His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (20 page)

"Syrup of onion," she explained breezily. "Glass can break on the road." She nodded at the jagged crack working its way down his bottle of paregoric. "See what I mean?"

He muttered an oath, grabbing the precious opiate and casting about for another container. Without missing a beat, she handed him a tin box.

"I usually put my sage sticks in here, but this should do in a pinch."

Sage sticks?
He bit his tongue on the question and nodded his thanks, his attention claimed by the liquid oozing from his bottle into the box. He didn't realize she'd taken the opportunity to rummage through his pharmaceuticals until a dainty hand smelling faintly of clover thrust a jar of white powder under his nose.

"What's potassium antimonyl tartrate?"

He slid her a sideways glance.

"Tartar emetic."

She made a face, much like the ones Sera used to make when he'd try to spoon-feed her black-eyed peas. "You don't actually think a puppy will
swallow
that, do you?"

He snatched the jar from her hand—a mistake. Lightning danced between their fingertips. The sizzle streaked all the way to his loins. He sucked in his breath. She staggered backward.
Damn.
How could such an innocent contact be charged with so much sexuality?

He rallied his wits enough to respond. "I take it you think you have something better?"

"Well, for purging parasites, yes." She sounded faintly breathless. "Honey and garlic for the coons, horse chestnuts for the rabbits."

"Horse chestnuts?" he repeated huskily, wishing he'd cleared his throat first.

"They cure worms."

He'd never heard of such a thing. Wormwood was the usual purge of parasites in this part of the country. But before he could question her claim, she added wistfully, "I'm fresh out of black elderberries. Couch grass too. They would have made marvelous preventatives."

He couldn't help but smile. "Are you practicing medicine or tossing a salad?"

She hiked her chin. "We'll just see whose elixirs get lapped up the fastest."

"And which ones have the desired effect."

She averted her gaze, dropping several cloves of garlic into her mortar. As she began to grind, several moments of silence passed between them. Meanwhile, Jamie was struggling to slide back the rusted door on one of the coon cages, and Collie, who'd discovered a hole in the bottom of his pail, was cursing like a muleskinner.

"Michael..." She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as if to assure herself the boys were out of earshot. "What do you think Gunther will do if he finds out Collie took his animals? Press charges?"

Michael postponed his answer, unscrewing the lid of his magnesium hydroxide, a guaranteed dewormer. In all honesty, he didn't think Gunther would go to the sheriff. Cantankerous loners with questionable business reputations didn't arouse sympathy in judges and juries. The man was more likely to settle the matter himself. It was the "how" of that settling that worried Michael.

"Gunther," he said carefully, "will be hard to appease if he can prove the animals are his."

"But he can't, can he? I mean, coons, rabbits, and hounds are plentiful in this county. They could have come from anywhere, right?"

He glanced into her upturned face, so puckered with worry. He forced a smile. He didn't want her to share the burden of his concern.

"Proving ownership would be difficult," he conceded.

"That's what I thought." She nodded with a touch of asperity, and a flame-colored curl tumbled across her temple. It was a striking complement to the fire kindling in her eyes. "I know it's a terrible thing to say, but I'm glad Collie stole those whelps. Collie told me Gunther shot the mother coon because she tried to defend her babies. And Gunther's been throwing the rabbits—live—into a pit of ravenous dogs to whet his bettors' appetites for the coon-baiting event." Eden shuddered, edging closer, her voice lowering to a fierce whisper. "Berthold Gunther should be shot, or better yet, tossed into a pit with his hounds! What's the matter with Sheriff Truitt, letting that man get away with such cruelty?"

"There's no law in this state against baiting animals," Michael said grimly. "Only a law against stealing them."

"That's ridiculous. Basic human decency should prevail in these cases."

"I couldn't agree with you more. However, the fact remains, if Gunther can prove those animals are his, Collie could be arrested. Truitt's convinced the boy is headed down his father's lawless path. Jamie's got his mother's influence—and his father's money—to protect him. But Collie has nobody."

She was quiet for a moment.

"You care about him, don't you?"

He glanced at Collie. The boy was so busy keeping a wary eye on him that Collie didn't notice he was pouring water on the ground, instead of inside his new pail. A twinge of remorse tweaked Michael's chest. He'd been an orphan too—in deed, if not in fact. After his mother's death, and especially after Gabriel's, he couldn't remember gestures of affection from his father.

"Collie's young," he rallied gruffly. "Wayward. He needs a father. But most of all, he needs a mother. Someone to take the edge off his roughness and give him a good Christian upbringing."

"Have you... ever thought of telling him you care?"

Michael winced inwardly. He'd never been good at speaking his feelings; in fact, his profession frowned upon sentiment. But even if that weren't the case, what good would words accomplish? Collie's resemblance to Rafe didn't stop with his eyes and hair. The boy hated him.

Weeks ago, when Collie's prospects had looked particularly dim, Michael had thought about raising the boy. Collie had always gotten along with Sera, and Michael had hoped she might have enough influence to keep Collie on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, that was about the same time Michael's illness set in. Without a definitive diagnosis, much less a cure, Michael had decided he couldn't shoulder the responsibility of one more ward. He'd be lucky to find Sera a loving husband before news of his mysterious malady leaked. The last thing Collie needed was to have another parent die on him.

Michael understood that heartache only too well.

A splash sounded behind them. They turned in unison, watching Collie list sideways under the weight of the sloshing pail. His left leg was soaked from his knee to his boot, and he was muttering.

"Here's yer dang water," he growled at Michael, thumping the bucket on the ground. "I suppose you'll be wantin' me to get them rabbits fer you, too."

"If it's not too much trouble," he said dryly.

"It is. But I'll do it anyhow, seein' as how you'll leave quicker that way."

Eden dissolved into laughter as Collie strutted back to the shack. The sound sparkled, like sunbeams dancing across a wind-rippled river. Her humor made his heart yearn. She was more than beautiful, more than desirable. She was
alive,
possessing an easy, down-to-earth femininity he had always looked for, but never found, in Bonnie.

Despite his rationales, all of which were excellent, he was having a devil of a time ignoring his attraction to Eden. Compared with her cheerfulness, he felt... well, jaded. But under his cracking veneer of weariness kindled a long-forgotten hope. Hope for renewal. Hope for happiness. Eden was like a tonic for his embittered view of the world, and the realization scared him—scared him to the rock-hard bottom of his soul. He hadn't allowed himself to harbor hope, much less dreams of love, for a long time.

He'd liked it better when his only interest in the woman had been carnal.

Like a man wading through quicksand, he forced himself to turn his shoulder, to call to Jamie, to encourage the boy to hurry,
hurry
with his coons.

"I'm trying, Doc!" Jamie panted, lunging after the eight-pound baby that had somehow unlatched its cage and was now charging playfully around the clearing.

"Head 'im off!" Collie shouted.

But Jamie's foot tangled in a surfaced root. He fell with an audible "oomph," and the masked prankster, making gleeful "whickering" noises, rubbed salt into the wound by dashing over Jamie's knees.

"Get up!" Collie called, abandoning the rabbit cages to lend a hand. "Dang it, he's gonna ran straight fer that—"

The coon scampered up a hickory, and Collie slid to a halt, sputtering an oath about "townie boys."

Michael strode to the tree like a four-star general and ordered the boys to leave the coon alone. Eden didn't dare laugh when Collie ignored him and swung onto the lowest bough. She couldn't resist a smile, though, when Michael, in his gruff, paternal way, fielded Jamie's rapid-fire questions: What if Collie couldn't climb high enough? Did baby coons know how to climb down trees?

Collie proved more crafty than the inexperienced baby, however, and the coon, dangling as impotently from his fist as Stazzie once had, soon found itself locked up again with its masked cohorts. Jamie scolded it liberally.

Collie rolled his eyes. "That coon don't understand a word ye're sayin'."

"Sure it does. It knows its name is Vanderbilt."

"Vanderbilt?"
Collie snorted. "What kind of name is that?"

"An important one! And I named his brothers Morgan, Rockefeller, and Harragan," Jamie said, beaming as he pointed at each coon in turn, the biggest one proving to be his namesake.

Collie made a derisive sound. "Didn't you know Harragan's a
girl?"

"He is not!"

"Is too!"

Eden giggled. The horror on Jamie's face as he looked under Harragan's tail was, well, priceless. Besides, humor seemed the best way to diffuse the tension between the boys, not to mention her and Michael. She'd never dared to hope they'd meet so soon after their kiss; she'd assumed he'd avoid her with even more determination than usual.

Now she wondered if today's chance meeting had really been by chance. Had he lain awake until dawn, as she had, thinking of their sparking? Had he followed her and Collie to this site, hoping to apologize—or better yet, to resume where they'd left off?

She watched him, so composed, so matter-of-fact as he diverted Jamie from the boy's grim new mission, gender identification. Michael produced carrots. He'd stashed the vegetables like cigars inside the breast pocket of his suit coat, and for some reason, this creative camouflaging tickled Eden's heart. Her heart swelled even more to see this mountain of a man cradle a squirming, brown and white bunny against his chest, stroking its ears and murmuring encouragements, as Jamie held the carrot beneath the creature's quivering nose. Eventually Collie, his yearning overcoming his mistrust, uncaged another rabbit and accepted Michael's carrot offering.

Eden wished she'd had a way to capture the image forever: the three males standing elbow to elbow, their feuds forgotten, their faces split by lopsided grins, as they watched their bunnies munch breakfast from their hands. She sensed she was seeing a side of Michael the rest of the world rarely saw. His eyes had warmed each time he'd gazed at her, and his voice had grown husky as she'd moved nearer.

She liked to think he was experiencing the same sweet infatuation that she was, but with Michael, it was hard to tell. He was so intense. His secret self swirled with dark, mysterious undercurrents that lured her as irresistibly as the mountain laurels were drawing the honey bees. A woman could spend a lifetime learning to understand Michael Jones.

She wondered a little wistfully if he would ever let down his guard enough for her to try.

The rest of that morning passed in relative peace as the boys cleaned their charges' cages and Eden worked companionably beside Michael, soothing the animals and searching for parasites. The rabbits were adorable, with their gigantic feet and velvet ears, and the puppies were fun, full of roughhousing mischief.

But the coons were Eden's favorites. Harragan proved to be shy and docile, while Vanderbilt, the smallest of the four, was the undisputed rogue. Ebony eyes glittering behind his mask, Vandy tried to steal Michael's watchfob. When Michael foiled that attempt, the unremorseful coon reached a grasping, handlike paw inside of Michael's trouser pocket. This led to much sputtering and blushing on the good doctor's part.

Laughing at their antics, Eden knelt by the tree stump to offer the baby a penny.

Michael watched in undisguised amusement as the coon scampered through the buttercups and dunked his prize in the water bucket.

"That one is going to be a bad influence."

"Honestly, Michael. What a terrible thing to say," she teased.

Finished now with their examinations, there was nothing left for them to do but pack their bags—or play with the babies. She watched her favorite coon rear up and hook his forepaws over the pail's rim. Whiskers twitching, Vandy was presumably sniffing for the coin he'd sunk; however, the appearance of a watery rival distracted him. With a territorial bellow—which from Vandy sounded more like a squeak—the baby swatted at his reflection, spraying water all over himself and Eden. She ducked, laughing.

But Vandy was outraged to see his rival shimmer back into focus. Loosing a baby battle cry, he scrambled into the pail before Michael could grab his ruff. The bucket toppled, water gushed, and Vandy howled, somersaulting nose over tail until he landed at Michael's boots with a soggy thud.