His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (33 page)

She smiled uncertainly as he halted in the hallway, grimacing at the foot of the stairs.

"Um... would you like me to fix you some dinner?"

To his credit, he tried to smile. But weariness weighted his shoulders. Hollows ringed his eyes. He adjusted his grip on their luggage so he could rest a hand on the banister. "I could use some refreshment," he admitted.

She watched uneasily as he trudged up the stairs, the carpetbag and portmanteau he'd hoisted so effortlessly one week earlier now dragging on his arms like anvils.

A traitorous mist stung her eyes.

She shook her head to clear her vision.
Peppermint,
she told herself staunchly. An invigorating tonic would do them both a world of good. And then perhaps, if she could persuade him, she'd draw a rejuvenating bath.
Blackberry leaves, dandelion, nettle, lemon verbena, comfrey, raspberry leaves...
She was so busy ticking off the herbs she would need to stuff in a muslin bath pouch that she didn't notice the lanky blond shadow quietly observing her from the kitchen doorway. She practically collided with it.

"Collie!" she gasped, scrambling backward. "Good heavens. You gave me such a fright!"

Those gray eyes held hers solemnly. In the splintered light that arched behind him in the kitchen window, she beheld the ghost of the man he would someday become: rangy, untamed, and more canny than a coyote. He'd put on a pound or two in the week since she'd seen him. She was glad to see him looking so well and wondered if Sera had invited him to dinner.

He quickly dispelled that notion. "Did he force you?"

She nearly choked on her next breath. Only then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the lightning flashes that shimmered over the rose-patterned wallpaper, did she realize he gripped a shotgun in his fist.

"C-Collie," she said hoarsely. "What are you doing with a scattergun?"

"Takin' care of you. 'Cause you ain't got no man to do it."

She pressed shaking fingers to her lips. She wanted to throw her arms around him. More than that, she wanted to make this manchild understand he couldn't solve his differences with Michael—or anyone else—with a gun.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice tremulous with the realization that he'd come prepared to kill on her behalf. "Collie, thank you for caring about me. But nobody forced me to do anything. I love Michael."

His gaze roamed over her quickly, impersonally, and yet she sensed he missed nothing. She thanked God she'd worn a high lace collar to hide the love nip that Michael had given her.

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"It wasn't the kissin'?" he insisted in dire tones. "Or the spirits?"

She dropped her hands to her sides and drew a steadying breath. "No, Collie. It was none of those things."

He harrumphed. Then he tilted his head, his eyes narrowing to flinty shards. "Does he love you?"

It took every ounce of self-control that Eden possessed not to flinch and look away. Despite the half dozen times she'd assured Michael of her love, he'd never once echoed her sentiments. She hoped his feelings would change. Still... the honeymoon was over. Life would get harder from this day forward. Already she was struggling with the knowledge that her husband's deepest feeling for her was a sense of responsibility.

"If you aren't satisfied with my answers," she told Collie primly, "then I suggest that tomorrow, when he's feeling up to it, you have this same discussion with Michael. But leave your gun at home."

Rebellion chased skepticism across his features. Then something else, something more boyish, kindled in his stare.

"It ain't mine."

"It's not?"

"Nope."

Her pulse was at last starting to slow. "Whose is it, then?"

"The old woman's."

She started, peering more closely at the gun. She'd assumed it had belonged to Collie's father. "But how—"

"I won it. Fair and square," he added smugly. "We had a peashootin' contest. She ain't as good as she thinks she is. But I told her I'd give her a chance to win the scattergun back."

"You did?"

"Sure." The grin he flashed her was all boy. "Right after she fixes me a sweet potater pie."

Eden laughed. Claudia hated to cook almost as much as she hated to lose. Collie must have deduced this fact and settled accordingly on Claudia's comeuppance.

He followed her into the pantry, opting to snack from a box of saltwater taffy rather than Sera's tin of fresh biscuits. He barely waited long enough to chew the first piece before he'd unwrapped two more and shoved them into his mouth. She laughed when his cheeks swelled up like a chipmunk's; still, he managed to chat about Sera, the raccoons, and a host of other topics as he shucked corn and she shelled peas. By the time she had the corn roasting and a savory vegetable chowder boiling on the stove, Collie had devoured all the taffy
and
the biscuits and was eyeing the bread and cheese she'd sliced for Michael's dinner. She shook her head at the boy.

"Honestly. And you were trying to live on roots and berries in that ramshackle hut you call home."

"Naw. I just told you that so you'd feel sorry fer me and bake me more pies."

"What?"

He giggled, grabbing a handful of apple slices and dodging the towel she smacked after his rump.

Suddenly the bottom half of the kitchen door crashed open.

"Where's that dang boy?" Claudia snapped, her sterling-colored hair crackling with storm static. She stomped inside, wreathed in a cloud of blue pipe smoke. How she could see anything through that eye-stinging fog was a mystery to Eden; still, Claudia grunted absently at her, as if the sight of her errant niece, newly returned from her wedding tour, wasn't much of a surprise.

"MacAffee," Claudia growled, squinting and puffing at the same time, "I got a bone to pick with you."

"Yeah?" Collie dropped back into his chair, propped his ankles on the table, and munched indolently on an apple wedge. The shotgun, Eden noticed in secret amusement, lay draped across his thighs.

Claudia scowled. "Hey! Ye're getting sticky juice on my scattergun!"

Collie popped a finger into his mouth and sucked noisily until it was clean. "Whose scattergun?"

Claudia muttered something unfit for ladies' and young gentlemen's ears. "Listen here, brat. Sera said she's plumb out of sweet taters. And they ain't in season fer another three months."

Collie shrugged. "Ain't my problem. No pie, no rematch."

Claudia grew livid and began to push back her sleeves. Eden decided she'd better intervene.

"Um, Auntie?" She cleared her throat. "Perhaps you and Collie could settle your differences another way. Say, over... croquet. I believe Michael set up a few wickets for Sera in the backyard."

Claudia's cagey old eyes grew speculative. The ghost of a smirk twisted her lips, and she harrumphed. "That's a sissy's game. I got me a better idea. Unless, o' course, the boy there's too
yaller."

"I ain't yaller," he retorted, dropping his feet to the floor in a fighting stance.

"Good. Then mumblety-peg it is. Hand me a pig sticker, niece."

Eden balked at the idea of her seventy-five-year-old, health-compromised aunt tossing butcher knives in the backyard. But Claudia ignored her protests and shouldered past her. Grabbing a bone-handled blade from Sera's arsenal of utensils, she stabbed it toward the door.

"Git on with ya, boy. Double or nuthin'."

Collie snorted, hiking the Whitney's barrel over his shoulder. "What am I gonna do with two shotguns?"

"I meant two
pies,
you uppity pup!"

Collie's face creased with a sly smile. "Well now. That's different. Should be a cinch," he taunted as he sauntered for the door, "whuppin' a girl at mumbletypeg"

"Who you callin' a girl?" Claudia bellowed after him as he stepped beneath the lowering clouds.

"Old woman,
then," his voice floated back to them over a rumble of thunder.

"That's better!"

Claudia wiggled her eyebrows at Eden. "Afore you know it," she confided with a grin, "I'm gonna have that boy raised to be a bonafide man."

"Ye're burning daylight, old woman!"

"Hold yer dang horses," she hollered after him, donning her best crabby expression and stalking into the fading light.

Mystified, Eden watched her aunt go. What on earth had happened over the last seven days to make Claudia tolerate Collie?

Not ten minutes later, as the wind started to knock the shutters against the house, Sera appeared, flushed and flour-dusted, to stick her head inside the door. "Eden!" she exclaimed, the stark white of her pinafore a striking contrast to her shining black hair. "Auntie's such a pill. She didn't tell me you were home. I had to see the light in the window!" She rushed inside and threw her arms around Eden's neck.

"Um..." When Sera withdrew, her gaze was riveted to the window. "Why's Collie pulling a stick out of the ground with his teeth?"

"Apparently Claudia made him eat crow at mumblety-peg."

"Oh." She frowned. "But do you think she should be playing with
knives
in her condition? I mean, your Papa's tonic has done wonders for her and all, but—"

"What?"
Eden blinked at her. "Claudia's taking the heart tonic?"

"You mean you didn't know?"

Eden frowned, and Sera burst out laughing.

"Oh Eden, honey. Auntie's been humbugging you. Apparently Collie came looking for you a day or two before your wedding tour. He found Claudia clutching her chest and panting in the kitchen. He asked what was wrong, and she told him it was her heart. After her spell passed, they got to commiserating about medicines and how awful they taste—except for some kind of tea you must have brewed Collie. He said if he had the gumption to drink one of your tonics, she should too. In fact, he called her yellow. So to spite him, she grabbed one of the bottles from your medicine chest and took a spoonful. They've been fast friends ever since."

Friends?
Eden wasn't exactly sure she'd describe Claudia's relationship with Collie as friendly.

"Why didn't Auntie tell me any of this?" she demanded, hurt creeping into her tone.

"You know how she likes Michael to make a fuss over her. Maybe she figured he'd stop doing it if she got better. Honestly, Eden, the only reason I know about the tonic is because I caught her red-handed with a spoonful last night."

Eden pressed her lips together. She and her aunt needed to have a little talk about self-medicating.

But if, as Sera claimed, Claudia's condition had improved as a result of Papa's foxglove elixir... Eden's heart raced as her excitement grew. She couldn't wait to tell Michael. He'd promised to test the tonic as soon as they got settled into their family routine. Maybe Claudia's improvement would be all the proof he needed.

And maybe the tonic's proven curative powers would earn them enough money to search out an
experienced
physician to treat Michael.

Sera tossed her a sly look as she poured herself a steaming cup of Arbuckles coffee. "Well?"

Eden checked her elation. Better to keep her excitement hidden than to pique Sera's curiosity, especially about Michael. "Well what?"

"You've stalled long enough, Eden
Jones.
Tell me everything! And don't you dare leave out a single detail."

Eden blushed. The idea of sharing with Sera the absolute wonder, the soul-soaring bliss, she'd felt whenever Michael loved her seemed... well, traitorous. She wanted those moments to stay special, and hence, private.

"We had a lovely time," she hedged. "We saw the mummy, and the minstrels. We took a paddlewheel cruise and saw a balloon exhibition—"

Sera rolled her eyes. "Do you think I care about some crumbling old
mummy?
Or an overinflated
balloon?"
She sank on the bench, her elbows propped on the table, and blew spiraling puffs of steam off her coffee. "Was Michael wonderful?"

"I love him, Sera," she countered quietly.

"Well, I know
that.
Everyone loves Michael. Except Michael, of course. He's funny that way. Sometimes I think he enjoys being moody and cussed. Just like Aunt Claudia."

Eden averted her gaze, busying herself with the cornpone batter. She used to think the same thing, until Michael had confessed he was dying. Until she'd seen, with her own eyes, the pain and frustration he suffered and his valiant struggle to keep the truth from the people he loved.

"I think he bought you a souvenir," she said casually, hoping to change the subject. "Something from Madam Letitia's."

The ploy worked. Sera drew a whistling breath. "You mean the French seamstress? The one who designed Frances Folsom's gown for President Cleveland's inaugural ball?"

Eden arched an eyebrow. Michael had said nothing of Madam Letitia sewing ballgowns for the president's ward. "I suppose they're one and the same."

Sera squealed, jumping out of her chair.
"Eden!
For heaven's sake, why didn't you tell me? Where's Michael?"

Before she could answer, Sera was already speeding toward the parlor, calling her brother's name. Eden shook her head, chuckling. Sera could be so predictable, especially when it came to gewgaws and presents.