Gift of Gold

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “It’s been pointed out to me,” Jonas said dryly.

  Emerson shook his head. “It’s one thing to think you might have a touch of psychic talent. Hell, lots of people are convinced they’ve had a psychic experience of one kind or another. Telepathy, a bit of precognition, whatever. It’s damn common, in fact. But this business of both of you seeing the same images in some mental corridor is downright spooky. I’d swear you were both lying except that I know my daughter too well. Verity doesn’t lie. And I don’t think you’d bother with this kind of elaborate fiction, Jonas. Too much work involved.”

  “That’s the truth.” Jonas spoke with great feeling. He tossed his crunched beer can into a trash basket in the corner. “But if you think this whole thing is weird, imagine what it’s like for me. I’ve been assuming for years that I’m the only one on the face of the planet who sees these damned visions when I’m handling old junk.” He looked at Verity, his eyes molten gold. “It’s one hell of a relief to find someone who can share the experience with me. At least I can be relatively certain that if I’m slowly going insane, I’m not going there alone.”

  Emerson looked at both of them. “Neither of you is crazy and neither of you is a liar. We’re stuck with the only other conclusion—there really is some kind of mental weirdness going on between the two of you. Tell me more about the guy who was bleeding into the linguini,”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Verity said. “I had just turned around and spotted the image when Jonas came up behind me and said we were getting out of there.”

  “But he was definitely connected with the dagger?”

  “Probably,” Jonas said slowly. “I’ve always had the impression that the people who show up in the corridor images are directly connected with the object I’m holding at the time. But I don’t always understand the connection.”

  Verity wiped her hands on her apron. “The clothes the man was wearing looked a little out-of-date. Maybe ten or fifteen years old.”

  “You were very observant,” Jonas remarked, eyeing her curiously. “You didn’t mention the age of his clothes when we talked this over last night. Did you notice anything else?”

  “No, except maybe a feeling that the guy knew who it was who had just killed him. the poor man looked so astonished, as if he wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen. Almost as if the other person was a friend.”

  “I think you’re right,” Jonas said reflectively. “Although I guess it’s equally possible a stranger walked into the room and shot him. A man caught unawares like that could have the same expression of astonishment on his face.”

  “What about Kincaid?” Emerson asked shrewdly. “Do you think he knows anything about the history of the dagger on his wall?”

  Jonas lifted one shoulder in a negligent gesture. “Who knows? He thought the dagger was a genuine sixteenth-century piece, I do know that. He was furious when I told him it was a reproduction. He probably paid a fortune for it. But most collectors like him don’t ask too many questions about the recent past of an object they want to buy. The less they know, the better, as far as they’re concerned. If someone shot and killed a man to get hold of that dagger and sell it at huge profit to a fanatic collector like himself, Kincaid wouldn’t want to know about it. Just as Haggerty didn’t push too hard to know the recent history of those pistols. It was enough for him that they were genuine.”

  “I can understand that line of thinking, although I’ve always thought it was better to be informed than take a chance on being hung out to dry. Ignorance is not bliss. But I guess we can assume that Kincaid doesn’t know too much about the dagger,” Emerson concluded.

  “He didn’t even know it was fake,” Verity scoffed. She shoved a pan of pasta into Jonas’s hand. “Here, put this on the counter behind you.”

  He looked down at the pile of naked, steaming noodles. “What is it?”

  “Linguini. I was going to make a red sauce for it, but for some reason I changed my mind this morning. I’m going to make a nice green pesto sauce instead.”

  Much later that evening Verity did something she hadn’t done since her affair with Jonas had fully blossomed. She left Jonas and her father playing chess in her father’s cabin, grabbed her terrycloth robe, and headed for the peace and solitude of the empty spa. Both men were concentrating so hard on their game that they barely noticed her departure.

  The blue and white tiled room was empty, as it always was at this time of night. Verity left most of the lights off, turning on only the few she needed to find her way to her favorite pool. She stripped off her jeans and blouse and slid nude into the pool When she was submerged to her neck, Verity leaned back and contemplated the recent chain of events. She had found a lover, discovered a rather useless psychic talent, and become friends with a famous artist, all in the space of a few short weeks. The quiet, orderly lifestyle she had painstakingly created for herself in the past few years had been severely altered.

  The question was, how much of it would last and for how long? The psychic talent was connected to the lover who would undoubtedly go away one of these days, and the famous artist was on the point of giving up her brilliant career. Compared to everything else going on around Verity, her restaurant business looked stable.

  Verity decided not to dwell on the psychic connection she shared with Jonas. It was too disturbing, too fraught with unanswerable questions. Tonight she preferred to deal with hard facts.

  The first hard fact that came to mind involved herself. She closed her eyes and wondered if she really was turning into a shrew. That led to the question of how long any man would hang around such a woman.

  It was easier to wonder about that than about how long a man would hang around a woman who was causing his weird psychic ability to get stronger and more weird.

  “You are not, by any chance, sitting naked in that pool because you knew I’d be along after a while, are you?”

  Jonas’s indulgent voice, sounding unabashedly hopeful, took Verity by surprise. Her eyes snapped open. Instantly she was violently aware of her nudity. Considering all the nights she had spent with Jonas, her flushed reaction was ridiculous. With any luck he would attribute the pinkness in her cheeks to the heat of the mineral water.

  “I thought you were playing chess with Dad,” Verity said quickly.

  “I was playing chess with him until he won. My mind was wandering. We’ve scheduled a rematch for tomorrow night. I went looking for you and discovered you were not tied up in a red bow and waiting in bed for me.” Jonas came to a halt at the edge of the pool and began unfastening the buttons of his blue work shirt with lazy intent.

  “When have you ever found me wearing a red bow and waiting in bed for you?”

  His grin was wickedly knowing. “Never, but a man can fantasize, can’t he?” His eyes moved over her body, most of it quite visible in the crystal-clear water. “Don’t worry, finding you this way is just as good.”

  Verity stirred and glanced toward the entrance of the spa room. “What if Laura shows up again the way she did the last time we were here together?”

  “I doubt she’ll be terribly surprised at what she finds.” Jonas tossed his shirt aside. His long fingers went to work unbuttoning his jeans.

  Verity watched, half-mesmerized by the sexy sight of Jonas undressing. He took his time about it, revealing his strong shoulders and flat stomach first. The hair on his chest seemed to offer an open invitation for her fingers to scamper through it. When he stepped out of his jeans he was already partially aroused.

  Verity cleared her throat. “Are you practicing to be a striptease artist?”

  He slanted her a laconic smile and moved into the water. “I don’t believe in teasing you, little tyrant. What you see is what you get.” He spread his arms out along the edge of the pool and leaned back, savoring the hot water. “Damn, this feels good.”

  Verity held her breat
h for a few seconds and then rushed into the question that was hovering in her mind: “Do you really think I’m a petty tyrant?”

  “Little, not petty. There is nothing petty about you, honey. But there are a few little things I could mention.” He half opened one eye, obviously prepared to turn the conversation into sexy channels.

  “Jonas, I’m serious,” Verity said urgently. “You think I’m a shrew, don’t you?”

  “It’s part of your charm,” he assured her blandly.

  Verity got angry. “No, it’s not part of my charm. You’re always pointing it out and making rude remarks about it. And now there’s this other thing about your talent getting more bothersome. Let’s face it, Jonas, I’m not your kind of woman.”

  “Oh, hell.” He closed his eye again. “I get the feeling someone is spoiling for a fight tonight, and it’s not me.”

  “I’m not looking for a fight. I just want to clarify a few things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as why you’re hanging around.”

  “I’m hanging around because I need the job and I have discovered that sleeping with you is like sleeping with a cactus. Once a man gets past the thorns, the fruit is very sweet.”

  “If that’s supposed to thrill me, you’re in for a surprise. I don’t like being compared to a cactus,” Verity muttered, feeling put upon. She was prepared for an intense, in-depth, thoroughgoing discussion of their relationship, but Jonas was in a bantering mood.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her against his side. “Hey, what is this?” he asked gently. “We’re supposed to be relaxing after a long, hard day.”

  “I’d like us to be honest with each other, Jonas. You find me a shrew and a tyrant. You say I’m sarcastic. I don’t pay well. Furthermore, we’re complete opposites in a lot of ways. We don’t even share similar nutritional habits. There is nothing between us but sex and your weird psychic talent.”

  “I’ve got news for you, honey. That’s a lot to have between us. More than I’ve ever had with any other woman.” He lifted his dark lashes again and examined her intense expression. “And it’s more than you’ve ever had with any other man.”

  Verity leaned back against his arm. “Maybe we’re just using each other. You need me to explore your psychic abilities and I need you to give me a taste of what passion is all about.”

  “Even if that’s all there is to this relationship of ours,” Jonas said roughly, “it’s enough for now. Verity, you’re going to drive yourself nuts if you dwell on this too much. Just relax and go with the flow.”

  “That’s good advice for someone like you who’s lived by that principle for years. But I’m different, Jonas.”

  “I know,” he said wryly. “You’re going to spend an enormous amount of time and energy dissecting our relationship, examining it inside and out, and generally working yourself up about something that should just be taken one day at a time. It’s your nature to try to label and organize things.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “Maybe we’d better change the subject. When’s Dad going to pay off that shark?”

  “Reginald C. Yarington? In a couple of days. As soon as Haggerty’s check clears, I imagine.”

  “I hope Dad doesn’t get so excited by the prospect of having all that money in his hands that he rushes out and places a few bets at the track instead of paying off the shark,” Verity said worriedly.

  “Don’t worry, I’m certain Emerson will pay off his loan. He really does think of a gambling debt as a debt of honor, you know. He also assures me that Yarington is not a man to be trifled with. Emerson doesn’t want to have to spend the next few years looking over his shoulder.”

  Verity shuddered. “Dad and I owe you for this, Jonas,” she said very seriously. “You helped us a lot by handling the sale of those pistols. Neither of us would have known how to go about contacting big-time private collectors and we wouldn’t have been sure of what to ask for the guns.”

  His hand tightened abruptly on her bare shoulder. “Let’s get something straight, Verity. Your dad may feel he owes me a favor or two, but you don’t owe me anything. Got that?”

  She was startled by the harshness of his voice and the fierceness of his grip. “But, Jonas, we do owe you, and even though you think I’m a shrew, I want you to know that I always pay my debts.”

  “Shut up, Verity,” he said gently. “There is no debt between us, and if you bring up the matter one more time I may do something rash. And for the record, I don’t mind taming the occasional shrew. A man needs a challenge once in a while. Ouch!” He doubled over, clutching at his ribs as Verity landed a quick punch.

  “Just how many shrews have you tamed?” she asked a little too sweetly.

  “You’re the first,” he admitted, still holding his ribs. “And at this rate, you may be the last. One shrew per lifetime may be the limit for any man.”

  Satisfied, Verity settled back against his arm. Her mood had suddenly lightened, she discovered. On to other topics of conversation. “What are you going to do now that you’ve started exploring your talent again, Jonas? Go back to teaching history? Or work for a museum?”

  “I don’t want to go back to teaching. I’ve been away from it too long. One thing I discovered during the past five years is that I don’t miss grading exams or lecturing to a classroom full of students who’re more concerned with the development of their sex lives than with the contrast between Renaissance humanism and Renaissance military philosophy. To put it simply, teaching sucks. But it has crossed my mind that I could go back to making a few bucks doing consulting work. It pays well, doesn’t demand a lot of time, and it’s interesting.”

  “You said something earlier today about getting stronger,” Verity said slowly. “Do you think you’ll get to the point where one of these days you won’t need me to anchor you when you enter that corridor?”

  Jonas sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Verity. I’ve got as many questions as you have about what happens between us when we enter that corridor.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Verity turned Jonas’s words over in her mind. He was right, she was dwelling on the relationship far too much. Verity wondered if Caitlin Evanger had ever found herself involved with a man to the point where she spent a great deal of time and energy fretting about the relationship.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jonas asked whimsically. “I was thinking about Caitlin; wondering if she ever had a great love in her life.”

  “I doubt it,” Jonas said with flat certainty. “I can’t see her loving anything but her art, and she’s apparently planning to abandon that.”

  “I think there’s a lot more to her than you can see,” Verity said earnestly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she went through some great trauma at some point in the past. Something other than the car accident, I mean. Perhaps she was badly hurt emotionally. No one withdraws from the world the way she has without a good reason.”

  “Some people are born cold-blooded, Verity. Take my word for it. I’ve met men who can kill with as little concern as they apply to eating breakfast.” He paused. “Kincaid’s cold.”

  Verity glanced at him in astonishment. “What makes you say that?”

  “Something in his eyes when he looked at you. Don’t tell me: you found him warm, charming, and attractive, right?”

  She thought about it. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know quite how to take him.”

  “He’d take you in a hot second if he thought he could get you into bed.”

  Verity nearly choked. “What? Are you serious, Jonas?” She was shocked. “I’m not his type at all.”

  “Yes, you are,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “A man like Kincaid has a lot of types, and one of them would be the bright-eyed, fresh, wholesome type. Just the type to cleanse the palate after a surfeit of sophistication and glamour. You don�
��t know how perpetually innocent you look, honey. There’s a genuineness about you that makes a man think you’d hold nothing back if he could just get you into bed. If I hadn’t been around, I have a hunch Kincaid might have tried to seduce you. If you were still a virgin and he had known it, I would probably have had to use that dagger on him to keep him away from you. Not because he had fallen for one Verity Ames on sight, but because he’s the kind of creep who gets off on the idea of seducing virgins. Hell, the main reason I pulled that stunt with the dagger was that I wanted to get his attention off you. I knew that for him, the idea that he might have been conned would be a whole lot more important than any woman.”

  Verity was stunned. She stared at Jonas, open-mouthed in astonishment. “Do you really believe that Damon was attracted to me?”

  “Don’t look so dumbfounded. I’m a man. Give me some credit for being able to judge the members of my own species. And like I said, it wasn’t you, the person, that attracted him; it was you, the sweetly smiling innocent, he wanted.”

  “Dammit, I am not an innocent!” She frowned fiercely and touched the tip of her nose. “Maybe it’s the freckles that give people that impression.”

  Jonas chuckled indulgently, bent his head, and kissed her parted lips with quick, hard possessiveness. “I find it very reassuring to know we’re highly unlikely to ever run into Damon Kincaid again. The truth is, I’m glad you live here at Sequence Springs, where the population of available males is, according to your friend Laura, as limited as hen’s teeth.”

  Verity shook her head in amazement. “Well, I’ll be darned. Damon Kincaid. Who would have thought…?”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Jonas interrupted dryly. “I can see I should have kept my mouth shut. Now I suppose your female ego will be inflated to triple its normal large size. I should have known better than to do anything to stroke it.”