His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (15 page)

His heart slammed into his ribs. Too unnerved to concoct a lie about which patient's complaint he might have been researching, he flew across the room.

He had to stop her before she learned his most dire secret.

Chapter 5

"What the devil do you think you're doing?"

Eden spun guiltily at that rumble of ire. She hadn't heard Michael come down the hall. In fact, she hadn't heard much of anything but the shrieking of her conscience and the hammering of her heart. Spying Michael's medical books high on the shelves in the family parlor had seemed like the answer to her prayers.

But guilt had made her sneak. How could she explain her interest in medical research to Sera without revealing her secret fear: that she had killed her father?

And so Eden had bided her time, half dreading and half hoping for an opportunity to pore through Michael's books without anyone—least of all Michael—standing over her, asking painful questions.

Unfortunately, the very last person she'd wanted catching her in the act was now stalking into the room like a smoking volcano.

"M-Michael." Thunder shook the walls, or did that quaking come from Michael's boots? "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry—"

"Of course you meant to pry. Prying is what females do best. And I have no patience for it."

He snatched the volume from her hand, and Eden winced. Looming over her, all muscle and menace, he practically steamed. She felt his heat like a furnace blast, flushing her skin and melting her nerves into a puddle.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. Good heavens, why was he so angry? True, she'd been handling his personal property, but it wasn't as if she'd been tearing out its pages. "I was just curious. About, um, respiration."

"This volume is clearly marked
A
through
H.
Respiration would be in another volume entirely."

"Yes, but bronchial inflammation—"

"Are you ill?"

Her pulse tripped as his gaze swept to her bodice. How could eyes so ice-blue one moment burn so scintillatingly hot the next?

She cleared her throat. "No. Nothing like that. I was just—"

His gaze snapped back to her face. "Then kindly refrain from snooping."

She managed to gulp a breath. "I wasn't." Honestly, the man might try to be civil. She was his neighbor, after all—not to mention his guest.

A sudden suspicion, one having to do with Sera and matchmaking, crept through Eden's mind.

"I, uh, brought you a cherry pie."

His mood didn't improve in the least.

"For dessert."

Again, no reaction.

"Since Aunt Claudia's out of town," she prompted hopefully, "Sera invited me to dinner. She seemed to think it would help us mend fences."

He raised a pitch-black eyebrow. "I wasn't aware we had fences to mend."

"Oh."

A moment of silence lapsed. Eden wondered if it was too late to slink under the rug.

But if Michael noticed her embarrassment, he didn't comment. He simply stretched above her, intent on shoving the volume onto an out-of-reach shelf. When his arm brushed her nipple, she jumped. He recoiled. The electrifying jolt made them both gasp. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought him edgy, not angry, his flash of temper little more than show.

"The kitchen's that way," he said, jerking his head toward the hall.

"I know where the kitchen is."

Their eyes locked. Again, that midnight eyebrow rose. A thread of her patience unraveled.

But as much as her reluctant host deserved a tongue lashing, Eden had to concede that Sera was the real culprit. Sera's scheming had made her and Michael both pawns. Since Sera did nothing but try to marry him off, and Bonnie did nothing but try to trap him for the same purpose, was it any wonder Michael thought females were conniving? By Aunt Claudia's count, there were at least a dozen women in Blue Thunder—some as old as Claudia herself—who would have given their eyeteeth for one of Michael's kisses.

Eden's chin raised a notch.
Well, it's high time Michael learns that Eden Mallory isn't moonstruck—or desperate—like all the other spinsters in this town.

She mustered the shreds of her decorum. "I completely understand your feelings, Michael. If I'd come home after a long day's work and discovered I was expected to entertain, I'd be put out too. If you prefer, I'll leave."

"That won't be necessary. You're my sister's guest."

And clearly unwelcome by you.
The proof of her suspicions burrowed deep, a barb to nettle the defenses of her heart.

She told herself her hurt was ridiculous. She didn't care one whit for Michael. She only tolerated him for Sera's sake. "I don't want to cause tension between you and Sera."

"Sera causes tension between me and Sera."

"Yes, well... I'm sure she believes she's acting in your best interests."

"By scheming to end my bachelorhood?"

Eden fidgeted. He did have a point.

"Dinner doesn't have to be difficult," she said, opting for a topic change. "Even though you don't like me—"

"Who told you that?"

She bit her lip. Whenever he used that tone of voice, it was hard not to feel like a child. "You did. Or rather, you do. Whenever you snap."

"You shouldn't take everything so personally."

Did he actually mean to say he
liked
her?

She had trouble hinging her jaw closed. "Well, that may be. But you have to admit, you've been short with me since the first day we met. It makes me wonder if... well, if I've done something to offend you."

"Are you asking me to apologize?"

"Well, no, I..." She caught herself. Why was she trying so hard to appease him? Clearly, even a neighborly relationship was out of the question. "May I speak frankly?"

"When do you not?"

Ooh. Insufferable man.

"Honestly, Michael, you would try the patience of a saint. Contrary to what you might think, I don't wake up each morning plotting some new way to aggravate you. And I certainly don't spend my nights dreaming up schemes to make you court me."

"Indeed?"

"Heaven forbid. Why on earth would I waste a perfectly pleasant evening with a man who's so unpleasant?"

"The question does give one pause."

Her irritation climbed another notch. "You see? That's just the sort of attitude I've been talking about. Rather than own up to your failings like a proper gentleman, you resort to sarcasm. Or arrogance. You're as highhanded as a tyrant. And you're more prickly than a porcupine."

"I see." He folded his arms across his chest. "Anything else you'd like to share before dinner?"

Her hands flew to her hips. "Well, if you must know, I find you completely lacking in humor!"

His laughter startled her. It was a warm, rich, rumble of mirth, so utterly masculine and thoroughly frustrating, she wanted to smack him.

"That wasn't supposed to be funny!"

"My dear Eden, are you certain you aren't the one lacking in humor?"

"Don't you dare try to turn the tables on me, Michael Jones. My sense of humor is expansive! It's the only thing that helped me survive the mob, and the ridicule, and the ransacking..."

To her horror, she realized she was on the verge of tears.

"Eden..."

He reached for her sleeve, but she spun away, battling the grief that washed over her. She hadn't meant to speak of Silverton. Certainly, she hadn't meant to give Michael Jones any more reason to disdain her.

"Are you crying?"

"No!" Her voice broke, humiliating her further. "I won't have you mock me, Michael. I won't!"

"I'm sorry."

Her chest heaved, and she halted before the window, squeezing her eyes closed. The rain had ceased again. The resulting silence clapped louder than thunder, leaving her at the mercy of her senses. She could hear his breathing, smell his cologne, feel his remorse. But she couldn't bring herself to confide in him. She couldn't bear his condemnation, his criticism, or worse, his platitudes.

"Tell me about this mob," he said more gently.

She gripped the bombazine with a shaking hand.

"Is that why you left Colorado?" He stepped behind her, his heat rippling over her in waves.

She shivered.

"Did they hurt you?" he prompted.

"It's not important."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"I don't want to tell you!"

"Ah." This time, his mockery was self-directed. "That I can believe."

She dashed away tears and wiped them on her skirts. "You can be very cruel."

"That's true."

She rounded on him. "Why? Why do you pretend to be cruel when you're not?"

She'd startled him. Chagrin flickered in the ocean-blue depths of his eyes.

"It's hardly pretense. I am what I am."

"No." She shook her head emphatically. "I've met cruel men before. They have no conscience. But you, you'd blame yourself for every sickness you can't avert."

His shoulders grew taut.

"You'd lay down your life for a child," she added more gently.

"You can't possibly know that."

"I was there, Michael. I saw you. You would have torn that wagon apart, splinter by splinter, to dig Jamie out."

A familiar agony pierced Michael's chest. It was true—everything she'd said. But on the day of the accident, he hadn't seen Jamie under that wagon, he'd seen Gabriel. Ten years had eased none of the pain. In every cough, every sprain, every broken bone and wound, he saw the ghost of his kid brother. Gabriel's death had left a scorched abyss where his soul once had been.

And if he ever fell into that pit, Michael knew, he'd never crawl out again.

"I told you," he said curtly. "Healing people is my responsibility."

"Your responsibility or your passion?"

"You suffer romantic delusions about me."

"You'd like to think I do. You'd like to convince us both you don't feel any grief or pain."

He didn't like where this conversation was heading. "Are you sure you haven't set your cap for me?"

That derailed her from her track. Her chin rose, quivering beneath flashing, storm-flecked eyes.

"I told you I haven't."

"Good."

"Why?"

"Because you'd regret it."

"Why?" she demanded again.

His gaze roamed over her ribbon-bound hair, shimmering like molten copper in the lamplight. Renegade wisps curled softly in the hollow of her throat, just beside the flurry of her pulse, and his lashes fanned lower. He didn't want her to see the long-constrained hunger that would have made him feast upon that column of peaches and cream—or, God help him, the ripe, pouty handfuls that heaved just an arm's length away. Lightning surged to his loins as he envisioned the globes of her breasts spilling over his palms, their tender rosettes jutting into his mouth.

"Because I'm not the angel I was named after."

Red-gold brows fused, her forehead puckering. "What do you mean?"

He allowed himself a rueful smile. "I mean, my sweet Eden, that what you think you know about me is a honeycomb of lies. I'm cold. I'm callous. And I have no intention of changing."

She licked her lips. Nerves, he told himself, not guile. Still, to spy the pink tip of that tongue chipped at his straining self-control.

"You're just saying that," she said tremulously. "To make me think less of you. You couldn't bear it if anyone tried to hold you up to your own impossible standards."

Her insight, spoken with such hard-won defiance, was almost as unnerving as the realization that the seventeen-year-old who'd once bathed his wounds had grown into a woman wiser than her years, a woman who could see clear to the charred bottom of his soul.

But Michael had never cowered before a worthy opponent, and he wasn't about to start. He stepped closer. Then closer still. He halted only when his thighs were bare inches from her skirts, when his shoulders towered above hers and she was forced to crane her neck to meet his gaze. It was a deliberate tactic, one designed to press his physical advantage, and yet, at this proximity, he was forced to breathe her fragrance.