The Secret She Keeps. Cassie Miles

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 of trust—the bond she’d shared with Grandmother Sophia—was severed. Eden had no allies, no support, nowhere to turn. All alone, she stood at the foot of her brother’s coffin and faced her grandfather, the patriarch of the Verone family.

      Her gaze locked with his. She would never allow him to take her son. Never!

      “Where is he?” Gus Verone asked.

      “With friends back in Denver.” Eden glanced toward her grandmother. Not even Sophia knew the identities of these friends. For the moment, at least, Josh would be safe.

      “Contact them,” her grandfather said.

      “I can’t,” Eden said. “They’ve gone camping in the mountains. There’s no way to reach them.”

      “On a schoolday?” her grandfather questioned. “You allow your son to miss school for a camping trip?”

      “Not usually.” She didn’t have to defend her mothering skills to him. “But this was a special occasion. A birthday.”

      “After the funeral, you will help me find these friends. I wish to speak to my grandson.”

      Never! “I’ll try,” she lied.

      Though willing to fight to the death, Eden knew that obvious resistance was useless. To defeat her grandfather, she must outsmart him, to be even more sly and crafty than Gus Verone. She was forced to lie. And she would, gladly and successfully. If it meant saving her son, she’d wage a war of duplicity. She could do this! Verone blood flowed through her veins. Deception was her birthright. She’d use every necessary untruth to hide her anger and her fear. There was no other choice.

      Eden took the photographs of Josh from her Grandmother Sophia. With a false smile, she presented them to her grandfather. “This is my son, Josh.”

      As he looked at the snapshots, the blaze in his eyes diminished. Gus Verone studied both pictures with obvious pleasure. For a moment, she thought her ferocious grandfather was on the verge of sentiment. “He looks like your father. And your brother.”

      Both dead. Eden steeled herself against her natural affection toward this man who had held her as a child and taken her to the zoo and told her bedtime stories. She could not allow herself to love him.

      When СКАЧАТЬ