His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (22 page)

"Or to Bonnie," Sera deadpanned.

Eden didn't dare succumb to the twitch in her lips. "What's she doing this time?"

"See for yourself!"

Eden followed the line of Bonnie's quivering finger. As the crowd shifted again, the seventy-five-year-old rascal could be seen stomping her feet, shaking her gunstock, and hollering at the top of her lungs. She'd climbed onto the Kissing Booth's counter, her dungarees billowing in the wind, her iron-gray hair frizzing in the humidity. Apparently she was taunting any man too foolish not to give the booth a wide berth. It was a wonder she hadn't had a seizure.

"She's going to break her fool neck," Bonnie grumbled, concern actually creeping into her tone. Then her accusatory eyes drilled through Eden. "Did you let her drink corn mash again?"

"I think Auntie ate Sally McGloughlin's mincemeat," Sera interceded glibly. "Sally always overdoes the rum."

Bonnie muttered something about
that
blue-ribbon pie hopeful that would have made the members of the Ladies Aid Society blush.

Suddenly, a cheer rose from the circle of children behind them. Bonnie turned, saw her giggling son sprawled face down in the mud with Mr. Puppy licking his ear, and grew as white as the pearls on her kid gloves.

"Jamie Harragan!
What have you done to your clothes?"

Jamie knuckled the mud out of his eyes. Bobby grabbed Mr. Puppy and made a beeline for the woods. Collie grabbed Jamie and disappeared as the other boys closed ranks, gathering around the winners to dicker over marbles, river stones, and penny candy.

Now Bonnie looked aghast. "Did you see what that MacAffee boy did? He got Jamie involved in... in a wager!"

"Oh, Bonnie." Eden was sorely pressed not to roll her eyes. "They're only trading marbles."

"It's gambling! And you know it." Cunning vied with the resentment on Bonnie's features. "It's no secret you've been feeding that MacAffee boy. How dare you encourage my son to commit sin with that no-account white trash?"

"Your son," Eden responded coolly, "is one of the brightest, dearest, most compassionate young men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. If he should choose to befriend a homeless boy, then I think God must be smiling on them both."

Bonnie's eyes narrowed. Sera coughed delicately.

"Um, Michael works with orphans all the time, Eden. Maybe you can get his advice on how to dissuade Collie from vices."

"I shall speak to Michael," Bonnie said quickly. "My son's the one whose future's at stake. Collie's is clearly hopeless."

Snapping open her parasol, she swept into the young bettors' midst, demanding to know where Jamie had fled.

Sera winked at Eden.

"Just mention Michael whenever she whips out her stinger," the younger girl said cheerfully. "It works every time. Besides, Bonnie can't stand the thought of you and Michael getting close enough to kiss again."

"Honestly, Sera. Must you keep bringing that up? I can fight my own battles. You shouldn't have put Michael in the middle."

"Michael was already in the middle, Eden honey."

Eden tossed her friend a quelling look. Sera giggled.

"Speaking of Michael," the younger girl said slyly, "he's likely to be a big bidder in the picnic auction today, seeing as how the proceeds go to the orphanage. You didn't happen to pack that lovely but
plain
picnic hamper with the daisy linens inside, did you? The one that weighs half a ton, thanks to all the cherry pie?"

Eden's cheeks warmed. "Sera," she warned, "don't you dare. None of the bidders are supposed to know who donated those lunches."

"What good are rules if you can't break them?"

"Your brother would throw a fit if he heard you say that."

"Only my oldest brother. Rafe would applaud."

Sera's grin was shameless. Eden shook her head.

"I think it's time I went and talked with Aunt Claudia," she announced diplomatically.

But Sera didn't take the hint. She trotted at Eden's heels as tenaciously as a bulldog puppy.

"You know," she mused aloud, "you might have to spend the whole afternoon with the man who buys your hamper. That could be a perfect dream—or a perfect nightmare. I mean, imagine if Berthold Gunther suddenly got a hankering for daisies and cherry pie."

Eden doubled her pace.

"Of course, there's always the possibility nobody will bid on your hamper. If they don't know it's yours, I mean." Sera heaved a gusty sigh. "Last year, Abner Buckbee did the charitable thing and bid on a hamper without knowing who'd packed it. A day later, when he was able to crawl back out of the privy, he told a sawmill worker that he'd been poisoned by boot-leather boiled in kerosene. Eventually, word got around town that Sammy Jo Proctor had made that lunch. She had to move to New York City just to catch herself a beau!"

Eden slid her friend a dubious glance. "Honestly. Don't you think that's a bit extreme?"

"Well, yes. Can you imagine having to kiss one of those vulgar, strutting Yankees?"

Eden hid her smile.

"A Kentucky gentleman—like my dear brother Michael," Sera gushed unabashedly, "would know how to kiss a lady. But then, I don't have to tell
you
that, do I, Eden?"

Eden's belly quivered just to imagine kissing Michael again. She couldn't help but notice him then, chatting companionably with Lydia Witherspoon. He stood with the orphanage's plump, good-natured headmistress in the shade of the daffodil-colored orphans' tent. Some of the older children, who'd survived the measles epidemic unscathed, were selling the rag dolls and peashooters that they'd made to raise money for their home. Michael had already magnanimously contributed to the cause: a Y-shaped stick with a leather sling poked out of his trouser pocket.

In spite of the toy—or maybe because of it—Eden couldn't take her eyes off Michael. The slingshot was so contrary to the Michael he wanted her to know that it made her wonder. Beneath his gruff facade and prickly armor, did a charming rascal long to break free and wreak mischief on the world? Or perhaps the rascal had escaped years ago and had been lampooning Blue Thunder ever since.

The idea was an intriguing one. She already knew that Michael wasn't the stern, steely-eyed tyrant he pretended to be. A man made of steel couldn't boast the sensual magnetism, the smoldering virility that radiated from every inch of Michael Jones. Blue Thunder's doctor could tie a woman's tongue, buckle her knees, and fire her pulse all with a single glance. Indeed, Eden wondered that Lydia Witherspoon could withstand the dazzling flash of one of his unpredictable smiles without melting into a puddle at his feet.

Michael Jones was an inveterate heartbreaker. But did he know it? That was the question. For today's conquests, he hadn't dressed in a relaxed or colorful way. He'd chosen pinstriped trousers, a pearl gray coat, and the charcoal-colored silk of a cut-away vest. At his throat was the requisite black ribbon string tie, a striking contrast to his pristine white shirt, but his head was bare, its thick, cropped mane riffling like a wheat field in the breeze. The ensemble wasn't as formal as his habitual black business suit; even so, it lent him an air of authority—one that faded blue denims and a checkered work shirt might have had trouble evoking.

As Eden covertly sighed over Michael, Bonnie rounded the orphans' tent, dragging a sulking Jamie in her wake. She must have spied Michael's broad back and the unmistakable shock of his blue-black hair, because her scowl suddenly dissolved into a poignant, almost whimsical longing. She called something to him; he glanced over his shoulder; and his face lit with a welcome that, frankly, made Eden's heart crumble. Whether his greeting was for Jamie or Bonnie wasn't clear. Still, Eden couldn't help but remember the rumors: how Michael had once courted Bonnie with marriage on his mind; how she'd spurned his affections to elope with Justin Harragan; how she was determined to correct her mistake and win Michael back again.

Perhaps, Eden thought as her spirits deflated, Bonnie already had. When Jamie pointed shyly at the slingshot, Michael tugged it from his pocket and offered it to him. The boy gasped with delight, and Bonnie, magically forgetting her distaste for peashooters, popguns, and other toys of destruction, couldn't make a big enough fuss over Michael's gift. To watch Bonnie's fawning was more than Eden could bear.

Sera, of course, had missed none of the byplay between the former sweethearts. With an unspoken empathy that took Eden by surprise, the younger girl gave Eden's waist a firm squeeze. Eden was grateful for the sentiment, even though she suspected she'd turned as red as the polka dots on Sera's blouse.

"You can be as nice to me as you like, Sera Jones," she rallied lamely, "but I am
not
going to tell you which picnic basket is mine. And that's final."

"Oh bother. Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Fine." Sera made a great show of pouting as they continued toward a fluttering pink and blue canopy and the Cupid-laden banner that read,
Kiss a Girl and Raise the Roof.
"I guess I'll have to use deductive reasoning, like Michael uses on his patients." Gazing at the clouds, she furrowed her brow, the very picture of concentration. "Let's see. I donated a hamper, and so did Bonnie. That leaves fifteen more from the unmarried girls, and most of them aren't hard to guess."

She glanced at Eden, smiled cherubically, then continued ticking off names on her fingers. "Every year, Millie Haines embroiders watermelons on her napkins, 'cause she's sweet on Angus McGee. And Emmy Bonham paints her hamper with red-and-white checks, 'cause Smitty McCann's too nearsighted to see a little slip of checkered cloth if he has to bid from the back row. Maggie York wraps her handles with green bows—"

"Sera"—Eden battled a sinking feeling—"don't you have anything better to do besides torment me?"

Sera beamed. "I can't think of a thing."

Eden sighed. So much for the good-natured suspense surrounding the picnic auction. Cherry pie or no cherry pie, if Michael could deduce her basket as easily as Sera had, he would never try to win it.

But then, what did she care, Eden asked herself staunchly. It was a lovely afternoon. Why waste it mooning over a heartache named Michael Jones? Any number of attractive, unmarried men might bid on her lunch and spend the day with her. The whole county had turned out for the jamboree, after all.

By this time, she and Sera had drawn close enough to the kissing booth to hear Claudia heckle passing bachelors from her stance on the counter.

"You there," the spinster bellowed in a voice three times her size. "Johnny Dufflemeir! I see you skulkin' behind that draft horse. C'mon over here and kiss me, dadblast it! The orphanage needs a new roof. Hey!
Hey!
Abner Buckbee. I saw them moths fly outta yer wallet. Git yer scrawny arse over here. Kissin' me'll cost you a buck. Fer three bucks, you can go home without my buckshot in yer britches!"

Eden smothered a giggle as Claudia leveled her barrel with deadly accuracy. She could see the coins glinting in her aunt's kisses jar. Claudia and her shotgun had amassed more silver dollars than all of the younger, prettier volunteers combined. No wonder Bonnie wanted Claudia chased from the booth.

Eden nodded politely at scowling, red-faced Noel as he stalked forward, dug a fist in his trousers' pocket, and plunked three coins into Claudia's jar.

Claudia shook her shotgun after him as he fled. "My picnic basket's the one with the coon tail 'round the handle! Be sure to bid on it, if you want my bear traps on credit!"

Chortling, she squatted, her gunstock balanced across her knees and a sparsely toothed grin creasing her cheeks. "Hello, niece. Hello, neighbor. Dang. I don't know what the deuce Bonnie was gripin' about. Raisin' money fer them orphans is easier'n shootin' fish in a barrel."

Sera laughed, a bubbling, carefree sound that turned more than one masculine head. In her red and white blouse, with its ribbon-edged ruffle and leg-o'-mutton sleeves, she was stunning, a vivacious young belle ripe for romance.

"Um, Sera." Eden phrased her question carefully, surprised to see no kisses jar bearing her friend's name. Had strait-laced Michael forbidden his sister to lend her kisses to the cause? "You didn't cry uncle, did you? I mean, Aunt Claudia may have the fullest jar in the booth, but I'm sure she'd tolerate a little friendly competition—for the sake of the orphans."

Sera grew wistful. "I can't. Kit's coming from the sawmill soon."

"Kit?"
Claudia snorted. "That no-account horse thief?"

"My sweetheart is not a horse thief," Sera retorted primly. "I'll thank you to quit spreading such rumors."

"Most rumors are based in truth, young 'un. And 'horse thief's' the nicest thing I've heard said about that hillbilly. Why don't you git yerself a kisses jar and catch yerself a worthwhile beau?"

Sera raised her chin. "Kit wouldn't like me kissing other men. Not even for the orphanage."

"Kit ain't put no ring on yer finger that I kin see, girlie. And his kind ain't likely to, even after a tumble in the hay. So don't be doin' anything stupid."

Sera blushed. Eden cleared her throat. Honestly, Aunt Claudia might be a bit more tactful, since Sera fancied herself in love with the man.

"Well, I'm sure there must be other ways to raise money," Eden interceded. "I was going to volunteer at the lemonade booth until the auction."