His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) by Adrienne deWolfe

quietly.
    He licked his lips and raised the knife.
    That's when the door bell jangled. A mountain of a man stepped forward, the setting sun carving his silhouette out of the doorway like an onyx wall. For a moment, she could see little more than that blaze of orange molding a magnificent torso.
    Then sunbeams glinted off Collie's blade.
    "Eden," Michael choked. "My God!"
    Collie spun; Michael lunged, his work tools clattering around him. Two hundred pounds of muscle slammed into the half-starved boy, driving Collie back across the counter.
    "Michael, no!" Eden cried as the blade clattered and Collie snarled, kicking and punching with all the tenacity of a cornered wolf. Hastily, she pushed the pie onto a barrel. "Don't hurt him!"
    It wasn't much of a contest. Michael simply clamped his fist over the boy's collar, and Collie wheezed, his face reddening as he clawed the bear paw squeezing the breath from his throat.
    "Michael, please..." Eden tugged at his sleeve as the boy slumped, panting, his face full of humiliated fury. "He wasn't hurting me! He was only going to cut the pie!"
    Michael pulled the boy to his feet, a handful of shirt still wrapped in his fist. "Is that true, Collie?"
    Collie curled his lips like a dog. He tried to kick Michael between the legs, but Michael dodged, upsetting the pie. It thumped to the floor, splattering cherries and juice in every direction. Exasperated, Eden slapped Michael's bicep.
    "Stop it! Both of you. Michael, let him go. You're two times his size."
    "I ain't afeared of any prissy preacher's brat," Collie rasped.
    Their stares locked. Eden could have sworn she saw the smoke.
    "Collie," Michael bit out, a thread of iron lacing his tone, "you need a bath. And a toothbrush. And what the devil is this?" He turned the boy and pointed to a circular bulge in his back pocket. It looked suspiciously like Aunt Claudia's snuff tin.
    "Ain't none of your beeswax!"
    "Collie," Eden interjected more gently, "you'd feel a lot better, I'm sure, if you ate a warm meal instead of, uh, snuff."
    "Did you pay for that snuff?" Michael demanded.
    Collie twisted snakelike. When his shirt didn't rip and Michael's grip didn't break, he scowled.
    "Son, if you keep thieving, you're going to wind up like your pa. Is that what you want?"
    "My pa was a real man, not some nancy-boy like you!" the boy spat.
    Suddenly, Collie's elbow rammed up and back, cracking Michael's jaw. He staggered, and Collie broke free. Diving for his knife, he scrambled over Michael's tools and raced for the street.
    Eden winced as the door banged closed after him. So much for earning the boy's trust.
    "Um... Michael?"
    He was working his jaw and shaking his head.
    "Are you all right?"
    "Of course."
    He towered over her, the indomitable mountain once more. Eden might have doubted her first impression entirely, that Collie's blow had rattled him, if she hadn't seen the bruise purpling the soft underside of his chin.
    She sighed. She supposed that Aunt Claudia had convinced Michael to close his office for the day. Facing him in all his brooding intensity, she had time to notice he'd changed from his suit. Minus the dark coat, vest, and tie she'd seen him wear on every other occasion, he should have looked more relaxed. Instead, his unbuttoned shirt collar betrayed the rapid flutter of his pulse, and his thigh-hugging dungarees accentuated the tension in his limbs.
    She couldn't help but wonder what bothered Michael more: Collie's blow or her company.
    "It was quite chivalrous of you to come to my rescue, Michael," she said with genuine sincerity, "but Collie's harmless."
    Color bloomed in his cheeks.
    "Collie is not harmless. Not as long as he's running loose with an Arkansas toothpick sheathed to his hip."
    "He's just a child."
    "He's fifteen years old. And like it or not, that's man enough to be hanged."
    "For heaven's sake, anyone with eyes can see the boy's starving. He's just trying to survive."
    "I haven't met a man yet who needs snuff to