Hooked (17 page)

“If our hotel was in the town square,” Meg thoughtfully said, “I would have put up something really outstanding. Like a fish totem pole. There's a woodworker—Alex Cordova—who lives on the edge of town and he not only makes furniture, he carves totem poles.”

Gage respectfully nodded. A fish totem pole would
have caught his attention. Such a woodcarving may have sounded odd, but Gage thought Meg was damn ingenious with her ideas. Given the competition she would have had this year had she been able enter, Gage would have voted for a totem pole over a papiermâché fish.

“We shouldn't have any trouble finding a good picnic spot by the water. Most everyone is staying here.” Meg shaded her gaze with the flat of her hand as she scanned the area. The profile she presented him was quite soft and feminine. The brim of a plain straw hat extended far over her forehead; it was unadorned except for a dark apricot-colored ribbon band that encircled the crown. He wondered why the hat contrasted so with the others she had worn. The statement this one gave off was simplicity and self-assuredness. It was completely unlike those gargantuan hats she'd worn previously with their blossoming flowers and bird wings and rosettes.

“I was supposed to meet my friends, Ruth and Hildegarde,” she went on. “You remember them from the tearoom? Anyway, I wish I'd run into them so I could tell them there's been a change in plans.”

“I wasn't aware you were supposed to meet up.”

“Oh,” she blurted, “well, nothing was
really
set . . . I mean, they won't mind my not being with them. Once I tell them I'm with you.”

Gage could have sworn he caught her blushing. Normally, he would have liked knowing he could make a woman's cheeks color. Right now, he felt like a low-down dog. He couldn't afford to let her get to him.

Kissing her once had been to charm her.

Kissing her twice had been because he'd wanted to.

Kissing her a third time would be tempting fate.

So Gage vowed he wasn't going to kiss Meg today.

“Miss Brooks, where is it your brother fished last year when he won the contest? Let's try that spot,” Gage suggested as they continued to walk through the crowd.

“That would be where Evergreen Creek meets Fish Lake.”

“Splendid.”

As they walked past Durbin's Ice Cream Parlor, the Harmony Fire Department was giving a demonstration, “from the frying pan to the fire”—a pantomime of what went on in the station house dormitory seconds after the alarm was sounded. Since they didn't have brass poles to slide down, that part was improvised as the men swung on the ice cream shop's awning posts. Parked in front of the store stood their draft horse teams, the hook and ladder and polished hose carriage with a Button & Blake steamer gleamed beneath the spring sun. The firemen harnessed the horses in record time. Then safety net crew asked for a volunteer from the audience.

Guffaws and laughter followed when Harold Adams took the challenge as soon as he saw Meg approaching. He heartily waved while being escorted up to the boardwalk, his baggy pants and big white canvas cloth coat appearing too large for him.

“Hello, Margaret! I'm going to jump. Watch this.”

Gage observed Meg cringing, and he hoped Adams would miss the net.

“Let's keep on going,” Meg said, looking down at the tips of her shoes as if pretending she hadn't noticed the young man.

She wove her way through those lined up for turns at a fishing-for-treasure booth where a player dropped
their line over the five-foot curtain and then reeled in their line, the hook having landed a penny prize.

Ahead of them, people cleared a narrow path and Gage wasn't sure why until the culprit bore down upon them. Somebody's bloodhound ran through the throng with a string of hotdogs in his chops.

Meg swayed to the right to let the dog pass—as if it were an everyday occurrence. Swerving to his left, Gage glanced over his shoulder to watch the bloodhound lumber off, hotdogs trailing in the grass behind his haunches.

“That was Barkly,” Meg offered without Gage asking. “He belongs to Mr. Wolcott. Barkly does this kind of thing a lot—stealing, that is. Mostly food.”

“I'll remember that,” Gage remarked.

A group of five ladies, properly gloved and hatted and with parasols on their shoulders, came toward them. Gage recognized the pair from the tearoom. The other three he hadn't seen before.

Meg stopped, as did Gage, and they waited for the women to approach.

“Margaret, there you are,” Ruth chimed.

“And Mr. Wilberforce,” added Hildegarde. She grinned at him like a cat did at its cream.

Gage shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He stood under the shade of a maple, its young leaves not quite unfurled and translucent. He would have removed his hat—had he a free hand. “Ladies,” he greeted.

Meg made introductions. “You know Miss Elward and Miss Plunkett. And that's Miss Johannah Treber, Miss Lucy Calhoon and Miss Camille Kennison.”

“Ladies,” he replied once more.

“We're on our way to have a picnic,” Meg supplied.

The two women who appeared to be her closest friends glanced at each other, then nodded. As if there were some ritual secret passing between them. Gage wondered if any of them had ever been proposed to or had men interested in them. Although he knew he wouldn't have put any weight into a woman of their age not being married, many did.

Christ almighty, he hoped to God they didn't think that
he
was some kind of prospective . . . somebody for Meg.

“A picnic is so nice and wonderful.” Ruth Elward gazed at him, giving him a wide smile.

Hildegarde added, “I do like a picnic. My mother says that eating with nature around brings out the best in a person.”

“I agree,” the young woman named Lucy concurred. Then she turned to Meg. “Margaret, you have to see Johannah's engagement ring. It's simply stunning.”

Johannah held her hand out for Meg to examine the diamond on her fourth finger. “Yes, it's very lovely.”

To Gage's discomfort, Johannah showed him her ring as well.

“That's some shiner,” he mumbled, readjusting his hold on the handle to the picnic hamper. “Ah, Miss Brooks, I think we should be on our way.”

“Oh, of course.” Meg said her good-byes and they walked on.

Gage noted Meg smiled to herself as she kept in stride with him.

“What are you thinking, Miss Brooks?” he asked.

She gave him a turn of her face, lips parted, teeth barely showing. “I just happen to like spring, Mr. Wilberforce. It smells nice.”

Raising his brows, Gage pondered her words. Then he inhaled. Spring did have a certain quality to it. He'd never noticed.

The day had the warm mellowness of freshly mown hay and smelled like warm bread just out of the oven. Field grasses sprouted in the nearby vacant lots, as did dandelions, lamb's quarters, and wild mustard. They all perfumed the air with uniqueness. Something he wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for Meg.

It was a startling thought to Gage. He thought he noticed everything. Rarely a detail slipped past him. And yet, he'd never smelled a season until today.

Together they headed for the outskirts of the town square and onward toward Evergreen Creek. The small tributary ran parallel to Dogwood Place and beyond the lumber mill. Walking to Fish Lake wasn't much of a jaunt. A fifteen minute span of time, if that.

Soon, the rush of water came to Gage's ears. Meg walked up the high bank and just beyond a stand of cottonwoods. Wild yellow daisies grew in scattered patches along a blanket of low grass. The sky soared in shades of cobalt with tufts of airy clouds. White sunlight glimmered off the rippling surface of the lake, while the rush of reeds and cattails framed its far sides.

“This is the spot,” Meg declared, going so far as to twirl in a light circle; the gesture seemed relaxed—as if she felt at home. “Here, let me take that from you.” She reached for the picnic hamper with its blue-on-blue checked pattern. “You've been awfully nice to carry that. I could have.”

“I wouldn't allow you, Miss Brooks.”

She looked at him as if he were a chivalrous knight with some tarnish on his armor. “But I could have. I'm not breakable.”

At that, he smiled. No, she most certainly was not. Although the color of her attire was a soft peach with folds and tucks and white piping on the long sleeves, she wore the shirtwaist and ruffled skirt with a fluidity and confidence he didn't normally associate with such blatant feminine garb. To him, she would have been at ease in a pair of trousers with suspenders, a white shirt, and a bowler hat.

The image intrigued him. More than it should have.

He set down the fishing pole and tackle, then removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. After Gage settled his short-brimmed hat back on his head, he folded his arms across his chest.

Meg took the checked cloth and snapped it open. The pale blues and darker checks muted as they floated down to the carpet of grass.

“There. You must be hungry,” she said and went for the hamper.

Gage was hungry . . . very much so.

“I made tomato and pimento sandwiches and brought some bottles of Dr. Pepper.” She knelt down and took out the food items, each wrapped in pieces of waxed paper. “I hope you like cherry cake with powdered frosting. I spread it an inch thick. That's the way my father likes it.”

“Sounds good.” And it did. But Gage's stomach usually regretted when he indulged in fare like this.

She spread everything out, even going so far as serving him. He took the plate and sat down.

A bee hummed through the air. Overhead a songster chirped. The boughs of trees seemed to whisper to one another. Not another human was in sight. It was just him and Meg.

If Gage didn't know any better, he'd swear this was
as good as it gets on the other side—that other side of the paper that people took for granted. Where a person only had to sit and read the words. Never think about how they got in the newsprint. Never wonder what would have happened if the story had never been penned.

Sometimes, Gage wished he could go back to those long ago days of not knowing, not dissecting and perfecting. Always wanting the facts. Trying to make things right.

“Mr. Wilberforce, did your father encourage you to sell Bissells? Was he in the carpet sweeper business like you?” Meg asked.

Slowly, Gage replied, “No.”

“What then, if you don't mind my asking, did he do for a living?”

As the sun warmed his shoulders and legs, while he held a plate of food prepared for him by a woman who didn't know what a truth-seeker he was, he momentarily lost himself in thought.

His childhood came back to him, serving to remind Gage why he did what he did.

He'd grown up the only son of a respected Taylor Street family. His sister, Virginia, had been born six years after Matthew. By then, Matthew Gage Sr. had a solid foothold in the San Francisco stock market due to his gold mining speculation. It had been a rude awakening for Gage when he found out about the shrewdness of his father's business dealings.

When the Comstock went bust in 1880, his father's financial holdings hadn't been damaged. The thousands of small investors whose blind faith had bloated the value of certificates and whose endowments had been sucked away throughout the years, were the ones
who'd suffered. For years, the little man had supplied the money for exploratory tunneling, for rising milling costs, for new equipment—while those in control raked everything off the top.

The knowledge had humiliated Gage.

“My father wasn't a nice man,” Gage said aloud, realizing after the fact how personal a statement he'd just made about himself. Nobody but David West, his editor, knew the truth about what Gage had done after his parents' deaths. Many readers in San Francisco thought Matthew Gage was just a rich snob writing for a newspaper because he'd bought his way into the job. They didn't know the whole story. The real story. Because Gage would never write it.

“I'm so sorry for you.” Meg's voice drifted to him. He grew vaguely aware of her hand on his, warm and comforting.

“Don't be, Miss Brooks. We all make choices. His choices hurt people.” Gage damned himself for revealing so much. He never talked about himself, his family.

“But it must have been hard for you. What did he do that was so bad?”

Gage set his plate aside. Meg's hand softly left the top of his. “He took advantage of people.” As he said it, Gage's gut tensed. That's exactly what he was doing with Meg.

But he wasn't—not really. Not for any monetary gain. He was fooling her so he could get his story. So he could expose a cheater, a liar. Serve the readers of
The Chronicle
a no-good person: her brother, if that turned out to be the case. And by yet again revealing another criminal, he silently said he was sorry for what his father had done.

The fact that he had loved his father, made it all the more painful for Gage to accept his father had been wrong.

He'd loved his father. Loved his mother. Loved the life he'd grown up in. But it had all been based on the misfortune of others. And he'd had no idea. Not until a week after their deaths; those who had been wronged began to speak out because Matthew Gage Sr. could no longer stop them from doing so.

Gage recalled the first time a shopkeeper had spit on his shoes and called him a swindler, just like his father. Several incidents followed. He'd been disliked by barkeeps, shoemakers, domestic workers, and the miners themselves.

“Last year, my father wanted to increase the room rates at the hotel and my mother asked him why,” Meg remarked while opening one of the Dr. Peppers and handing the bottle to Gage. He took a slow sip of the drink as she continued.

“My father said he wanted to make more money so that he could build her a better house. She said that the one she lived in was just fine. But he wanted her to have a modern one with every newfangled amenity. She flat out told him she wouldn't feel right living in a house that was paid for by hard-earned money of others. He never did raise the room rates, but if he had, that wouldn't necessarily have been taking advantage of people, Mr. Wilberforce. Guests would have had the option not to stay at the Brooks House Hotel if they didn't want to pay an extra fifty cents a night.”