"I could move here if properly motivated," he said in a low tone that seemed to caress her down the backs of her arms.
"Too, my uncle doesn't like you as evidenced by your black eye," she continued, unnerved by his offer, but not really taking it seriously—because anybody could see he was a roamer—and, therefore, not acknowledging it. She shook her head. "Frankly, I cannot encourage a courtship against his wishes. He's my only family and he's important to me." At least, no other family existed to her knowledge.
He gave her one of his piercing looks with those silvery-blue eyes. "Are you sure? No cousins? No other aunts or uncles or grandparents?"
"No. I've searched. I sent letters to residences I'd hoped might be a relative, but I either got no answers, or received letters back saying they weren't related."
"I was hoping there would be somebody in your family that might approve of me. How could anybody disapprove of me? After all, I have all my teeth." He smiled and clacked his canines together. "I'm clean. See? No body odor." He lifted one arm and sniffed, causing her to emit a surprised laugh. "I have a nice job that earns decent wages." He motioned toward the surveyor equipment. "Oh, and no bald spots." He ruffled his thick hair, then leaned down to show her the top of his head, allowing strands that were a little longer than the fashion to fall forward.
She couldn't hold back her laughter. Then she sobered, thinking about her uncle and how strange he'd been acting, ever since meeting Jake. "I don't know why Uncle Geary is being so cantankerous. I tried to quiz him about it, but he wouldn't tell me."
"Let me change his mind. I can be very charming. Just give me a chance."
His gaze lowered to her mouth and she realized she was gnawing on her lower lip. "Why? Why go through all this effort? Surely there are other women who are a lot less trouble."
"Because other women aren't you." He took her by the hand and played with her fingers. "We have something tangible between us. Can't you feel it? I sure can. Something about you certainly draws me to you, like a moth to a firefly."
His large hand stroking the soft sides of her her fingers felt like a flurry of bluebird feathers fluttering up her arm. "Who is the moth?"
"Me. And you are the firefly, all bright light with energy. And an untapped passion hidden under all those layers of lace and fabric. I mean, I have barely brushed my lips against yours and I felt a magnetic pull I never experienced before. But it's not only physical. It's more than that. There is a ... how can I put it?" He tapped his lower lip in thought. "... It's like a melding of minds." He leaned forward.
She knew what he was going to do. And she knew she should turn her head. Or at least lean away. Stop him. But their positions had changed. Now she was the moth and he was the bright firefly. Talk about bright light. It was she who was hypnotized by his fiery brilliance and she couldn't seem to tear her attention away from him.
His lips covered hers. For a moment, her body seemed to lift from where she sat on the stump. She floated. Dizzy, yet fully aware of him. The scent of him—woodsy mixture of nutmeg, cedar and something that belonged only to him—filled her senses. His lips were firm yet supple. Full. And warm. Then he probed the seam of her lips with his tongue and without realizing what she was about to do, she opened her mouth. He tasted of coffee and musk. Not that musk necessarily had a flavor. But it was something robust, like nutmeg and cloves and something she knew she would always recognize as belonging to him.
Was Coco's premonition coming true? Was she doomed to fall in love with a wandering railroad man? Somebody without roots? No. She needed stability. A permanent place to live and call home. For she knew what it meant to be a surveyor. Constant travel. And she refused to live like that.
The first twelve years of her life had been a life of traveling and living in hotels and caravans and out in the open. Although she'd inherited her father's love for wildlife, ever since she'd been small, she'd yearned for a stable home where she could have friends, and a place to call her own. Now she had one.
When her parents had died, Uncle Geary had offered to give her a home; first in San Francisco, which she hadn't liked much, and now in Blessings, a town she adored. No. She wasn't leaving Blessings.
As if he read her mind, he asked, "So I assume since your surname is Sweeten and your uncle's surname is Pasley that he is your mother's brother?"
"Actually he was married to my mother's sister. I didn't even know he existed until he came for me in Montana. And although he isn't a blood relative, I am very close to him."
"Your father founded the magazine American Nature."
It wasn't a question, but she felt as if he wanted her to confirm his statement. "Yes, he did, shortly after he moved my mother and I to San Francisco. We only lived there a couple of months out of the year since my father was the one who did most of the research for the magazine. My mother and I traveled with him. He had a partner—Eugene Penham—to manage the business side."
"Are you involved with the magazine?"
"No. When my parents died, I was only eight. Mr. Penham bought out my inheritance. The proceeds are now in a trust managed by Uncle Geary since he's my guardian. It will be distributed to me on my twenty-fifth birthday, which is coming up in a few months."
"What happened? To your parents?"
She couldn't prevent a shudder going through her.
"I'm sorry," Jake whispered. "You don't have to talk about it."
"No, that's alright. We were in Nez Perce Forest in Montana. Da had just discovered a rare plant and my mother, father and I went up on the ridge to look at it. My pa was setting up the tripod when the ledge broke and we all fell. I survived. They didn't." She shivered, remembering the sense of being smothered as the dirt rained over her while she clung to a clump of sagebrush to keep from being swallowed in the jowls of the canyon.
"That must have been terrible for you." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, then caressed her upper back in a show of sympathy. "What happened after that? How did you survive? And how did your uncle find you?"
She felt herself relaxing under his ministrations. "A big horn sheep came to rescue me."
He hand stalled to still on the middle of her back. His eyes widened. "Really."
She smiled, despite the seriousness of the topic. "Yes. The whole episode was fascinating. The sheep climbed down to where I clung to the sagebrush and simply laid down beside me so I could get on its back. Then it climbed up to safety."
"Incredible, he murmured, stroking the tender underside of her wrist with his thumb. "And your uncle?"
"He happened to live near San Francisco and saw an article in the paper about the accident. I never understood why I didn't know of him, or why my parents never mentioned him. I remember once when I came across a daguerreotype of Aunt Harriet. When I asked my mother who she was, she told me and said they weren't on speaking terms. I never knew why."
"What does your Uncle Geary say about it?"
"Only that he and Aunt Harriet— who'd been his wife— had been baffled as to why my mother refused to acknowledge her sister and Uncle Geary. I guess I'll never learn the truth. Not that it matters anymore." She set her tin cup down and dusted off her hands, as if dusting off the past.
Jake rolled his cup between his hands as if contemplating something. Then he finally glanced up at her. "What if it does matter?"
"What do you mean?"
Silvery-blue eyes studied her, measured her as if to see if she was ready. For what? The truth? "Are you absolutely certain he is who he claims to be? I mean, you'd never seen the man claiming to be your uncle until you saw him in Montana, right? And you don't have any pictures of him. Only of Aunt Harriet, your mother's sister, the woman he claims was his wife."
She stiffened and then frowned. The thought had never occurred to her. "Of course I'm sure he is my uncle."
"How do you know? Anyone could have seen the newspaper article and taken advantage of your tragedy."
"Why would he lie?"
"Because your fa
ther was a wealthy man, and being your guardian would give Geary Pasley access to your inheritance. Have you looked into your trust's finances recently?"
"Yes, I have," she lied, even as she wondered why she'd become so defensive. It was because she'd never even considered investigating into Geary's past or to even check her inheritance. The trust didn't matter to her. She didn't need to be wealthy to be happy.
And yes, it was true what Jake claimed. She had been young and vulnerable when her parents had died. That she'd been suffering from fear and nightmares years afterward had continued to make her vulnerable. She'd learned to lean on Uncle Geary, to rely on him because he'd been the one to be there to comfort her after she'd awakened from a terrible dream. "You have a suspicious mind, Mr. Jake Stark."
"I admit that I do. But I wasn't always so cynical." He fiddled with his tin cup, turning it around and around as he stared inside, as if he could find answers in the swirls of coffee grinds that swirled with the liquid.
"What do you mean?"
"Let me start at the beginning. My parents were killed in a similar manner as yours, although we were caught in a landslide above Lake Tahoe. They got caught in the water under the wagon. I managed to drag my younger brother to shore but not my parents."
"How terrible," she whispered, heart in her throat, despite her earlier pique with him over questioning the honor of her uncle. "How old were you?"
"Fourteen. My brother, David, was eleven. We were on the way to Magica, which is about a hundred miles northeast of San Francisco. My father had purchased a farm."
"What happened?"
Varney came up to Jake, a stick clutched in its toothy mouth. The terrier dropped it and wagged its tail. With an absent-looking expression, Jake leaned over, grabbed up the stick, and tossed it for Varney to fetch. "After days of walking through the Sierras, living off berries, we were rescued by the Gusty family who were on their way to Yuba City to start a flour mill. The Gustys were very giving, very loving. Good people. But they had eight children of their own to support. Eventually we moved to the Stark family farm my parents never saw, and tried to make a living from farming. But that kind of existence wasn't for us, especially for David. Farm life was too lonely. David needed to be in a town, among other people, where he could listen to people's needs and invent tools and equipment to meet their requirements. He was a great inventor. Have you heard of clothespins?" Jake asked abruptly.
She'd noticed how he referred to his brother as in the past. But his question derailed her for a moment. "You mean that gadget that has a coil holding two wooden pieces together? That secures clothes on a line?"
"Yes, that's it. Before we left the Gustys, when David was fifteen, he created his own version of a clothespin for Verna Gusty, our adopted mother. Gerald Gusty tried to make it official, but David was too young to have his name on a patented idea and Gerald didn't feel right claiming it for his own. Now somebody else—David M. Smith of Springfield, Vermont—has the patent." Jake took a drink of coffee. "He was always working on new inventions."
"What happened to you?" she asked after Varney now brought the stick to her. The canine rubbed against her like a cat, then emitted a small yip. Obeying the dog's command, she reached down this time to throw the stick.
"Me? Oh, I'm what you'd call a restless soul. I've never been able to stay in one place for too long. A flaw, that."
She remembered him referring to his brother in past tense. Now, with his lips pressed together and his silvery blue eyes dark with what only could be described as remorse, she had a strong premonition that he was about to describe a turning point in his life, and not for the good. "What happened to David? Is whatever happened to your brother what caused your cynicism?"
"You could say that. He died."
"Good heavens. I'm so, so sorry. How?"
Although Jake shrugged as if it didn't matter, she could see the stiffness in the so-called nonchalant motion and wasn't fooled. "David lost his dream invention he'd worked on for years to a card sharp. Public record shows he died falling off a cliff when he was supposedly in a drunken stupor. But he never drank. Not the David I knew. He swore off drinking after he'd had too much with me one time."
"Then what do you think really happened?"
"I believe he was lured into the game with a promise for more money to begin his dream company. Then, after the card sharp tricked him into losing the design that he'd devoted a big portion of his life to, he died of from a broken heart."
"Why didn't he patent his design?"
"I don't know. It probably didn't seem important to him. He wasn't good with paperwork. My brother was a fool who trusted too much."
A sheen of moisture gathered in his eyes. He blinked it away. Then the muscles in his jaw line bunched as tight as the grip he had on the nearly-empty tin cup.
With the stick he'd retrieved from the ground—the one Varney had been chasing—he drew a heart in the dirt then drew an x over it. "David was a dreamer. When that dream was lost, he lost his will to live. Ever since then, I've hired the best card sharps I could find to teach me the art of cheating. I also learned tells and other things to look for to catch cheaters. Then, armed with the new knowledge, I've been looking for the conman for over three years. I'm still looking even though I landed this job as a surveyor for Whisper Railroad. I decided I could still look for the WOD and make some real money too."
"The WOD?"
"Wrecker of Dreams. My name for the conman who pretty much murdered my brother."
She swallowed, trying to gather moisture in her suddenly dry throat. What a horrible tragedy. "And have you found him?"
"Not yet." He didn't look at her as he said it. Instead, he swished his coffee around in his cup and stared at the swirling liquid.
Something didn't add up. Uncle Geary's reaction to Jake, for one. Jake questioning Uncle Geary's legitimacy, for another.
"Have you met Uncle Geary before?" she asked on impulse, not able to shake impression that they'd crossed paths and something bad had happened. "Somehow, I feel as if the two of you have a history, and not a good one."
"Nope, never met him before in my life." A hot gleam of emotion flitted across his eyes, but was gone so fast she wondered if she'd imagined it. "But he seems to be inventive. Prosperous. Did he invent the miner hats all by himself?" he asked casually as he looked down at the ground and drew what looked like a three-leafed clover.
"Yes, he did," she answered proudly. "I hadn't even known he was working on the blueprints. Three years ago, when I caught him adding a lip to the front of the hat for protection is when I realized his dream to open a miner's hat factory and store. He recognized my aptitude with numbers and hired me to take care of the financial side of the business. And I love doing it. Well, that and taking care of nature's animals when they are hurt."
"Are you sure there wasn't already a rim already on the drawing?"
She cocked her head and gave him a quizzical look, wondering why he would question such a thing. "Of course I'm sure."
She watched as he gripped the tin cup so hard that the sides popped.
Then he leaned over to dig in his pack and withdrew a deck of cards. "Do you want me to show you a few card tricks? Ways to win a poker hand through trickery?" He raised his brows as he glanced at her. "Knowledge is power, and I don't want anybody else to suffer like my brother."
"Yes. Show me."
"You've no doubt heard the saying the hand is quicker than the eye." He looked up from shuffling, as if wanting her to answer.
"Yes, I've heard that mentioned."
"This is a false claim. The hand is not quicker than the eye." He fanned the cards, pulling in a group of them between two other small stacks, all with one hand. Cleverer? Yes." He walked several cards and slipped them between other cards that he'd split like minor craters, seeming to be arbitrary.
But she would bet her pair of deuces that the whole act was preplanned.
"And the key to any decent card trick is keeping complet
e control of the cards. Therefore the methods of cheating that I'll be discussing are mainly related to card manipulation, also known as mechanics."
"You're doing something now with the shuffling—something I would call cheating."
"You're right. It's called riffle shuffle. A variation of the overhand shuffle, except I'm interlacing the tips of the deck, which will give the illusion of shuffling. I conceal the back portion of the deck with one hand. See?" He opened his hand slightly to show the back against his palm. "Pretend to tap the deck together. Then, separate the two halves. Place the original top half of the deck on top."
"Fascinating. You are quite good at this. Next week is our Women's Circle meeting. Would you come? Show the rest of the ladies how to spot a card sharp so nobody gets cheated?"
"Of course I will," Jake responded with a smile.
"Thank you," she said as she rose from the stump. "Thank you for the coffee."
"Are you leaving so soon?" he asked as he stood.
"Yes, I've got to return to the shop and do some bookkeeping. I'll see you around town."
"I look forward to it," he murmured as he gazed at her with those fascinating eyes that seemed to see into her very soul.
Soul mates. She shivered as a foreboding sense of destiny swept over her. Good? Bad? She couldn't tell. But as she rushed back toward town, she thought about checking into her inheritance to see how much money she was actually going to inherit in a couple of months. Not that she believed any of the cynical ideas Jake suggested to her. Uncle Geary was her uncle. He loved her. Yes, he wasn't perfect because he did have a second set of accounting books. Maybe he was slightly shady as far as the business was concerned. But that didn't mean his whole identity was a lie. She was still investigating. No, she wouldn't borrow trouble.
Even as she tried to reassure herself, she had the nagging sense that all wasn't as perfect as she pretended it to be.
That Jake might be right.
Sweeten the Swindler Page 6