Gift of Fire (3 page)

Jonas’s peace vanished in an instant. Rage roared through him. It was the kind of fury that had its roots in a very primitive fear, a fear that had been nibbling at him for the past couple of weeks, a fear he had refused to acknowledge.

It was the fear that Verity might be growing dissatisfied with her live-in lover.

Chapter Two

“V
acation
!
”
Jonas jackknifed upright in bed. “What the hell do you mean?”

Verity lay back on the pillows, staring thoughtfully up into the darkness. Jonas’s violent reaction had startled her. “I think I need one. You’ve told me yourself that I’m working too hard,” she pointed out reasonably. “Well, now is a perfect time to slow down for a while. It’s the middle of winter. Business is slow. There’s just a handful of tourists and a few people from the spa at the cafe in the evenings. Nobody’s going to mind if I close up for a week. Hawaii would be perfect this time of year.”

“You think nobody’s going to mind if you take off by yourself for a week of sun and fun in the islands?” Jonas was outraged. He loomed over Verity, caging her face between his hands. “I’ve got news for you. I’ll mind. A lot. If you think I’m going to let you go off by yourself to wiggle around in a bikini in front of a flock of beachboys for a week, you can think again.”

Verity began to feel annoyed. “It’s okay for you to fly off to Mexico for a week of sun and fun, but I don’t have the same right, is that it?”

“Christ almighty.” Jonas’s voice was raw with exasperation. “You know damn well I’m not going to Mexico for fun and games. Don’t you dare try to pretend it’s a vacation.”

“I could fly down with you. Maybe wait for you and Dad in Acapulco,” she suggested, considering the possibilities.

“Not a chance. I don’t want you anywhere near Mexico. How do you expect me to keep my mind on business if I’m wondering what you’re up to in Acapulco? Forget it, Verity. You’re going to stay right here, where I don’t have to worry about you. If you’re serious about a vacation, we’ll take one when I get back. You can spend this week thinking about a place for us to go. Make the plans.”

“How can I make plans for a trip when I don’t know when you and Dad will return?”

“We’ll probably be back within a week. How long can it take to arrange a ransom payoff? Ten days at the outside. Make the plans for two weeks from today. That should be safe enough. Or make them for next month. Hell, use some common sense.” Jonas spoke with clenched teeth, clearly working hard to hang on to his temper.

Verity put her arms around his neck and felt the tension there and in the muscles of his broad shoulders. “You’ll be very careful in Mexico, won’t you?”

“I’m always careful. Verity, about this stupid idea of a vacation. I don’t want you going anywhere until I get back. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.” She tugged gently at his neck, aware of his resistance. She tried a seductive smile. “I’m going to miss you, Jonas.”

He hesitated a moment and then slowly relaxed, lowering himself alongside her. He gathered her into his arms. “I’m going to miss you, too, little tyrant. You behave yourself while I’m gone.”

“Take care of yourself, Jonas. Take care of Dad, too. He’s not as young as he once was.”

“Your old man can still whip most guys half his age. Whatever Emerson is losing to the years, he’s more than making up for with an increasingly devious mind.” He bent down and brushed her lips with his. “But don’t worry about him, honey. I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

“Keep an eye on yourself, too. Good dishwashers are hard to find.”

“Always nice to be appreciated. Just don’t start interviewing any replacements for my job while I’m gone.”

“Yes, Jonas.” She slid her hands down to his firm, muscular buttocks and squeezed.

“You’re insatiable.” He kissed her breast, his tongue warm and damp.

“Lucky for me you always rise to the occasion.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it.” He slid one knee between her legs. “The hell with it,” he muttered against her throat. “I can sleep on the plane.”

Emerson glanced out the window of the Jeep and waved at his daughter standing in the doorway of the No Bull Cafe. Verity waved back and blew a kiss.

“Looks like you did a good job of sweet-talking her last night,” Emerson remarked. “Verity seemed downright cheerful this morning. I expected a lot of last-minute lectures on the subject of brainless male machismo.”

Jonas turned the Jeep onto the road leading out of Sequence Springs. It was still dark, and the sleepy little town slumbered peacefully beside the lake. “Things weren’t so cheerful for a while there last night. You should have heard her, Emerson. She started talking about taking a vacation. A vacation all by herself. Can you beat that? Something about going to Hawaii while we’re in Mexico. If she hadn’t left claw marks in my leg the last time I tried it, I would have turned her over my knee and paddled some sense into her. She was planning to take off for the islands the minute my back was turned.”

Emerson’s lips twitched briefly. He studied the road ahead with a thoughtful expression. “You talk her out of it?”

“Damn right. Told her that if she really wanted to go on vacation, we’d go when I got back from Mexico. She can spend the next week planning the trip. It’ll give her something constructive to do.”

“I think she needs a vacation,” Emerson remarked slowly. “There’s something different about Verity lately. You noticed?”

Jonas was silent for a long moment. “I’ve noticed,” he said finally. He would have given a great deal to know exactly what was going on in her feminine brain. More than once he’d caught her in a strange mood of self-absorption, as if she was looking inward and thinking about making some changes in her life.

The thought filled Jonas with a strong feeling of uneasiness, and an even stronger feeling of possessiveness. His hands tightened around the steering wheel. If Verity was thinking of changing lovers, she could damn well forget it. She had waited twenty-eight years for him—twenty-eight years for her first sexual experience. And she had taken to his lovemaking like a dolphin to water. Jonas didn’t like the thought that she might be wondering now if she’d waited for the wrong man.

“You sure you talked her out of going off alone to Hawaii?” Emerson asked.

Jonas set his jaw, remembering belatedly that Verity had changed the subject last night, without giving him any promises. “She wouldn’t dare. She knows there’d be hell to pay.”

“Ah, the comforts of ‘brainless male machismo.’ No wonder we men cultivate it so carefully. Gives us a nice, pleasant, totally false sense of security when we need it most.” Emerson laughed wryly.

Jonas took a hand off the wheel long enough to touch the golden earring he carried in his pocket. The earring belonged to Verity. He had carried it with him since the night he’d found it in a dirty Mexican alley. “Some of us get our sense of security from other things.” The gentle vibrations from the gold soothed some of the uneasiness in his mind.

“Well, since there’s not much we can do about my daughter, I guess maybe we ought to talk about the plans for springing Lehigh.”

“Plans?” Jonas shot his companion a quick, amused glance. “You mean you’ve actually got some?”

“Hey, I make a living at writing fiction, don’t I? Of course I’ve got plans. Besides, you know damn well we can’t just drop off the cash and expect to see Lehigh again in one piece. We’ll have to go in and bring him out.”

“Let’s have it, Emerson. What’s involved?”

“You and your trusty knife are involved, among other things. Fortunately for us, my boy, you’re a man of many talents.”

Four days later, Verity spent the morning at the office of the one and only travel agent in Sequence Springs. That evening, the crowd at the No Bull Cafe was so light she closed earlier than usual, and trekked up the path to the pool room of the Sequence Springs Spa Resort. A stack of travel brochures was tucked under her arm.

The European-style spa room was almost empty. Gleaming white and blue tile shone under the bright lights, and the spa pools bubbled invitingly. Verity undressed and slid naked into her favorite pool, a hot bath that smelled strongly of therapeutic minerals. Stacking the brochures on the tile rim beside her, she leaned back in the soothing water and began to study pictures of sun-kissed shores and tropical seas.

Earlier that evening she had made a promise to herself that she would not spend another night sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Jonas was not likely to call tonight. He certainly hadn’t bothered to call during the past four days, and they had been the longest four days of Verity’s life.

Furthermore, she was sick of reading and rereading the poem she had found pinned to her pillow the morning Jonas had left.

Wait for me, my lady, though the wind blows chill and cold, wait while all is locked in winter
’
s icy fist.

I
will dream of you, my lady, hot dreams of fire and gold,
D
reams of gemlike passion too wondrous to resist.

And if you
’
re on vacation when
I
return, my lady,
I
swear
I
will be most extremely pissed.

Extremely pissed.
Verity wrinkled her nose. If Jonas expected her to believe that little ditty was another of the Renaissance love poems he claimed to have loosely translated, he was wrong. And it certainly didn’t make up for his failure to phone her.

“Verity! Just the person I’m looking for. I rang the cafe and the cabin but there was no answer. I figured you might be here.”

Verity looked up from the enticing photo of a gleaming white resort on a private bay. “Hi, Laura. What’s up?”

Laura Griswald grinned cheerfully. “I’m not positive, but I get the feeling that a job for Jonas may be available.”

Verity set aside the brochure. “A job?”

“I knew that would get your attention.” Laura shook her head, her shoulder-length brown hair shining. Everything about Laura sparkled with radiant good health. She and her husband, Rick, owned the Sequence Springs Spa Resort, and they were walking advertisements for the place. She crouched at the edge of the pool. “A young couple—brother and sister, I gather—checked in early this evening. They mentioned they’re looking for Jonas Quarrel. They came to Sequence Springs to find him.”

Verity straightened quickly. The last time someone had come looking for Jonas he had nearly been killed. “They asked for Jonas by name?”

“That’s right. Said they wanted to see him in a professional capacity. But they wouldn’t come all this way to hire a dishwasher, so I figured they must mean in his professional
academic
capacity. I knew you’d be interested, even
if Jonas isn’t. You’ve been trying to get that man back into a respectable job since the day he started washing dishes for you.”

“I’ll have you know that he did an article for a history journal that appeared two weeks ago,” Verity announced proudly. “You can have one, if you like. I ordered twenty copies.”

“Is that right?” Laura appeared genuinely impressed. “I remember you mentioned something about it. An article in his field? Something on Renaissance history?”

“That’s right. A comparison of modem-day fencing techniques with the style used during the late Renaissance.” No need to mention that Jonas had learned the differences in techniques the hard way. He had a nasty scar on one shoulder to prove it.

Verity had nagged, cajoled, and otherwise made a nuisance of herself before Jonas had finally surrendered and written the article. She hated to see a well-educated mind going to waste while its owner washed dishes, although it didn’t seem to bother Jonas in the least.

When notice of the article’s acceptance had arrived in the mail, she’d strongly suspected that she was much more elated than Jonas was. Then she’d remembered that as an instructor at Vincent College, he’d probably been published in far more prestigious journals. Still, she planned to have one of her twenty copies of the
Journal
of Renaissance Studies
framed. She had made Jonas autograph the rest.

“Who are these people and what do they want with Jonas?” Verity asked.

“As I said, they’re brother and sister. The name is Warwick. Doug and Elyssa. Doug’s a stockbroker, twenty-nine or thirty, I’d say. Likable. Probably drives a BMW and wears designer underwear. Elyssa is a couple of years younger and she positively radiates sweetness and light. Always smiling. It’s enough to make you nauseated. I have a hunch she’s into this new metaphysical stuff.”

“You mean she believes in channelers and crystals and that sort of thing?”

“That’s the impression I got. Doug seems normal enough, though, and I got the impression he’ll be paying the fee.”

“I wonder what they want with Jonas.”

Laura shrugged. “You said that before he took off to see the world a few years ago, Jonas had a reputation for authenticating antiques and
museum artifacts. Maybe the Warwicks want his professional opinion on something they’ve purchased. Think Jonas would be interested?”

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly interested. It’s time that man put his education and, uh, experience to work.” She had never attempted to explain to Laura or anyone else that Jonas’s real talent was psychic in nature. “I have a nagging fear that he’s going to waste his life the way Dad has.” Verity shook her head in exasperation.

“I know. Reforming Jonas has become your chief hobby. Lucky for you he doesn’t take offense.” Laura chuckled, well aware of her friend’s opinion about using one’s education and abilities. “When will Jonas and your father be back from their business trip?”

“Any day now.” Verity drummed her fingers on the edge of the pool and ignored the unspoken questions in Laura’s eyes. She could hardly explain that Emerson and Jonas had gone off to Mexico to rescue an old, highly disreputable family friend who had gotten himself kidnapped. Such friends did not reflect well on the family. She had told Laura that Jonas was simply helping Emerson settle a private business matter.