A Highlander for Christmas (19 page)

“Leave an old man to make his own decisions, please.”

Maggie pulled a small leather case from her handbag and set it on the cherry table before the fire, suddenly uncertain. Her father had died when she was just starting to experiment with free-form work and mixed metal inlays. In a way, showing these things to Anders was almost as difficult as braving her father’s hypercritical eye.

“So this is your best?”

Maggie nodded tensely, waiting for his reaction.

He sat forward, studying the complex silver inlays arrayed on black velvet.

With careful fingers, he raised a brooch containing five pieces of polished turquoise. “Chinese turquoise. African, too, I think. And this one is from your Albuquerque, no? The Kingman mine, it is called?”

Maggie nodded. “I wanted to show the variety in the stone colors and how different hues could still work together.”

“Most interesting.” He pulled a jeweler’s loupe from his pocket and studied the stones. “It is your polishing, too?”

“Everything.”

“Hmmmm. Chip solder. You have much patience to position your pieces. Not so many work stones this way now.”

Maggie
held her breath, once again an awkward girl of fifteen on fire with her first taste of traditional craftsmanship. She could almost feel the ghosts of frowning goldsmiths in the room with her.

Finally the Dutchman sat back. “Is good,” he said at last. “Nice technique and a most unusual sense of line. It is European but with just enough of your brash American flair.”

Before he could say more, metal crashed loudly in the street, followed by the crack of gravel striking the front windows.

“What was that?”

He shrugged. “Just the young boys who look for fun. Nothing else they have to do at night.” He shook his head. “After a while, I learn not to hear them.”

“Have they bothered you, Uncle Anders? If so, you must call the police.”

“There is no need, my Maggie. They make noise but nothing more. I can still use my fists when it is needed.” His eyes hardened behind his thick glasses. “And I have a weapon in a drawer also.”

“But—”

“No buts, please. Tell me instead about this way you layer your metals. It is most intriguing.”

Rain tapped at the windows as one topic led to another and the hours passed in laughter and noisy argument. When Maggie looked up, she was shocked to see it was well past midnight. “I shouldn’t have stayed so long. You must be exhausted.”

“Nonsense. Seeing you is a pleasure not to be denied an old man.”

She hid a yawn. “Really, I should go.”

“Very well, but I drive you. And first, I show you something.” Cane in hand, he moved to his desk and searched through small boxes tied with plain white string. Finally he dug out a small velvet bag and spilled a dozen colored gems onto the table before Maggie.

They glinted fiercely, an icy rainbow of color.

Silently she studied the bright, faceted stones.

“Well?”

It was a test, she realized. Ruby, emerald, and luminous tanzanite. Pretty, valuable, but in no way unique. What did the shrewd old dealer expect her to see?

She drew out her loupe above the ruby. “No inclusions. Very bright. In fact—” She stopped, looked twice to be sure of the pattern she had just noticed. “Is this some new kind of faceting?”

The Dutchman’s face was unreadable. “You tell me.”

Maggie turned the stone. “Something’s wrong here. The crown has been cut through and there are tiny fractures on two sides.” She dropped the loupe into her hand, suddenly angry. “An insult to good stones. Who would do this?”

“Someone with plenty more where those come from,” the old man said softly. His fingers closed on the velvet bag.

“I don’t understand.”

“All are this way, fractured and marred. And yet they are worth a nice amount if perfect. Odd, no?”

“Where did you find them?”

“Here and there, from different people at different times, for this world of ours is a small one, my Maggie. If a good stone is cut in Sydney, we hear of it in London. If a fine Siberian diamond is shattered in Hong Kong, we hear of that, too. But this—” He took an angry breath “This clumsiness is without excuse. One does not cut without skill.” He picked up the single emerald, frowning. “But I ask myself if there is a thread. A connection.”

“What kind of thread?” Maggie sat forward tensely.

“Your father is working on something when he disappears. A new project. He calls me in Amsterdam, you see. Very excited, almost like a boy, he tells me I am to prepare for champagne and a night at the
Ritz, all
to be his gift. And then the next week…” His hand shook as it closed over the brilliant stone. “The next week he is gone.”

“And you think there is a thread to these?”

The old man shrugged. “One wonders, that is all. He tells you nothing about this project?”

Maggie frowned, trying to remember. Her father had always had some new scheme in his head. Work was his greatest pleasure, and he had dedicated himself to it completely, even obsessively. Because Maggie shared his passion, she had never resented the hours of distracted silence and meticulous tinkering.

“He seemed excited about something. I remember we were to meet in New York the next month and he hinted that I would be surprised. But there was nothing specific. You know how secretive he could be.”

Anders laughed dryly. “Always a man with his secrets. And no one else asks you about this?”

“No.”

“Ah well, then it is of no matter.” He swept the stones back into their bag, then pulled a flat leather case from the same drawer. “This one is for you, my Maggie.” He held out a ring set with three exquisite colored diamonds. “It was your mother’s. Daniel asked me to reset the stones in platinum. He tells me it is a gift for you. But I could not find you to send it. You are here and grown and it should be yours.”

Tears blurred Maggie’s vision as she stared at the facets of pink, palest blue, and faint green.

The stones warmed between her fingers, almost as if her father’s touch still lingered, and she held her breath at the sharp sense of his presence. His gift. So he hadn’t forgotten her. And he had meant to come back. There was relief in that.

A car horn blared, and the moment was shattered.

“Enough of this sad reminiscing.” Anders cleared his throat loudly. “Finish your sherry, then I take you to your hotel. But you will be careful with this ring, no? Very valuable. Better you show it to no one.”

Maggie slid her father’s ring into her handbag, then moved to the window. Streaks of rain glittered against the night like the tracks of shattered diamonds. She shivered, unable to delay her next question any longer. This was the one man who might be able to give her answers.

“What if we’re all wrong? What if—” She swallowed hard. “What if my father is alive?”

The Dutchman tapped to her side. “What question is this?”

“The question of someone who’s had too little sleep. Maybe someone who’s just a little scared.” Outside, blurred against the driving rain, a traffic light changed from green to blood-red.

“Someone is telling you this? Someone makes you believe Daniel is still alive?”

Maggie heard the anger and disbelief in his voice. “No. It was just a wild thought that came to me.”

He cupped her chin carefully “You are certain of this, my Maggie? No friend can say such a thing. Do not listen to those who are not friends.”

“I know,” she said wearily. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Come.” He replaced his satin jacket with a warm wool blazer, then searched about for a pair of glasses. “Now I drive and I tell you how first I meet your father. You know this?”

She shook her head.

“It is a rainy night almost forty years ago.”

“He told me you met in Morocco.”

“He lies as usual. No, it is Paris. Most definitely Paris. The rain comes down in sheets and I see your father by the Seine. He is standing on the bank at midnight, an empty bottle of Veuve Cliquot at his shivering feet.” The old man chuckled. “And he is stark naked, you understand.”

All through the drive across London, Maggie laughed at the convoluted antics of the two incorrigible men. She was still laughing when Anders stopped across the street from her hotel. “Thank you for everything.”

He raised a dismissing hand. “Is nothing.”

“Save Friday for me. I expect you to show me all the shops.”

“And which shops would those be?”

Maggie grinned. “The ones with back rooms where men like you and my father found all the really good stones.”

“Who knows better than I?” He winked broadly. “Now go, go. To sleep with you, my dear. It is too late.” He wagged his finger. “No parties, remember. No wild dancing … Most of all, no men or your work suffers. I am like a father now, and this I do not permit.”

Maggie was still chuckling as she watched his car disappear down the street. Through Anders, she had glimpsed an entirely new side to her father. She had never imagined him capable of wild escapades and reckless gaiety, not until now. Yet there was a bittersweet edge to the discovery. She could only wonder why Daniel Kincade had never revealed that side of himself to his own family.

She turned up the collar of her coat, feeling wind whip at her face. At least the rain had stopped. Otherwise, she’d be soaked before she reached the hotel’s front steps.

Maggie heard a soft cough. Out of the shadows a car inched up beside her.

Suddenly the street was too quiet, too empty. Before she could pull back, the door jerked open and she was caught tight. She searched vainly for someone to help her as cold fingers ground down over her mouth.

Then she was dragged back into the shadows.

She twisted wildly, fighting the hard fingers.

Her foot hit a broken cobblestone, and she was flung sideways, shoved against a wooden barrier at one edge of the silent street.

Cold eyes glittered behind a black wool ski mask. The man’s open palm moved along her hips. “What’s in that bag of yours?”

Maggie thought of the ring that Anders had just given her. There was no way she would let her father’s last gift be torn from her like this.

“I’ve got credit cards—money. I’ll get them,” she said breathlessly.

He made a hard, mocking sound. The wooden barrier dug into Maggie’s back, and she felt the sweat on his palms.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to dig her fingers into his eyes. Yet she waited, knowing she would have only one chance to catch him off guard.

She sank slightly to one side while he ransacked her handbag. At the same time she eased her hand into her coat pocket.

Loupe. Maglite. Polishing cloth.

Then she felt the cold metal outline of her air canister. A full dose would blind him, at least temporarily. Silently she eased the metal tube into her palm.

He clamped his hand over her mouth, and the sight of her pale face seemed to excite him. “What I want is money.” His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe something else…”

Panic broke over her as she tried to speak against the suffocating pressure of his hand.

He laughed softly. “Frightened, are you? Good. We’re just getting started here, love. It’s only the two of us now.” He shoved her flat against the wooden barrier, his hand still locked over her mouth. Then he dragged her back into the shadows.

She felt him move behind her.

Down went her heel, grinding into his instep. Wrestling the air canister from her pocket, she aimed it point-blank at his eyes.

The force of the first air blast sent him backwards, cursing and digging at his face. Maggie fled in the only direction open to her, toward a mound of broken flagstones that bordered a twisting alley. Beyond lay light, noise, and the traffic of a broader avenue. Her heart pounded in a sick rush as she lurched toward the light.

He was right behind her.

She veered toward a row of concrete reinforcements. She pitched to her knees, then scrambled to her feet, clawing at paving stones and gravel as she fought her way toward the far side of the alley.