Gift of Gold

absolutely no one old Sam can call on to handle the payoff besides you?” Verity asked suspiciously.
    Emerson gave a huge shrug. “No one he can trust.”
    “That certainly says a lot about old Sam’s lifestyle and choice of friends, doesn’t it?” Verity muttered. “Imagine living to the ripe old age of eighty and not having another person on the face of the earth he can call on in an emergency.”
    “How do you think he got to the ripe old age of eighty?” Emerson drawled. “Not by trusting the wrong people, that’s for damn sure.”
    Verity gazed at Jonas for a long moment. He sipped his vodka quietly and looked back at her, his eyes steady and intent. She knew there was no point in arguing any further. She had been trying to talk them out of the venture since Lehigh’s call on the restaurant phone yesterday morning.
    It wasn’t so difficult to accept her father’s decision. Verity was accustomed to Emerson’s restless, adventuring ways. But when she thought about Jonas going away, she could feel a knife twisting deep inside.
    “What about your writing, Dad?” she tried, knowing it was a futile attempt. “You said you had a deadline for that first futuristic western. You’ll miss it if you go chasing off to Mexico.”
    I can probably get an extension,” Emerson replied easily. “But if the editor doesn’t want to give me one, he can shove it.”
    Verity winced and turned to Jonas. “You were just starting to make some real progress in learning how to cook. I had great hopes for your lentil stew. The customers love it.”
    Jonas’s mouth crooked slightly at one corner. “When I get back you can finish giving me cooking lessons.”
    Verity put both palms flat on the table. “So,” she said, accepting the inevitable with bad grace, “when will you be leaving?”
    Jonas studied her for a moment. “Tomorrow morning. Early.”
    Verity nodded. “Well, good luck. Tell Sam Lehigh I said hello.” She pushed herself to her feet abruptly. She was dazed at the implications of having lost this battle. If this was not the end, it was surely the beginning of the end.
    Perhaps it would be better if Jonas made the break a clean one. Then again, maybe it would be infinitely harder. The thought of never seeing him again filled Verity with despair, but the idea of having him drift in and out of her life over the next fifty or sixty years was equally hard to accept. The vision of a lifetime filled with uncertain farewells and greetings almost overwhelmed her.
    Dammit
, I’m getting maudlin,
Verity thought as she swept a couple of glasses off a nearby table. She walked through the empty restaurant and into the kitchen of the No Bull Cafe, angrily blinking back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.
    This wasn’t like her, she never cried. She was irritated by her unusually emotional reaction. What was the matter with her? She had known that sooner or later it would come to this, that one day Jonas would succumb again to the restless spirit that had driven him for years before he had met her.
    Verity had tried to prepare herself for this day, but now that it had arrived she realized she had done a poor job of protecting herself. She was shockingly vulnerable. She had surrendered far too completely during the past few months, given too much of herself to Jonas. He had taken everything she was able to give, and now he was casually walking out.
    Granted, he would probably return. But she couldn’t be sure it would be because of a bond of love. She wouldn’t have even that much satisfaction. If and when Jonas came back, it would be because of the psychic bond they shared. He needed her for a unique reason. Lately Verity had begun to wonder how much longer he would need her even for that.
    Jonas Quarrel was rapidly taming his strange talent for psychometry, which had once threatened to turn him into a killer or at the very least drive him insane. In Verity he had discovered a way to control his trips into a dimension where violent moments from the past were frozen forever in a mysterious time corridor.
    Yes, she thought as she placed the glasses into the sink, Jonas would drift back to her as long as he needed her help to understand his dark, powerful ability. But if he ever got to the point where he could control it by himself, he might take off and never return.
    Or the end might be far more final, Verity reflected as she turned off the kitchen lights. Jonas might simply wander off on an