Gift of Fire

find.”
    “Always nice to be appreciated. Just don’t start interviewing any replacements for my job while I’m gone.”
    “Yes, Jonas.” She slid her hands down to his firm, muscular buttocks and squeezed.
    “You’re insatiable.” He kissed her breast, his tongue warm and damp.
    “Lucky for me you always rise to the occasion.”
    “Luck has nothing to do with it.” He slid one knee between her legs. “The hell with it,” he muttered against her throat. “I can sleep on the plane.”
     
    Emerson glanced out the window of the Jeep and waved at his daughter standing in the doorway of the No Bull Cafe. Verity waved back and blew a kiss.
    “Looks like you did a good job of sweet-talking her last night,” Emerson remarked. “Verity seemed downright cheerful this morning. I expected a lot of last-minute lectures on the subject of brainless male machismo.”
    Jonas turned the Jeep onto the road leading out of Sequence Springs. It was still dark, and the sleepy little town slumbered peacefully beside the lake. “Things weren’t so cheerful for a while there last night. You should have heard her, Emerson. She started talking about taking a vacation. A vacation all by herself. Can you beat that? Something about going to Hawaii while we’re in Mexico. If she hadn’t left claw marks in my leg the last time I tried it, I would have turned her over my knee and paddled some sense into her. She was planning to take off for the islands the minute my back was turned.”
    Emerson’s lips twitched briefly. He studied the road ahead with a thoughtful expression. “You talk her out of it?”
    “Damn right. Told her that if she really wanted to go on vacation, we’d go when I got back from Mexico. She can spend the next week planning the trip. It’ll give her something constructive to do.”
    “I think she needs a vacation,” Emerson remarked slowly. “There’s something different about Verity lately. You noticed?”
    Jonas was silent for a long moment. “I’ve noticed,” he said finally. He would have given a great deal to know exactly what was going on in her feminine brain. More than once he’d caught her in a strange mood of self-absorption, as if she was looking inward and thinking about making some changes in her life.
    The thought filled Jonas with a strong feeling of uneasiness, and an even stronger feeling of possessiveness. His hands tightened around the steering wheel. If Verity was thinking of changing lovers, she could damn well forget it. She had waited twenty-eight years for him—twenty-eight years for her first sexual experience. And she had taken to his lovemaking like a dolphin to water. Jonas didn’t like the thought that she might be wondering now if she’d waited for the wrong man.
    “You sure you talked her out of going off alone to Hawaii?” Emerson asked.
    Jonas set his jaw, remembering belatedly that Verity had changed the subject last night, without giving him any promises. “She wouldn’t dare. She knows there’d be hell to pay.”
    “Ah, the comforts of ‘brainless male machismo.’ No wonder we men cultivate it so carefully. Gives us a nice, pleasant, totally false sense of security when we need it most.” Emerson laughed wryly.
    Jonas took a hand off the wheel long enough to touch the golden earring he carried in his pocket. The earring belonged to Verity. He had carried it with him since the night he’d found it in a dirty Mexican alley. “Some of us get our sense of security from other things.” The gentle vibrations from the gold soothed some of the uneasiness in his mind.
    “Well, since there’s not much we can do about my daughter, I guess maybe we ought to talk about the plans for springing Lehigh.”
    “Plans?” Jonas shot his companion a quick, amused glance. “You mean you’ve actually got some?”
    “Hey, I make a living at writing fiction, don’t I? Of course I’ve got plans. Besides, you know damn well we can’t just drop off the cash and expect to see Lehigh again in one piece. We’ll have to go in and bring him out.”
    “Let’s have it, Emerson. What’s involved?”
    “You and your trusty knife are involved, among other things. Fortunately for us, my boy, you’re a man of many talents.”
     
    Four days later, Verity spent the morning at the office of the one and only travel agent in Sequence Springs. That evening, the crowd at the No Bull Cafe was so light she closed earlier than usual, and trekked up the path to the pool room of