Somehow, he had to stop Collie from telling Sera what he'd seen.
Chapter 3
If Aunt Claudia's Trading Post and Notions was any indication, the residents of Blue Thunder were accustomed to oddities.
At least, that's what Eden told herself as she straightened the shelves in her kinswoman's store. The main counter—the foundation of which looked suspiciously like a chimney—was dominated by an enormous stuffed beaver bearing sawed-off antlers and a skunk's tail. "Cooter," as Aunt Claudia referred to this novelty, was fetchingly attired in doll-sized overalls and rollerskates. Colorful fishing lures dangled from his prongs, and a pair of spectacles teetered precariously on his snout. Eden couldn't help but chuckle every time Aunt Claudia swore to some wide-eyed youngster, "That's how them tree gnawers are grown in the backwoods."
To the left of Cooter and against the rear wall were racks of shotguns, hunting traps, and bowie knives—not so very odd, really—but the centerpiece of this manly display was a wooden bust bearing the latest calico fashion, a sheepskin hat, and snowshoes. To Eden's secret amusement, Claudia had forbidden her to repair this creation with more traditional female fare.
The right side of Aunt Claudia's store was relatively subdued, since its rainbowed array of fabrics, hair ribbons, and skin tonics catered to the fair sex of Blue Thunder. Still, Eden found herself shaking her head when she swept her feather duster over the placard that read, "Don't be looking fer any dang bloomers here. " Apparently when it came to her female customers, Aunt Claudia was only willing to make limited concessions.
Eden glanced toward the main counter, where the store's proprietress stood rummaging around her jars of gumdrops, peppermint sticks, and saltwater taffy, Eden's personal favorite.
"Where the dickens is it?" Claudia growled, shoving Stazzie out of the way.
"Where's what?" Eden asked mildly.
"My snuff box, that's what!"
Turning, Claudia glowered at the eleven-year-old who was solemnly sprinkling dead flies into his new toad's box. "Jamie Harragan, did you steal my snuff?"
The child's eyes grew bigger than silver dollars. "No, ma'am!"
"Yeah?" Claudia's cagey gaze narrowed, darting suspiciously from side to side. "Well, somebody sure did. Where'd that tow-headed hillKit go?"
Eden cleared her throat. "I'm sure Mr. McCoy was too busy admiring Jamie's toad to pinch your snuff tin, Auntie."
"Burro's milk. McCoy was busy admiring my money safe. Er... not that there ain't nuthin' to admire about Georgie," she added for Jamie's benefit.
The boy looked up anxiously. "Georgie's not eating as good as he did last week." He used a forefinger to tumble the pile of insects closer to his pet. When Georgie made no move to pounce, Jamie bit his lip. "Do you reckon he's sick?"
Claudia harrumphed. "More likely, Georgie's tired of flies—barflies, that is," she added ominously, glancing toward her broken window shutter.
Eden glimpsed a blond head ducking out of sight.
"Dang McCoy," Claudia groused, stalking to her gun rack and snatching up her scattergun. "And dang that cousin of his. I don't like the looks of 'em. Them two Pitkin County rabble are nuthin' but trouble, and I don't want them skulking around my store."
For emphasis, Claudia thumped the stock of her shotgun on the window ledge. The window's crank promptly thudded to the floor.
"Tarnation!" Claudia's face flooded with color. "The whole blamed store's falling apart. First the shutter, now this two-bit crank! And yesterday, for no blessed reason, the lid from a licorice jar got dashed all over the floor."
Eden started. She could have sworn she'd heard a boy's muffled laughter coming from outside the window.
Claudia, however, looked far from amused. Stomping over to Cooter's counter, she yanked open a drawer and flung the crank inside. "What deuced good is a handy man if he ain't handy? Michael promised he'd come over and mend my shutter—not to mention my rainspout—before the week was out. Well, that was last Monday."
She glared at Eden as if she were somehow to blame. "I ain't seen hide nor hair of that boy since you pulled in to town. Makes me think I'll have to stick that mouser of yours under a wagon wheel if I want to drag him out of hiding."
Stazzie's tail lashed indignantly against the pickle barrel. Eden gave her a reassuring pat and offered a sprig of parsley to Georgie.
"I'm sure Michael didn't mean to forget you, Auntie," Eden said absently, watching the toad flatten itself on top of the herb, as if it were nesting. "He's probably just been busy."
"Yeah, he's been busy, all right. Busy mooning over you."
Eden knew she'd turned as red as Jamie's bandanna. "Really, Aunt Claudia. The man talked once to me, and that was at the stage depot," she said, carefully omitting her worry that he'd recognized her from some previous encounter. "I'd hardly consider our discussion of cuts and bruises grounds for rumors of a courtship."
"That's 'cause you ain't lived around here long enough to know better. Sera says he's sweet on you. And Bonnie's mighty sore about you being Michael's backdoor neighbor." Claudia's face split in an impish, sparsely toothed grin. "Yep, as fillies go, I'd say you're ahead by a nose."
Eden sighed, shaking her head. She didn't bother to point out for at least the tenth time that Michael wasn't behaving like a lovestruck beau. She wondered how much his mysterious first sighting of her was to blame, and how much could be credited to her recklessly altruistic behavior at the stage depot. He had made a point to chide her foolhardiness, after all.
Maybe he didn't think her ladylike enough, since she'd charged a rearing horse, flopped in the gutter with her bloomers bared, and audaciously sought to revive Bonnie with a home remedy. To a university-educated doctor like Michael, her homemade smelling salts had probably smacked of quackery. Eden wouldn't have been surprised if he'd decided right then and there that she was a trouble maker whom he'd be wise to avoid.
She just wished he would be more civil about it. The day after her arrival, for instance, when she'd spied him saddling his horse, he'd greeted her with nothing more than a curt nod and a surly, "Mornin'." Later that afternoon, when she'd passed the open window of his clinic, he'd turned his back so hastily, she'd felt certain he'd meant to snub her.
Eden wished she could say Michael's opinion of her didn't matter. But as Sera's guardian, he could end Eden's budding friendship with his sister. Eden had warmed immediately to the younger girl, even though she'd suspected that Sera's effusive praise of Michael had been a matchmaking ploy. Sera was the only unmarried young woman in town who didn't glare daggers at Eden, thanks to Bonnie, and Eden, who'd never lived in any town long enough to make a close friend, was eager to deepen their acquaintance.
The bell jangled over the front door, rousing her from her thoughts. A rosy-cheeked child with wheat-colored ringlets bounced into the store. "Hello, Miss Eden," the nine-year-old said brightly, her eyes already fixed on the candy jars. "Hello, Aunt Claudia. How are you today?"
Claudia grunted, apparently unimpressed by this elfin charm. "I've been better."
Eden hid her smile. "Hello, Amanda. Did you bring us your mama's shopping list?"
"Yes, ma'am." The child juggled a squirming blanket and dug the paper out of her pinafore's pocket.
Claudia tugged her pipe from her lips. "Amanda Jean, that bundle of yours ain't your little brother, is it?"
"Oh no, ma'am. I brought my puppy."
Amanda glanced at Jamie as she spoke. To Eden's mystification, the children exchanged conspiratorial looks before Jamie blushed and dropped his gaze back to his toad.
Amanda knelt before Stazzie. "Puppy and me were wondering if you'd like to come to our tea party," she crooned as the dozing cat cracked open an eye.
"Puppy?" Aunt Claudia snorted. "Amanda Jean Buchanan, you can't go on calling that whelp Puppy."
"I can't?"
"'Course not."
"How come?"
"'Cause he's gonna grow up. Become a great big coondog someday. Coondogs need a r
espectable name."
Amanda looked perplexed. "What's 'respecabell'?" she whispered to Jamie.
"Grown up," he fired back.
"Oh." She peeled back the blanket, as if seeking inspiration from her hound.
Suddenly, a pink tongue darted out. The puppy tried to lick Stazzie, and the cat yowled, recoiling. Wearing a look of potent disgust, she leaped off the pickle barrel and padded to a safer napping place.
"I know!" Amanda was beaming with her newfound idea. "I'll call my doggie Mr. Puppy. That's grown up."
Claudia rolled her eyes.
The whelp sneezed.
"Uh-oh." The light in Amanda's face snuffed out. "I think Mr. Puppy has a cold."
"A cold?" Frowning like a hanging judge, Jamie dropped his jar of flies and hurried to Amanda's side. "That puppy wasn't sneezing last night. What did you do to him, Mandy?"
"Nothing!" She snatched the hound from Jamie's reach. "I gave him a bath, is all."
"What for?"
"'Cause he was smelly on account of the way you—" She seemed to catch herself, clutching the dog closer to her chest and darting a furtive glance at the grown-ups. "Never mind. Mr. Puppy," she emphasized, "is my puppy now. And I won't have him being smelly."
"You have to keep baby animals very warm," Eden interceded gently, "especially when they're wet. Otherwise, they get sick like Mr. Puppy did."
"I didn't mean for him to get sick." Amanda sounded stricken. "Is he gonna die?"
Eden winced, caught off guard. Talk of death never failed to remind her of the futility of the herbal medicine training that Talking Raven had given her. "Don't worry, Amanda. I'm sure your Mama can help Mr. Puppy feel better."
Amanda darted another glance—this one anxious—toward Jamie. He cleared his throat.
"Miss Eden, couldn't you help Mr. Puppy?"
Amanda nodded eagerly at Jamie's suggestion.
"Well, I'm not sure that would be—"
"Please?" Amanda chimed in.
Claudia struck a match and squinted at her pipe bowl. "Go on, niece," she mumbled, wreathing herself in smoke. "Michael ain't likely to know any more about puppies than you do."
Eden gaped at this vote of confidence. Only two days ago, Claudia had turned up her nose at Eden's best medical opinion, despite the fact that she'd found her aunt clutching her chest and panting on the stairs. "I'm seventy-five dang years old," Claudia had snapped between breaths. "So's my ticker. I ain't lookin' fer any miracle cures."
Eden had been too mortified at the time to believe that Claudia's reaction hadn't really been an objection to her niece's questionable reputation as a healer.
"I don't know a thing about puppies. I never had one of my own," Eden added lamely, unwilling to admit the truth: She feared she'd do more harm than good.
"Yeah?" Claudia blew out her match and leveled her with a piercing stare. "So what are ye saying? You know more about healing hoppy toads?"
Eden's ears warmed. In truth, the parsley had been more for Jamie's peace of mind than Georgie's well-being. If she'd been a competent Medicine Woman, she wouldn't have lost Papa. And she wouldn't have been forced to flee Silverton with her tail tucked between her legs.
Auntie, why are you putting me in this position? You've proven you don't believe in my abilities any more than I do.
Puppy licked her hand. Amanda sniffled.
Eden's resolve crumbled. To assuage her conscience, she tried to convince herself that curing a whelp's cold wasn't as daunting as trying to save her father from pneumonia. "Very well, Auntie. I'll mix a tonic for Mr. Puppy."
Amanda cheered.
"That's the spirit." Claudia nodded, her gaze canny with approval. "And while you're doin' it"—she rose, her pipe puffing like a chimney as she reached for her scattergun—"I'm gonna march down the street and see what's so jo-fired important that Michael's been holed up in his office like a bear."
"Um... do you really think the shotgun's necessary?" Eden ventured.
Claudia snorted. "Obviously, you ain't never hunted bear. C'mon, Jamie. We got critters to track."
Jamie's eyes bugged out as he jumped off his stool.
"Bear critters? The black, savagerous kind you taught Mr. Lincoln how to wrastle?"
Claudia hid a lopsided grin. "Sure as shootin', boy! Why, ol' Abe woulda been coon gone if I hadn't whupped that varmint fer 'im."
"Golly!"
Claudia smirked, tossing Eden a wink.
"Say, you like watermelon, Amanda?"
"Sure!"
Claudia waved her and Mr. Puppy to the door. "C'mon then. Me and Jamie'll show you the best patch to steal 'em from."
The door whacked closed before Eden could protest. A traitorous giggle threatened. Stealing watermelon, indeed. Claudia owned the only patch in town. And what was that nonsense about Abe Lincoln? Last week, Claudia swore she'd taught William Tecumseh Sherman how to tree polecats in the moonlight.
Eden's smile widened as Stazzie coiled like a spring, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting spool of thread.
Eden supposed that Claudia's imagination had been a necessary cultivation, helping her through the lonely years of her young womanhood. Claudia had been dubbed the town whore once word leaked of her secret love affair with the widower Harragan. Claudia never did marry Henry Lucas, even though she'd "carried on" with him, as she liked to put it, for forty-five years. To Eden's mystification, Claudia had confided it was she who'd refused to let Harragan "make a decent woman out of her." Now that Eden knew her aunt better, she suspected Claudia had preferred the freedom that her scandalous lifestyle had given her.
Then again, Harragan certainly hadn't hurt her independence any when he'd died twelve years ago, willing her his mercantile fortune.
Eden sighed, watching Stazzie scamper under the back room's curtain in pursuit of the spool.
She liked her independence too. But spinsterhood had definite disadvantages. Eden wanted to share her life with someone. Family was the one thing that Papa had never been able to give her. Although she'd come to love the copper-skinned Medicine Woman who'd shared his bed, just about everyone else who learned of Papa's affair with Talking Raven had spurned them like lepers. Eden often suspected that was the real reason Papa kept traveling from town to town, although she'd never once doubted his commitment to helping the sick and crippled in the clapboard villages they'd visited.
The old grief stirred as she recalled those years in the medicine show. For as long as she could remember, she'd heard nothing but praise for the foxglove remedy her father prescribed for his patients' heart palpitations. She refused to believe her last twenty-five years had been filled with lies. She wanted to vindicate Papa, to prove that Andrew Mallory was a good doctor.
But Claudia wouldn't touch the remedy, and Eden was terrified of offering it to anyone else. She didn't want a repeat of that dreadful Silverton experience. She wasn't the risktaker Claudia was—or that her mother had been, for that matter. Unlike Lacey Mallory, who'd delighted in stunts such as snowshoeing through avalanche country or chasing wild mustangs through Indian Territory, Eden wanted to live to a ripe old age.
A furtive creaking broke her reverie.
Eden started, spilling some of the syrup of onion that she'd just finished measuring for Mr. Puppy's tonic. Had she heard a footstep in the back room?
She listened uneasily. A minute, perhaps two, dragged by. She heard only silence.
How strange.
She was just about to turn her attention back to capping and labeling the remedy when Stazzie loosed a yowl that made every hair on her head stand on end.
"Stazzie?"
Hissing and spitting erupted from Claudia's storage space. Next came a metallic crash that sounded suspiciously like canned goods. Eden hurried to the rear. Pushing back the curtain, she stepped across the threshold and froze.
There before the chaos of dented tins and toppled shelves crouched Collie. Barefoot and defiant, he glared at her through straggly blond hair. In his left hand, he held
a ten-inch knife. In the right, he grasped the nape of Stazzie's neck. The cat was flailing for all she was worth. Collie was panting.
"M-my cat," Eden managed weakly, noticing how the boy's blade pointed expertly in her direction. "What are you going to do?"
"Eat it."
She swallowed, unnerved to hear such a gruff, uncompromising tone in a beardless youth.
"But she's my pet."
"Looks like it's time to get a dog."
Stazzie mewed piteously. Collie bared his teeth, looking ferocious.
"Um..." Eden did her best to breathe normally. The quarters were cramped, and the shelf he'd knocked over was barring his retreat to the alley. He had nowhere to go but forward. Through her.
She tried not to think about that.
"I don't mean to be difficult, but I'm rather fond of that cat. Not as a meal," she added quickly. "As a companion."
He didn't look the least bit sympathetic. She thought fast.
"Are you hungry?"
This time, she saw the flicker of interest in those burning gray eyes. He tossed the hair off his forehead.
"Why?"
"Well..." She gestured carefully behind her. "I have some fried chicken and a cherry pie in a picnic basket behind the front counter. Aunt Claudia and I were going to eat them for dinner, but you're welcome to them. I suspect they'll taste a whole lot better than Stazzie."
Collie grunted. It was a noncommittal sound that didn't bolster her confidence. Even so, he wanted to eat. And God help him, he needed to.
The boy was alarmingly thin, his cheekbones protruding beneath the canyons of his eyes, which themselves were rimmed with shadow. His Adam's apple jutted above skeletal shoulders, and his elbows looked too knobby for his arms. With each breath, his faded red gingham sank into a concave abdomen, and his dungarees would have fallen clean off his hips if his belt hadn't been double-cinched.
Eden suspected he carried some intestinal parasite. At the very least, he was dehydrated and malnourished. Yet for all his apparent weakness, Collie gripped that bowie knife with the efficiency of a veteran butcher.
His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) Page 6