Hooked (28 page)

Nobody had ever asked Meg if she wanted to go to college. In truth, she hadn't thought about it. She'd always wanted to be a part of the hotel and when that hadn't worked out, she'd accepted she wouldn't become a businesswoman. She'd become a wife and mother and have a house of her own to keep and a husband to please.

Only those plans were nothing more than a dream now.

Meg laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Matthew Gage. She wanted to hit him. Sock him in the arm. Take him for a few rounds like she and Wayne used to do when they were little.

She'd blackened her brother's eye once. An accident, of course. He'd never lived it down with his chums. And Meg's girlfriends had been mortified she'd used physical force on a boy. Well, she hadn't done so on purpose—at least not that first time. Wayne had just put a slimy toad down the back of her best pinafore and she merely reacted: She took a swing at him. She couldn't help it if his eye got in the way.

Looking back, growing up with Wayne hadn't been all bad. He had come to her rescue the time Petey Chalkley told her he loved her and trapped her by
the kissing tree and tried to plant his mouth on hers. She'd been seven at the time and boys were about as appealing as spiders in her washbasin. Wayne had grabbed Petey by the shirt collar and told him never to try and kiss his sister again.

Wayne had been her champion.

She should be his now.

But how?

The last thing she wanted was to be trapped fishing with Matthew Gage. It wasn't enough that he'd humiliated her. Tricked her. Used her emotions as if they were a dishcloth to be slopped in a bucket of scrub water and tossed aside.

Meg still hadn't cried. Not hard anyway. She was saving her big cry for the shower bath tonight where the tears could go right down the drain. She refused to sully one of her good handkerchiefs on Mr. Gage.

Even if she did take him up on his idea to help him fish, she couldn't possibly go traipsing off to Evergreen Creek with a . . . married man.

While she knew he wasn't, Mr. Calhoon, the postmaster, could very easily put the letters and Mr. Wilberforce's marital status together. The possibility he would eventually notice the return address, even if he wasn't looking, was inevitable.

In the blink of an eye, he could read that the mail coming in for Mr. Vernon Wilberforce was from Mrs. Vernon Wilberforce. There was no way Meg was going to lose her reputation for Wayne. With a soft sigh, she realized it might even be too late as it was. She would rather die than become a sneer and a byword for the sake of helping Matthew Gage expose a criminal.

If she did this one thing, she'd have to do so in disguise. Take no chances.

Grandma Nettie's words came back to Meg.
“Sarah Edmonds was forced into serving her country the only way it would let her. By dressing in man's attire.”

Meg pondered wearing mens clothing.

Turning her head a little, Meg gazed at Wayne's wardrobe, which was cracked open; she'd looked inside before she'd sat on the bed. The dowel wasn't empty. He'd left some suits, town clothes, trousers and shirts, along with linen collars and cuffs that needed starching, several hideous neck scarfs, and an old pair of high-cut storm shoes.

With a groan, Meg brought her arm over her forehead and closed her eyes in an effort to dull the throb of her headache. If she didn't have to be in Matthew's company while wearing her brother's clothes, she would have been excited to do such a thing. It was so . . .

Scandalous. Shocking. Improper.

The new Margaret would never consider such an unladylike thing.

The old Meg would jump at the opportunity.

The prospects were so very . . . intriguing.

*  *  *

Later that night, Meg left the house without Grandma Nettie knowing. Her steps were crisp and concise as she walked to the hotel. She'd made her decision.

She now had a mission.

And that mission had little to do with getting married. Her new objective was to clear her brother's name once and for all.

As she passed the dark interior of Treber's men's
store, she thought over how great marriage might have been. Though in truth, deep down even she had known that marriage wouldn't have been all that rosy if she married a man who didn't really know her. She'd clearly met the wrong man in Mr. Gage. “I dos” might not be for her after all.

She'd never really know, as now she had no desire whatsoever to take part in that institution. Love was too painful. She was going to wash her hands of it. And she would wash her hands of Mr. Gage just as soon as Wayne was vindicated. For now, however, she'd have to spend time with him in order to get to the truth of what exactly had happened during last year's fishing contest.

Stepping inside the hotel, she marched through the vacant lobby and right up to the registration desk where Mr. Beasley sat with wire spectacles perched on the tip of his nose.

“Miss Margaret, is there something wrong?” he called after her, sitting up straighter.

“Not a thing, thank you,” she responded without missing a step.

She headed for the stairs that lead to the guest quarters. Only that once did she make eye contact with the startled night manager. Not another sentence passed between them. Her determined gaze dared him to say one word about her late-hour visit.

She obviously filled him with apprehension as she lifted her chin and put on a no-nonsense air. He didn't utter the slightest squeak of protest when she laid her hand on the rail and took the risers upward. Even so, her heartbeat pounded at a reckless rate. She'd defied convention—right in front of Mr. Beasley.

And it felt great.

Meg walked purposefully to Mr. Gage's door and knocked once.

And waited.

For the longest time.

Just when she stared to knock again, the door opened.

Mr. Gage pulled the door inward only a marginal degree but she saw through the slit that he wore no shirt or trousers. Just a towel. She'd caught him right out of the shower bath.

Again.

The lump in her throat increased and she had a difficult time forming words in any kind of coherent capacity.

Water dripped from the ends of his hair, a lock in front resting over his damp brow; brows that she had always thought were his best features. He hadn't yet shaved, the stubble on his strong jaw making him appear forbidden. Like a hero in one of her romantic novels; swarthy and reckless.

Although she could only see through a slash in the opening, her gaze had a mind of its own and fell to his chest—broad and taut with muscles. A light covering of hair swirled around his navel and disappeared into the band his towel made around his middle.

The manliness exuding from his half-naked body should have made her bolt, but it was the very out-rageousness of her conduct that appealed to her and gave her the mettle to go forward.

If he was surprised to see her, he didn't show it. Neither did he speak up and ask her what she was doing knocking on his door at this time of night.

At length, she said, “Mr. Gage.” That seemed the logical salutation. It was, after all, his name. His
real
name. But speaking it put him on the defensive right off; she saw the color in his eyes darken as he shot a glance down the hall.

A second later, before she could think much less scream, he reached out, grabbed her hand, pulled her inside, and slammed the door shut.

“I asked you to still think of me as Wilberforce,” he said in a ludicrously polite tone given he was all but naked, “it would keep things from getting
messy.”

“Messy?” she parroted, her eyes locked on the swirls of dark hair that dusted his chest. “I believe things have already gone beyond messy.”

Then, realizing she stood in a hotel room conversing with a man in a towel, Meg steadied her voice and quickly proceeded with what she came here to do.

“I won't keep you. I merely wanted to say that I accept your proposition. I'll help you learn how to fish.” Holding herself taller and determinedly avoiding everything beneath his chin, she added with conviction, “Not because I'm sympathetic with your plight, but because I want to prove to you my brother is innocent of any crime. If my helping you can better put this matter to rest, then I'll do it.”

Matthew Gage leaned into the door jamb, his bare shoulder glistening with bath water. The maneuver distracted her. She wondered if he did it intentionally. “I appreciate your offer.”

“As I said, I'm not doing it for you.”

“I understood that.” His stare practically charred her bloomers the way his eyes burned into hers.

“Yes, well . . .” She felt the need to fix her hair or do something to herself to make her appearance more presentable. As if she cared.

“We should get started right away,” she continued,
refusing to let him make her ill at ease. “Meet me tomorrow in front of the hotel at precisely nine o'clock. And be fully prepared to spend the day at the lake.”

“I'll be there.”

“All right.”

“Good.”

Nothing else needed to be said.

Meg let herself out then and walked proudly down the hallway, listening for him to close the door so she could relax the tension from her spine. But she heard no sound of hinges. He had to be watching her. She felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise. Not with repulsion of any kind. On the contrary, with a delicious tingle she cared not to examine.

After all, she was through with love.

She rounded the corner and stepped down the stairs, dismally aware of the traitorous tingles that still teased her spine. She might not be in love with Mr. Wilberforce any more but she wasn't immune to Mr. Gage's broad chest. Those marble-hard pectorals of his put the sketched pictures of muscle men in Wayne's
Whitley's
exerciser magazine to shame.

And here she'd gone and committed herself to spending the next four days with Matthew Gage in close company out in the middle of near-nowhere.

If she had been any other woman—one who didn't possess her staunch willpower—she would have said the woman was doomed.

14

F
irst thing the next morning, Meg entered Plunkett's mercantile with a dollar and change in hand. There was no help for sneaking her way into the store. She needed Hildegarde to buy her something and she didn't want to be seen making the purchase.

After gliding into the store unnoticed behind a customer, Meg hid in back of a coal oil can display.

“Pst,” she whispered from the dark corner.

Hildegarde stood at the counter sampling a saltwater taffy from one of the jars.

At Meg's call, Hildegarde lifted her chin and stopped chewing.

Meg dared to lean forward and wave her hand for Hildegarde to come over.

Once in front of her, Hildegarde said in a too loud voice, “What are you doing hiding?”

“Shh!” Meg dragged the girl into the dim slash of gray created by the cans. “I need your help.”

Hildegarde instantly adjusted her smile. “Did you finish that jar of breast cream already?” Then she lowered
her gaze to Meg's bosom. “It sure isn't fast acting.”

Meg frowned. “Never mind about the bust cream. I need you to buy me a theatrical beard. Not the kind you glue on, but the kind that hooks over your ears. A really full and bushy one. In auburn.”

“What do you need that for?”

Not wanting to go into an explanation, Meg simply said, “Just buy it for me, and whatever you do, don't let your father see you taking it from the case. He's busy helping Mr. Addison so he won't notice if you do it now. Hurry up.”

Prodded into action, Hildegarde moved with sneaky purpose behind the item counter.

Moments later, Meg departed the mercantile, package beneath her arm. She retrieved her suitcase, which she'd hidden in the dense growth of alder brush at the corner-post of the store.

She now had everything she needed to check herself into the hotel.