Gift of Gold (47 page)

“Leave the man alone, Verity,” Emerson advised blandly. “He’s still healing. That was a nasty gouge he took from that rapier.”

Verity bit her lip, instantly contrite. “Does your arm hurt very much today, Jonas?”

“Let’s just say I’m in excruciating pain but bearing up admirably.” He casually turned another page of the newspaper with his injured arm.

“See? What did I tell you?” Emerson said.

“If you’re in so much pain,” Verity said, “then you’d better make an appointment with the doctor.”

“I’ve already got an appointment to have the stitches removed tomorrow. Don’t fret about it, Verity.” Jonas swallowed beer, frowning over a story on the back page of the paper.

“If you’re in pain, you can make another appointment right now. Use the phone in my office. I pay workmen’s comp for this sort of thing, you know.”

“Somehow, I don’t think workmen’s comp is going to cover a rapier wound in the arm,” Emerson remarked. “Jonas didn’t even get the injury while working at the No Bull.”

“Well, if it’s not bad enough to see a doctor about, then Jonas can darn well help me with those cupboards,” Verity said loftily “And after he’s finished, he can get started on those letters I told him to write. There’s plenty of work to be done around here and I intend to see that it gets done, or else.”

“Or else what?” Jonas asked from behind the paper.

His total lack of concern was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Already seething with anxiety, frustration, and anger, Verity went up in flames.

“Or else I’ll fire you and get someone else who knows how to do the job,” she vowed, taking fierce satisfaction from having had the last word. She spun around on her heel and strode briskly toward her own cabin.

“That does it.”

Something in the inflection of Jonas’s too-quiet words brought Verity to a halt. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see him crumple the beer can in his hand and toss it aside. The newspaper followed, landing in a heap on the porch as Jonas got deliberately to his feet.

Verity felt the first trickle of doubt. “That does what?” she demanded aggressively.

Jonas stood on the top step, his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans. His bare chest and smoothly muscled shoulders looked very broad and strong and male in the warm afternoon sunlight.

“Threatening to fire me is going too far, Verity, even for you. With a woman like you a man has to draw the line somewhere.” He started slowly down the steps. “I’ve put up with a lot from you, boss lady. I’ve tolerated your scolding and your lectures and a lot of bullshit about proper eating habits. I let you talk me into a situation that nearly got both of us killed. All in all, I think I’ve been very
indulgent with you. Don’t you think I’ve been indulgent with her, Emerson?”

“Too right,” Emerson muttered sympathetically. “Very indulgent.”

“But enough is enough,” Jonas continued, his eyes gleaming with righteous indignation. “I’ve had enough of your nagging and your shrewish behavior. Most of the time, being the gentle, easygoing soul that I am, I try to rise above it. But for the past three days you’ve been impossible to be around. The only time you shut up is when we’re in bed. Unfortunately I can’t keep you in bed twenty-four hours a day. I’m beginning to see why it used to be a man’s goal to keep his woman barefoot and pregnant.”

“Jonas!” Verity swung her astounded gaze to her father. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

“Don’t look at me.” Emerson spread his hands wide. “I’m just an innocent bystander.”

Jonas went intently toward her. “You’ve gone too far when you start threatening me with my job. I’ve always given you a day’s work for a day’s pay and you’ve got no legitimate complaints, lady.”

Verity took a couple of quick steps backward as she realized belatedly that Jonas was dangerous in this mood. “Jonas, don’t you dare touch me. You work for me. You’d do well to remember that. You take orders from me. I’m giving you an order right now and you’d better follow it or I’ll…I’ll...”

He never paused, just kept striding toward her with a relentless expression on his face.

For possibly the first time in her entire life, Verity’s nerve broke. She whirled and ran for the safety of her own cabin. She had never seen Jonas in this mood, and age-old feminine instinct warned her that the only safety lay in flight. She would give him a piece of her mind later when he’d had a chance to calm down. She’d chew him up one side and down the other later. She would read him the riot act for his behavior.

Later.

When it was safe to go near him again.

He caught her before she reached the front steps of her cabin. He came up behind her, moving silently, and clamped a hand on one of her shoulders. He spun her around so quickly she lost her balance. Before she could regain it, the world turned upside down and she found herself hanging over a broad male shoulder. She pounded on his back.

“Jonas, you bastard, I’ll strangle you for this.”

“One of the first things a would-be tyrant ought to learn is not to make threats she can’t back up,” he advised, striding through the front door of her cabin. “Machiavelli was very clear on that point.”

He set her on her feet, sat down on the nearest chair, and yanked her over his knee.

“Jonas, don’t you dare!”

Verity couldn’t believe it when the flat of his palm landed heavily on her bottom. The tight jeans she wore provided no protection whatsoever.

She yelled in outrage and pain, and when the second blow came she tried digging her fingers into his thigh and kicking her legs wildly. He was impervious to her struggles and her angry cries.

“Damn you. Damn you, damn you, damn you.”

“Tell me why you’ve been on my case for the past three days,” Jonas ordered between blows. “Tell me what the hell I did to deserve the kind of abuse I’ve been getting around here lately.”

“You’re going to leave,” she accused furiously. “I know you’re going to leave. It’s just a matter of time.”

“So what are you trying to do? Speed up my departure?” He smacked her again.

“
Yes.
”
Verity lost her temper completely and dug her fingernails fiercely into his leg. Enough was enough.

Jonas yelped. “Ouch! Dammit, you little…The blows stopped abruptly. “You’re trying to get rid of me?”

“I just want to know where I stand. I want you to make some kind of decision. I can’t handle not knowing what’s going to happen.”

“Why all the concern about my leaving? You worried about having to advertise for more kitchen help?”

“No,” she shrieked furiously. “It’s not that. I just want to know how much time I have left with you. I love you, you big, dumb,
condottiere
bastard.”

“Repeat that,” he ordered thickly.

“I said I love you.” Verity wriggled off his thighs and wound up kneeling in front of him on the floor. She shoved her disordered hair out of her eyes and glared at him as she got to her feet. “I realize that fact doesn’t speak well for my intelligence, but that’s the way it is. I can’t seem to help myself. But I have to know when you’ll leave me. I refuse to live in fear from day to day. Can’t you understand that? Maybe I have been pushing you for the past three days. I suppose I was spoiling for a fight. Anything to clear the air.”

“Did it ever occur to you to just ask me flat out what my plans were?” he roared as he massaged his leg where she had left the imprint of her sharp nails.

She blinked uncertainly. “No,” she admitted softly. “I guess I didn’t know how to phrase the question. I haven’t had a lot of experience with handling the beginnings and endings of affairs. It’s a hard question to ask, Jonas. Maybe I didn’t want to hear the answer.”

“For a supposedly intelligent woman, you show an amazing amount of stupidity at times. I’m not going anywhere. I happen to like it here in Sequence Springs, Verity Ames. God knows why, given my present conditions of employment, which include everything from low wages to a difficult boss. But we’ll go into that later. Right now we have something else to clear up. You said you loved me?”

Verity cleared her throat. “Well, yes.” That had sort of tumbled out accidentally in the heat of the moment, she decided. She hadn’t meant to spell it out so plainly. It made her terribly vulnerable and Verity discovered she did not like being vulnerable. Especially not to this man. But she didn’t have much choice.

Jonas was eyeing her assessingly. “What is this? You no longer consider me irresponsible, unreliable, and unacceptable?”

Verity flushed, her palm going surreptitiously to her stinging rear. “I know you a lot better now than I did when I first said that. I’d trust you with my life,” she said simply. “In fact I already have trusted you with it. It’s true you do irritate me from time to time. You’re far too casual about certain matters, including your career. But I know now that if you make a commitment, you’ll fulfill it. If you said you were going to do something, you’d do it.”

“And if I said I intended to stay here in Sequence Springs with you, you’d believe me?” he asked, his voice gentling.

She nodded warily, afraid to acknowledge the hope that was building in her heart. “But I was afraid to ask you for fear you’d tell me you had to leave. If not right away, then soon. I didn’t want to hear
it. But a part of me had to hear the truth. I can’t stand not knowing.”

Jonas stopped rubbing his leg and propped his elbows on his knees. He laced his fingers and leaned his chin on his hands. His golden eyes were deep and brooding as he contemplated her. “So you started pushing me, waiting to see what would happen when the blow-up finally came. Well, you found out, didn’t you?”

“No. All I got for my efforts was a beating. That’s not an answer.” She got to her feet and walked toward the window.

Jonas followed, coming up behind her. “That was no beating. That was a display of extreme masculine displeasure. Besides, we’re even. I may never walk properly again. I think you ruined my leg.”

“You deserved it.”

“I never really hurt you and you know it.” He settled both hands on her shoulders and pulled her back against him. He put his face into her tangled hair. “You do know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know that,” she admitted reluctantly. It was the truth. She would never have any need to fear
this man. He had already given her ample proof that he would fight to the death for her.

“I’m not going anywhere, little tyrant. It would take a nuclear bomb to remove me from your vicinity. I need you, I want you, and it dawned on me a few days ago that I’m in love with you. You should have realized it before I did. You have such great insight into my character.”

“Oh, Jonas.” She turned in his arms, her eyes shining. “Do you mean it? You love me?”

He smiled down at her. “I said it, didn’t I?”

Her smile was shaky with relief. “Then you mean it,” she whispered. She buried her face against his chest. “You wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I couldn’t lie to you,” he said quietly. “We’re bound together, you and I, in a very special way. Maybe whatever holds us together in that psychic corridor links us outside as well. Maybe that’s why I wanted you so badly the first time I saw you. Maybe that’s the real reason I traveled a couple of thousand miles to find you.”

She knew then, with sure instinct, that he was right. “But do you think our psychic link is a strong enough basis on which to build a relationship?” she asked hesitantly.

Jonas locked his fingers in her hair. “I have a hunch it provides a much stronger foundation than most relationships have. Besides, we haven’t got a
relationship.
We’re in love.”

“But is it really love?” Verity persisted thoughtfully. “I believe you when you say you think you’re in love with me, but maybe you’re just misinterpreting that sense of being psychically linked to me. Maybe there isn’t any word for the kind of connection we share, so you’re willing to label it love but in reality it could be…Mmmmph.”

The last of her lecture on the subject of the reality of love died beneath Jonas’s forceful kiss. He didn’t release her mouth for a long time, not until she had gone soft and compliant in his arms. Then he slowly eased the kiss until his lips were just barely brushing hers. He murmured softly:

“
My lady has for too long sworn that no man
’
s will would bind or bend her.

But
I
have braved the thorns that guard her secrets.

I
claim the victory and the treasure.

N
o
w
think it
’
s time my lady learned the art of sweet surrender.
”

“Where do you get that awful Renaissance poetry you’re always quoting?” Verity asked admiringly as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

Jonas laughed with wicked triumph as he picked her up and carried her down the hall toward the bedroom.

“I make it up as I go along,” he told her.

“I was afraid of that.”

She pulled his head down to hers so that she could kiss him with the thoroughness he deserved.

THE END

Excerpt from
Gift of Fire

by
Jayne Ann Krentz

Chapter One

“This entire plan,” Verity Ames announced, “is a really stupid idea. When it came to giving out common sense, the good Lord obviously overlooked you two. Or maybe he just overlooked men in general.”

She glared across the table at the two men who sat opposite her. One was her lover and one was her father. She loved them both but right now she could cheerfully have strangled them. That she could be so fond of a pair of chauvinistic, bullheaded rogues probably indicated a serious character flaw in her.

“Now, Red, just calm down. I’ve told you there’s absolutely no reason to worry. It’s gonna be a cakewalk. No sweat.” Her father’s teeth flashed from the depths of his bushy, graying red beard, and his aquamarine eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. Emerson Ames, part-time author and full-time adventurer, was a big man with a huge appetite for life in the dangerous lane.