Hidden Talents

now?”
    “Never mind. I think I just answered my own question.”
    “I'd appreciate it if you'd answer it for me,” Serenity grumbled. “Why would Ambrose send me to you and then use blackmail threats to stop me from doing business with you?”
    “Because he probably felt that he had things under control that way,” Caleb said, thinking quickly. “You told me that he wasn't in favor of change here in Witt's End.”
    “That's true. Ambrose wasn't in favor of much of anything. He was a very depressed person.”
    “I assume he knew that you had made up your mind to create Witt's End by Mail?”
    “Everyone in town knew that.”
    “He also probably knew you well enough to realize that he couldn't talk you out of it. Right again?”
    “Right.”
    “So he pretended to help out. He sent you off in a direction he knew he could control. How old did you say Asterley was?”
    “Somewhere in his mid-fifties. Why?”
    Old enough to have read about the old Ventress scandal when it first broke thirty-four years ago, Caleb thought. His grandfather had told him often enough that the news of Crystal Brooke's affair with Gordon Ventress had been all over the Northwest papers.
    It wouldn't have taken much in the way of brains for Asterley to have surmised that even three and a half decades later, a bunch of nude photos and a threat of blackmail would have a strong, exceedingly negative impact on anyone with the last name of Ventress.
    “Caleb?”
    He looked at Serenity, who was regarding him with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “It's a long story. I won't bore you with it now. Let's just say that I have a hunch your friend Asterley sent you to me because he knew he could kill any deal you made with those photos.”
    “But how could he know that you'd go off the deep end the way you did over a few pictures that Ambrose himself considered very good art?”
    “I didn't go off the deep end.”
    “Yes, you did. You went nutso at the thought of doing business with me once you heard I'd posed for nude pictures. Admit it.”
    “I did not go nutso.” Caleb leaned over her desk again. “I'm here, aren't I? In spite of those damn photos.”
    “Well, yes, but you can't deny that you overreacted to them when you first heard about them.”
    “I never overreact,” Caleb said icily.
    “That's a matter of opinion. Personally, I suspected from the start that you were a very emotional sort of person, and every move you've made lately has verified my conclusion.”
    “I swear to God, Serenity, if you don't stop saying things like that, I won't be responsible for my actions.”
    “See what I mean?” She smiled triumphantly. “Emotional. Don't worry about it. I tend to get a little emotional myself from time to time. The question is, how could Ambrose know you'd have the reaction you did to those photos?”
    Caleb took a firm grip on his temper. She was deliberately baiting him, and he was not going to bite again. “I told you, it's a long story.” One he had not discussed with anyone outside the family in his entire life, he reflected silently. He certainly didn't intend to start now. Some things were better left buried. The past had caused him enough trouble. “The details aren't important.”
    “Caleb, what's going on here?” Serenity clasped her hands in front of her on her desk and studied him with sober attention. “What did Ambrose know about you that made him think you'd go bonkers over those photos? How could he possibly know how straitlaced you are? How could he know anything about you at all?”
    “Because he read newspapers,” Caleb said roughly. He was not straitlaced, he told himself. He had been caught off guard, that was all. Basically he was a reasonable, tolerant man.
    “Yes, but what did he read in the newspapers that made him think you'd refuse to do business with me if you found out about the photos?”
    “Look, Serenity, I'll go into it later, all right? This isn't the time or the place.”
    “I'm not so sure.” Someone pounded on the office door before Serenity could continue. She broke off with a frown. “Come in.”
    The door opened and Zone thrust her shaved head around the edge. The earring in her nose gleamed. “That new sales rep from the whole-grain distributor is here. He says he has an appointment.”
    Serenity glanced at her desk calendar. “He does.”
    Zone glanced over her shoulder and then lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “His aura is very weak and tinged