Scarlet Nights (Edilean 3)

“Are you trying to make me believe you and Luke are planning a surprise party for me?”

“Sara, I need to go.”

She kept hold of his arm. “I want to know what’s made you happy.”

“You have! And that’s all I’m going to say. Now go! If your mother sees me she’ll make me move the porta potties.”

“No wonder you and my father get along so well. You should get him to show you the places where he hides from my mother. Okay, go, but tonight I mean to get to the bottom of this.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “I mean to get right down to the bottom of everything.”

Sara grinned. “Okay, keep your secrets … for now.”

He kissed her cheek again, then hurried off.

Mike didn’t get back to the apartment until midnight. Sara was sitting in the living room in the big chair, sewing on her lap, and sound asleep. He didn’t want to wake her, so he went into the bathroom and took a long shower. When he was clean, he went back to the living room and scooped up Sara, sewing and all. She snuggled against him, only half awake.

He put her on the bed and picked up what she’d been sewing. It was a triangle-shaped piece of translucent black silk with little disks of gold-colored metal sewn along the top. “What is this?”

Sara rolled onto her back. “A veil for Joce. She said that people, even strangers, were asking more about when the babies are due than were listening to her readings. We thought that maybe if she put a veil over her face she’d look more mysterious.”

Mike stretched out beside her. “Like Mitzi,” he murmured.

“I did think of her.”

“To hide her big nose and no lips.”

“Joce is too pretty to want to cover anything, but I think it’ll help keep her identity a secret. So are you ready to tell me what you and Luke have been up to today?”

When he didn’t answer, she looked at him, and saw that he was asleep. She turned out the light, pulled the cover over both of them, and snuggled into his arms.

26

MIKE WAS DOING his best to stay calm, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been told that Stefan Vandlo was still three hours away, taking his time, sitting in restaurants, flirting with waitresses, and boring the men who were trailing him. “He has a couple of bodyguards with him, so watch out,” one of the agents told Mike when they stood in line for lemonade. “And one guy was his cell mate in prison, and he looks like he’s been in a lot of fights.”

As Mike sipped his drink, he looked around to see who could help him if he needed it. He could easily spot the men who’d done some training, but their problem was that they thought that if they built up their biceps and spent thirty minutes on a treadmill they were ready for anything. He didn’t see one man who could actually move his body in a way that would be needed if there really were a fight.

This morning at six he’d been awakened by his mother-in-law pounding on the bedroom door. Sleepily, he said, “I guess she knows the way to open your front door.”

“Of every house in town,” Sara said tiredly. The day before had been a long one, and she’d have liked nothing more than to spend a few hours in bed with Mike.

“You two need to get dressed,” Ellie called through the door. “Mike, you can’t run around in Levi’s for a second day in a row. You must put on your kilt.”

“But Luke—”

Sara knew what he was going to say. “Luke was in jeans yesterday because he was setting up a booth. You’d better do what my mother says or she’ll be in here.” She was referring to the fact that Mike hadn’t bothered to put on any clothes after last night’s shower.

Grumbling, Mike pulled on a pair of trousers and left the room.

“Aren’t you a sight for the morning,” Ellie said, looking at his bare chest.

Mike closed the bedroom door and Sara snuggled back under the covers. She’d thought that she’d be nervous about meeting Greg today, but she wasn’t. She knew her confrontation with him was going to send him into a rage. In the past, she’d been afraid of his temper. She hadn’t realized that then, but she had been. In fact, she’d done a lot of things she didn’t want to just to keep him from getting angry—and to keep him from hurting her with his many little put-downs.

Why hadn’t she stood up to him? she wondered. Why hadn’t she told him she wouldn’t be spoken to like that? But she knew that at the time it had all been so gradual, and with the huge amount of work he’d given her to do, she hadn’t had time to think about what was going on. Every time she protested what he was saying or doing, he would tell her she was the problem. “This is why you’ve never made money, Sara,” Greg used to say. “This is why you live in your cousin’s house and don’t have a place of your own.” At the t

ime, his words had made her want to try harder, but now she couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell him what he could do with his complaints.

There was one thing she was very glad for and that was that she’d let Tess oversee her finances. She’d never told anyone, but Greg had repeatedly tried to get her to sign papers giving him power of attorney over everything she owned. “It’s for your own good,” he’d said, his tone implying she didn’t know much about anything. “You know I love you and that I want only the best for you. I’m just afraid that if anything happened to me you’d be left with nothing.” “How does my giving you all I own now leave me with nothing if you died?” Sara’d asked, as she was genuinely confused. “See what I mean?” Greg said. “You don’t understand even the most basic things about finance.” But Sara hadn’t signed anything because she knew she’d have to face Tess.