Hooked (27 page)

She fiddled with a fold in her skirt.

He smiled; he liked her way too much for his own good.

She straightened and ran her fingers across the nape of her neck as if her head ached. Pointing at him with accusation, she spouted, “You're worse than a scallywag,
Mr. Gage.”

Mr. Gage.

He didn't care for the way it sounded when she said it. As if he were a piece of dirt.

“Meg, my intentions—although you may not see this, are good. They always are when I take on a project. I'm a purveyor of the truth. Like it or not. It's an ugly job at times. But the truth has to be told.” He splayed his fingers and ran them through his hair. “I admit that when I came to town, I thought about writing a sarcastic story about how ludicrous Harmony was for being up in arm's over a silly fishing contest. Then I met Oliver Stratton.”

“You saw Ollie?”

“I did.”

Astonishment dulled her voice. “Does he say Wayne cheated him?”

“He believes he did.”

“And I'm telling you Wayne did not.”

Her defense of her brother was nothing shy of admirable.

“Maybe you don't think a fishing contest is important,” Meg continued, her curt voice lashing out, “but
it was to Wayne. He wanted that money so that he could go to a good college. And he was willing to practice hard to win it.”

“I want you to be right.”

“I
am
right.” She lowered her hand, only to put it to her right temple and massage. “Wayne has his faults but he isn't a liar. Unlike somebody else I know. Or thought I knew.” Then unexpectedly she blurted, “You got a letter from your wife. Rather, the woman who thinks you're her husband but her real husband is in jail. I'm very confused, and I'm getting a nasty headache.”

Mrs. Vernon Wilberforce had struck him down. He'd known that the moment Calhoon told him he'd given Meg his mail. Gage had been very careful to get to the post office when the express man was coming in from Waverly with his delivery.

“She's not my wife. I wouldn't have even opened that letter. It's for Wilberforce.”

“You think you're Mr. Wilberforce,” she admonished. “For a newspaper man, you're not very inventive. You could have at least come up with something that you knew how to be. A horse swindler or some other such occupation that would fit your dark character.”

Collecting herself she stared him in the eyes. “And when were you planning on giving Mr. Wilberforce this letter from Mrs. Wilberforce?”

“When I met up with him as soon as he's released from jail.”

“So you've got it all figured out.” Meg opened her arms as if setting a stage. “You come to Harmony, you say you're Vernon Wilberforce, you get the sister of the man you think is a crook to tell you intimate
things about herself, then you write an article about it all for the big city paper and everyone has a good laugh.” Knocking her hair from her brow once more she added, “But you forgot one important thing. Actually, two.”

Placing her hands on her hips, she knowingly declared, “You don't know how to sell Bissells and you couldn't hook a fish if you were starving to death. All these books prove that fact, Mr. Gage. See, I'm not as stupid as you thought.”

“I never thought you were stupid, Meg.”

“Well, you didn't think very much of me, that's for sure.”

An electrified current stung the air. “You're wrong. I think quite a lot about you. I . . .” He'd felt himself falling in love with her. But she wouldn't believe him now. And any confession he could offer would sound cheap and insulting.

“You're right about the fishing,” was all he could concede. “I can't cast worth a damn. For the life of me, I don't understand why a dry or wet fly is chosen. And I've read that
Manifesto
from one end to the other. Twice.”

She gazed at him as if he were as dim as an automobile headlamp.

Then her hand came down on the book; she grabbed it, and in a swift move, threw the beat-up volume at him. He dodged the manifesto. Behind him, the hard cover and pages smacked against the wall.

“You only asked me on a rowboat ride so you could find out about Fish Lake. And you only asked me on a picnic so you could watch me fish,” she said in a voice heavy with accusation and nicked pride. “I ought to put a hook through you. My only consolation is
that even after you watched me, you couldn't cast. I ignored the fact because I didn't want to hurt your feelings. But now that I just found out you don't have any, I can say this: You will never be a fly-fisherman.”

Arguing his cause would be futile. Gage thought fishing was a hell of a thing. If he had learned anything, it was that you didn't learn fishing from a book. You had to experience it with somebody who knew, breathe it with them.

Trouble was, Gage had no patience. No tolerance for incompetence. And he was one sorry incompetent when it came to trying to get that fly hook on his silk worm gut leader.

He had large hands, clumsy hands. His fingers could wield a pencil and pen and pluck at a typewriter. But those big fingers weren't meant for skills that required him to attach a fly no bigger than a speck to a hook just about as small. He could doggedly pursue a man for weeks, months. But he could not beat a fly hook. Damn things.

“I could be a fisherman if somebody showed me how it's done.” Gage's voice cut the quiet in the room.

She disregarded his comment.

“One more question,” Meg returned.

Gage lifted his chin and met her in the eyes. “What?”

“Are you—that is, Matthew Gage—are you married?”

“I'm not married,” Gage replied. “And that's the God's truth.”

Meg gazed at him with clear and conflicting emotions.

“That's why you're so upset, isn't it? You thought I was married either way.”

It took her a moment before she nodded. “I don't know what makes me more mad. The idea that you were really the married Mr. Wilberforce or that you're Mr. Matthew Gage, busybody reporter. I think I dislike both notions the same.”

He could accept that.

A long pause filled the room. He saw that she was digesting what he'd said. It still didn't put to rights what he'd done to her. He could apologize all he wanted but he could see she was hurt. Very much.

“Whatever you think, Wayne didn't do it,” Meg reiterated. “He's good and trustworthy. He would
never
cheat.”

The way Meg insisted on her brother's innocence with such conviction and passion had Gage doubting his instincts.

Weaving his fingers through the hair that rested on his temple, Gage nodded. “Okay, then help me prove it. You know a lot about fly-fishing these waters,” he said, making his words as gentle and unaffecting as possible.

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“You can show me how it's done,” he continued. “Then I can be in the contest and look like I belong. If somebody else cheated and made Wayne look bad, the best way to ferret them out is to enter their world and become one of them. Chances are, that if somebody cheated last year, they'll cheat again this year. I could expose him and the truth would come out, Meg.”

She sighed. Heavily, somewhat resentfully. “You already think you know who did the cheating.”

“I never said I had concrete proof your brother cheated.”

“But you want to prove he did.” Contempt electrified her tone.

“You think he's innocent And if you're right, you can help me prove he didn't and once and for all put this matter to rest Keep my identity a secret and help me.”

Meg stood and went to the window. Her back to him, she remained stiff, unyielding. Quite angry by the way she held herself. He didn't blame her. Not one bit. But anger would get them nowhere.

For a while, she stared out the glass in thought. Her fingers lifted to her hair and she dug them into the bun and rubbed, knocking the pinned up style askew. “I can't say yes,” she said to the panes where her reflection caught. On another breath, she said, “And I can't say no.”

Turning to face him, she frowned. “I'll have to think about it.”

Then walking toward the door, she slipped her hands into a hidden pocket in her skirt and produced his letters.

He'd risen as well and came to stand behind her.

“These are yours.” She lowered her head and stared at the patterned rug, unable to meet his gaze. “And just so you'll know, I didn't intentionally open the one from Mrs. Wilberforce. It was an . . .”

“Accident,” he finished for her, rather fondly.

“Yes, it was. Very much so.” Her voice became heated again. “I have to go now.”

He let her leave, closing the door in her wake.

For the first time in his life, Gage didn't know what to do next.

*  *  *

Meg was supposed to meet Ruth and Hildegarde at 2:30 at Rosemarie's Tearoom. She hadn't intended on
going when she left the hotel, but she began to walk, mindlessly. No, not mindlessly. Her mind was full, spinning. She just needed to walk. Get some fresh air. Where she ended up really wasn't a concern of hers right now.

She was in a state of shock.

Stunned disbelief.

She'd been tricked. Fooled. Bamboozled. Made fun of.

Fury almost choked her. Resentment tore through what remained of her dignity at this moment. She wanted to throw something. Hit something. Scream, stamp her foot, yell. Anything to make her feel better. But she knew nothing would.

Matthew Gage.

Here she'd told him she loved him—and really meant it. He must have had himself a good laugh over that one. Fresh tears rolled down Meg's cheeks and she wiped them away with the cuff of her jacket.

Mr. Wilberforce—no,
not
Mr. Wilberforce—Mr. Gage, had treated her as if she were a laughingstock. She'd fall for kind words and kisses. Pretend to be sweet on her and ask her about her brother.

Oh, how she hated Wayne at this moment.

How she hated herself for being such a dimwit.

She was furious over her vulnerability.

All this la-de-da lady pretending to find a man. And look at the man she'd found. He was a fraud. Just as much of a fraud as Meg was.

As Margaret was she more popular? No. Was she happier? No. More admired? Perhaps. But she didn't want to be admired for chatting about the social topics of the day.

Dismally, she came upon the tearoom. She was sure
her face was a mask of rage, but it was too late to turn around. The pair of school friends saw her and waved her in from the window.

Clenching her teeth, she opened the door.

“Margaret, we've been waiting,” Ruth said and pulled out the chair next to her.

Hildegarde called for Rosemarie. “Margaret's here. She'll have a cup of the same tea we're drinking.”

Meg woodenly sat down and stared at the lace tablecloth.

English tea.

Yes, of course. Have a cup because her friends were having some. Well, she didn't like it. All that cream and sugar she had to doctor it with left a bad taste in her mouth.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Rosemarie moving toward the teapot.

Meg abruptly turned and spoke up. “Wait. Don't pour me any.” She went to her feet. “I'm going across the street to Durbin's for a glass of sarsparilla.”

The girls stared at her, mouths agape. It was Ruth who finally spoke up. “Margaret, what's gotten into you?”

Already feeling as if her burden were lightened, she declared, “Not what. Rather, who.
Meg
is back.”

*  *  *

After dinner that night, Meg sat on Wayne's bed and looked around the room. Heaving a sigh, she noted everything was as he'd left it when he went to college last fall. The belongings were a mix of items he'd collected through the years.

A Hohner harmonica collected dust on his bureau beside a tin drum bank and a baseball. The wall was a patchwork of various posters; the White Squadron
ship and World's Columbian Exposition, the fearless Rough Rider Theodore Roosevelt on horseback, and an advertisement bill for Old Republic Whiskey—which Mother frowned on.

On pegs, a boy's soldier cap and a pair of suspenders remained hooked next to a worn-out man's pine-ridge scout hat—favorite of the cowboys. The desk by the dormer window remained cluttered with a wooden box of assorted villages, farms and animals, a jumping jack, box of matches, and a shaving mug that was used as a stationery cup for pens and pencils.

In the days and months that followed Wayne's departure, Meg hadn't been in his room. There had been no need, and frankly, she and Wayne didn't get on all that well and she hadn't wanted to nose around in his things because she had no interest in them whatsoever.

But now she felt a connection to Wayne. A sort of bond that had enveloped her when she'd entered the room. The air even smelled vaguely of his cologne.

Meg sighed once more.

What was she doing here? Really?

She didn't want to think about the real reasons. The ones that had been in her head since the moment she'd left Vern—Matthew Gage.

Matthew Gage.

The name suited him. He was more Matthew than he was Vernon.

Why hadn't she seen this?

Love was blind.

Well, she didn't love him anymore. And she didn't want to help him unearth any of Wayne's supposed misdeeds—as if he'd done anything wrong. Which Meg knew, was not true.

She recalled last year and how proud she'd been to
be his sister when he'd won. Even though a cloud of speculation had surrounded his win, nobody had proved an iota of wrongdoing. Her mother and father had been pleased as punch and bragged for weeks afterward. Wayne was elated to have the money for school.

He was older than her and had wanted to go back East to college for years. But the Brookses simply couldn't afford Cornell. So his win had been a godsend for him.