Verity frowned. “Jonas is going to help you sell them?”
“Claims he knows some private collectors who will gladly pay top dollar and not ask too many questions about where those pistols came from. Says he met a few during the days he was holding down a respectable job as a college professor. Seems he was asked to authenticate certain items being considered for purchase by people who didn’t care where the items came from as long as they were genuine.”
“Dad, are those pistols stolen?”
Emerson chuckled. “Calm down. I’ve told you before, frowning in shock like that will eventually give you wrinkles. They’re not stolen. At least, not by me. My old friend gave them to me free and clear. You remember Lehigh down in Rio?”
Verity groaned. “Lehigh’s the one who gave them to you? But where did he get them?” Samuel Lehigh was an engaging eighty-year-old charmer with a very vague past.
“That’s the part that gets a bit sticky, I’m afraid. I’m not sure how Lehigh acquired them and I was too much of a gentleman to ask. Let’s just say it would be simpler if, when I turn around and sell them myself, my buyer is as discreet as I am.”
“Oh, hell.”
“Take it easy, Verity. If those pistols were stolen, it happened a very long time ago. They’ve been in Lehigh’s possession for years. I’m sure of that much. And now that Jonas is sure that they’re the genuine article, I’m all set. All we need is a buyer.”
“And Jonas has promised to put you in touch with one. Interesting. I can see that any opinions I get from you regarding Jonas are going to be somewhat biased,” Verity said with a sigh.
Her father eyed her for a short moment. “You know better than that, Red.” He took a large swallow of tea. The teasing light went out of his eyes and was replaced by something far more dangerous. “I’d have slit his throat when he walked back into the cabin last night if I really thought Quarrel was dangerous to you.”
Verity gave him a weak smile. “Is that right?”
“Sure.” Emerson’s eyes brightened again. “Fair’s fair, after all. He nearly gutted me earlier when I broke into the place.”
“He what?”
Emerson made a soothing gesture. “Relax, Red. It was just a simple case of mistaken identity. It was late when I arrived and I didn’t want to wake you to get the key. So I tried the door and then one of the windows to see if I could jimmy it open. When I came through the window, Quarrel was waiting with a knife in his hand. I knew right then and there, you’d finally shown some intelligence when it came to your hiring practices. From what I’ve seen of your previous employees, none of them could have handled a scene like that with what Papa Hemingway liked to call grace under pressure.”
“Oh, my God, one of you could have been killed.” Verity was momentarily stricken as the implications sank in. She choked on her tea.
She had seen her father cornered once after a bar brawl by a combatant who had been dissatisfied with the official outcome of the fight. In the middle of a moonlit, waterfront street the man had gone after Emerson with a knife. Verity had been with her father at the time. Emerson had come out of the short, savage duel with only a few scrapes. His younger opponent had been badly cut. Verity had never forgotten the color of blood illuminated by moonlight. It was black.
Emerson patted his daughter on the back, the affectionate blows causing her to stagger slightly. “Hey, take it easy, Red. Neither Quarrel nor I got upset about it, so don’t you get in a tizzy. Although I’ll admit it’s nice to see you still have a little faith in your old man’s ability to take care of himself. But like I said, the little scene last night was just a slight case of mistaken identity. We soon cleared it up.”
“How reassuring.” Verity shook her head. “Dad, you are absolutely incorrigible.” She paused, nibbling on her lower lip as she studied him. He smiled at her, unrepentant but full of a father’s love. She put down her teacup and stepped forward impulsively to wrap her arms around Emerson’s waist. He felt as strong and sturdy as he always had.
She had taken that strength for granted ever since the day the two of them stood in a hospital room beside her mother’s bed, clasping the limp fingers of a dying woman they both loved with all their hearts. Amanda Ames had been the victim of a drunk driver. Verity had learned that day when the terrible news came that the universe could no longer be counted upon to play fair. Her father, who had known that truth all along, had helped her accept it in his own assertive way.
“You take care of our little girl, Emerson,” Amanda Ames had ordered gently.
“I’ll do better than that,” Emerson had promised. “I’ll teach her to take care of herself. She’ll be okay, my love. I swear it.”
Amanda had nodded. “I know,” she had whispered. “I know. I can trust you to take care of her. I love you both very much, you know. Don’t spend too much time grieving. Life is for living. You’ve always been very good at living, Emerson. Teach Verity to be good at it, too.”
Amanda had closed her eyes for the last time then and Verity had learned an important lesson about men. It was all right for a strong man to cry. She and her father had shed their tears together and then Emerson had taken Verity to the Caribbean.
“We both need a change of scene,” he had explained as he bought two tickets to Antigua. “Let’s go sit on a beach somewhere and think for a while. Guess we’d better take along a few books. Don’t know when you’ll get back to school.”
“You better write a note to my teacher,” Verity had said, ever mindful of the proprieties, even at the age of eight.
“Nah, we won’t bother your teacher with this. She’ll only get upset and so will everyone else at your silly school. The thing about bureaucracies, Red, is that they tend to get upset over all the little piddling details and ignore the really big, important things.”
Verity had never been enrolled in a formal school again. Emerson had laughed about it more than once during the years that followed. “Just think,” he had told her, “you may be the only kid born in North America who doesn’t have to go through the torture of putting on a school play.”
“And you’re saved the torture of having to sit through one,” Verity had retorted shrewdly. She was twelve at the time and starting to hone her sharp tongue.
Emerson had roared with laughter. “I also am saved from having to perjure myself writing excuse notes for the principal’s office. I always dreaded having to write those things. Your mother made me do one every time I took you out of school to go to the ZOO or the museum or the race track. She said if I was going to be the cause of your missing so much school, I had to assume the responsibility of thinking up the goddamned excuses. Talk about creative writing!”
Standing in her kitchen, her arms around her father, Verity’s mind skipped laserlike over a thousand small scenes from her youth.
Through countless hotel rooms, beachside cottages, and boardinghouses, her father’s strength and love of life had always been reassuring constants. In his own way, Emerson had always been there when she needed him. He had been there during the long, lonely nights when she had cried for her mother. It was he who had explained the facts of life to her in a blunt, straightforward fashion. And it was he who had given her the defenses she would need against the more predatory members of his sex. He had taught her to take care of herself in all the ways that counted. And he had loved her. Verity remembered that and blinked rapidly, clearing a suspicious dampness from her eyes along with all the footloose memories.
“Dad,” she asked, listening to him chew the last bite of a sesame seed cracker. “Are you really in trouble with this Yarington character?”
“Worrying about your old man, Red?” He patted her shoulder again with his big paw of a hand. “Don’t fret. I’ve been in worse situations. This one is under control if your friend Quarrel comes through for me, I’ll be free and clear of Mr. Reginald C. Yarington, international lo
an shark, soon enough.”
Verity stepped back out of his arms, scanning his face for reassurance. She was about to ask another question when the back door of the cafe opened and Jonas strolled into the kitchen. He smiled blandly at Verity, looking for all the world as if he had only a vague recollection of how he had spent the previous evening. She scowled at him. If he couldn’t look like a man who had been recently overpowered by passion, the least he could do was have the grace to appear mildly apologetic about that passion.
“Am I late?” he asked easily, seeing her frown.
“No, you’re not late,” she was forced to admit. “You can start rinsing spinach for the salads I’m going to do for lunch.” She winced at the edge to her words. If this situation was to remain bearable, she would have to demonstrate some graciousness. The only alternative was to fire Jonas on the spot. She decided he would probably sue on grounds of sexual discrimination if she tried that.
“You see what I have to put up with for minimum wage?” Jonas appealed to Emerson.
Emerson gave Jonas a commiserating look as he helped himself to another cracker. “I assume the tips must be good or you wouldn’t stick around to take this kind of abuse,” he murmured meaningfully.
Jonas grinned and looked straight at Verity. “The tips,” he agreed, “are excellent.”
“That does it,” Verity announced. “If you two are going to hang around you can both start rinsing spinach. I won’t tolerate loafers and freeloaders.” She went to the refrigerator, opened it, and pulled out several large bunches of spinach. “Here, show me that God put men on earth for some useful purpose after all.” She tossed one of the spinach bundles at Jonas.
“Anything you say, boss.” Jonas fielded the spinach with casual expertise. “Come on, Emerson. Give me a hand. You owe me for taking the bed last night.”
“Sure, why not?” Emerson rolled up his sleeves and turned on the water. “Won’t be the first time I’ve played kitchen helper. Verity always puts me to work when I show up.
“It’s good for you,” Verity said briskly as she busied herself preparing pasta for a chilled salad. “Builds character.”
“Hah. I haven’t worried about building character since I wrote Juxtaposition,” her father retorted. “I learned then it was a distinctly painful and unrewarding process.” He held spinach leaves under the running water and gave Jonas a speculative glance. “Ever read it, Quarrel?”
“Juxtaposition? I read it. Everyone on campus was reading it ten years ago. It was hot for a few months.”
“What did you think of it?”
Jonas unwrapped the thin wire that bound a bunch of spinach. “It’s been ten years, Emerson.”
“Don’t hedge, man. Tell me what you thought.”
Verity waited expectantly, spoon poised over a steaming kettle of pasta shells. “It was a fantastic book, wasn’t it, Jonas?” she said encouragingly.
Jonas gave her a wary glance and then said to Emerson, “You want the truth?”
Jonas paused again. “Well, like I said, it’s been a while. But I seem to recall being very impressed at the time.”
Verity was pleased. “What impressed you about it?” she prodded.
Jonas shrugged and dumped a pile of spinach into a colander. “I remember thinking that Emerson Ames, whoever he was, was nothing less than brilliant. He’d found the perfect formula for putting on the entire literary establishment. He’d written a book that had it all: lots of painful, maudlin introspection, a neurotic hero who liked to wallow in guilt and anxiety, a generous sprinkling of cynicism that passed for insight, a dash of psychodrama, and a meandering, plotless tale that ended somewhere in the middle of a sentence. I knew by the end of the first page that New York was going to love it, and because New York loved it, everyone who had any claim to being a member of the literati was going to fall all over himself praising the book. I remember telling myself when I finished that Emerson Ames had balls. Not to mention chutzpah.”
Emerson was laughing so hard by the time Jonas finished that he could hardly stand. He leaned his elbows on the sink and roared until his eyes grew moist. “Jesus, Red,” he gasped, “you waited so long I thought you were planning to enter a convent, but I got to admit that when you finally picked a man for yourself, you did all right. I must have brought you up right, after all. Congratulations, kid. Not only can he use a knife, he’s got some brains. A damn rare combination in this day and age.”
Verity lifted her eyes helplessly toward the ceiling. “You’d think I’d have the sense to know when I’m outnumbered,” she mumbled as the kettle of pasta boiled over onto the stovetop.
* * *
The day went surprisingly smoothly after that. The No Bull Cafe got busy around eleven-thirty, which took Verity’s mind off the problems she was having dealing with the men in her life. She ran the kitchen with a firm, competent hand, giving orders to Emerson and Jonas, greeting her guests, organizing the cooking. She was in her element.
By the time the No Bull closed for the afternoon, she felt much better. There was nothing like taking charge of a situation to restore a woman’s self-confidence. As she totaled up the noon profits and prepared to make a trip to the bank, she told herself she could even deal with the shaky beginning to her first love affair.
“Going into town with the loot?” Jonas asked, wiping his hands on a towel as he finished the dishes.
“That’s right.”
“I’ll ride shotgun with you. I want to pick up some more beer.”
Verity tried to keep her pleasure from showing. This would be the first time she would be alone with Jonas all day. “All right, you can come as long as you don’t buy any junk food to go with the beer.”
Jonas tossed aside the towel. “Honey, you know you can’t drink beer without junk food. The two go together in a very delicate chemical process. It would be foolish to interfere. No telling what harm might be done. Let’s go.”
The day was sunny and warm, the kind of fall day that would help ensure a good harvest for the nearby wineries. The road from the lake front into the town of Sequence Springs passed through a stand of trees and then through a wide meadow. Jonas reached out and took Verity’s hand as they walked along the roadside. His fingers tightened around hers.
“Okay. Verity,” he said calmly, “let’s have it.”
She glanced up in surprise. “Have what?”
“The morning-after postmortem.”
“Oh.” She thought about it. “is a postmortem necessary?”
He raised one brow. “Not as far as I’m concerned, but I thought it was de rigueur from the female point of view.”
“You’ve had to endure a lot of postmortems?” she demanded.
“Ouch. Don’t get snappish on me. The answer to your question is no, I haven’t had to endure a lot of them. Not for quite a while. You want to know the truth? It’s been one hell of a long time since I’ve been with a woman. Contrary to popular female opinion, a man does get to a stage in his life when he realizes he can abstain for extended periods of time without committing hara-kiri. Or maybe he just gets to the point where he finds it’s easier to do without than go through the postmortems.” He paused and then said a little roughly, “I’m sorry I was clumsy with you last night”
“You weren’t clumsy,” Verity snapped. “I’ve already told you that. I doubt if you could be clumsy if you tried. Things got a bit rushed, that’s all. Everything was going beautifully until I found that earring.”
“Finding it scared you, didn’t it?” He stopped and pulled her into his arms beside the deserted road. The warm sun beat down on both of them as he caught her questioning face between his palms. “I’m sorry about that, too, Verity. The last thing I want to do is frighten you. Let’s just give ourselves some time, okay?”
“Time?”
“Isn’t that what you were asking for last night? Time
to get to know each other? We’ve got lots of time, sweetheart. I made up my mind this morning to back off. You don’t have to be afraid I’m going to show up on your doorstep every night trying to talk you back into bed. I won’t rush you again.”
Verity smiled tremulously. “Dad said he saw you reading Machiavelli this morning. Is this new strategy a result of a refresher course in the sneaky uses of power and politics?”
“Are you admitting I’ve got some power over you, sneaky or otherwise?”
“Not for a minute.”
He smiled but his eyes were serious and intent. “You’re important to me, Verity. I don’t want to screw things up between us by pushing you too hard. Just give me a chance. I give you my word I’ll take it easy for a while. I want you to trust me.”
She thought about the earring that had fallen out of his pocket last night. Then she thought about all the things she had learned about men from watching her father over the years.
There were very few males in the world who would take a romantic gesture as far as Jonas had taken it when he traced her out of Mexico.
A man who followed his own whims, a man who had absorbed the spirit and philosophy of a bygone age, a man who could quote Renaissance love poetry might be one of the select few who would think it perfectly normal to follow a woman a couple of thousand miles, carrying her lost earring.
Verity touched Jonas’s wrists on either side of her face. She could feel the corded strength in them, a compelling contrast to the astonishing sensitivity of his elegant hands. “You’re important to me, too, Jonas. I don’t know how or why, but you are very important to me.”
He drew a deep breath and pulled her close for a quick, hard kiss. “Then we’ll take it from there. And we’ll take it slow. Everything’s going to be all right, little tyrant.”
Caitlin Evanger showed up for dinner that night accompanied by Tavi. They came alone. Verity wasn’t surprised, after the conversation she’d had with Laura Griswold that afternoon.
Gift of Gold Page 13
