His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (27 page)

"I hope so. Thinking about mixing Papa's heart tonic still gives me the jitters."

"And yet you prescribed for Collie."

She sighed, using her fork to push a potato across her plate. "Brewing that tea was the hardest decision I've made since Silverton. I know it might seem wrong to you, since you're university trained and licensed. But I couldn't bear to stand by and watch his pain, Michael. Not when I knew a remedy that might help."

"Spoken like a dyed-in-the-wool, it's-in-my-blood medic."

Her mood lightened a little. "Talking Raven used to say healing's more about compassion than pills and tonics."

"I'd say you're a natural, then."

The sudden burst of sunshine from that smile melted another plate of armor around his heart.

"Thank you, Michael. Your saying so means a lot to me."

Feeling that uncustomary warmth fill his chest, he wondered why he hadn't been insightful enough to praise her abilities days earlier.

They managed to speak of more pleasant things then, of fireworks displays and three-footed races, of childhood games and Indian celebrations, of mountains and cities and eccentric old relatives. She could mimic Claudia's throaty grumblings to perfection, much to the amusement of them both. Her laughter charmed him. He wished he could bottle it. He was half convinced it was a revolutionary cure, one that could eradicate every ailment known to man. Certainly its carefree nature soothed his spirit, allowing him to forget his regrets.

When they'd eaten all the food they could possibly swallow, she suggested they walk along the stream. The breeze beneath the sheltering canopy of cottonwoods was a godsend. He'd stripped off his suitcoat an hour ago, and frankly, shade or no shade, he wondered how she'd survived the heat this long in ten pounds of underwear.

He probably should have worried more about her alcohol intake than heat stroke, though. Flushed with Aunt Claudia's wine and a smattering of sun freckles, she kicked off her shoes, declaring herself scandalous in the extreme. A moment later, to his secret amusement, her determination to wade barefoot wavered, and she asked his permission in a shy, hesitant voice.

He nodded gravely. As a physician, he told her, he'd seen his fair share of women's ankles; nevertheless, he offered to turn his back so she could roll down her stockings with modesty. This act of gallantry gave free rein to his imagination, and he spent sixty seconds of sheer, wicked delight, straining his ears for every crinkle of muslin, every whisper of silk. His fingers itched at his sides, and he wished heartily that he was doing the unrolling.

"Do you climb trees?" she called, cueing him with her splash that she'd finally completed the task.

He ventured a glance over his shoulder, half-relieved, half-disappointed, to find her ankles buried in the swirling current and her ivory skirts, with their strawberry embroidery, spread demurely over the grassy bank.

"I used to." He settled beside her and stretched his legs out.

"Used
to?" She feigned indignation. "Good heavens, Michael, if I were a person in pants, I'd climb trees all the time."

He suspected mischief in the making. Relaxed and playful, she reminded him of a kitten, minus the whiskers dripping with cream.

"A person in pants, huh?"

She nodded solemnly. "Talking Raven had me climbing elder trees for berries and cliff tops for eagle feathers. Then I grew up, and Papa made me stay earthbound."

"A man of surpassing wisdom, your father."

She sniffed. "Beastly boring, that's what growing up is. When's the last time you did something outrageous? Something
scandalous,
just for the fun of it?"

He fought back a grin. Well now,
this
was a side of Eden he hadn't anticipated.

However, his kid sister's friend—not to mention his kid sister herself—shouldn't be privy to the sorts of skeletons rattling around in his closet: ale-chugging contests in the church chancellory, prize fights he'd won after the women and children had left the county fairgrounds, naked widows he'd romped with through cornfields, the hundreds of times he'd wound up snoring with a bottle of rotgut in the Jade Rose Saloon. In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted anyone to know what he did as "Mick" when he slinked off for another round of Commandment breaking in Whiskey Bend.

"Well, let's see." He rubbed his chin. It was already growing rough with evening stubble. "I hid a dime novel in my prayer book, once."

"And?"

"And Papa was livid."

"That's it?"

He cast her a sideways look. "You've never seen Jedidiah Jones livid."

She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose that's true."

Thanks to the breeze, a tendril of hair kept slithering across her cheek, and while it didn't seem to bother her, it was a sore temptation to him. He had to lean his weight back on his hands just to keep from reaching for her.

"I fell in love with a married man, once," she volunteered.

A bolt of jealousy crackled all the way to his toes.

"Of course, I didn't know he was married at the time," she admitted.

He was relieved to hear that.

"Loving Paul was probably the most wicked thing I've ever done. But I stopped loving him when I realized how he'd lied to me. I don't think there should be any room for lies in love. I mean, if you have to lie, you can't really love the person, can you?"

He squirmed inside
.
But what if the lie serves that person better than the truth?

"Have you ever been in love?" she ventured.

He dared to meet those ocean-sized eyes and quietly, helplessly, drowned. Even if he could have forced some answer from his collapsed throat, he wasn't sure it would have been coherent.

He managed a weak nod.

"With Bonnie?" she whispered, sounding faintly hurt.

He nodded again, hating himself for the truth. Hating that he'd ever found anything at all appealing in Bonnie's catty, underhanded ways. He'd been so green, even at twenty, thanks to all the garbage he'd digested from Papa's pulpit. Some part of him had wanted to believe Bonnie would see the error of her ways. Just like some part of him had wanted to believe the meek would inherit the earth, that goodness would prevail, that God actually did care about humanity.

But then Gabriel had died. And Michael had wised up in Whiskey Bend.

Eden plucked at her skirt. "Bonnie is very pretty."

"That has nothing to do with it."

He winced. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh.

"What I mean," he said, "is that things were different then. I was preoccupied with school, studying feverishly, reading everything I could get my hands on to save Gabriel..."

His voice trailed as the old grief pushed its way to his throat. All the medical knowledge in the world had been at his disposal, and yet he'd still stood helplessly by, witness to his brother's agonized coughs, watching Gabriel's flesh stretch tighter and tighter over his ribs.

"I'm sure," he said hoarsely, "that Bonnie grew bored waiting for me to notice her. I wasn't much of a beau."

"I'm sorry, Michael," she murmured.

She pulled her feet from the water, and he turned his face away, grateful for the distraction. Was it the wine or the heat that was making him maudlin?

She rose, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze before walking away. He swallowed, wondering why she was leaving him, wondering why the hell he was letting her go. She picked her way across a patch of wildflowers, her damp hem trailing behind her, gathering yellow pollen.

Each time she stopped to bend over a petal or finger a leaf, her hair slipped further out of its knot, cascading in burnished waves over her left shoulder. He could almost imagine that shoulder was bare as he shielded his eyes against the sun, because her bodice was only one shade deeper than the alabaster-cream of her skin. She made an alluring picture against the backdrop of cloudless sky and rainbowed grasses.

A crushing sense of loneliness seized him. He couldn't bear for her to slip away, to vanish as she had so many times in his dreams. He rose, thinking to follow. He thought he should at least retrieve the shoes and stockings she'd left behind.

Her gasp of excitement stopped him. "Michael, look!"

He did, and his chest constricted. A swallowtail butterfly had fluttered onto her hand. It beat its wings for a moment before launching again for the sky. Laughing, she gave chase, disrupting what he'd thought had been a palette of orange and yellow flowers. Suddenly, she was surrounded by saffron wings. She threw her arms wide, spinning in the golden storm, rousing more butterflies from their slumber.

It was the scene from his dreams. The realization exploded through him with the force of a cannonball. He cursed as his legs failed.

"No, dammit," he panted, groping desperately for the nearest tree trunk. He fell hard to his knees anyway.

"Michael!"

He barely heard her. The weakness had attacked out of nowhere, knocking his legs out from under him as easily as an ax cleaves through kindling. He couldn't feel his feet. The knowledge made his head pound. "Stay back," he choked.

But she didn't. She was kneeling beside him. "What is it?"

He stuttered something nonsensical, pushing feebly at her hands. It did little good. She tugged his cravat loose, ripped unceremoniously through the buttons on his shirt.

"Breathe," she commanded.

He sank earthward, clutching his head; she straddled his hips as if to still his muscular seizure. A sound, some sort of chant he realized dimly, was coming from Eden. Her humming vibrated through him like a gut-deep sigh, loosening the knotted muscles at the base of his skull, dispelling the fear that had locked his limbs. To his amazement, he began to feel his feet again. When he opened his eyes, he was able to discern color and shape.

She slowly swam into focus: the cascade of autumn that was her hair, the luminous emerald that was her eyes, the pale, trembling rose that was her mouth. She clenched her bottom lip between white teeth, and the resonant chanting stopped. He might have been disappointed if she hadn't leaned closer, practically stretching herself on top of him.

"Does it still hurt?"

He swallowed. She'd shifted her hands. One tenderly stroked the damp curls from his forehead; the other nested atop the wiry hairs on his chest, as if to check his heartbeat. He could feel her breath against his chin.

"No," he rasped.

"I can get your doctor's bag—"

"It's in the orphan's tent."

"Oh." Her troubled gaze held his for an uncertain moment. "Was it something you ate?"

He might have laughed at her fear, that he'd been poisoned by her picnic lunch, if he hadn't been so shaken by his seizure.

"No," he murmured, brushing the hair from her cheek. "It wasn't the food." He tried to smile. "I'm better now."

"You're so pale," she whispered. "Like that day in the store."

He drew a shuddering breath. He knew he should sit up. He knew he should find some argument to dispute the evidence she was starting to piece together. But the effort to lift her, to move her, to separate the welcome heat of her thighs from his hips, was gargantuan. Instead, he averted his gaze, watching as his fingers twined one of her satiny curls. "I'll survive."

"That's nothing to joke about," she said tremulously. "I thought—"

Her voice broke. He spied the track, if not the tear itself, and a humbling sense of awe washed over him.

"You're sick, aren't you?" she whispered hoarsely. "Really sick."

The lump in his throat nearly suffocated him. As hard as he tried, he couldn't lie to her.

"It's not your concern," he forced out.

"It is."

She rocked forward, and his heart skipped a beat. The beams of sunlight that danced behind her head seemed to rush toward him as she lowered her lips. And when her mouth settled over his, he was gifted with the taste of paradise.

He cradled her head, his pulse thundering in his skull. Strangely, the pressure brought him no pain. His awareness telescoped to the moment, to her sweet offering, to the scent of larkspur and lilac that spilled from her like some midsummer bounty. She was the very essence of the season, brimming with life, resplendent in full flower—magical. All his hopes and dreams woven into one ripe and luscious lover.

He cautioned himself to remember her innocence, to enjoy her kiss and nothing more. He was even careful to keep his quaking hands above her shoulders. It was the flavor of her tears that undid him.

"Eden. Honey." He choked. "Don't cry for me."

A sob shuddered through her anyway. His own emotions dangerously close to the surface, he clasped her length, rolling her to her side. She clung to him as if the ground were spinning and he were her only anchor. He tried to soothe her with his hands, to murmur consolations.

She pulled him closer. A muffled warning knelled in his brain, but he was too busy needing, wanting,
feeling
for the first time in forever, to heed the alarm. He thought only that holding her was better than his dreams. And he didn't want to let go.