No doubt due to the Independence Day festivities, Blue Thunder Valley's most popular swimming hole was deserted. Michael reined in, uncertain whether to be anxious or relieved. Part of him relished the idea of strolling the grassy streambank with Eden alone, of sharing her delight over tadpoles and dragonflies, of holding her hand or combing his fingers through her wind-mussed hair.
A smaller, increasingly less vocal part of him demanded to know if he'd lost his mind. The environs of Quiller's Creek weren't as erotic as his dreamscapes, but the reeds and boulders made the lagoon secluded enough for skinny dipping. How many times had he jumped butt-naked into the water as a morally uptight youth desperate to prove to the other children that he could—and would—defy his father?
Michael tried to draw some spiritual fortitude from the rope swing that dangled from a long-suffering cottonwood, from the childhood memories of water fights and crayfish hunts and raft floats under a full moon. Unfortunately, he also remembered the stolen clothes pranks. Claudia had kept his humiliation from his parents. In private, however, she still ribbed him about the time she had gone in search of him—worried because he hadn't arrived to chop her firewood—and had found him hiding miserably in the bushes, scratching the poison-ivy welts that covered his nakedness.
To this day, Michael wondered if Rafe had filched his breeches. Although he was two years Michael's junior, Rafe had always been the popular Jones, the ringleader among the other children. Michael had been less welcome in their circle because he'd taken more seriously his father's sermons on youthful malfeasance and the road to damnation.
"Michael? Is something wrong?"
Eden's gentle query nudged him back to the present. He drew a shuddering breath. In truth, Rafe wasn't the only reason Michael had stopped coming to this swimming hole. After all these years, he'd thought he'd be able to stand on these banks with equanimity.
Loath to appear weak, he pasted on a smile and did his best to blink away the vision of a coughing but exuberant Gabriel romping through the shallows with his speckled hunting hound.
"Of course not." He crossed to her side of the phaeton and reached to help her down. "It's beautiful here, isn't it?"
Her brow furrowed, as if she recognized his diversion. "Yes." She placed her palm in his. It felt like sunshine against his skin. "I guess there're a lot of memories for you here?"
"A Pandora's box full of them. Hardly the sort of fare to inflict upon your ears."
"I don't mind."
He heard her sincerity. More than that, he heard her caring. The combination helped to salve his wounds, strengthening his resolve not to ruin their precious afternoon together.
"I'd much rather you told me what the devil weighs so much in this picnic hamper."
She blushed, charming him.
"I think it's the bottle of wine. Aunt Claudia smuggled it in when I wasn't looking. Apparently lemonade doesn't attract high bidders."
"I didn't realize Claudia was so philanthropic," he said dryly.
"Actually..." Her dimples peeked. "I don't think Claudia likes having another unmarried female in the house. Too much competition."
He chuckled, and they strolled, taking a leisurely, meandering direction toward the bubbling sounds behind the cattails. Michael carried the hamper; Eden clutched the quilt Sera had thought to put in the phaeton that morning. At the time, Michael had been amused to learn the lengths to which his sister would go to trap him into a romantic liaison.
"We're going to steal away from all the chaperones," Sera had declared boldly. "Me, Eden, Bonnie, and all our beaux. We're going to have a perfectly lovely group picnic, then we're going to sneak off with our sweethearts, hold hands and probably spark. Because you're such a wet blanket, Michael Jones, you're not invited to come along. Unless, of course, you get the gumption to be a beau instead of a brother and outbid all Eden's other gentleman callers for her hamper."
He smiled a little, remembering how she'd worked the protective-brother and the jealous-beau angle all into one sentence. Not to be manipulated, he'd sicced Claudia on her, making his neighbor promise to keep an eye on Sera and chaperone the bell chasers, especially if Kit McCoy joined their ranks.
And yet, knowing that money-raising for orphans was a secondary consideration for Sera, Bonnie, and every other picnic maker in town, here he was, of his own free will, strolling side by side with Eden Mallory. Alarm bells should have been making him deaf by now.
Instead, the usual warning noise had fallen strangely silent. It was just one more indication that he'd lost his mind.
Eden's gasp of delight broke his reverie. His lips quirked as he watched her crane back her neck, gazing up through the shifting leaves of an eastern redbud tree. Amazingly for the time of year, one tenacious twig still bore a spray of purple flowers.
That Eden had spied the miniature bouquet nearly ten feet above them cued him all over again that her observation skills were keener than most people's. He wondered how much about his illness he inadvertently betrayed every time he risked a moment in her company.
"I think we should spread our lunch here," she announced.
"And why is that?"
"It feels good. Don't you think?"
He arched a brow. He wasn't opposed by any means to the location. He'd just never heard anybody choose a picnic site because it "feels good."
"What feels good about it?" he asked, humoring her as she spread the quilt.
Her hands paused where she knelt, smoothing the wrinkles from the fabric. "Well..." She glanced up at him, her smile growing shy. "It's green and growing. Talking Raven, the Cherokee Medicine Woman who taught me about herbs, used to say that healing happens when we sit on the earth. And it makes the earth happy to be so remembered."
Michael had never heard that before, either. He chuckled to himself. Eight years might have passed since the seventeen-year-old innocent had braved his best growls to bathe his wounds, but the sweetness of that maid still lurked in the eyes of the woman sitting at his feet. Now I know why bees can't resist nectar, he mused, succumbing to the silken tug on his heart that made him join her on the quilt.
He finished unfurling the folds and ripples on their blanket while she busied herself with the hamper. A virtual feast lurked inside: potato salad, watermelon, fried chicken, canned peaches, deviled eggs, smoked ham, cheese, pralines, apples, and cornbread. But the piece de la resistance, as far as he was concerned, was the cherry pie. The tin practically buckled from the weight of its fruit.
Persuaded by Eden's carefree nature, he yielded to temptation and reached for that pie.
"What are you doing?"
He grinned, cutting himself a slice. "Beating the ants to my investment."
"Isn't it customary to eat the main course first?"
"Not according to Sera. 'Life is uncertain' she tells me. 'Eat dessert first.'"
She laughed at him. "Honestly. Blaming your kid sister for your table etiquette. I think you've rubbed off on Collie. Last week, I found him scraping up cherry pie splatters from my kitchen floor—before breakfast, yet."
Michael sucked the cherry filling from his fork. "The boy does have good taste, I'll grant him that."
"So it's true. Cherry pie's your favorite."
"Let me put it this way. I wouldn't have spent one hundred dollars on peach cobbler."
He was rewarded by another peal of mirth. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so at ease with a woman, so eager to please her. Even if Eden was a bell chaser, she didn't raise his hackles the way the others did.
"So how did a woman who grew up in a traveling medicine show learn to bake a blue-ribbon cherry pie?"
She adopted a conspiratorial tone. "I practiced a lot. Especially on miners and ranch hands. If they showed up on Papa's doorstep with a bellyache, we left town in a hurry."
He chuckled, enjoying her humor. "So you weren't deliberately trying to drum up business for him?"
"Oh no. Quite the contrary. Most of the time, we had more patients tha
n we could handle. That's why I want to patent Papa's heart tonic," she added eagerly. "We got hundreds of testimonials about it. I really do believe he was on to something."
"What was in it?"
"Oh, some herbs and wildflowers. Mostly foxglove." Her color rose, and she slid him a veiled look. "You don't believe my father was a charlatan because he mixed home remedies, do you?"
Michael toyed with his fork. The conservative physician in him was unwilling to give Andrew Mallory an unconditional endorsement. But only wild horses could have dragged an answer from him that he knew would hurt Eden's feelings.
"Well, a lot of plants have validity as curatives. Many pharmaceuticals have been derived from the chemical compounds researchers have isolated in plants. But without knowing the active ingredients in your father's heart tonic, I would hesitate to advocate it as a drug."
She seemed encouraged by his answer. "If I gave you the recipe, would you... would you be willing to analyze it? In the hopes of prescribing it to your patients, I mean. I think Aunt Claudia would be willing to try the remedy, if you were the one to prescribe it. And I know there are other folks in this town who are suffering from weak hearts. But you see, they don't have to suffer. The foxglove works.
"Of course, I realize you'll want to prove it to yourself," she amended hastily, a childlike vulnerability vying with her determination. "I know you wouldn't want to give your patients false hope."
That newfound part of him, the part that wanted to please her, couldn't conceive of anything more heinous than saying no.
"I'd be happy to look at your father's recipe," he said quietly. "Nothing would make me happier than cheating the Angel of Death out of a few more souls." Before the bastard comes for mine.
Her smile was misty. "Thank you, Michael. I so want my father's work to live on. Even if... even if I'm not the one to do it."
She tried to hide the shadow of grief that crossed her features. Ducking her head, she spooned potato salad onto her plate. "I know you probably believe that unscrupulous men run medicine shows. But Papa wasn't bilking people. He wasn't running from the law, either. He took his medical practice on the road to protect Talking Raven, because none of the white communities would accept her. Talking Raven used to say that traveling with Papa was part of Great Spirit's plan because they could help more people that way. And they did help a lot of people, contrary to the lies spread about Papa in Silverton."
Her jaw jutted.
Lost in thought, Michael uncorked the wine. He remembered her outburst in the parlor and the tears she'd tried to hide as she'd mentioned a mob. She'd refused to answer his questions then, and he wondered how to broach the topic now without causing her additional pain.
"Do you think you'll go back to Silverton? To set the record straight?"
Her shoulders tensed. She took an inordinately long moment to smooth a napkin across her lap, to balance her plate with its Spartan helpings of salad, chicken, and watermelon. He poured her a glass of wine. When she was forced to accept the goblet from his hand, her troubled gaze finally rose to his.
"I don't feel safe there."
This disturbed him more than he could say. He leaned his spine against the tree. "Why don't you tell me about it."
She bowed her head, and the reflection of her flame-colored hair rippled across the pale, sweet libation she swirled in her glass. "They threatened to lynch me."
Michael's glass froze half way to his lips. "Who?"
"Some men who... claimed Papa owed them money after he died. But I know they were lying. Papa didn't have to pay people to... to sit in the audience and pretend to be cured. Besides, I'd never seen any of those men at our shows, and I assure you, I would have remembered them if they'd testified. I was keeping careful records, you see, so Papa could improve his tonic.
"I can't prove it," she added tremulously, "but I'm sure those men were the ones who ransacked the wagon the day of Papa's burial. It was horrible. They smashed the bottles and burned my herbs; they stole Valentine and shoved the wagon over the cliff..."
She swallowed, her hand shaking on her glass. "I went to the town marshal, but he wasn't any help. He said mining towns were full of drunken rowdies, most of whom were transients. How was he supposed to track them down? The county sheriff wasn't any more help. He made a few cursory inquiries just to placate me. The next morning, I woke to find a rag doll with red yarn for hair hanging from a rope outside my hotel window."
Something cold settled in the pit of Michael's stomach. He recognized it as rage.
"And you were all alone? With no one to protect you?"
She nodded, biting her lip. "I fled town with Stazzie that night. I hate that I had to run," she added miserably. "I'm sure the people of Silverton took it as proof of some crime. But I swear, Michael, I never knowingly mixed or sold an elixir that I didn't truly believe would help someone heal."
"I know," he said in soothing tones. Inwardly, he had the overwhelming desire to buy a train ticket to Silverton and beat the bloody hell out of some miners.
He struggled to keep his tone gentle. "Were these rowdies responsible for your father's death?"
"No. Pneumonia killed Papa." She was quiet for a long moment. "Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't help."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I tried everything, Michael, everything, but nothing brought him around. I keep wondering: If I'd chosen hellebore instead of bloodroot, or if I'd been more adamant that he rest, would he be alive today? He was so stubborn, you see, working long into the night, refusing to admit he suffered more than a chest cold. By the time the sickness forced him to his bed, liquid had seeped into his lungs. He only lived two more days."
Michael's throat constricted as her grief triggered the memory of his own failures. How many times had he blamed himself for Gabriel's decline—and over the same lung complaint that had killed his mother?
"Sometimes you can do everything conceivable to save a life," he said grimly, "but Death defeats you anyway. Death and God."
Her brow furrowed, as if she wasn't quite certain she agreed. "I know faith is part of the healing process. Faith and God. Still..." She bit her lip. "When I lost my faith in myself, I swore I'd never heal again."
His scalp prickled. It was eerie the way her experience paralleled his.
"I swore the same thing after Gabriel died," he admitted, his voice roughened by emotions he was still desperate to repress.
"What changed your mind?"
Sad little faces. Love-starved eyes. "Cholera broke out at the orphanage."
"Oh," she whispered.
He forced his gaze back to his plate. The understanding in those glistening, emerald eyes had nearly been his undoing. "Practicing medicine isn't quite like climbing back on a horse, " he told her. "Still, the fear will pass."
"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 thro
aty 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.
His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) Page 18
