Sarah, and their mama was busy washing them, so I shut the door of the shed and came inside. I woulda fed the tabby cat, but I didn’t know what the sheriff wanted her to have.”

      “There’s food for her in the kitchen,” Brace offered. “We can wait till morning, or else I’ll go out and leave a dish of milk for her tonight.”

      “I think she’s hungry,” Stephen said. “Washing all those babies is hard work.”

      “It won’t be long before they can wash themselves,” Sarah said wisely. “But for now their mother is happy to do it. I do think she could use a dish of milk, though.” Her eyes cut to Brace, and he understood the silent query.

      “Let’s go, Stephen. I’ll pour the milk and you can offer it to her. I’ll bet she likes you better than me, anyway.”

      Stephen shook his head. “Naw. She just likes it because I was petting her and talking to her. She’s still your cat.” He reached for Brace’s hand, and his small fingers clutched at the longer, more capable digits he touched. “Come on, sir. I’ll help you with her. She’s not afraid of me.”

      Brace smiled at the boy, relishing the feel of small fingers pressed against his palm. Children were trusting little souls. Too bad this one had found abuse in such unexpected places. Stephen should have been safe, secure in his father’s love. Instead he’d been used as a pawn by a man whose selfish passions had driven him to draw Sarah into his reach. He looked at her now, noting the possessive look, the loving tenderness in her eyes as she watched the boy. She was a staunch champion, this Sarah Murphy.

      The house was settled down, the candles blown out, the lamps darkened. Brace stretched out in his bed, pulling the sheet from the bottom to better accommodate his length, and yawned widely as he considered the woman who slept across the hallway.

      She’d escorted Stephen to the storage room he’d chosen, had carefully inspected the bits and pieces of Brace’s own childhood that had so caught Stephen’s interest, and then had settled on the side of the narrow bed to listen while the boy squeezed his eyes shut and folded his hands.

      A long litany of words and phrases had followed, a petition to the Almighty, a bedtime prayer that seemed to be a regular item in Stephen’s life. But, for probably the first time, a new

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