Hooked (33 page)

Slipping his hands in his trouser pockets and putting his weight on one foot, Gage looked for Meg beneath the domes of parasols. They hadn't made plans to meet, but he was fairly sure she'd show up.

He'd be disappointed if she didn't.

He wanted to see her in a dress. Gaze at the soft curves of her figure. Follow the dappling shade from her parasol over her hat. Watch the fluid way she walked without a man's forced gait. Follow the smile in her brown eyes and the tilt of her mouth as she laughed.

The picture would have been a pretty one. But there was more to the canvas than beauty. More than the obvious. It was who she was inside that made him want to see her.

Made him want more than an image of a dress and smiles.

But complications stood in the way of simple pleasures.

He lived in San Francisco. She lived in Harmony.

His occupation was his life. She hated his occupation.

He'd lied to her. She couldn't forgive him.

He thought her brother was dishonest. She thought his investigation was unfounded.

Big obstacles to overcome.

Gage had never been one to compromise—not himself or his ideals or his ways. Even if he was, he wasn't the type of man to settle down anyway. In the past, he'd avoided falling in love. He had nothing to offer a woman but a one room apartment with lackluster furnishings. He rarely used that address in the city. While he traveled the country for stories, what would Meg do? What kind of woman would accept a man who was never around?

“Next!” called Gus Gushurst as Gage came to the front of the line.

Seeing Gage he said a polite hello, then, “Mr. Wilberforce, reach in and pick a card. On it you'll find a number.”

Gage did so and drew a six. Not bad.

Gushurst prompted Gage to fall back into the crowd. “Wait for the last few gentlemen to take their numbers and we can proceed in the staking of the stream spots.”

Walking through the fishermen, who compared cards and numbers, Gage saw Ham Beauregarde with a sour look on his face. Spying Gage, Ham lifted his card for Gage to read the number. Seventeen.

“I suppose I've got my work cut out for me. I've drawn dead last,” Ham remarked. “By the time I get to pick my spot, all the good ones will be taken. What number is it that you've got there, Wilberforce?”

Gage showed him.

Ham's eyes gleamed with envy.

In Gage's nightly following of Beauregarde, the man hadn't made an illicit move yet. He never left the town. He had a clear routine: Go to the Blue Flame for a beer, then the Home-Style restaurant for dinner, then back to the hotel. In the mornings, he took his fishing gear and left for the day. Gage couldn't tail him all the time, but he suspected Beauregarde really was fishing because he talked up his prowess every chance he got in the lobby while smoking cigars.

If Gage confronted him and asked him why he'd gone to Doolin's, getting an honest answer from the Gurney man would be like waiting for snow to hit San Francisco.

Beauregarde put his arm over his shoulder as if they were friendly old chums. Gage's gut tensed as he let himself be led away from the crowd. Away from prying eyes and listening ears.

“Tell you what I'm going to do, Wilberforce,” Ham said, his breath smelling of strong peppermint drops. The Gurney salesman was an in-your-face pitchman, and at least he had the foresight not to have bad breath. “Here's my offer of the day, okay, Wilberforce?”

They stood off to the side from the others at the base of the gazebo.

Ham's weighty arm began to feel oppressive on Gage so he slipped out from under it.

“Here's the deal, Wilberforce,” Ham began, “I will
pay you twenty-five dollars to trade cards with me.” Before Gage could get in a word, the salesman went on, a lift to his hands as if he had to show he wasn't hiding anything sneaky on the palms. “I propose we make a trade—not a sale or anything so vulgar as that. A trade. That's all it would be. Just a little payolah from me to you. And the beauty of it is, nobody has to know. What's a quiet trade between friends?”

Ham reached into his breast coat pocket and discreetly pulled out his billfold and fingered several bills. “Twenty-five dollars is a lot of money. That's—what? A Bissell or two for you? Surely two sales. And this is all on the side. Nobody has to know.”

Gage remained quiet, watching the way Ham's mind worked through the linear expressions on his face. The wrinkles in his forehead; the crinkles at the corners of his eyes; the furrows on either side of his mouth.

Beauregarde was slick. A real smooth operator.

If something smells, it usually stinks.
Only: Where was the proof?

Gage made himself indignant and put out by placing a hand on each of his hips. “Great Scott, Beauregarde, now why would I want to go and give up my good number for a bad number?”

“Because, we both know you can't fish worth a damn,” Beauregarde explained as if his words were nothing at all offensive—merely a statement of facts. “You wouldn't have broken your rod if you knew what you were doing. Anyone can see that this isn't a big deal to you. Why, I haven't seen you practicing along any of the banks the rest of us have been. You clearly aren't in this for the glory like we are. So you must be needing the money. Well, Wilberforce, I have money. Twenty-five dollars. Right now. It's yours.”

He slipped the money into Gage's right hand and tried to slip the card out of Gage's left. Gage held firm. If he hadn't been playing Wilberforce, he would have propelled his elbow into the man's ribs.

“No trade.” The words may have been Wilberforce's, but the voice was pure Gage: deep, unaffected, threatening. He neatly stuffed the money into Ham's pocket.

Beauregarde backed up a few steps and glowered at Gage as if looking at him for the first time. As if he were really thinking hard about something and trying to put together a puzzle.

Wilberforce might have gone too far.

But for Gage, it hadn't been nearly far enough.

*  *  *

“Meg,” Ruth said, “is that a new hat you're wearing?”

Meg, Ruth, and Hildegarde strolled toward the town square. Meg's two friends, decked out in big hats and trimmings, kid gloves and sheer parasols, flanked her. She looked like a plain candle in comparison to their showy attire.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,” Meg replied. She wore an originally styled creation that she'd made last night. The straw was simple java braid, closely woven, with a very wide brim. She'd accented the low crown with her favorite green taffeta scarf. There were no birds, no veiling, and no fruit to be had. Just like the apricot-ribboned hat she'd dared to wear on her picnic . . .

Ruth nodded sincerely. “I like it.”

“I like it as well,” Hildegarde added, looking intently at the crowd. “I used to have one similar to it.”

“We all used to have hats similar to it,” Ruth sighed.

“Then why don't we wear them again?” Meg proposed.

Hildegarde and Ruth gazed at her as if she'd suggested they go out in public in hair curlers.

“We used to wear simple hats,” Ruth clarified, “but that was before we were looking for men to marry.”

“Give me a man over a plain hat any day,” Hildegarde wistfully stated, then practically stood on tiptoe to peer over the hats of men in the distance.

To a point, Meg understood their desire to put away simple hats and outgoing manners. But she no longer agreed with their thinking that by doing so, they'd land the perfect husbands. “Well, I never did get used to those fancy five-dollar hats. So I'm going back to my old ones.”

“You're more daring than me,” Hildegarde remarked, looking left and right.

“And me,” Ruth added. Then with a pucker to her brows: “Hildegarde, just
who
are you looking for?” Ruth gazed around herself as if she were missing anything.

“I'm looking for that new man who came to town. Mr. Bascomb. Mr. Arliss Bascomb.”

Meg stopped in her tracks and exclaimed, “Mr. Bascomb? What do you want with him?”

“My mother said he registered at the hotel and she saw him yesterday and thought he might make a fine catch for me.”

“I didn't see him,” Ruth claimed, “but I did hear that he came back to the hotel all wet.”

Meg wanted to cover her face with her hands. She didn't dare confess
she
was Mr. Bascomb. Then she'd
have to explain all about Mr. Wilberforce. And she didn't have the heart to tell them that Mr. Wilberforce had lied to her.
And,
after all his lying, she was
still
attracted to him.

“My mother did mention he was wet,” Hildegarde replied thoughtfully. “Soaked through.”

Ruth nodded. “I heard Mr. Hess threw him in a horse trough when he held his hand out and said to pay up his taxes.”

“That's not what I heard,” Hildegarde piped in. “My mother said that he was a victim of circumstance and happened to be right in the pathway of Mrs. Kirby's scrub water as she emptied the bucket from her porch.”

Not convinced, Ruth said, “I can't believe your mother would want you to snag a Bureau man.”

Hildegarde twirled her parasol, her chin held high. “Well, my mother said that a new man in town should never be discounted until he's proven himself unsuitable and that I should always give a newcomer, regardless of his occupation, the benefit of the doubt. Granted I've never even seen him so I don't know if he'd be appealing to me or not. Then again, beggars can't be choosers.”

“Oh, Hildegarde,” Meg chided. “Stop selling yourself so short.”

“Have you seen Mr. Bascomb, Meg?”

Meg frowned, wishing she could just blurt out the truth. “Yes I have. And he isn't very attractive. As a matter of fact, he's positively ghastly. Red hair. I dislike red hair on a man. And he has a full beard. It hides his entire face. So he must have a pretty awful one beneath all that hair. I wouldn't go too close to him if I were you.”

Tilting her head at an angle, Hildegarde's announcement sounded airy and full of anticipation. “My mother is going to invite him over for Sunday supper. She thinks he could be just the husband for me, but first she has to talk to him and make sure he's not a ruffian. You know.”

Meg wanted to scream her frustration.

“Since you've seen Mr. Bascomb, Meg,” Hildegarde stated, “point him out to me right away.”

“Yes, certainly.” Meg all but sighed her exasperation. “I'll point him out the minute I lay eyes on him.”

Which won't be any time soon.

“I'll bet Mr. Bascomb isn't going to be here.” Hildegarde added extra shade to the brim of her ostentatious hat with her gloved fingers. “I'll bet he's gone to try and tax somebody. My mother says taxing people's money should be illegal.”

“Then why does your mother want you to marry a Bureau man if she thinks taxing is illegal?” Ruth asked, eyes wide.

“Because she said if I married him, he'd be good assurance that he wouldn't tax my father's mercantile. Morally, how could he tax his father-in-law?”

“Oh, I hadn't thought of that.” Ruth searched the crowd once more. “I'll have to see this Mr. Bascomb for myself. I might want him, too.”

“Honestly,” Meg said, all but putting her hands on her hips. “You're carrying on as if you are the only women in the world who aren't married. Really, it's beneath you to even talk such a way. Like you're miserable old maids.”

“But we are,” Ruth said.

“Yes, we are,” Hildegarde seconded. “And so are you.”

Meg shifted a pin in her hair while proclaiming, “Not anymore.”

Ruth and Hildegarde's eyes went wide as Meg continued, “I prefer to think of myself as a gay and carefree woman. I don't need a husband to make me happy.”

Ruth wrinkled her nose. “That's not what you said last week.”

“Never mind about last week.” Meg jammed the pin into her hair, knocking her hat askew.

“Have you and Mr. Wilberforce had a misunderstanding?”

A misunderstanding
. Meg wanted to laugh. That wasn't the half of it.

“He doesn't appeal to me anymore.” Meg attempted to straighten her hat, but her efforts were futile and she just left it alone. “I find that I'm no longer fond of him.”

“You aren't?” came their dismayed cry.

Ruth said, “You were mooning over him awfully bad.”

“Well, I'm fickle,” Meg replied defensively. “My feelings for him were nothing more than a silly schoolgirl infatuation. The real thing is serious. Love, that is.”

Hildegarde sighed. “You sound so certain.”

“You're only twenty once in your life and you should make the most of it,” she declared. “I don't need Mr. Wilberforce to make me feel younger.”

“Well,” Ruth whispered, “don't look now, but here comes the man you don't need.”

In spite of herself, Meg locked her gaze on Matthew as he approached them. A strange tickle caught her ribs. On the inside, next to her heart. Light and fluttering.
Unwelcome, the image of Matthew in the doorway of his hotel wearing nothing but a towel and water droplets came to mind. The hard and naked planes of his chest, muscles everywhere. The way he'd looked at her. The sound of his voice all deep and husky.

She blinked out of the thought with a pang.

Matthew came upon them with a casual walk, a smile on his mouth and his coat flung over his shoulder.

“Meg,” Ruth said beneath her breath. “Since you don't want him, I'm going after him.”

“What?” she gasped before she could stop herself. She had no opportunity to say another word because suddenly he was there. Tall and handsome. An intelligent humor flickering in his eyes.

“Ladies,” Matthew addressed, while doffing his hat. “It's turning into a nice day now that the sun has come out. I'd say it's a good afternoon for fishing.”