Michael supposed Rafe still had good reason to hate him. God knew, if he were Rafe, forgiveness wouldn't have come easily to him.
"Do you have a gun?" he blurted.
Wariness flitted through Rafe's mirrorlike gaze. He was too accomplished an actor, however, to drop his sardonic mask. "What would I need a gun for, brother?"
"To protect your sister from an outlaw."
Claudia's face darkened. "Kit McCoy is back?"
Michael nodded.
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"Because there's more, Claudia." He fought down his own agitation, doing his best to gentle his tone. "Collie's gone looking for him."
"What?" The old woman turned nearly as gray as her hair. "McCoy is Collie's rat?"
Michael glanced at Rafe. Judging by his brother's narrowed stare, Michael suspected that Rafe had grasped the urgency of the situation.
"I'm going to find the boy. Talk some sense into him. In the meantime, I need you both to stay here, in case McCoy comes looking for Sera—or worse, she gets wind he's in town. Rafe, if I'm not back tomorrow, you'll have to keep her occupied. Especially come sundown. She'll try to sneak out her window."
"Why wouldn't you be back tomorrow?" Rafe demanded.
Michael hesitated. Claudia's gnarled hands were actually quaking. Never had he seen her looking so helpless, so... old. It bothered him more than words could describe. She'd come to dote on the boy. If Collie did something to get himself killed—with Claudia's gun, yet—Michael knew it would destroy her.
He forced a smile. "I'm due at the orphanage tomorrow morning. Sometimes, I'm detained there all day."
"You're a poor liar," Claudia croaked. "Do you have a gun?"
Michael cringed inwardly. He was in the habit of patching up men, not plugging them with bullets. Still, she had a valid point. "I keep a .45 in my office."
"And when's the last time you oiled it, much less fired it?"
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.
"Never mind." Shoving back her chair, she stumped to the sink, tossed a sleepy Stazzie off the windowsill, then knocked over a couple of spice bottles to reach for the ammunition box behind them. Next, she grabbed her own six-shooter and holster, which were hanging too high for even Vandy's curious paws, from a peg amidst the dried herbs on the rafters. "Here." She thrust them both into Michael's hands. "The safety's on. Try to keep it that way."
Michael hardened his jaw to stave off his uneasiness. A preacher's boy-turned-doctor didn't have much occasion to fire a gun.
Rafe must have drawn a similar conclusion. He rose as Michael headed for the door.
"Might I suggest," he said casually, barring Michael's way, "that your first stop be the marshal's office?"
Michael shook his head, reaching around Rafe for the knob. "I don't want Collie thrown in jail."
"Better jail than boot hill."
Michael's heart skipped a beat. As much as he hated the idea, he knew Rafe was right.
The trouble was, Collie would never forgive him.
He yanked open the door. The wind slammed into him like a cold fist. Shivering, he tugged up his coat collar and grimaced at the roiling, charcoal sky. It had already been one hell of a night.
Now it promised to get worse.
Chapter 14
Lightning flashed false daylight, and thunder battered the window sash, rousing Eden from an exhausted doze. She shivered. The coals in the bedwarmer had long since burned out. She guessed dawn was an hour away.
Sitting gingerly in the ghostly half-light, she tried not to disturb Sera, who sprawled at her side. How her friend could have slept a wink through last night's cacophony mystified Eden. At one point, she'd thought that Claudia's roof would blow off. She hated storms. They always seemed to portend some dire circumstance.
But lightning had been spitting long before Michael slammed into Claudia's kitchen last night, so Eden tried to put her superstitions behind her. Hopefully, the confrontation with her husband was the worst that would come of this storm. The thunderheads sounded like they were finally chugging over the mountains. With any luck, sunshine would soon warm the valley, and a crystal-clear autumn day would follow.
The trouble was, she was dreading this day almost as much as she'd dreaded last night's storm.
With Stazzie weaving sleepily through her ankles, Eden crept into the dressing room to tug on a skirt and blouse. The only reason she didn't dare pad to the kitchen in her night wrapper was her brother-in-law. Claudia had insisted Rafe sleep in her house, rather than a hotel, and for all Eden knew, Rafe was already on the prowl, hunting for Arbuckles and jelly muffins.
It wasn't that she didn't trust Rafe; quite the contrary. Last night, she'd been so desperate for a sympathetic ear, that when she'd found him building a fire in Claudia's parlor, she'd spilled her heart to him. Although she'd divulged confidences about Michael that she'd had no right to divulge, her excuse was that she loved him. And that she worried he was too stubborn to take the first step to reconcile with his brother.
God knew, he hadn't been terribly conciliatory to her last night.
She sighed. As angry as his reasoning had made her, she'd believed his claim that he'd been abstinent rather than unfaithful. She'd been more than a little ashamed, too, to realize what an appalling image she'd had of her husband, that he'd seed his bastard in a widow who was already rearing a fatherless child. Knowing Michael's overblown sense of responsibility, Eden wondered how she could have thought that he cared so little for the price Bonnie would pay if he died. As exasperating as her husband could be, Eden loved him even more to realize he had shouldered the consequences and leashed his desire to spare her the burden of raising his baby.
Still, Michael had to learn that his shoulders were only so broad—and that she possessed a perfectly sturdy pair herself. She just wasn't sure that trotting back to his kitchen and his bed was the best way to teach him those lessons.
Hurrying along the chilly corridor, she tried not to trip over Stazzie as she descended the stairs to the indisputably warmest room in the house: Claudia's kitchen. To her surprise, her aunt was already seated at the sawbuck table. Her sparrowlike frame was hunched beneath the weight of a patchwork quilt, and her bony fist trembled as she sipped a mug whose contents looked more like Texas crude than coffee. Eden grew concerned. It wasn't like Claudia to let her hair hang in limp strands. More to the point, she couldn't ever remember seeing Claudia looking so grim, gray, or haggard.
"What's wrong?" she greeted, her eyes straying anxiously to the bottle of tonic at Claudia's elbow.
Claudia started. Catching her aunt unawares was another telltale sign. It worried Eden.
Claudia, however, was too canny to stay disadvantaged for long. She pasted on her habitual scowl. "This danged roof, that's what. I paid that MacAffee brat three whole shooting lessons to fix the leaks. Hell, that kid's worse at carpentry than gunplay. You seen him?"
"Uh... no." Eden doubted the roof was the problem. "But it's still early, don't you think?"
"I went to drag him by the ear outta my hayloft, but he'd already run off," Claudia said. "You suppose he's hiding at his pa's shack? Last night weren't any kind of night to be holed up on a mountain," she muttered to herself.
Eden crossed to the stove. Furtively watching her kinswoman, she tossed in another log. Despite the tonic at her elbow—or maybe because of it—Claudia didn't seem to be suffering any coronary distress. "Are you worried about Collie?"
"Nah. Just want to take the work he owes me outta his hide. Here now," she added irritably, glaring under the table. Stazzie was butting her head against Claudia's ankles. "Danged varmint thinks I'm gonna give her milk. Scat. Scat, you mangy cat!"
Eden giggled as Stazzie, rumbling affectionately, flopped like a rag poppet across Claudia's heavily darned socks.
"See, Auntie, Stazzie's helping you stay warm."
"Yer furball's giving me fleas, that's what," Claudia said, scratching sullenly at h
er calf. "And that coon of Collie's is worse. Say, where'd that critter run off to? I've been meaning to make me a hat."
"Oh, stop it." Eden spied Vandy snoozing in the copper soup kettle hanging over the wash tub. She shook her head. It really was odd that Collie hadn't come back for his pet. He knew that Stazzie and Vandy were likely to tear the house down if left unwatched for a solitary second. They feuded worse than Rafe and Michael.
And speaking of Michael...
"You seen that husband of yours?"
Eden winced. Usually it was Sera who did the mind reading.
"No."
"Humph. Thought he'd be back by now. Maybe he holed up at Widow Witherspoon's last night. He would have needed somewhere warm to sleep in that typhoon. When are you two gonna kiss and make up?"
Eden blushed, distracted from asking why Michael had ridden to the orphanage. "Really, Auntie." She poured herself a cup of coffee.
"Don't 'Really, Auntie' me. I want nieces and nephews to bounce on my knee. I ain't gettin' any younger, you know. It's high time you and Michael stopped squabbling and started acting like man and wife."
Eden winced, recalling the letter she'd left her husband. Still, what choice had she had? She'd told Claudia how he'd slammed out the door, refusing, as usual, to listen to advice about his health, Rafe, or anything else. His stubbornness was making her miserable. "It's not like I haven't tried to be a good wife to him."
"Bein' a good wife ain't the same thing as being a good pretender."
She frowned, sitting across from Claudia. "What do you mean?"
"I mean this problem you think you're having with Michael ain't about him. It's about you."
"Me?"
Claudia nodded, her deepset eyes disconcertingly keen above her grizzled cheeks. "It takes two to argue, child. The minute you started pretending you didn't know about herbs, or healing, or anything else that might cost you yer man's approval, you started living a false life."
"I hardly think—"
Claudia snorted. "Now who ain't listenin' to advice? You want the truth, girlie? Michael ain't the one makin' you miserable. You are. God gave you certain gifts, and He expects you to use 'em."
"But I did try to use my gifts! I tried to be a good healer."
"Sure. You did it yer pa's way. You did it that Injun woman's way. But you never did it yer own way. You got a knack for helping folks that can't be bottled or prescribed. Someday Michael's gonna wake up and see that. Just like I did."
Eden shook her head, her throat constricting. "He won't even try my tonics."
"So you're gonna let that fool husband of yours make you doubt yerself? Even though your remedies cured Collie, Jamie, Amanda, half a dozen coons, and God only knows how many other critters?"
A tear slid down Eden's cheek. Claudia reached over and awkwardly patted her arm.
"There now," she said, her voice growing rough with discomfort. "I don't mean to say nuthin' against Michael. I ain't forgettin' he's fightin' a battle he don't think he can win. But don't you see, child? He's scared. Scared you won't be able to go on. Deep in his soul, he wants to know you've got the gumption to make a life without him. That's why you've got to stand up to him. You've got to prove that while you love him, and you want him, you don't need him by your side."
Eden swallowed a sob, averting her eyes. She'd never stopped to consider that Michael might worry about her future because he thought she lacked backbone. All this time, while he'd been challenging her diagnoses and refusing to heed her medical advice, she'd believed he was contemptuous of her methods, and more importantly, of her. The great irony in this misunderstanding was that while she'd tried never to cross him, thinking she was being a loyal wife, she'd only roused his frustration. Was it any wonder they'd grown so far apart?
A long silence passed while she furtively wiped away tears. Maybe there was still a chance for their marriage, if she dared to be the healer she'd always wanted to be.
"Is there anything else bothering you?" she asked meekly. "Besides my marriage troubles, I mean."
Stazzie jumped up on the table to lick a dribble from the pitcher of cream. Claudia reached absently to pet her.
"Kit McCoy's back."
Eden's heart slammed painfully into her ribs. "Does Sera know?"
"You think she would've spent all night in this house if she did?"
Eden uneasily stirred her coffee. Sera didn't confide secrets the way she used to. Still, Eden liked to think her friend would have told her if she were contemplating... well, a reunion with Kit McCoy. "Michael will be livid when he finds out."
"Who d'ya think told me?"
Eden bit her lip, glancing toward the kitchen window and the Jones house, its chimney tops gilded by streaks of dawn.
"Did Michael... um, say what he might do?"
"I voted on tar and feathers weeks ago, but nobody listened to me."
Something about Claudia's evasiveness made Eden doubly uneasy. "Auntie? What did Michael do?"
"Nothing yet, God willing."
"I'm not sure I follow—"
"Collie took my scattergun. Gone to hunt rats, he said. Who's the only two-legged rat you know worth huntin' on a night like the last one?"
Eden choked. McCoy.
A board creaked in the hallway.
"Eden?"
Eden and Claudia both jumped. Their stares locked.
"I declare." Sera stumbled into the room, rumpled and yawning. "It's like an icebox in that bedroom. You might have told me you were waking instead of leaving me to freeze to death."
"Serves you right," Claudia rallied, making a furtive sign for Eden to keep quiet. "In my day, young girls were up before dawn, gathering eggs."
Sera rolled her eyes, meandering to the pantry. "We don't have chickens, Auntie."
"You got a horse to feed, don't ya?"
"Brutus is Michael's horse."
Sera cracked open a jar of marmalade. At the sound—or perhaps the smell—Vandy's snout poked out of the kettle and his forepaws hooked over the rim.
"Not that I would mind having a horse of my own," Sera said wistfully.
Vandy dove from the kettle and scampered down the plumbing to tug the hem of Sera's nightgown. She ignored his plea.
"I've never actually had a pet. Goober was supposed to be the family's hound, but he loved Gabriel best. Everyone could see that. And Collie and Jamie have those orphaned animals wrapped around their little fingers. Those puppies, bunnies, and coons don't pay me the slightest mind, unless I'm toting food." Arms now laden with butter, jam, and cornpone, she flopped onto the bench beside Eden.
Vandy, apparently, was determined to prove Sera right. He vaulted onto the bench and clambered over Eden's lap, making her slosh coffee all over the table.
"Vandy!" Eden's scolding went unheeded.
Tiny black fingers snatched the cornbread that Sera was doctoring. She squealed, dumping a tablespoon of marmalade down her robe as Vandy scampered across her thighs and fled with his prize.
"Ugh!" Her cheeks mottling, Sera fished an orange glob from her décolletage and shook it from her fingers.
"See what I mean? That coon needs to be spanked. After that, he needs to be dunked in a pennyroyal bath. The last time Vandy sat on my lap, I got fleas. And yesterday, after I caught him chewing a hole through my straw boater, I found a tick crawling along the headband!"
"Probably got it from the cat," Claudia grunted.
"Auntie, Stazzie does not have..." Eden's voice trailed.
Ticks?
Her flash of insight was followed by an unbidden prickling that crept over her skin and made her heart trip.
Although she herself had never treated such a case, Colorado trappers often complained of headaches, high fever, chills, pains, and growing weakness. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, as it was called, was caused by ticks. It usually disappeared after about two weeks, but recovery could take several months. Even so, the illness was serious. If left untreated, heart or brain damage could result.
Ticks could cause other problems, too. Papa had once described a rare case. A crippled outcast of the Ute tribe, who earned her keep sewing rabbit and squirrel pelts for East Coast curiosity seekers near the reservation, had suffered bouts of headache, muscle ache, cough, sore throat, eye pain, and numbness. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason for the illness; it would manifest every couple of weeks, causing what Papa had termed "relapsing fever." Although Papa had thrown up his hands—the squaw had refused to let a "White Medicine Man" examine her—Talking Raven eventually earned the Ute's trust. Acting on a hunch, the Cherokee prescribed a powerful blood cleanser, Echinacea, St. John's wort, and goldenseal among the ingredients. The Ute's recovery had been practically instantaneous.
Eden grew so excited, she began to shake.
What if Michael weren't suffering from some disorder of his central nervous system, as he believed? What if he were suffering from... tick fever?
"Good heavens, Eden. The whole table's rattling. Did something crawl down your shirt?"
She blushed at Sera's complaint. "Ticks! I mean, no. But it could be! I have to find Michael."
Claudia arched an eyebrow as Eden jumped up, running for the gray woolen coat she'd left hanging on the hall tree. "That ain't so smart, considering."
"Considering what?" Sera demanded.
But Eden didn't hear the rest. She was too busy shoving her arms into her sleeves and running out the door. Somehow, she had to find Michael and convince him to take the blood-cleansing tonic she already had on the window shelf in her kitchen.
But as she threw open the back gate, a desperate pounding shattered the crisp, autumn dawn. "Doc!"
Eden slid to a halt, her heart racing. The voice, pitched high with fright, sounded like Jamie's.
His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) Page 28
