Radford’s face reddened. “Maybe so, but at least my thinking isn’t clouded by lust.”
“You think this is about lust?”
“I think you and the lady should spend some time alone before you put your neck in a noose.”
Duke took a menacing step forward. His feelings for Faith went far beyond lust, and he felt insulted on her behalf.
Boyd stepped between them, clapping his hands over their shoulders. “If your bickering is going to lead to a fight, you two are leaving me in a real quandary here. I would wager on Radford winning, but then our good sheriff puffs up like a boiler ready to burst a seam and makes me reconsider. How’s a man to make a good wager when you’re both such hotheads?”
“No one is going to fight,” Radford said, turning back to work as if nothing had happened.
Kyle nudged Duke’s sore shoulder. “Before you overheat, I can use some of that steam to help move this timber.”
And so they went to work. Duke fumed silently, pissed at Radford, pissed at himself. Faith was deserving of more respect. She and the children would hopefully become part of his family soon, and Radford needed to lose his attitude.
Adam did need a guiding hand, but what thirteen-year-old boy didn’t? Adam wouldn’t compromise Rebecca. Even if he tried, Rebecca was smart enough to walk away. Radford wasn’t giving her enough credit, and that annoyed Duke too.
Pain sawed at his shoulder while he pounded grappling hooks into a drag of pine logs. He liked owning and working the mill, but his shoulder resented the hard effort tonight. He couldn’t afford to lose the generous stream of income it brought him, but more important, he couldn’t lose the connection it gave him with his brothers. And that’s why his argument with Radford grated on him.
He wanted his family to approve of Faith. She was a beautiful, smart woman running a decent business. Anna Levens had assured him that Faith and her aunts were honest women, and that nothing untoward was going on at the greenhouse behind his back. He was proud of Faith’s gardening abilities and her talent with healing. And he wanted to marry her, damn it.
Kyle nudged Duke’s thigh with his hand maul, then pointed it toward the road. “You have visitors.”
The instant Duke saw Faith, his anger drained away. Cora ran across the yard to meet him. “Can I ride the horses?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the team of Percherons that were pulling a drag of timber to the sawmill.
He chucked her under the chin. “Sorry, princess. You can’t ride these beasts, but I know something you’ll like even better.” He walked her to a mountain of sawdust. “You can climb all the way to the top if you want to.” His boyhood experience proved it unlikely she would get halfway up; climbing the pile of pea-sized wood chips was like climbing an hourglass filled with sand.
Cora dove in hands first and gave the sawdust pile her full attention.
Faith and Adam walked up. “No wonder you wanted me to see this,” Faith said, her pretty eyes taking in the buildings and mountains of stacked lumber and hewn trees in the yard.
He’d wanted her to see that he had plenty to offer, that he could support her and her family, but now that Radford had slapped him awake, it seemed like a dumb idea. He didn’t want Faith, or any woman, to marry him for security any more than he wanted to marry because of lust. He would gladly support a wife, but he wanted the passion and love that burned between his brothers and their wives.
If Faith married him for security it wouldn’t be enough for either of them.
Faith frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said, but everything was wrong because all he could think about was kissing her. Was this intense need just lust?
He could slug Radford for planting doubt in his head.
“The heat in your eyes could ignite your lumberyard,” she whispered, continuing the flirtatious game they’d been playing for two weeks.
He wanted to touch her and kiss her and make love to her every night for the rest of his life. He’d never felt more sure of anything. His gut insisted Faith was the one. And Radford could go to hell if he didn’t approve.
Sighing, he knelt down and had Adam lift Cora onto his shoulders. She didn’t weigh more than a full picnic basket, but his sore shoulder wouldn’t allow him to lift her above his head. He walked her and the others past towering pallets of stacked lumber and piles of hewn timber being readied for the saw.
Cora waved at the horses as Kyle drove their team of Percherons to the barn for the night. Adam was so busy exclaiming over the size of the mill when they entered the office, he walked into the statue of Duke’s father.
“Sorry sir,” he said, before he realized he’d just apologized to a huge wooden carving. “Gosh, it looks just like a real person.”
Duke chuckled at the boy’s surprise. “Don’t be embarrassed. That statue surprises everybody. My brother Boyd is a master carver. He made the statue in my father’s likeness to honor him. My dad started this mill thirty-five years ago with an ax and a band saw?’
“That’s your dad?” Cora asked from her perch on Duke’s shoulders.
Faith reached up and straightened Cora’s stocking. “It’s a statue that looks like his dad, sweetheart.”
“What’s all this stuff on the walls?” Adam asked, inspecting a circular saw blade hanging from a metal hook.
