“Trust me,” he whispered.
His dark eyes shone with mesmerizing light. He was the man she had dreamed about, night after lonely night, the only man who had ever touched her soul. God help her, she wanted his kiss. With every fiber of her being, she yearned for him.
He held her nape gently. His lips pressed against hers.
Her resistance ebbed, swift as the retreating surf across smooth, shimmering sands. Her eyelids closed in a swoon. Lifted beyond reality into a netherworld, she welcomed the flow of passion through her veins, awakening dormant sensation. Her arms clung to him. She kissed back, releasing years of longing.
He was alive and in her arms. She treasured this precious moment.
He ended their kiss and stepped away from her. Silent as a shadow, he went through the door and closed it behind him.
Eden was left wondering if this meeting had really happened. Her fingertips touched her moist lips where the taste of Payne still lingered. She had to see him again. Slipping the card with the name of the motel into her bra, she went to the door and prepared herself to face her brother’s funeral.
Outside, at the end of the first hallway, Sister Max stood waiting, fidgeting with her rosary. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Eden nodded. “How did you come to be friendly with Payne Magnuson?”
“Like you, I first knew him as Peter Maggio. When you two started seeing each other, he came to me for advice.”
“Why?” What sort of man sought dating advice from a nun?
“Well, he couldn’t very well talk to your grandfather. Gus Verone had let it be known that you were off-limits.”
Eden was well aware of her grandfather’s decree. Most men ran in terror when they learned her name was Verone. But not Payne. He hadn’t pursued her, but he certainly hadn’t pushed her away. “He told you about our relationship?”
“Remember, my dear child, that you were very young. Only nineteen. Only a year out of high school. And he was a grown man of twenty-four. He didn’t want to take advantage.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” said Sister Max. “You had to grow up more quickly than most girls. In your nineteen years, you’d experienced more than your share of sorrow and responsibility. I assured him that you were capable of making your own decisions and taking care of yourself.”
“You were correct.”
Sometimes, Eden thought she’d been born an adult. She’d met Peter, now known as Payne, with her eyes wide open and would never regret their earth-shaking nights of passion. She wasn’t sorry for moments that felt so right, lovemaking that brought her a son, Josh, the light of her life.
“Now, you have another decision,” Sister Max said. Her tone was brisk, almost businesslike. For a woman of the Church, she seemed far too comfortable with all this undercover subterfuge. “Your grandmother is here. She’s alone in an anteroom off the sanctuary with the coffin. Do you want to go there?”
“Yes.” She answered without hesitation. Eden owed her escape to Grandmother Sophia.
Once again, Sister Max showed her to a closed door and stationed herself outside. “I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
Eden stepped inside. The air was redolent with the mysterious scents of the church and a blanket of white flowers that covered the lower half of an ebony coffin fitted with gold trim. Beside the casket sat a tiny gray-haired woman wearing a neat black pillbox hat. Her head drooped. Her eyes closed. With a small withered hand, she caressed the gleaming coffin.
“Grandmother,” Eden said.
Sophia rose slowly to her feet. Though she looked not a day older than when Eden had last seen her twelve years ago, sorrow kept the smile from her grandmother’s face. Despite her diminutive size, she held herself erect. A proud woman, much stronger than anyone expected, Sophia had learned to cope with tragedy. “Come.”
Eden stepped forward. There would be no embrace. No show of emotion. The women of the Verone family accepted their fate without weeping.
Sophia took both of Eden’s hands and squeezed hard before nodding toward the coffin. “Say goodbye to your brother.”
Drawing from her grandmother’s dignified example, Eden straightened her shoulders. Woodenly, she moved to the open top of the coffin. Eddy’s eyes were closed. His cheeks, sunken. His skin was colored by an unnatural pallor. Eden barely recognized the grown man. Instead, she saw a dark-haired boy, her older brother, who had defended her on the asphalt playground outside St. Catherine’s after their mother passed away. The other kids had taunted that her mother deserved to die, that all Verones were poison, especially her. Poison Candace. Poison Candy. With his fists and hot temper, Eddy made it clear that anybody who messed with his sister would face his wrath.
Not that Eddy had always acted as her protector. She remembered his sly, teasing grin when he yanked her ponytail or chased her with a bleeding hunk of liver when she proclaimed herself to be a vegetarian for two months. A typical big brother, Eddy loved to torment her. But when she needed him, he was there for her…except at the very end of their time together when she left the family to have her baby. Eddy would never have understood why she needed to escape the clutches of the Verones. Family was everything to him. Above all, he was loyal, and that loyalty had killed him.
Eden fought the hot tears that threatened to spill from her eyes and moisten Eddy’s crisp white shirt. Her skin felt hot, flushed with the effort of self-control. Oh, Eddy, you could have been so much more.
She placed a final kiss on his cold cheek and stepped away from the coffin to face her grandmother.
“He had no children,” Sophia said. “His wife was barren.”
Eden nodded. In infrequent letters from Sophia delivered to the anonymous post office box, her grandmother had made clear her disappointment with Eddy’s wife, a beautiful but annoying twit who was not worthy of the family name. Secretly, Eden suspected that Eddy’s wife was infertile by choice and not ready to give up the flashy night-life for the role of motherhood.
She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out two snapshots, her latest pictures of Josh. “These are for you.”
As she gazed at the photographs, Sophia’s lips almost smiled. “Such a handsome boy.”
“And he’s doing well in school. All A’s and B’s on his report card.”
“What about sports?”
“He plays soccer and baseball. He’s a shortstop.” She glanced back at the coffin. “Like Eddy.”
“You’ve done a good job,” her grandmother said. “You were right to leave Chicago, to protect your child. But now, things have changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Eddy is dead,” she said simply. “Your son, Josh, is the only male heir.”
“Heir to what?” A shiver chased down Eden’s spine. Apprehensively, she watched the hint of a smile fall from her grandmother’s face. “What are you telling me?”
Sophia said, “I’m sorry.”
A small rear door swung open. Gus Verone strode into the anteroom. Though in his early seventies, his fierce strength remained undiminished. With broad shoulders thrown back, he looked like he could wrestle a lion. His thick white mane bristled with energy. He stood before her, blocking any chance of escape.
He didn’t bother to say hello or welcome back. His mouth barely moved as he issued his implacable proclamation.
“I want the boy.”
Chapter Two
Betrayed! Eden’s last thread