Hooked (29 page)

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Gage stood on the quaint porch of the Brooks House Hotel, arms folded over his chest, with his fishing tackle at his feet. He scanned the length of Birch Avenue and looked for Meg. Not a sign of her. The hour was exactly nine o'clock.

He'd thought about Meg most of the night. It had taken nerve for her to come to his room and talk with him. He had assumed she'd either turn him down flat or, if she did agree to help him, she'd tell him in a public place like the lobby or passing him by on the street.

She must have been one hundred percent sure her brother was innocent or else she wouldn't have agreed
to help him. Gage hoped for her sake that she was right.

And now there was Ham Beauregarde, who could figure into this. Gage didn't want to bring up Ham's name to Meg. Not until he knew more about the traveling man. There were only four days before the contest. Precious time was ticking by.

But on the other hand, Gage wanted the clock to slow down.

Four days.

Alone with Meg.

Last night when he'd laid restlessly on his bed after she'd gone, he'd thought about the times he'd kissed her and held her. He hadn't been able to pull her image from his head as he stayed awake until nearly dawn.

When he'd opened the door after stepping out of the shower bath, he never expected to find her there. She'd stood in the hallway with confidence and pluck. She looked different, acted different. Although subtle, the changes were evident. But the Meg that showed up last night was a risk taker. A woman of her own mind, a free-spirit.

The new Meg appealed to him more than ever.

But she would rather roast him over hot coals than give him her smile. He could tell that she wasn't going to like having to help him; she said as much by the way the corners of her mouth turned down. She was sacrificing many unpleasant hours with Matthew Gage to help Wayne Brooks.

Gage didn't like how her obvious reasoning made him feel.

Behind him, one of the hotel doors opened. He gave the gentleman stepping out a brief glance, then returned
to looking up the street wondering when Meg was going to show up.

“Are you ready?” came Meg's voice beside him.

Turning, Gage lifted his brows as he tried to make sense of the sight before him. Dressed from head to toe in man's attire, Meg sported a pine-ridge scout hat, her hair tucked in the crown—which must have been quite a feat because she had thick hair—a linen shirt and ill-fitting coat with a badly tied neck scarf; and on her feet were a pair of rubber storm shoes that came to her knees.

But what surprised him the most was her beard. A bushy reddish-brown thing with a mustache to boot that came down to her collar.

“What's the matter?” she asked casually beneath his stare—as if it were every day she met him rigged in men's clothing.

“I wasn't expecting this.”

“You didn't think I'd go off with a married man, did you? Mr. Calhoon has to know Mr. Wilberforce is married. Or if he hasn't put two and two together from the real Mr. Wilberforce's letters, he will soon.”

He barely followed her logic. More because his gaze had automatically fallen to her mouth, which was enveloped by a fringe of theatrical hair, than because of the words she spoke. Those soft lips that he had kissed were covered with a wiry artificialness that looked real at a distance, but obvious up close. The fakery of it made him want to laugh, but he held himself in check.

“I'm not married,” Gage said, feeling cheated by not being able to enjoy her face.

“So you told me. But Mr. Wilberforce is. Right now, Mr. Calhoon isn't aware of that. However,” she added with a serious note, drawing Gage from his perusal of
her outlandish get up, “if he were to find out, my reputation would be ruined. I know it's a very marginal chance that he'd ever really know who Mrs. Vernon Wilberforce is, but I can't risk it.”

“But we've been off alone together before.”

“You needn't remind me,” she returned with a sourness to her tone. “That was different. I didn't know who you were. And everybody thought you were somebody else. In a small town, things have a way of coming to the surface. If anyone ever asks you who Mrs. Vernon Wilberforce is, say she's your mother.”

Gage scowled. “It seems like a hell of a lot to go through when nobody is ever going to find out.”

“I beg to differ.” She held her shoulders erect.
“I
found out who
you
were.”

Inasmuch as Gage could understand Meg's desire to disguise herself, he had a hard time looking at her without frowning his disappointment.

Now he wouldn't be able to watch how she fussed with her hair, adjusting the pins all the time and poking the knot of burnished apricot tendrils on her head this way and that to get the coif just so. All that luscious red hair was hidden beneath a man's hat. So was her figure. Behind ridiculous clothes.

He wondered where she got the outfit. Then assumed the clothing belonged to her brother.

Meg lowered her eyes. “I see you have all your things, so we might as well go and get this over with.”

She made it sound as painful and about as pleasant as a visit to the dentist to get a tooth pulled.

His male ego became slightly bruised and his tone showed as much through his cool tone. “I know the way.”

He bent and picked up his gear.

They walked the fifteen minutes to the creek in silence. Fine with Gage. He didn't feel like talking with a woman whose shapely backside was hidden in a pair of pants a size too large.

Meg made every effort to keep the lead for most of the walk, but Gage had longer legs than her and overtook her every time she trudged in front of him.

They reached a section of Evergreen Creek that was farther to the north of the town than the spot they'd rowed to on the lake. Here, a dainty copse of Rocky Mountain ash grew in abundance with willows and berry thickets.

The shore at the water's edge came up to them in a sandy slope. From above, warblers sang; a marsh bird of some kind swooped down, dragged its feet over the bubbling water's surface, then soared upward, disappearing into the boughs.

Depositing her fishing tackle around her, Meg drew up to the water's edge and seemed to size the area. Gage followed, looking into the clear stream and moss-covered rocks, then beyond to the muddy-looking pool.

He saw nothing. His gaze slipped to Meg.

She saw something.

Beneath the brim of her soldier hat, her eyes narrowed. He watched, fascinated, as she studied; she observed.

After a moment, she shook her head. “Wrong sound. I don't like it.” She backed away and snatched her things. “We have to go that way. Downstream just a bit more.”

Gage fell in line behind her, letting her lead the way as he had no idea where to go. A short minute
later, they came upon another section of the stream. She stopped and listened, this time nodding.

“This is where we'll start.”

Dropping his gear to the ground, Gage shrugged. “What was wrong with that other spot?”

“The water flowed too wide. It had a hiss to it. Too powerful for your first lesson. This is better. Here the water gurgles and there's an alder tunnel.” She pointed to the dense foliage that plunged part of the stream into deep shadows.

Gage didn't see the significance of an alder tunnel, but he took her word for it.

Meg went to the water's edge and stood very still. She positioned herself in a way so that her reflection didn't hit the surface. Gage kept back and watched her. In the slash of shade her hat brim made, he observed her gaze skimming the water. From where he remained, he didn't see a thing.

“Water pennies have hatched. There's one.”

Drawing closer, Gage looked. Barely discernable was a bug that looked like a spider gliding across the water's surface.

To his right, came a plop. A fish had just surfaced and snagged something for its meal. Gage folded his arms across his chest, feeling pretty damn smart. “We'll use water penny flies.”

“No.”

Her reply stabbed Gage's self-esteem. “Why not? That's the kind of bug that's on the water. I read you use what insect is hatching.”

“If the fish are biting that particular insect. But they aren't.” Meg turned and walked to where she'd put her tackle.

Gage felt like knocking her hat off. “Well that fish didn't just jump out and take a bite of air.”

“It was a cutthroat and it ate an ant that dropped off one of those alder leaves.”

“How in the hell did you see that?”

“I was watching.”

“So was I. I didn't see a thing.”

“You weren't looking right.” She lowered herself onto the ground and sat in a crossed-leg fashion—a mannish position made possible only because she wore trousers. He sensed she preferred sitting like this to a more ladylike pose.

Rifling through her tackle, she took out a fly box much like Ollie Stratton's. “We'll use terrestrials. Not exactly a fly. A terrestrial is an insect that falls, drops, jumps, hops, or is windblown from shore onto the water where they can be eaten by trout.”

She poked around and came up with a small fussy thing no bigger than the head of a fourpenny nail. Lifting it for him to see, she said, “Black fur ant.” She tilted the ant so he could look at the underside. “There's the hook.”

“Christ, how did that lure get so small?”

“I made it.”

“You did?”

“A long time ago with my brother.”

Her brother.

The reminder served to sober him.

“Sit down and see if Mr. Wilberforce has anything in his tackle that looks like this ant.”

As he did so, she talked while she arranged her line and pole. “There's more to fly-fishing than baiting a hook and swinging it over the water. A lot of what you do is felt inside your gut. For a lack of better
description, I'll use the one my father told me about fly-fishing.”

Gage caught a glance of her; her slender fingers as they poked around in her tackle and sorted flies and threads. That god-awful beard drove him crazy. Its full bushiness obscured most of her face. The man's facial hair seemed a ridiculous companion to her feminine voice as she spoke. “Starting to fly-fish for trout is like falling in love. Keep in mind that my opinion of this emotion is no longer important because I'm no longer of the opinion that this emotion is worth its trouble.”

Her analogy caught him by surprise. “Is that so?”

Her hands stilled. “I was expecting you to say ‘Indeed' or some such word.”

“I don't talk like that. That was Wilberforce. Or rather, Louis Platt.”

“Who's Louis Platt?”

“An editor I once had. He was as stuffy as an old moth-eaten shirt.”

They exchanged a lengthy and silent stare.

Meg broke the silence, her voice quiet. “I don't know who you are.”

“No, you don't.”

Studying him, she asked, “Did you make up stories about your parents? Your sister? Or was that real?”

Gage held her gaze. “It was the truth.”

Their eyes held a long while.

Then Meg went back to the trappings that lay littered around her, adjusting this and that, and continued her explanation as if nothing had passed between them. “In the early stages of fly fishing, your feelings are heady and decidedly unscientific. They exist of the moment and for the moment. And that's enough.” She blew a puff of air between her lips, the mustache
hair fluttering. She must have been hot beneath the bushy hair covering half her face.

“Take it off,” Gage heard himself say without thought.

She glowered at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Take that damn beard off. No one is around for miles. Who's going to see you? And if somebody comes, you can put it back on.”

She laid both hands on her knees in contemplation. A few taps of her fingers on her inseams said she was thinking it over.

Should she or shouldn't she?

To his immense pleasure, she unhitched the beard from behind her ears. “I can't breathe very well in this. The mustache whiskers are too long.” With a toss, she discarded the theatrical piece onto the top of her tackle basket. “That's the
only
reason I'm taking it off. Not because you suggested that I do so.”

“Of course not.” Gage cracked a half-smile at her, then forgot what he was supposed to be doing. All he could do was look at the woman who sat across from him.

She may have been dressed in a lumpy jacket and trousers, and sitting in the fashion of a longshoreman, but he found her utterly captivating. The way the sunlight cast its golden glow over her, the way a butterfly flickered close to her shoulder, the way she went through the process of readying a line for casting. Then she brought out a length of superfine silk line and cut a piece to her specifications with the sharp edge of a blade.

Mesmerized, Gage didn't readily follow her next words.

“But sooner or later,” she went on with her fly-fishing
philosophy without missing a beat in her method of preparation, “things calm down a little, and as the infatuation continues, you want to know more about the sport. In the end, you become hooked. Just like love can hook a person without them least expecting it.” A melancholy frown flitted across her features. “Or so my father told me.”

Gage felt a foreign trip in his heart. Then he scoffed himself. He doubted he would ever be hooked by the inclination to fly-fish, much less fall in love without his being aware of it.

Standing, Meg held her pole and looked at his. He'd attempted to tie a leader on his tippet and run the silk gut through the loops and make a decent knot for the fly and hook. He had a few tangles in places, but other than that, not half bad.

“You know all that material you read in that book?” she asked, one hand on her hip.

“What about it?”