Hooked (43 page)

Why, then, did Mrs. Plunkett smile at her?

And walk right toward her!

“Mr. Bascomb,” she whispered once she reached Meg. “Do you see that lovely young girl standing by the elm tree?”

Slowly, Meg looked in the designated direction. Hildegarde stood with Ruth. Both girls gawked at her. Meg swallowed.

“The one in the pink organza with the rosy cheeks,” Mrs. Plunkett clucked. “That's my Hildegarde. Isn't she pretty?”

Dumbstruck, Meg could only nod.

“Now, Mr. Bascomb, about that dinner invitation—”

But Mrs. Plunkett got no further. Mr. Gushurst interrupted in a voice that carried through the men gathered for the contest. “Mr. Bascomb, there is indeed nothing in the rules that says you can't have Mr. Wilberforce's spot. So to that end, gentlemen, we are ready to begin.”

Meg mumbled her apologies, then left Mrs. Plunkett to join Matthew.

Ruth came up to them and gave Meg a long stare,
a wrinkle of her pert nose, then a shrug as she turned to Matthew. “I was going to wish you luck, Mr. Wilberforce, but now you're not fishing. So I suppose I should wish you good luck, Mr. Bascomb,” she said to Meg.

Meg couldn't meet her eyes. This whole farce was going to come apart right in her face if she wasn't careful.

“We'd better be going,” Matthew said.

Meg and Matthew started for spot number six. Meg hadn't told Grandma Nettie what she was going to do. She didn't want to involve anyone in her scheme—Matthew, of course, but no one else. If Meg was discovered, she wanted to take full responsibility for her actions. So she'd told her grandmother that the ordeal in the jail had worn her out and that she was going home to lay down.

Once at spot number six, Matthew came close to her, brushing arm to arm for a moment. In a voice low and quiet, he said, “I love you. I didn't say it before. I should have.”

They broke apart and Matthew hung back with the spectators. She gave him a last glance; he mouthed the three words to her from a distance. She grew so conscious of him, she could barely think. The urge to be held by him, reassured, unnerved her. She was more connected to him than she ever thought possible. Then the realization hit her: Meg wasn't Meg without Matthew.

It was that thought that carried her through the events of the day.

The contest was run in a manner that anyone could, at any time, come upon a contestant and observe
them. This made for a more fair tournament. It also—supposedly—detracted cheaters.

Nervously, Meg opened her tackle box and began assembling her rod and line. Her hands shook so that she had to take in a deep breath, still her body a moment, then continue.

There was nothing to fret about. She could win this on her own merit and with a little help. She had something that none of the other contestants had. And as far as she knew, there was nothing in the rules that stated she couldn't use her secret. A fisherman was allowed any manner of bait he chose—wet flies, dry flies, kernel corn, luring scents.

Meg chose a far different temptation. One she knew was foolproof.

Princess Bust Cream.

*  *  *

The day seemed to stretch on forever for Gage. A combination of nerves and excitement kept him on the edge of his seat on the ground beneath a shade tree as Meg reeled in one fish after another. Rainbows, cutthroats, and browns; also a variety of other fish. By noon, she'd had a small contingent of onlookers cheering her on. Their conversations centered on one topic: What was the white cream she used on her flies? Everyone wanted a jar of the seemingly magic concoction.

At three o'clock, Gushurst sounded a bell that signaled the competition was over and for the fishermen to gather their catches and their tackle and proceed to the official weigh in and counting area.

Meg had caught so many fish, she couldn't manage the four stringers she'd filled. Gage quietly went up to her and took three of them.

As the small group broke up, and Gage and Meg walked side by side, he felt her anxiousness. Looking at her, he saw the glint of hope lighting her eyes.

Unless somebody else had an exceptional day, she had to have won. He hoped she did. He wished she could unveil who she really was. He sensed she wanted to do just that by the way in which her steps were light and easy. No trace of a masculine walk—one which she'd used with him when they'd gone off to their practice sessions.

Once at the pavilion site where Gus Gushurst and the other members of the Woolly Bugger club had assembled, the counting of the fish began. People talked, joked, and chuckled.

But Meg remained quiet.

Gage wanted to reach out and hold her hand. But he couldn't.

“If you win, you've really won twice,” Gage said in a low tone. “Once, for Ollie Stratton, and once for yourself.”

She looked at him and nodded; her eyes glimmered with emotional tears. He would have kissed her softly on the mouth, beard and all, if he could have gotten away with it.

Moments later, Gushurst hushed the crowd, the long table before him strewn with baskets of fish, tally tablets, and three brass trophies. “Ladies and gents, we have our winners.”

Voices hushed and the air went still.

“Third place goes to King Merkle.”

The Rubifoam salesman, mouthful of teeth widening his grin, stepped up to the podium and took his trophy. Applause sounded as he nodded and went down the steps to join his fellow salesmen. Ham
Beauregarde stood among them and cast his glance at Gage.

Gage lifted his brow at him. Ham turned away.

“Second place goes to Orvis Schmidt.”

Rather than King Merkle's gratuitous thanks and nods, Orvis dropped his chin on his chest and swore. He stood still a moment, heaved a sigh, and it seemed as if he wasn't going to collect his trophy. Then he lifted his head, his mouth set in a show of sour grapes, and took the steps to receive the second-place award.

Applause rang. Then Orvis retreated, slapping his hand on his thigh and glaring at Ham who was laughing. Beauregarde must have thought he had it in the bag, because he puffed out his chest like a pigeon and all but rubbed his hands together with glee.

“First place goes to . . .” Gushurst shook his head in wonder. “I don't know how he did it, but he broke the all-time record for catching the most fish in one day.”

Gage glanced down and found Meg with her eyes squeezed closed and her lips pressed together.

“Winner of the grand prize trophy and a check for one thousand dollars is Arliss Bascomb.”

Meg was silent, as if stunned; then she screamed with delight and jumped up and down a few seconds before she stilled and collected herself with a look at Gage. He would have given up his typewriter to take her into his arms and swing her in a wide circle.

Gathering her dignity as Bascomb, Meg made her way to the podium, her hand lightly on the railing as she climbed the steps.

“Mr. Bascomb,” Mr. Gushurst said, “can you tell us how you did it? I've heard you used a special cream to attract the fish. Was it your own recipe?”

“Um, yes,” she replied, stilting her voice in a low baritone that didn't do much to tamp out her feminine vocal chords, “it was my own recipe.”

“What's in it?”

“A mixture of things. I can't say.”

A grumble went through the crowd.

Gage caught the look of envy on Ham's face. He also saw the hatred and anger. “Can't say or won't say?” Ham shouted. “It must be something illegal if he won't talk. He should be disqualified.”

Several contestants who had lost glanced thoughtfully at one another then shook their heads in agreement.

“It is not illegal,” Meg said in her defense. Agitated, her voice sounded nothing like Arliss Bascomb's.

Beauregarde folded his arms over his chest and glared hard at Meg.

“It's at the discretion of Mr. Bascomb if he doesn't want to say what was in the jar,” Gushurst announced. “As you all know, catching fish with any kind of bait is legal. Back in ninety-nine, Gabe Moody won by using flies made out of chicken feathers from his wife's best laying hen—so we can't go singling out any method as illegal when we let chickens in.”

Ham shouted, “Feathers is feathers and white goo in a jar is something altogether different.”

“Don't see how,” King Merkle commented. “I believe you are just a sorry loser, Mr. Beauregarde.”

Snorting, Ham unfolded his arms and held them straight at his sides. “I am not. Now if that Wayne Brooks had won again, I'd be a sorry loser. It is a known fact that he stocked the tributary off of Evergreen Creek last year.”

Gage shot his gaze to Meg. Her body had gone tense; her brown eyes narrowed.

“Nobody proved anything,” somebody said.

“Proved or not, speculation is speculation. Talk is talk,” said another.

“Damn right,” concurred a third.

Then Ham looked to Gage, suspicion written on his face like a column in the newspaper headlining the latest political shenanigans. “Wilberforce, where is Miss Brooks? Word has it you bailed her out of jail.”

“I did.”

“So where is she? I figured she'd want to be here to watch since she was so hot to enter herself. In fact, it's too bad Wayne isn't here to see how a real winner wins. But you know how cheaters are. They're chicken.”

Gage watched Meg's fingers clutch tightly to the prize envelope as she bit her lower lip to keep from speaking out. He could tell she was just itching to give Beauregarde a piece of her mind. But if she broke her silence, she'd be setting herself up for accusations of cheating herself. After all, she wouldn't say what that white cream was and Gage doubted what was in the jar was camphor.

“Wayne Brooks,” Beauregarde sneered. “You know, I went over to Leroy Doolin's place to ask about Brooks myself. Although Doolin didn't come out and tell me anything—he did imply that brown trout could be bought for a price. Dammit all if I didn't have the—” He sliced off his sentence like a butcher's cleaver did a cutthroat's head.

So that's what Beauregarde had been doing up at Doolin's. Trying to buy himself some browns just like Wayne Brooks had. Only Beauregarde hadn't had the
cash. Not surprising. Doolin probably raised his price from last year.

“What's this about Leroy Doolin?” Gushurst wanted to know. “Are you saying that Wayne Brooks bought trout from Leroy last year? Ham, do you have proof of this?”

“No he doesn't,” Meg interjected, her Bascomb voice no longer intact.

“What did you say?” Ham asked of Meg, clearly on to the fact that something was different.

Gage knew Meg was on the verge of unmasking herself. Hell, he didn't blame her. But she was only going to make things worse.

“Mr. Bascomb, I'd like to buy you a beer in congratulations,” Gage said as he walked for the podium. “Come on down from there and let's go to the Blue Flame.”

“Wait just a blame minute,” Ham shouted. “You aren't going to take him anywhere.” Then to Gage. “You're in on this, too. Infernal hell—you've been going off fishing with him all the time. You were there with him today. You know what's in that cream. And you know that he won illegally.”

“I did not.” Meg's voice rose indignantly.

“Oh yes you did,” Ham said to Meg. “I don't know how, but you did. If this just isn't the frosting on the cake. This contest has gone to the dogs. Last year Wayne Brooks wins, and this year some citified Bureau man who has a secret cream wins. Who knows, next year the Woolly Buggers will be letting that no-good troublemaker girlie, Meg Brooks, enter. A woman. Fishing. Now that's a joke.”

At that moment, Meg yanked off her hat and threw it at Beauregarde's head. He snapped his chin up,
mouth falling open as her copper hair came tumbling down on her shoulders. Next went the beard—unhooked from her ears. She stood as straight as a rail and thrust out her bosom.

The crowd sent up a mighty den of voices rumbling like a bear.

“I am a woman, Mr. Beauregarde,” Meg bit out. “And it's no joke that I won.”

“Holy hell,”
Beauregarde blazed. Then to Gage with a pointed finger: “I hold you accountable.”

A resentful sob moaned from beside Gage.

Mrs. Plunkett wailed into her handkerchief. “Margaret Brooks, you impostor! How could you do this to my Hildegarde?”

Hildegarde, eyes wide, said, “Meg . . . I was almost engaged to you.”

Gus Gushurst whacked a trout on the table and attempted to rein the vocal group to order. “This is not to be tolerated! Miss Brooks, you are in violation of the rules that govern the Woolly Bugger club!”

“You gave me no choice,” she said. “I would have entered as myself but you wouldn't let me. So Mr. Bascomb entered and won. Fairly.”

“Not in my book.” Gushurst tried to take the envelope way from Meg but she held onto it with a tight grip.

“You cannot take this prize money from me. It's mine.”

“Oh yes I can. Not only are you a counterfeit entrant, but you won't tell what's in that cream.”

Meg pulled the envelope away from Gushurst and pressed it next to her chest. “You said I didn't have to.”

“I retract that statement on the grounds that suspicion surrounds you.”

In a huff, Meg said, “If you must know—it's Princess Bust Cream. You can buy a jar of it at the mercantile. There. Are you satisfied?”

“No I am not,” Beauregarde shot out. “What the hell is Princess Bust Cream?”

The crowd went silent as understanding came clear. And when it did, Ham Beauregarde turned a bright shade of red. “Well . . . well hell,” he stammered. “I want to call the entire contest a sham and everyone should have to forfeit their prizes.”

“That's not going to happen,” Gage said, his tone low and lethal. “She won fair, and she isn't giving up her due.”

Ham scoffed, “Shut your mouth, Vernon Wilberforce, or I'll shut it for you.”