His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (43 page)

"Eden, stand back!"

"M-Michael?" Her throat sounded as raw as the fear that clawed his gut. "Michael, help me!"

He muttered a prayer and swung. The words came from nowhere, a catechism he'd long forgotten, a plea he'd stopped speaking, because every time he'd prayed, it had fallen on deaf ears.

...Deliver us from evil...

"Hurry!"

Her panic drove him harder, faster, hacking through flames and timbers to reach her on the other side. The heat scalded him through his damp clothes. Sweat stung his eyes; cinders sizzled on his flesh. He barely noticed. If she died, his life would be over. She wasn't just the one true love of his heart. She was the bright, shining piece that was missing from his soul.

"Michael, the roof's caving in!"

"No!"

A lifetime—his own—flashed before his eyes. All the times he'd failed, all the times the Angel of Death had beaten him, paraded macabrely through his mind. In a flash of insight that made him sob, he realized that the torment he'd caused himself had been misguided, even selfish. If Eden died this day, it was because God had called her to Him with loving arms.

And nothing a husband or a doctor might do could keep her from that joyous reunion.

Don't take her, God. Please, don't take her. I need her more than you do. I want to start over, really start over. She has so much to teach me...

A shout rose behind him. Figures flitted like wraiths through the hoary coil of smoke. From everywhere at once, saddle blankets descended to smother the flames. Dimly, he recognized Collie at his elbow, hammering a gunstock against the door. A black-haired man with a low-riding holster ran forward with a second hatchet, while a man wearing a tin star shouted for water.

Iron bit into the blazing planks; wood chips and embers showered his shoulders. Between the combined battering of hatchets and gun, the door split and finally crashed, loosing a hail of sparks. Michael didn't wait for Collie and Chance to beat the flames to a less daunting height. He simply plunged over the threshold and grabbed her.

A heartbeat later, the whole building collapsed, spitting tongues of flame like Chinese rockets.

She trembled against his wet length, coughing into his shoulder. That she lived was an unquestionable miracle. He clutched her hard against his crashing heart—hard enough to hold an indecisive spirit earthbound. Blinking back the sting in his eyes, he carried her away from the profane, away from the blood and sweat and smoke that tainted the clearing. He took her as far as the circle of trees would allow before he knelt to examine her, shrugging off his coat to shield her bloomers from gawking deputies.

"Michael—"

"You're safe now," he choked, closing his ears to the shouts of the men who were struggling to keep the fire from spreading to the dogwoods and pines.

"But I have to tell you—"

The sight of tears streaking the ashes on her cheeks was his undoing. He kissed her hungrily, passionately, overwhelmed by the fierce, all-consuming need to make her want to live out her days as his one, his only, his wife.

He stopped only because she whimpered.

"Where are you hurt?" he rasped, running shaking hands over her arms, her spine, her legs.

"I'm not. Michael—"

"Your neck is burned," he muttered to himself, ignoring what was surely a brave but erroneous assessment. "And your hair is singed. I don't see any other damage to your head, thank God, although there appears to be a splinter in your—"

"Michael!"

He started.

"Listen to me."

The determination in her gaze made his gut clench. Fearing she would send him away, or worse, try to walk out of his life on her own, he mustered his best I'm-the-doctor glare. "We'll talk later. Right now, you're going to rest—"

"Doc!" Jamie ran up, panting. Soot smeared pink, raw patches of his skin where it peeked through shredded flannel and singed dungarees. "The sheriff's asking for you."

"The sheriff can wait. Your burns need to be salved. Get my valise. And the blanket in my saddlebags."

"Um... okay."

The boy ran off again, and Eden moistened her lips.

"I found Gunther. He's dead—"

"Shh. I saw."

"But he was shot. From behind."

Murder.
Michael hardened his jaw.

"Do you think Collie—"

"God, I hope not."

Jamie dashed back with the valise and the blanket. To Michael's surprise, Eden struggled to her knees, knocking aside his hands while he tried to strip his wet coat away from her legs. She snatched the satchel from Jamie.

"Here." She shoved a tin of soft paraffin into Michael's hands as he tried to drape her with the blanket. "You salve Jamie. Then treat those blisters on your arms. I need to examine your head."

He frowned, refusing to believe he'd heard her correctly. "Let me worry about—"

"Turn around."

"Eden, you'll catch your death of—"

"Quit being a stubborn old billy goat!"

Jamie snickered. Goosebumps sprinkled Michael from his head to his toes. He didn't think the dampness of his clothing was to blame. The light in his wife's eyes was a wonder to behold.

Stunned into silence, he bowed his head, kneeling meekly before her. A hundred questions circled, shrieking through his brain, as her nimble fingers probed and parted his hair. He wondered about Gunther. He wondered about the animals. He wondered what the devil Eden was doing pawing him at a time like this.

The shack had dissolved into splinters. Distracted, he watched Chance and Collie, Truitt and his men, beating the remains into a pile of smoldering ash. The leaves beneath Michael's knees were soggy; he suspected the only reason the trees hadn't lit like a bonfire was because they'd been thoroughly soaked the night before.

"So far so good," she muttered beside his ear. "I'm not finding anything."

"What—"

"Shh!
Jamie, go find another blanket. Doc needs one, too."

The boy scampered into the clearing smoke, and Michael frowned.

"Would you mind telling me—"

"Michael Elijah Jones," she interrupted, "you are under
my
care now. And I'll ask the questions. Six months ago, after you were treating Jamie's crippled fawn, did you notice any insects crawling on you?"

He blinked at her. The avenging angel who'd faced down Claudia, Collie, and Sera on his behalf was now kneeling before him in all her charred and tattered glory. He couldn't remember her ever looking so beautiful.

"I found a tick under my collar. But I assure you," he added hastily, "I took the proper precautions, and it's quite dead now..." He frowned. Her eyes had grown positively luminous. "What?" he demanded again.

"And your illness mysteriously developed about a week later, didn't it?"

He stared hard into those triumphant jade pools before realization kicked him in the gut.

"Tick fever," he choked.

"Lucky for you, Talking Raven taught me how to cure it."

As hard as recognition hit him, understanding hit him harder. A tremor shook him to his bones.

"It's over now," she said softly, wrapping her arms around him. "You're not going to be an invalid. You haven't had the symptoms long enough for nerve damage to set in."

"But how did you—"

"Sera. When she found a tick on Vandy, I got the idea."

Michael squeezed his eyes closed. All this time, he'd never put two and two together. Nor had any of his university-educated colleagues. It had taken Eden, a woman who'd been trained by an Indian, a woman who studied nature instead of books, to trace his symptoms to their cause. And to think he'd been trying to convince her that her methods were outdated, inferior before new medical science. He hadn't been a goat, he'd been an ass!

Gabriel, are you listening? If you are... thank you.

"Jones!"

Michael tensed, recognizing Truitt's preemptive baritone.

"How's the missus?"

A barn-sized shadow fell across their bunker of leaves. Michael struggled for a semblance of professional courtesy. He and Eden had been on the verge of making peace; he wanted to capture the moment, not abandon it to play doctor. But a dead man was lying in the clearing, and God only knew how many others needed treatment for burns.

"I'm fine, sheriff," Eden said, her voice still hoarse. "Do your men need medical care?"

"She swallowed half a ton of smoke," he growled at his stubborn but adorable wife. "She needs bed rest."

"And you need to strip off those wet clothes," she fired back.

Truitt's smile was fleeting. A large man, whose belly was exceeded only by his reputation as a deadeye, the lawman looked flushed, harried, and grim. "Sounds like you folks are back to normal. Jones, I need a word with you."

Michael muttered under his breath, but he rose, following Truitt to the center of the clearing, where two deputies, Collie, Jamie, Chance, and Kit were gathered in a circle, staring at the blood-spattered blanket now draping Gunther. To Michael's consternation, Eden hugged her own blanket to her hips and followed.

"Now, Jamie's already told us," Truitt said, his spurs jingling as he walked, "that he and Mrs. Jones found the body sprawled across the doorstep when they were coming to feed the animals. Where were you?"

Michael resented the question. "Looking for Collie."

"You never found him, eh?"

Michael glanced uncertainly at the boy. Collie stood like a cornered wolf, his teeth bared, his shoulders tense and quaking. Arms akimbo, a deputy stood on either side of him. The man on Collie's left had confiscated his bowie knife and shotgun. Worry followed close on the heels of Michael's observation.

"I didn't shoot Gunther," Collie snapped as the bull-necked sheriff halted before him.

"I'd like to believe you, son. But the truth is, you ain't been on good terms with Gunther."

"That don't mean I killed 'im."

Kit snorted. "Hell, sheriff. Gunther was madder than a wet hornet last night when I told him I found his stolen coons and hounds. I figure he rode up here and confronted the boy. When ol' Bert made like he was taking his rustled animals, Collie shot him in the back with that scattergun."

"That's Claudia's shotgun," Michael interceded, glancing at the weapon that a deputy had confiscated. "Where's Gunther's? He never rode anywhere without it."

"I never saw a shotgun," Eden said uneasily. "Or anyone in the clearing, for that matter."

"That's 'cause the boy had already hotfooted it down the mountain, ma'am," Kit said glibly. "'Fore you rode up, he probably plugged ol' Bert, made that gun his own, then set the shack on fire to hide the evidence—"

"That's ridiculous," Eden flared. "Collie would never harm the animals. He was trying to
save
them from Gunther."

"No offense, ma'am," Kit said, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "But it ain't any secret you've been trying to steer Collie down the straight and narrow. A fine lady like yourself can't be blamed if the boy turns plumb loco and sets out to sin."

Michael tossed a narrow glance at Kit's roan gelding, grazing near Brutus. The usual rifle jutted from the hillbilly's saddle boot. A battered shotgun was also strapped between his saddlebags. "And just what brings
you
to this clearing, McCoy?"

Kit shrugged. "Same as you, I reckon. Saw the fire. Came to investigate."

"Yeah? You got here awfully fast. I don't suppose you have an alibi for your whereabouts this morning."

Kit arched a tawny brow. "Sorry to disappoint you, Doc. Me and Chance were out yonder, fishing for breakfast." He smirked. "Shoot. You hurt my feelings tryin' to finger me that way. And here I thought we were almost family."

Michael might have lunged for the bastard's throat if three lawmen hadn't been standing in their circle.

"The fact is," Truitt said in dire tones, "it's the boy who's got motive." He addressed Collie again. "Claiming you didn't shoot Gunther isn't good enough. You need a witness. Where were you all morning?"

"I told you. In the cave by Yaller Ridge."

"Doin' what?"

"Sleepin'!"

A match hissed and flared to life. All eyes turned to Chance. The elder McCoy bent his head, puffing his cigarette against the flame he shielded in his hand. Unlike Kit, who looked like he'd recently scrubbed in the stream, Chance's face was blackened by soot; the burns on his forearms were blistering. Parts of his shirt had been singed off; a gash trickled blood at his knee.

Michael remembered how the outlaw had fought beside him, hacking at the door to free Eden. He remembered, too, that Chance had tried to kiss his wife. The knowledge didn't make Michael any less suspicious. Whoever had started that fire had needed a matchsafe.

Chance raised his head, his eyes squinting faintly from the smoke he'd exhaled. "You aren't thinking straight, Collie," he said casually. "You weren't sleeping all morning. Fact is, you were fishing earlier in that river below the ridge. Must've been about seven o'clock. I remember real clear, 'cause the smell of your campfire was making me hungry. Kit and me climbed the ridge and saw you filleting a trout bigger than my arm. Shoot. Don't you remember sharing a smoke with us 'round 'bout 7:30?"