His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) by Adrienne deWolfe Read Free Book Online Page A

into my private affairs."
    "For heaven's sake, Michael, I wasn't pry—" She stopped herself. Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. "Fine. Whatever you say. Dinner's almost ready. I baked some cornpone and—"
    "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
    "You're always hungry."
    She sounded suspicious again, and he cursed himself for his mistake. It was too blasted hard to think when his head felt like an anvil.
    "I ate some biscuits and gravy at Aunt Claudia's," he lied a second time.
    "I didn't think Aunt Claudia and that long-lost niece of hers had come home yet."
    "Look." The pounding in his head accelerated to near ramming speed at the mention of their neighbor's house guest. "I'll eat the cornpone later."
    "Well, excuse me for caring. I thought you looked a little peaked, but obviously, you're just in another one of your black moods."
    "My clothes are wet, Sera. I want to dry off."
    "Well, you don't have to bite my head off." Her chin jutted, and she planted her hands on her hips. "If this is the way you're going to act all night long, I'm going next door for some friendly conversation."
    Michael's foot froze on the bottom stair. Next door? Eden might be next door by now.
    A new worry seized him, one that had nothing to do with the secret of his illness. No, his longing for Eden Mallory was a secret of an entirely different nature.
    "Sera," he blustered, "there's lightning outside."
    "You didn't seem to mind it when you drove home."
    "That's different. Besides, I don't want you catching your death of cold."
    She tossed her blue-black curls, which were slightly damp and more than a little wayward after her afternoon of baking. "I declare, Michael, you see catarrh in every drop of rain. I'm hardly the invalid Mama was, or that Gabriel was, for that matter. I've been cooped up in that kitchen all day long, plucking feathers, grinding cornmeal, and baking pies. It's high time I had a little fun. I'm not married to you, you know."
    He winced. The child had a point. On the other hand, she had to learn how to run a household if he was to find her a decent husband.
    "It was never my intention to make you a prisoner in our kitchen, Sera. As for being married—"
    "Never mind," she interrupted. Her indifference to her most respectable suitor, Preacher Prescott, was another bone of contention between them. "I'm sorry I brought it up. Tell me what happened back in town. With the rain and all, Bonnie didn't stop by this afternoon. I feel like I'm the last person on earth to hear the news."
    Michael sighed. If his head weren't doing its level best to split, he wouldn't have let Sera weasel out of the marriage topic so easily.
    "What news are you referring to?"
    "Honestly, Michael. What has everyone in this town been talking about for the last three weeks? Eden Mallory. Bonnie can't bear the fact that Claudia might add Eden to her will, especially at this late date."
    A wave of heat rolled up his neck. Claudia's refusal to heed his medical advice was a constant needle in his side. Even though he knew that reversing her age was an impossibility, some part of him still couldn't come to terms with the inevitable. It meant facing an old demon named Failure.
    "You know I don't approve of gossip, Sera."
    "That's the trouble with you, Michael. You don't approve of anything." She tugged her apron over her head, letting a cloud of flour sift onto the puddle that was creeping across the floor. "If you weren't so blessedly good-looking, I don't know that any woman would want you to come a-courting."
    "Is that the kind of 'friendly conversation' you anticipate at Aunt Claudia's?"
    She gave a guilty start.
    "Well, no. Not exactly." She pursed her lips. "If you really must know, I spend most of my time trying not to talk about you to the unmarried girls. One can only stand to hear so much sappy sighing over one's brother. Bonnie's the worst, although Aunt Claudia doesn't help matters any, the way she always brags about you taking care of her like a