"Dad, are those pistols stolen? "

Emerson chuckled. "Calm down. I've told you before, frowning in shock like that will eventually give you wrinkles. They're not stolen. At least, not by me. My old friend gave them to me free and clear.

You remember Lehigh down in Rio?"

Verity groaned. "Lehigh's the one who gave them to you? But where did he get them?" Samuel Lehigh was an engaging eighty-year-old charmer with a very vague past.

"That's the part that gets a bit sticky, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how Lehigh acquired them and I was too much of a gentleman to ask. Let's just say it would be simpler if, when I rum around and sell them myself, my buyer is as discreet as I am."

"Oh, hell."

"Take it easy, Verity. If those pistols were stolen, it happened a very long time ago. They've been in Lehigh's possession for years. I'm sure of that much. And now that Jonas is sure that they're the genuine article, I'm all set. All we need is a buyer."

"And Jonas has promised to put you in touch with one. Interesting. I can see that any opinions I get from you regarding Jonas are going to be somewhat biased," Verity said with a sigh.

Her father eyed her for a short moment. "You know better than that, Red." He took a large swallow of tea.

The teasing light went out of his eyes and was replaced by something far more dangerous. "I'd have slit his throat when he walked back into the cabin last night if I really thought Quarrel was dangerous to you."

Verity gave him a weak smile. "Is that right?"

"Sure." Emerson's eyes brightened again. "Fair's fair, after all. He nearly gutted me earlier when I broke into the place."

"He what? "

Emerson made a soothing gesture. "Relax, Red. It was just a simple case of mistaken identity. It was late when I arrived and I didn't want to wake you to get the key. So I tried the door and then one of the windows to see if I could jimmy it open. When I came through the window, Quarrel was waiting with a knife in his hand. I knew right then and there, you'd finally shown some intelligence when it came to your hiring practices. From what I've seen of your previous employees, none of them could have handled a scene like that with what Papa Hemingway liked to call grace under pressure."

"Oh, my God, one of you could have been killed." Verity was momentarily stricken as the implications sank in. She choked on her tea.

She had seen her father cornered once after a bar brawl by a combatant who had been dissatisfied with the official outcome of the fight. In the middle of a moonlit, waterfront street the man had gone after Emerson with a knife. Verity had been with her father at the time. Emerson had come out of the short, savage duel with only a few scrapes. His younger opponent had been badly cut. Verity had never forgotten the color of blood illuminated by moonlight. It was black.

Emerson patted his daughter on the back, the affectionate blows causing her to stagger slightly. "Hey, take it easy, Red. Neither Quarrel nor I got upset about it, so don't you get in a tizzy. Although I'll admit it's nice to see you still have a little faith in your old man's ability to take care of himself. But like I said, the little scene last night was just a slight case of mistaken identity. We soon cleared it up."

"How reassuring." Verity shook her head. "Dad, you are absolutely incorrigible." She paused, nibbling on her lower lip as she studied him. He smiled at her, unrepentant but full of a father's love. She put down her teacup and stepped forward impulsively to wrap her arms around Emerson's waist. He felt as strong and sturdy as he always had.

She had taken that strength for granted ever since the day the two of them stood in a hospital room beside her mother's bed, clasping the limp fingers of a dying woman they both loved with all their hearts.

Amanda Ames had been the victim of a drunk driver. Verity had learned that day when the terrible news came that the universe could no longer be counted upon to play fair. Her father, who had known that truth all along, had helped her accept it in his own assertive way.

"You take care of our little girl, Emerson," Amanda Ames had ordered gently.

"I'll do better than that," Emerson had promised. "I'll teach her to take care of herself. She'll be okay, my love. I swear it."

Amanda had nodded. "I know," she had whispered. "I know. I can trust you to take care of her. I love you both very much, you know. Don't spend too much time grieving. Life is for living. You've always been very good at living, Emerson. Teach Verity to be good at it, too."

Amanda had closed her eyes for the last time then and Verity had learned an important lesson about men. It was all right for a strong man to cry. She and her father had shed their tears together and then Emerson had taken Verity to the Caribbean.

"We both need a change of scene," he had explained as he bought two tickets to Antigua. "Let's go sit on a beach somewhere and think for a while. Guess we'd better take along a few books. Don't know when you'll get back to school."

"You better write a note to my teacher," Verity had said, ever mindful of the proprieties, even at the age of eight.

"Nah, we won't bother your teacher with this. She'll only get upset and so will everyone else at your silly school. The thing about bureaucracies, Red, is that they tend to get upset over all the little piddling details and ignore the really big, important things."

Verity had never been enrolled in a formal school again. Emerson had laughed about it more than once during the years that followed. "Just think," he had told her, "you may be the only kid born in North America who doesn't have to go through the torture of putting on a school play."

"And you're saved the torture of having to sit through one," Verity had retorted shrewdly. She was twelve at the time and starting to hone her sharp tongue.

Emerson had roared with laughter. "I also am saved from having to perjure myself writing excuse notes for the principal's office. I always dreaded having to write those things. Your mother made me do one every time I took you out of school to go to the zoo or the museum or the race track. She said if I was going to be the cause of your missing so much school, I had to assume the responsibility of thinking up the goddamned excuses. Talk about creative writing!"

Standing in her kitchen, her arms around her father, Verity's mind skipped laserlike over a thousand small scenes from her youth.

Through countless hotel rooms, beachside cottages, and boardinghouses, her father's strength and love of life had always been reassuring constants. In his own way, Emerson had always been there when she needed him. He had been there during the long, lonely nights when she had cried for her mother. It was he who had explained the facts of life to her in a blunt, straightforward fashion. And it was he who had given her the defenses she would need against the more predatory members of his sex. He had taught her to take care of herself in all the ways that counted. And he had loved her. Verity remembered that and blinked rapidly, clearing a suspicious dampness from her eyes along with all the footloose memories.