His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (17 page)

Eden cleared her throat."Um, Collie?"

Pale gray eyes, as turbulent as last night's storm, glared at her through straggly white-blond hair. "What?"

"You, uh, aren't planning on
eating
that pie, are you?"

"It ain't no good to you no more."

Stazzie inched closer, her gaze riveted on her nemesis, as she sought to lick up more of the splattered ambrosia. Collie threw a spoon at her. It clanged off a table leg as Stazzie fled.

"Collie, really. Do you think we might call a truce long enough to eat breakfast? I was planning on baking some jelly muffins."

His head swiveled back her way, and those stormy eyes regarded her with wary interest. "Yeah?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "You might have let me know you would be paying a call. I would have put them in the oven by now."

"You ain't mad I came here?"

Actually, she was a bit unnerved that a wild manchild with a ten-inch knife had been stealing through her house while she'd been alone and naked. However, she was even more mortified that Collie was willing to eat her pie off the floor like... well, a common cur. But she didn't think it prudent to tell him.

"I told you that you could come here whenever you were hungry."

"That old woman told me different."

"She did?" Eden frowned.
Is that why you've been raiding Gunther's animal pens? Because Aunt Claudia chased you away?

Less nervous about the boy's knife now, Eden mustered a show of bravado and swept past him, sidestepping a kettle on her way to the pantry. "I'll just have to set her straight, then, won't I?"

She could feel his eyes assessing her as she hauled flour, sugar, and spices to the sawbuck table, then pulled measuring cups from a drawer.

"Reckon Sera was right," he said.

"About what?"

"About you being like family. 'Specially after lip-smacking the doc last night."

Eden wheezed, nearly spilling a cup full of flour down her skirts. She hastily returned to the pantry for an apron. "S-Sera told you I kissed Michael?"

"Naw." His voice lilted. "That part I saw through the window."

Eden's knees wobbled on her way back to the table. "Collie, you should know better than to peer through someone's window," she said primly, tying her apron sash. "Peering is snooping. And snooping's impolite."

He raised the tablecloth to grin up at her. "That's what Sera says whenever
she
forgets to draw the curtains."

Eden groaned inwardly. She hoped she didn't look as embarrassed as she felt. Good Lord, who else had passed by in the storm to see her kissing Michael? She remembered Jamie's visit and cringed. If Jamie had watched, then Bonnie must surely know, which meant everybody in town knew.

I wonder if Aunt Claudia's store really needs to be opened today...

"Hey!" Collie was feuding again with Stazzie, who had sneaked up behind him and was sniffing the seat of his breeches. The boy's face turned bright red, and he scrambled backward so fast, his spine struck a table leg. Eden barely saved her eggs from rolling onto the floor.

"Git away from me, you mangy flea bag!"

Another spoon went flying; Stazzie sped for cover, and Collie bolted upright, smacking his head on the underside of the table.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he sputtered between curses. He rubbed his crown and winced. "Dang good-fer-nuthin', pussyfootin'
varmint!"

Safe behind the butter churn, Stazzie hid a smirk behind her paw as she gave her face a tongue bath. Eden tried her best not to smile.

"Why don't you go and wash up? You've got more cherry pie on you than in you, I'll wager."

He glared at her next.

"By the time you've scrubbed your face and hands," she continued with careful nonchalance, "I'll have scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits ready for you. And a pan of jelly muffins will be on its way."

His face darkened. "What do I have to wash fer? This ain't Go-to-Meeting Day."

She decided to fight the battle over his grammar some other morning.

"Because you've got pie smeared all over you. Not to mention something—well"—she wrinkled her nose—"smelly."

He snorted. "You women are all alike. Actin' like a little river mud's gonna kill you."

She folded her arms. She suspected the stains on the boy's seat weren't from any river, God bless him. Still, the only way to know for sure was to get him out of his pants.

"Now see here, Collie McAffee, if you want to eat
my
cherry pie and
my
jelly muffins, you're going to come to my table with a clean face and hands. And a clean shirt and breeches too. You can wear a pair of Aunt Claudia's dungarees till we get yours laundered."

"I ain't that hungry."

"Suit yourself." She began to replace the lids on her spices.

His jaw jutted.

Next, she returned the milk and eggs to the icebox.

He scowled.

But it wasn't until she started to scrape the muffin dough into the slops bucket that he lunged across the room and grabbed the spoon from her hand.

"All right, all right, woman, I'll wash! Can't you take a joke?"

"Woman," eh?
She mentally added etiquette to the list of things she would teach him. "The pump is outside, behind the rain barrel. And Collie?" she added silkily.

He glared over his shoulder this time.

"You'll need this."

His reflexes proved lightning-fast as he caught the cake of soap in midair.

"All I can say is," he growled, wagging the soap like a finger, "those better be mighty good jelly muffins."

She smiled sweetly. "Don't forget to wash the cherries from your hair."

"Dang skirts," he muttered, stalking out the door like a man marching for war. She giggled. Then she bit her lip. Considering how little he liked washing, he wouldn't be gone for long. That meant she didn't have much time to make up her mind.

Torn between her calling to help people heal and her fear that her best intentions might lead to someone's death, Eden fidgeted before the shelf over the window. Aunt Claudia had grudgingly removed the boxes of buckshot she'd stashed there to make space for Eden's herbs.

"But don't you be tryin' to sneak none of yer Injun heart wampum into my stews," Aunt Claudia had warned, sniffing suspiciously at the jar labeled peppermint. "Them herbs better be just fer cookin'."

Eden had bit her tongue, ashamed to admit that the idea had, indeed, crossed her mind. Each time her aunt wheezed or experienced a palpitation, Eden's fear of losing Claudia grew greater than her fear of prescribing herbal remedies. Fortunately for Claudia, or perhaps unfortunately, foxglove wasn't the sort of herb one could use for food seasoning. Eden wished she knew of a culinary herb that could treat Claudia's heart, because in truth, most of them did have medicinal uses. Mints were handy for fever, headaches, and insomnia. Rosemary was good for colic and indigestion. Thyme could ease sore throats and bronchial inflammation.

Wild buckwheat could cure diarrhea.

Reminded of Collie, Eden gritted her teeth and forced herself to reach for the dusty bottle three rows back. But when her fingers closed over the lid, a flash of panic jolted her. What the devil was she doing? She had come to Blue Thunder to be inconspicuous. The minute word spread that she might actually know something about healing, every desperate townsperson whom Michael couldn't cure would be pounding on her door, no doubt followed by an outraged Michael and the town marshal.

But Collie will never seek help from a doctor, especially Michael,
the voice of reason whispered.
Besides, a cup of buckwheat tea won't hurt the boy.

She tasted bile, but reached anyway for a second jar: sweet anise. A general physic, anise would make the tea taste like the candy Collie loved. It might even get him to drink enough to start healing in earnest. Perhaps she could put a cup of the herbal brew by his plate and see if he was inclined to sample it.

She sniffed the contents of both jars. Although the herbs were well labeled, and in her own hand, the smell and taste checks were ritual. Talking Raven had taught her never to trust labeling. Mistakes were often made that way. In Papa's case, Eden had determined—with mixed emotions—that the herbs had failed him, not her labeling.

Okay, okay, I'll brew the blasted tea,
she decided.
I'll do it because the boy needs help. And because... well, in a way, I do too.

By the time Collie had stalked inside, she had the tea brewing. By the time he'd run out of arguments, mostly about peeling off his soiled clothes and trading them for Claudia's, she had breakfast on the table. She suspected she won the battle only because the smell of bacon had weakened his will.

"Now there's plenty of everything," she told him, after railroading him into thirty seconds of prayer. Apparently a wild manchild didn't think to say grace when feasting on cats and coons. "You can have second helpings, if you like."

She passed him the plate of bacon, hoping to divert him from the steaming cup by his plate. But all his feral instincts were on alert.

"What's this?"

"Sweet anise tea."

"You didn't say nuthin' about no tea."

She shrugged, feigning disinterest as she sipped her own cup. "I thought you'd like some. It tastes like licorice."

He dumped the entire platter of bacon on his plate. "I like coffee," he retorted, unsheathing his bowie knife.

She almost choked when he reached to saw through the butter. "We don't have coffee," she said, gesturing toward the table knife by his spoon.

He harrumphed. Retrieving the silverware as bid, he dumped a whopping half of the butter on his grits. Next, he served himself a mountain of eggs. As might be expected, the scrambled yolks bounced off the bacon and into his lap. Unperturbed, he fished them out of his seat, popped them into his mouth, and licked his fingers clean.

Eden squirmed. Somehow, she kept herself from protesting. With Collie, it was clear she'd have to pick her battles.

As her guest shoveled down his breakfast, she tried not to stare at his hands, long-fingered and large-knuckled, like a man's. In fact, she tried not to stare at any part of him. Collie had washed up nicely. With his hair slicked back and tucked behind his ears, and God only knew how many weeks of filth scrubbed off his face, the boy was... well, attractive. She suspected she'd be calling him handsome after a few home-cooked meals and a couple more years of growth had filled him out. Collie MacAffee was going to be a heart breaker one day, if he ever learned some manners.

He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. "So, how come you like the doc so much?"

She started. She'd been preparing to fight another battle over the neglected tea, not Michael. "Uh... L-like him?" She felt as stupid as she sounded. "Really, Collie, it's none of your business."

"I figured you'd say that."

"Well, it's true."

"So how come?"

She gave him a withering look.

"He's about as ornery as a mule colt."

She refused to rise to this bait. "I'm sure Michael has his reasons."

"Sure. Just look at him slantways."

She managed not to smile.

"Is it 'cause he kissed you?"

Her face flamed again. Honestly, how was she supposed to defend herself from a town full of gossips if she couldn't even put a fifteen-year-old in his place?

Determined to meet his eyes once more, she was mildly surprised to spy the keen mind at work behind them. More startling still, she recognized a youthful curiosity in those pewter depths. Collie wasn't embarrassing her out of malice. He wasn't trying to exhume any skeletons. He had some other purpose for prying.

Suddenly it occurred to her that he'd reached the age when kissing and... er... more robust intimacies would be of acute interest. And he had no father to teach him what he needed to know.

More shaken than she wanted to show, she went back to drinking her tea, hoping he'd get the hint and do the same.

"Sera says you like him," he persisted, reaching for the marmalade.

"Sera shouldn't spread gossip."

His spoon froze in midair. "Don't you be saying nothin' bad about Sera," he warned, a warlike gleam in his eyes.

She blinked, amazed that he'd been so quick to take offense.

Then understanding dawned. Why hadn't she guessed it sooner? The boy was crazy-mad in love. No wonder he wanted to know if kissing was what women liked!

"I didn't mean anything bad, Collie," she soothed.

"That may be. But I won't stand for nobody hurtin' her. 'Specially not
him,"
he added under his breath.

Eden wondered if she'd misunderstood. Surely Collie didn't think Michael would hurt Sera?

He began plastering marmalade all over his muffin, heedless of the strawberry jam already oozing from its center.

"You don't like Michael much, do you?" she asked over the rim of her cup.