Hooked (41 page)

She sighed. “I don't have an answer.”

Then she stood and she faced the cold fireplace. After a moment, she looked toward the ceiling, and to his uneasiness, laughed without humor. “Am I crazy? I should be saying yes.”

Turning to Matthew, she gave him a melancholy smile that went right to his heart. “You don't know how desperately I wanted to be asked. During my time in finishing school, that's what all of us talked about. You could say I was rather preoccupied with marriage. Until Mr. Wilberforce.”

Gage frowned.

“No, it's not a bad thing. Not really. I fell in love with you as Mr. Wilberforce . . .”

I fell in love with you.

She loved him. Gage could hear his heart beating in his ears.

“I also fell in love with you as Matthew Gage. So between the two of you, I have been in love, truly, twice in my lifetime. But I've only just come to understand that both of you are the same man.”

“Yet you won't marry me.”

“Wanting a wedding and a husband is only part of the package. It's the loving somebody part that's everything. If I said yes right now, I think I'd always wonder if I said yes simply because I want to have a wedding like Johannah Treber's.”

Gage stood and went to her. “But you said you loved me.”

“And I do.” She touched his lips with her fingers.
“I have for a while. I tried not to, but I can't help it Even knowing what you do and why you do it. Maybe that's why I can't give you an answer. Believe me when I tell you my heart is screaming yes. But my mind is telling me to think about if we really know each other. Or if what we feel is passion with an abundance of hat trimmings.” She attempted a feeble smile.

“What I feel for you is more than—” he attempted to smile along with her but he didn't do a good job of it, “hat trimmings.”

He watched the different expressions playing on her face—confusion, uncertainty. Yet a determination that strengthened her appeal.

“I'll walk you home,” Gage quietly offered.

“I'm not going directly home.”

“Where are you going?”

Meg went toward the door, conviction in her stride. “I have to get one thousand dollars to give to Oliver Stratton.” She laid her fingers on the knob of the door and was ready to walk out on him without any explanation.

He caught up to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. “How are you going to do that?”

She didn't give him an answer. Instead, she asked a question. “Do you believe in what you write?”

His shoulders came back and he made no immediate reply. His mind was a maelstrom of charged emotions. Did he believe in what he wrote? He had never questioned himself before, but this little town of Harmony and a sweet woman named Meg had turned his thoughts upside down.

“Do you?” she repeated.

He was unable to give her a simple definition as to what his writing meant to him. In agonizing detail, the past six years of working for
The Chronicle
flashed through his mind. He'd made his living digging deep into sordid stories and sustaining himself through a great deal of criticism and controversy. Yes, dammit, he had always believed in what he wrote.

“Yes, I believe in my writing,” Gage said at length into Meg's expectant face.

“I knew you'd say that. And I think you should. What you said about my grandma is very special to me.”

“Writing is who I am.”

“See—you know who are, but I'm still figuring out who I am.” She moved from him, twisted the doorknob, and opened the door. “And I have to know I can be happy just by being Meg before I can be a wife.”

Then she left.

Gage stared at the closed door as time ticked by on the mantel clock behind him. A quagmire of thoughts sludged through his head. The woman he loved loved him. But she wouldn't commit to marrying him until she figured out if she could be just as happy without him.

What if she could be happy without him?

Hell.

So what would he do if she turned him down? Either he finished the fly-fishing article with a flourish and became the success he'd come to Harmony to be, or he gave it all up.

The article and success. But those thoughts were quickly pushed aside by others. Meg. The idea of his
own newspaper. Small town ideals. A new start. Marriage.

He remembered that he had told Meg he believed in his stories. But suddenly, he understood that the world wasn't so clear cut. The world was not black and white. Between the typeset lines were shades of gray. Christ, you'd think with his journalism background he could convey this coherently. But he couldn't. He believed that he was not able to go on the way he had been without falling victim to severe cynicism.

Gage sat down at his desk. He picked up the sheets of the fly-fishing article he'd typed on the secondhand Smith Premier. A quick scan of the words and he now saw them clearly.

Meg had given him the information he'd needed. He could hang her brother in print.

He knew what he had to do.

*  *  *

In spite of the inappropriate hour, Meg left the hotel and went straight to Gus Gushurst's house on Dogwood Place. Mustering her wits, which had been faltering since leaving Matthew, Meg rapped on the door. Thoughts swam in her head. She'd found out about Wayne and received a marriage proposal all in the course of one night. It was too much to think about at once. She couldn't face the future until she confronted the past.

Mr. Gushurst opened the door and exclaimed in surprise, “Miss Brooks. Has something happened?”

Without thought, Meg blurted, “Yes, it has. I need to speak with you right away.”

He stood aside and let her into the parlor where Mrs. Gushurst sat in an overstuffed chair with a book
in her lap and a look of alarm on her face. She wore a housecoat wrapper over her nightdress and had taken down her hair and plaited it for bed. It was then Meg noted Mr. Gushurst wore his smoking jacket and felt slippers.

What time was it anyway?

Never mind about the time. She had no time to waste.

“Miss Brooks,” Mrs. Gushurst cried, “is your grandmother all right?”

“She's fine.”

“Oh . . . are you fine?”

“Not really.”

“Sit down, Miss Brooks,” Mr. Gushurst offered, standing himself and more than a little self-conscious.

Meg declined. “I don't want to keep you. I just need to fill out an entry form for the contest tomorrow. I've got to fish in it.”

Mr. Gushurst's eyes widened. “Why?”

“I just do, that's all.”

Meg couldn't tell him the reason without involving Wayne and telling what he'd done. She wanted to avoid a scandal at all costs. It wasn't herself she was protecting. It was Grandma Nettie, her parents . . . and her brother. He'd committed a criminal act.

Meg froze. She realized in that second that she had given Matthew everything he needed to ruin her brother. Dear God, what had she done?

Oh, if only she hadn't gone to Matthew. But he'd been the only one she could turn to to unburden her heart. The only one who could . . .

She shook off the thought. Matthew could, and probably would, write the article. And if he did, how
could she ever marry him? She pressed her eyes closed and laid her hand on the wall to support herself.

“Miss Brooks, are you all right?”

“Yes . . . yes. I just need an entry form.” She shook the worry from her mind and concentrated on the task at hand. She had to enter the contest and win. To make amends, Meg had to give one thousand dollars to Oliver Stratton in lieu of the money that Wayne had taken away from him.

She knew of no way to come into such a sum other than entering the fishing contest.

“Miss Brooks, I can't just give you an entry form,” Mr. Gushurst said, his uncomfortableness evident by the deep creases on his forehead. “The contest has been closed to entrants for nearly a month.”

“But can't you make an exception in my case? It's an emergency.”

He shook his head. “I can't.”

“Well you should.” Meg all but stamped her foot. “I am a member of the Woolly Bugger club, after all.”

Wayne had been enrolled in the junior division, which was broken into Rainbows, Steelheads and Chinooks—depending on the boy's casting skills. Meg had desperately wanted to be a part of the Rainbows, but she couldn't because she was a girl—an inconsequential thing to her at the time. So Mr. Gushurst had made her an honorary Catfish. There was really no such title, but little did she know. She'd been nine at the time.

“But, Miss Brooks, that was years ago.”

“So?”

“So, there really isn't a Catfish. I only gave you that title because you were Wayne's little sister.”

Meg's cheeks heated as she insisted, “I'm still Wayne's little sister and I should be allowed to enter.”

Mr. Gushurst flushed, his sagging jowls quivering as he shook his head denying her her request. “Miss Brooks, even if you had come to me before the deadline and I had an entry form, you cannot enter.”

“Why not?”

Nostrils flared on his broad nose and he all but yelled, “Because you're a woman!”

Meg's mouth dropped open. Forgetting herself, she snapped, “Well!” with a fair amount of indignance. There was no disputing the fact—even if she was flat-chested. But why did that mean she couldn't enter? “What does my being a woman have to do with it?”

“Women don't enter sporting contests. And a flyfishing tournament is a sporting contest.”

“Who said women don't enter?”

“Women.”

Frowning, Meg asked, “What women?”

“Any one of them in town, Miss Brooks.”

“Not my Grandma Nettie.”

“Beg your pardon,” he remarked in a stuffy tone, “but she's not to be included.”

Anger simmered in Meg.
Grandma Nettie not to be included.
Yes, the dear was an outspoken advocate for the movement. Yes, she could get too carried away with her flyers. Yes, she was a rebel who intended to fight for women's rights by locking herself onto the White House fence with a bicycle chain . . .

Her mind spun.

A bicycle chain.

“Now, Miss Brooks,” Mr. Gushurst said, taking her arm and ushering her toward the door. “You run along home and get a good night's rest. You'll feel
better in the morning. I'll bet you'll have forgotten all this nonsense and come back to your senses. Even bake up a batch of cookies like your mother. She's a fine baker. I make a habit of buying her confections at the fair every August.”

He opened the door, gently guided Meg over the threshold, and closed the door after her.

She stood there a moment. Mad and frustrated. Her grandmother's words came to her:
Vinegar is a better medium for catching flies.

Meg pressed her lips together and came to a decision.

She knew what she had to do.

20

E
arly the next morning, Gage took the hotel stairs into the lobby and found Mrs. Rothman behind the registry desk. Puzzlement lit her eyes as she bent down to view the floor beneath the counter; then she straightened and put a hand on her cheek. She scanned the surrounding desk with its papers and envelopes, lifting sheets here and there.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Rothman?” Gage asked, keeping his voice pleasant. Meg's grandmother had been about as friendly as a beehive since Meg had told her about him.

“Did you take my bicycle chain?” she returned with a smidgeon of accusation in her tone.

Gage noticed the two-foot length of metal links was no longer on the front of the counter by the registry book. It had been there every day since he came to Harmony.

“No,” he replied, stepping closer.

“The lock is gone, too,” she said, her lips thinning. “Who on earth would steal it?”

The front door to the hotel was pushed open with a
humph
and Mrs. Plunkett stepped inside, voluptuous skirts swishing as she came to an abrupt halt. “Mrs. Rothman. Do you know where your granddaughter is?”