A Touch of Flame by Jo Goodman

Author:Jo Goodman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

Like us. Ben’s words, spoken so simply, had the depth of still waters. Ridley did not look away. Couldn’t. Her heart thundered against her ribs, and there was no quieting it. She pressed her lips together.

“Nothing?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

Ben dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward in Ridley’s chair. “Truth? I don’t know what I expected.” He shook his head, rubbed his brow. “Doc’s dead. I sat here and I could still smell his tobacco. I never picked up a taste for it, but we’d sit here some evenings, chewing the fat about this and that, and he’d puff smoke rings and I’d clean my gun. I suppose I’ve missed that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You were more his friend than I ever was. You knew him far better.”

“I wonder. I’m learning that there’s a lot Doc didn’t share with me. I didn’t know how much he valued my mother’s counsel. He never breathed a word about you. He left folks scratching their heads, wondering what kind of burr he’d gotten under his saddle that made him take off the way he did. And Mrs. Cherry? He owed her something more than an abrupt departure.”

“Maybe he felt he had done enough. Maybe he felt as if he was the one who was owed something.”

“Maybe.”

Ridley did not think he sounded convinced, but then neither had that been her intention. “Animals that sense they’re dying often go off on their own. Perhaps that’s what Doc wanted. Not to be alone precisely, but to be away.” Ben’s gaze held her still, his eyes stark with grief. “What can I do?” she asked, and when he said nothing, merely continued to stare at her, she came to the answer on her own.

Ridley broke the plane of his gaze by rising to her feet. She moved like a sylph when she skirted the desk and came to his side. She held out her hand. His answer would be there in what happened next. If he slipped his fingers in hers and tugged, she would go where he took her, sit in his lap and curl into him, and she would set her head on his shoulder and cradle his grief in her heart, but if his fingers threaded in hers and he stood, it would be his tacit agreement to follow where she led, and it would be no time at all before he knew she meant to take him to her bed.

Ben took her hand.

Ridley held her breath.

He stood.

Her heart stuttered. Her smile was wistful; it did not falter. She backed away from the desk and drew him forward. “Bring the lamp,” she said, and he did.

In her bedroom, she pointed to the nightstand. He set the lamp there. Light flickered and chased shadows on the wall and then was still. Ridley turned back the covers. It seemed the practical thing to do and the movement hid the faint trembling in her fingertips. When she turned away from the bed, she saw he hadn’t moved.

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