Hooked (38 page)

“Meg,” came her grandmother's voice from the parlor. “I just got in myself. How was Johannah's party?”

Meg didn't feel like talking about it, but she went to greet Grandma Nettie. “It was fine.”

Grandma Nettie sat on the organ bench. “I feel like playing. It's been so long. Come join me, dear.” She patted the seat. “What did they think of your hair?”

Not wanting to put a damper on Grandma Nettie's high spirits, Meg sat down beside her. “I shocked most of them.”

“They'll come around. I think your hair looks wonderful. I've decided to cut mine, too. Do you suppose that Mr. Finch would mind doing the honors?”

“I don't think so.” Meg pressed down on the middle C key with her index finger. “How was your outing with Mr. Finch?”

Her grandmother laughed. “Griffon is a very interesting man. I've been too involved in my campaigns to see it.” She gave Meg's shoulder a squeeze. “Thank you for suggesting Durbin's, Meg. I felt like I was a young girl again.”

Meg smiled. She was happy for her grandma.

“And how are things coming along on the Arliss Bascomb front?” her grandmother asked.

“I don't know.” Meg removed her hat and set it on top of the organ's mantel. “Everything is going to depend on the contest this Saturday.”

“I haven't been very nice to
that reporter
ever since you told me he was a fraud,” Grandma confessed. “He only gets a nod from me these days.”

“You can do more than nod to him, Grandma. He doesn't bite.”

“His words do.”

But he hadn't written any thus far—not any that Meg knew about.

“Well, after Saturday it will be all over and he'll know that our Wayne is innocent. Then your newspaper man will be gone from Harmony for good.”

Gone. Forever.

As Grandma Nettie played “Love's Old Sweet Song,” Meg wanted to cry. Her vision blurred on the sheet music, and she lowered her chin.

The tune's notes filled the parlor. Sweet and melodic. Meg knew the words. They flowed inside her head.

So till the end, when life's dim shadows fall, love will be found the sweetest song of all.

Why did loving a person have to hurt so much?

*  *  *

The following morning, Meg stood in the backyard of her house, struck a match to the side of a matchbox and tossed the flame onto the refuse pile. Her current diary sat on top. Mr. Finch had yet to burn the week's trash so Meg was doing it for him. And burning the book that was filled with all her personal thoughts.

She was through with writing down sentimental overtures.

Smoke curled and red sparks spit from the mound of leaves, twigs, kitchen waste, and rubbish.

Meg was burning Matthew Gage out of her life and getting on with her new one. In a way, the prospect of living as a spinster was exciting. Look at all the things she could do or say. Because old maids had a
way about them. They never had to conform much—they were usually thought of as eccentric, anyway.

Perhaps Meg was meant for eccentricity. She'd find out if she was—now that she had no future with men. At that thought, her excitement faltered. So much for a brave front.

Ever since she'd fallen in love with Matthew, she'd been forlorn. All those silly words she'd written about Mr. Wilberforce, they embarrassed her now. Half of the things she'd said were made up anyway.

But mixed inside were her true feelings. The way she really did feel about Matthew. And that was the part that wouldn't go away. She'd pulled out all the stops when writing down her fantasies about him. Now that she'd come to her senses and realized they didn't have a chance, the entries were just too painful to read.

Meg watched as the corners of the blue leather book smoked and the air grew tinged with the smell of her lost dreams and . . . bacon.

Bacon?

“Miss Margaret!” came Mr. Finch's alarmed call of distress as he stood on the back stoop wearing his apron. “What are you doing?”

She thought it was obvious. “Burning the trash.”

“You'll torch us all to the ground.” On that, he hurried down the steps after grabbing a bucket and quickly pumping water into it from the pump.

Before she could blink, he'd doused the fire to a smoldering gray cloud of air that puffed skyward and choked her.

On a cough, she asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Because this isn't the burn pile, Miss Margaret.”
Mr. Finch pointed to the other pile in a bricked border. “That is the burn pile. This is the compost pile.”

“It is?” One pile of trash all looked the same to her.

“Yes.” Mr. Finch adjusted the slope of his bowler which had gone askew as he dashed to put the flames out. “I just poured this morning's bacon grease onto the pile, Miss Margaret, and if the flames were allowed to continue, we might have had an inferno on our hands.”

“Oh . . .” Meg bit her bottom lip. Yes, the yard did smell like an Easter ham.

Mr. Finch took a stick and stirred the singed mess, knocking her diary from the pile. It rolled, edges charred and still smoking, to her feet.

“What's that?” Mr. Finch inquired, bending toward her diary.

“An old schoolbook of mine with a ruined binding. Nothing important.” She tried to step on her diary, but was afraid she'd burn the sole of her shoe. She was about to kick the journal out of the way, and out of Mr. Finch's view, when she grew distracted by the bay of a hound. Mr. Wolcott's dog, Barkly, to be precise.

The bloodhound loped upon them, no doubt attracted by the smell. He was a troublesome creature, but even Meg had to admit he was cute in an ear flopping, slobbering, kind of way. But when he started heading for her diary, all thoughts of cute ran dry.

“Barkly!” Meg shouted. “Get away from there.”

But quicker than she could react, the bloodhound had her book of made-up stories and all-too-real emotions in his chops and was bounding toward Main Street in a stride too fast to catch. He'd absconded
with her most private and intimate thoughts as if they were a ham hock.

Discovery in the wrong hands would make her the scandal of the century.

*  *  *

She wasn't coming.

Gage had waited for Mr. Bascomb at nine o'clock. By fifteen after nine, Meg hadn't showed. So Gage had gone to the fishing spot by himself.

Assembling his rod and tackle, he'd whipped silk braid over the stream for a good half hour, his arm stiff and his concentration waning. He couldn't unroll the line loop in a smooth motion and it kept getting tangled. Meg's instructions swam through his head, but he couldn't focus on any of them.

Early this morning, he'd stopped by the vacant building on Hackberry Way. He'd looked inside once more.

The space was ideal for a newspaper office, easily large enough to house a printer's press and a copy desk. The lighting was good. A location that was central to town. The place had a lot to offer, but could Gage make an offer on it?

Relocating was a hell of a thing for a man his age. Settled in a way of life that he had known for three decades. Change—to a pessimist, it was an optimistic word. Yet he found the prospect inspiring in a way that he hadn't felt in a long while.

Change. Could he?

For Meg, he thought he could do almost anything. But would that mean giving up who he really was? Stunt reporter. Muckraker.

The words were now sounding dirty, even to him.

He used to love the stories he'd penned. Now he
was starting to hate the thought of doing one more. Because this new one put a wall between him and Meg. She made him see that he wasn't doing the world a favor. That he was sometimes as low in his tactics to get a story as those he exposed.

Before Meg he'd been content.

Now he was questioning himself.

“Damn her,” he said, tipping his rod in a forward cast. The fragile line flew in a wide arc that floated downward into a stand of willows and caught.

“You didn't release the slack on time,” came a voice behind him.

Gage turned and a surge of emotion swept through him despite the sight of the red theatrical beard and stiff clothes of Meg as Mr. Bascomb. She stood at the top of the shoreline, rod and tackle box in hand.

“I know that,” Gage replied. “I wasn't concentrating.”

“That was obvious.”

Reeling in what he could of the silk thread, Gage said, “You didn't show up. I left.”

“I was indisposed.” Meg made her way toward him, her gear rattling against the full leg of her trousers. “Hildegarde's mother waylaid me.”

Gage found that interesting. He'd been waiting on the porch and he hadn't seen Mrs. Plunkett enter the hotel. “Where? In the lobby?”

“No. Upstairs. The nerve of that woman. She was waiting in the hallway trying to get her daughter a suitor. Me.”

Meg made her way to Gage and set her things down with a thump. She removed her beard, took off her hat, and shook out her short hair. Sunlight captured the copper strands, suffusing them with fiery color.
Shimmering and bright, the curls reminded him of fall leaves in a variety of sunset hues.

Gage loved her hair. Very much.

“She got a good eyeful of me and still wasn't deterred from asking me over for Sunday supper. Honestly, this disguise is pretty thin—she must be desperate to find Hildegarde a husband if she's willing to settle for someone as ratty as Arliss Bascomb,” she scoffed. “I told her no, of course. I'm glad today is the last day I'll have to be Mr. Bascomb.”

Quietly Gage said, “After last night, I didn't think you'd come.”

“My brother's neck is on the line. I had to come,” she replied. “Are you happy?”

“I'm not happy that you don't really want to be here.” Gage dug into his pants pocket for his Bee-man's peppermint gum after dropping his fishing rod with disgust. He unwrapped a stick and chewed. Then he caught Meg staring at him.

“You have a bad stomach, don't you?”

He lifted his brow. “No worse than usual.”

“You know what your problem is?” she stated, not in a tone that was holier than thou—but, rather, more matter of fact. “Your stomach acts up because of all the stress you put on yourself. Have you ever thought about another profession?”

Gage choked on a wry laugh. “No, but I've thought of altering the one I'm in.”

“Really? How so?”

“You wouldn't believe me.”

“You could try me.”

“I don't think so. I'm not ready to convince myself yet.”

Thankfully, Meg let the subject drop.

Gage bent and began to untangle his line so he could practice some more. Although, right at this moment, he really didn't give a damn about fishing or the contest or Wayne Brooks.

It wasn't until he was well ensconced with his line that all of a sudden he heard the clatter of a jar lid and Meg's soft oath of: “Hells bells.” He'd never heard her swear before. So it was that fact that had him looking over his shoulder at her.

She held on to a jar of white lotion, the label half-hidden in her grasp. Some of the concoction had oozed onto her fingers. All he could make out of the writing on the jar was
Princess Bus
— and —
largement of the Bu—.

“What are you doing?” Gage asked.

“Nothing.”

She looked helplessly around, as if she wanted to ditch the cream and thwack the goo off her hand.

Gage straightened and walked toward her. “What is that?”

“Nothing that would interest you,” she returned, plopping the jar into her tackle box and attempting to close the lid but unable to.

“I've learned the hard way that when you say ‘nothing' there's usually ‘something.' ” Gage stood over her and looked down into her upturned face.

“Well, if you must know, this is . . . camphor. For itching. Just in case we come upon some poison ivy.”

She apparently had no handkerchief on her, so she wiped her hand down the leg of her pants. Not all of the camphor came off, and she disregarded the rest that smeared her fingers. He watched her as she set up her line and affixed a badger spider on the hook. Some of the white gunk got on the fuzzy dry fly.

She stood and faced him. “What?”

“Do you think that camphor will attract any fish?”

“It doesn't work.”

“You've tried it?”

“Yes. A liberal amount for one whole day—” She clamped her mouth closed. “I mean, I haven't personally tried it. I've had it in my tackle box for a day.” Then she trudged off toward the shore without giving him the opportunity to say more.

Gage followed and cast his line, unfurling the silk gut from his simple click reel over the water in fast repetitions. Not a bite.

Meg, on the other hand, released hers in a graceful unrolling of airborne line before the fly settled to the river's current, a small spot of color barely visible as it floated for a few feet through the riverbank's green reflections. Then the badger spider was gulped in. Swallowed—hook, line, and camphor.

She reeled the line in, let the trout go, and examined her hook with a puzzled shake of her head. More of the white camphor from her hand got onto the badger spider again. She mumbled something beneath her breath, shrugged, and recast.

Again. Another trout.

Five more casts. Five more trout.

While Gage stood there without a nibble.

“I can't believe it,” she murmured, going back to her tackle box, getting some more of the white preparation and liberally loading her fly with it.

As she returned toward him, he said, “Let me see the jar of that camphor. I want to try it”

“You most certainly may not It's an . . . an old family recipe and I'm sworn to secrecy.”

He held her gaze with his for a prolonged moment. “You're lying to me.”

She stared at length at him. Then without spite: “It's awful, isn't it?”