Free Kissing in the Dark by Wendy Lindstrom Page B

and Faith’s soft breathing near his ear as she leaned over him. A hint of flowers and mint and almond teased his nose, and he wondered if the nice smell was the oil or Faith. Her touch was innocent and pleasing, but his aroused body leapt at every sweep of her palms over his skin. A man would have to be dead, or completely in love with another woman, not to be aroused by Faith’s stimulating fingers.
    “Lie down, Sheriff.”
    “Do what?” he asked, astonished at her boldness and at his eagerness to do whatever she desired.
    “I’m going to stretch your muscles.” Her soft hands pressed him toward the table. “I can’t do it with you sitting.”
    He yielded to her touch and lay on his back, wanting to see how far she would take this “massage.” The table was several inches wider than his shoulders, but his heels hung off the end.
    She clasped his wrist, but her fingers didn’t come close to encircling it. “Your muscles are so tight they’re restricting your movement.” She cupped her other hand beneath his elbow. “I’m going to lift your arm above your head and exert pressure. Tell me when you can’t bear it.”
    She was going to kill him. He braced for the pain, knowing it was going to hurt like hell, but when she raised his arm, his breath exploded outward through his clenched teeth. “Sweet Jesus!” he hissed. It felt as if she’d driven a spike into his shoulder socket.
    She lowered his arm an inch, which blessedly allowed the pain to ebb. “Your shoulder will get worse if you don’t move it,” she said. “You need to stretch your muscles or they’ll weaken and shrink around the joint. It’s already happening.”
    That flew in the face of his doctor’s orders. “Doc Milton said to rest it.”
    “With all due respect, I disagree with his advice.” She lowered his arm to the table. “If you won’t allow me to stretch the muscles, I can’t fix your shoulder. That means our agreement is off.”
    “How will wrenching on my already sore shoulder help it improve?” After hearing Dahlia’s outlandish tale, and feeling the blinding pain Faith had caused him by raising his arm, he was more than suspect of her healing skills.
    “I had a . . . friend who injured his shoulder and it ended up frozen like yours is getting. His doctor said the only fix was to stretch or tear the muscles to free up the arm, then keep the muscles stretched until they healed, otherwise the arm would remain useless. Your doctor should know that.”
    Well, he obviously didn’t or he wouldn’t have told Duke to rest his shoulder. Doc Milton had doctored his family for as long as Duke could remember. Duke should listen to him, especially since he didn’t want his sore muscles stretched or torn. But he couldn’t. He had to yield to his gut, which insisted he needed to keep an eye on Faith and her aunts. He needed to be here, inside the greenhouse, participating in these massages they were offering. In all fairness, Faith did seem confident in her knowledge, and hardly the type of woman to swindle anyone, but her aunts with their bent for telling tales were another story. And his shoulder wasn’t improving on its own.
    So he would stay, for whatever good it might do him. Without a doubt, Faith and her aunts would behave in his presence, but he would ask one of his friends, someone like Anna Levens who could be trusted to partake of Faith’s services and keep him informed. One negative word from Anna, and he would shut them down at the first sign of wrongdoing.
    He lifted his wrist to Faith’s waiting hand. “All right, Mrs. Wilkins, work your magic.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “My friend said the doctor’s treatment was excruciatingly painful.”
    “But it worked?”
    She nodded. “It can take months, though.”
    “Then we’d better get started.”
    Faith had half-hoped the sheriff would take his questions and suspicions and his too-male body and leave her greenhouse. He’d been imposing with his