Gift of Gold

  Jonas felt a tremor of real anger go through him. Up until now he had been merely irritated. But now he knew cold fury. Caitlin Evanger had reminded him of his past, all right, but the memories were laced with violence and blood, not the synthetic perils of academic success. He kept his voice even, but he could hear the edge in it and knew Verity must have heard it also.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Verity,” he said. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut. My past is my business.”

  “I’ll bet there’s more to it than just being reminded of it,” she went on recklessly. “I’ll bet you’re jealous.”

  “Jealous! Of Caitlin Evanger? Give me one good reason.”

  “She prevailed against all odds. She made it. She had ability and she honed and refined that ability, even though she was crippled for life. She worked hard to get where she is. She’s not a success just because she had talent or because she got lucky. She worked for that success. Look at the difference between the two of you. You should take a lesson from her, Jonas. She’s enjoying the fruits of her labors and going on to bigger and better things, while you’re washing dishes.”

  “That’s enough, Verity.”

  “You’re just like my father. Both of you are too damn easygoing and too self-indulgent to work at achieving what you’re capable of achieving. You don’t even want to settle down, do you? You’d rather fritter away your whole life jumping from one place on the globe to another instead of staying put long enough to build something worthwhile of your life. You’re irresponsible, that’s what you are. A little boy who doesn’t want to be bothered with growing up and assuming control of his life and his abilities. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

  “I said that’s enough, Verity.” He was knotted with tension as he received the lash of her tongue, but she seemed oblivious to the precarious state of his temper.

  “Oh, shut up and go to bed. I don’t want to hear anything more out of you tonight. The least you could have done was to show some respect toward someone who’s made something of herself and her talent. Laura was right. I have been on the verge of going crazy, but I’ve seen the light in time. I’ll start paying more attention to her stressed-out lawyers and stockbrokers and doctors.” She whipped around and started up the path toward her cabin.

  “Dammit, just who the hell do you think you are?” Jonas had her before she’d gone a yard, his hand closing forcefully around her shoulder. He yanked her back around to face him. He knew his words were dangerously soft but he doubted if she realized the significance of that. She had never seen him lose his temper.

  “Let me go, Jonas.”

  He ignored the imperious command. “So you think I’ve got a few problems lady? Well, let me tell you something, I’m not the only one. Take a good look at yourself. You’re turning into a shrewish little spinster because you won’t look twice at any male who doesn’t live up to your high standards of sober, respectable, responsible manhood. No wonder you haven’t got a lover, let alone a husband. What man in his right mind would want to get slashed to ribbons by that sharp tongue of yours? What man who wasn’t a complete wimp would want to listen to you tell him how to run his life? Who gave you the right to sit in judgment on the male of the species? You know next to nothing about me and yet you’ve got the nerve to stand there and lecture me on what I’ve done with my life. Who gave you that right?”

  He felt her flinch under the onslaught of his anger. Her eyes were huge and wary in the shadows. Jonas could feel her straining to escape the grip of his hand.

  “Let me go, Jonas.”

  With a muttered oath, Jonas released her. Verity turned and fled to her cottage.

  Jonas stood watching her, his hands clenched at his sides. He was almost shaking with the force of the anger and frustration sweeping through him. This woman was going to drive him over the edge.

  He sensed the soft vibrations of the earring in his pocket and instinctively reached for it. The instant his fingers closed around the gold circlet he began to calm down.

  When he had set out on the quest to find Verity he had not expected to find himself at the mercy of this sharp-tongued wench.

  And he hadn’t expected to run into an ice-blooded artist who knew something about his past, either.

  Life was full of surprises.

  Chapter Four

  The faint rasp of metal on metal brought Jonas out of a light sleep two hours later.

  He came fully awake in the darkness, not moving while he focused on the sound. He had heard similar sounds before. Five years of surviving waterfront dives, back alleys, and lodgings that frequently fell short of Hilton standards had taught him exactly what that slight, scraping noise was.

  Someone was trying the lock on the front door of the cabin.

  Jonas flashed briefly on the remote possibility that the red-haired tyrant next door had come to apologize for abusing him earlier that evening. But the fantasy did not last long. Jonas had not survived the past few years by being anything other than extremely pragmatic.

  The slight rasping sound came again. Jonas gathered himself quietly in the darkness and rolled out from under the old wool blankets. He stifled a groan of protest as his feet silently hit the cold floor. He really was going to have to do something about the heating system one of these days.

  As the doorknob stopped twisting, Jonas forgot about the cabin’s heating problems. He heard the scrape of a shoe on the front step and then silence. Whoever was trying to get into the cabin had obviously given up on the door and was probably searching for an open window.

  Jonas reached into the worn duffel bag that had contained all his worldly possessions the day he arrived in Sequence Springs. The bag was empty now except for the sheathed knife that resided in its inside pocket. Jonas’s hand closed around the handle of the blade just as the window made a squeak of protest. Jonas made another note to fix the broken lock on that window. A handyperson’s job was never done.

  The intruder was not going out of his way to maintain silence. Either he was very inept or he thought the cabin was empty.

  Jonas padded softly to the wall beside the window. He was in position as the wooden frame began to squeak slowly upward. The large outline of a man, his face invisible in the darkness, hovered outside for a moment.

  When the window was fully raised, the intruder threw one leg over the sill and grunted. He was in the awkward position of straddling the window frame when Jonas moved.

  “Next time try knocking,” Jonas advised as he wrapped an arm around the man’s throat and yanked him through the window. Jonas could feel the hair of his beard brushing his arm. This man was large. When he hit the floor there was a solid thump.

  “Shit! What the hell…?”

  Whatever his next comment would have been, it was cut off by a muffled groan as Jonas pinned his late-night visitor to the cold wooden floor. The other man floundered briefly and furiously, his late-night visitor to the cold wooden floor. The other man floundered briefly and furiously, showing a surprising amount of skilled strength until Jonas put the tip of the knife to his unguarded throat. Instantly his victim went still.

  “That’s it,” Jonas said approvingly. “I think we understand each other. Don’t move.”

  “Don’t worry.” The voice was a deep rumble. “I’m not going anywhere as long as you’re the one with the knife.” Jonas patted him down. The man was wearing a wool jacket, a shirt, and denim pants. There was no knife or gun strapped to his leg or hanging from his belt.

  “Stay where you are.” Jonas got to his feet and hit the light switch. An instant later the harsh glow of the bare overhead bulb filled the small room. Jonas found himself looking at a bear of a man.

  His full beard and mustache had once been red but were now heavily streaked with gray. Ditto for the mass of short, shaggy curls that framed a small balding patch on top of his head. Aquamarine eyes glitte
red at Jonas from beneath heavy brows. He had big shoulders and was broad in the chest and heavy in the thigh. He was probably somewhere in his early sixties, although the short struggle he’d put up suggested the vigor of a younger man.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” the man stated as he rubbed the shoulder he had landed on. “My mercenary daughter decided to make a few bucks on the side by renting out my cabin, right? Sometimes that gal shows absolutely no respect for her poor, aging father. No respect at all.”

  Jonas leaned back against the wall in a casual slouch and studied those familiar aquamarine eyes. “Emerson Ames, I presume?”

  “The one and only.” Emerson sat up slowly. His sharp gaze moved assessingly over Jonas. “You play with knives frequently?”

  “Not if I can avoid it. A man can get hurt playing with knives.” Jonas decided there could be absolutely no doubt about the identity of this man. He walked over to the duffel bag and dropped the knife into its sheath. “Sorry about the unfriendly welcome.”

  Emerson watched him move. “My fault entirely,” he growled generously. “I assumed the place was empty. It was too late to rouse Verity so I thought I’d just find my own way into the cottage for the night. I don’t suppose you’re Verity’s lover, are you?”

  Still leaning over the duffel bag, Jonas raised an eyebrow at the undisguised tone of hope. He straightened as Ames got to his feet. “Nope. I’m her dishwasher.”

  Ames nodded sadly. “Figures. Give her a good, strong, solid son of a bitch like yourself who knows how to take care of himself, and what does she do with him? Hires him as a dishwasher. Lord, where did I go wrong with that girl? It’s enough to make a man question the wisdom of giving female children a decent education.” He glanced around the room. “I suppose by now you’ve probably drunk what was left of that bottle of vodka I left in the kitchen cupboard?”

  Jonas grinned briefly. “Not quite.”

  “Good. I could use a little something to steady my nerves after that set-to on the floor. Mind if I help myself?”

  “It’s your bottle,” Jonas said with a shrug.

  Emerson Ames sighed hugely. “That’s a fact. I’ll pour you a shot, too. Something tells me we have a few things to talk about.”

  “Yeah,” Jonas agreed. “Like who gets the floor for the rest of the night.”

  Verity saw the lights come on in Jonas’s cabin. She was standing at the window in her flannel nightgown, the red, curling mass of her hair hanging down around her shoulders, when she saw the unexpected glow appear among the trees that separated her cottage from his.

  Jonas was awake, too.

  The knowledge gave her an odd sense of kinship, which made no sense at all. She wondered if he was regretting the harsh things he had said to her as much as she was regretting the things she had said to him.

  He was right, she thought for the hundredth time. She had no business judging him. A man was free to scatter his talent and ambition to the winds if that’s what he chose to do. She had better things to do than try to save him from a wasted future. He wouldn’t thank her for the effort, anyway. He had made that perfectly clear.

  Just as her father had made it clear that he wanted to be footloose and fancy free to squander his literary talent on throwaway paperbacks with titles such as Lone Star Ranger and Trouble at Silver Creek.

  Verity knew her father well enough to know that he had no real concept of home, at least not in the sense that she had always understood the term. She would save herself a lot of energy and grief if she accepted right from the beginning the fact that Jonas Quarrel was out of the same mold.

  She watched the lights in Jonas’s cabin as her thoughts drifted back over the evening spent with Caitlin Evanger. There was something fascinating about that woman. Verity had never met anyone quite like her.

  Caitlin was a woman to be admired. Strong, courageous, brilliant, hardworking, and successful. It was obvious that Caitlin had no particular use for men in her life. A good role model all the way around, Verity thought wryly. Verity was willing to bet that if Caitlin ever took lovers, she didn’t allow herself to get tangled up in the webs men liked to weave. Caitlin would laugh at male promises and masculine persuasion. She would always keep her priorities straight.

  Verity knew that she owed it to herself to take a leaf out of Caitlin’s book. For the past twenty-eight years she’d done a fairly good job of keeping her own priorities straight. If she was wise, she would not let one Jonas Quarrel, dishwasher and Ph.D., distract her.

  But there was something infinitely compelling about this particular dishwasher. Too compelling by far.

  A shadow moved behind the curtain in Jonas’s window. He was going into the kitchen. Verity hesitated a moment longer, thinking, then she made up her mind. She went to the closet and pulled out a long wool coat that came to her knees. Belting it on over her flannel nightgown, she reached for a pair of loafers.

  There were ghosts in Jonas’s soul. She had known that from the moment she had first set eyes on him. She’d had no right to taunt those specters tonight, regardless of her feelings on the subject of shiftless, footloose males. Her employee deserved an apology.

  A few minutes later Verity stood on Jonas’s front step, the chilled breeze whipping the hem of her nightgown beneath her coat. She raised her hand, hesitated, then knocked tentatively.

  The door opened a few seconds later. Jonas stood silhouetted in the light, a glass in his hand. For an instant he just stared down at her, an unreadable expression flickering over his hard face. Then his gaze turned sardonic. He gave her a skewed smile and took a long swallow of his drink.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet you’re not here to throw me down onto the bed and make wild, passionate love to me, right?”

  Verity felt most of her good intentions hardening into irritated resolve. “I came to apologize,” she got out between set teeth.

  He blinked, his dark lashes concealing the look in his eyes. “No kidding? Hold on while I switch on a tape-recorder. I want to make sure I get this down for the benefit of future historians. Tyrants almost never apologize.”

  “Look, if you’re unable to be civilized about this, I’ll just skip the whole thing and go back to bed.”

  He stepped back and held open the door. “Better come in and say hello to your father, first. We were just about to flip a coin to see who gets the bed.”

  Verity nearly tripped over the threshold. “My father! He’s here?”

  “In the flesh, Red.” Emerson Ames appeared behind Jonas, a lot of teeth showing between his mustache and beard. He held open his arms. “How’s business, kid?”

  “Dad, for crying out loud. I thought you were in Brazil.” Verity laughed and stepped into her father’s bear hug of an embrace. “Where have you been? I went down to Mexico two months ago to spend some time with you and no one knew where you were. I searched for you for three days, you big idiot, before someone finally said he thought you had gone to Rio. Why did you invite me to Puerto Vallerta if you had plans to leave town before I got there?”

  “Something came up, Red. A trifling misunderstanding concerning money. You know how it is. I had to make an unscheduled departure in the middle of the night. I figured you knew me well enough not to worry.”

  “I knew you well enough to figure out there wasn’t much I could do except turn around and come back home.” Verity withdrew herself from his grasp, shaking her head wryly.

  “May I take your coat?” Jonas offered with mocking gallantry.

  “No, you may not,” Verity said, aware of her nightgown underneath the coat. She turned to her father. “I wasted three days of what was supposed to be a vacation searching for you. I thought I’d gotten the address wrong or something. I hit just about every bar in town trying to find you. I knew you wouldn’t be in the tourist joints, so I tried the local spots.”

  Emerson winced
. “Christ, Red, don’t you have any more sense than to go cantina hopping in Mexico? What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “I told you,” Verity retorted tartly. “I was looking for you. I know the kind of places you frequent. I should. You’ve taken me into enough of them.”

  Emerson raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “It’s different when you’re with me and you damn well know it. You little idiot. You could have gotten into big trouble.”

  Verity grinned without any remorse. “I’m a big girl now.”

  It was Jonas who spoke up “That only means you can get into bigger trouble in places like a Mexican cantina.”

  Verity gave him a speaking glance. “You’re an authority on the subject?” she asked sweetly.

  “Honey, the man’s right,” Emerson muttered. “You had no business trying to track me down. As soon as you realized I wasn’t at the address I’d given you, you should have come straight back here.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I went out asking polite questions of several bartenders. And you’re absolutely right. I got into trouble.”

  Emerson stared at her, brilliant eyes suddenly diamond-hard. “What kind of trouble?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

  “Very big trouble,” Verity admitted dryly. “I almost lost my purse, my, uh, virtue, and possibly my life. Believe me; you don’t want to hear the details.”

  “The hell I don’t,” Emerson roared. “I know those places down there. I swear to God I’ll go back and break heads until I find the piece of filth who put his hands on you. What happened, Verity?”

  “Nothing,” she said smoothly, successfully concealing the memory of shock and fear that she had brought back with her from her jaunt to Mexico.

  “What do you mean ‘nothing.’ You just said you were attacked.”

  “I was saved at the last minute. It was all very exciting, I assure you.” She was beginning to enjoy this. She had the full attention of both men. “I took a wrong turn down some alley. Stepped into a little cantina that catered to the local riffraff. Before I could step back out again, someone grabbed me.” She shuddered in spite of herself, as the scene replayed once again her mind. Then she turned a bright smile on Jonas, who was following the tale with a riveted expression. “Got any more of that cheap vodka you and my father are drinking?”