The Man, The Moon And The Marriage Vow Read online

  Evie thought that Oggie looked contented. And well he should. Both businesses were Jones family enterprises—very successful ones, too.

  Evie stopped for a moment on the sidewalk, looking at Oggie, feeling warmth and affection move through her, washing away the last of the jitters from her unsettling encounter with that Erik Riggins fellow.

  As if he could feel her gaze—and the love in it, too—the old man turned his head and looked at Evie. Through the cloud of smoke, she saw his wrinkled mouth stretch into a grin.

  “There you are, gal. Been waitin’ for you.”

  She moved to stand before him. “Hello, Uncle Oggie. We missed you in church.”

  He let out a wicked cackle. “I show up for the marry in’s and the buryin’s. And that’s just about as much organized religion as a bad old fool like yours truly can take.”

  Evie rolled her eyes to indicate her disbelief. “You’re hardly a fool, Uncle Oggie.”

  “But you do admit I’m bad?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’m not going to answer that.”

  He puffed on his cigar and wiggled his bushy brows at her, then he stared off across the street again. “I been sittin’ here ruminatin’ on how if we don’t watch it, all of Main Street is gonna be Jones owned.”

  Evie chuckled. “We’re close, but not there yet. There’s still Lily’s Café and Santino’s Barber, Beauty and Variety, and Swan’s Motel and—”

  Oggie waved his cigar. “Evie, honey. It ain’t as if I don’t know who owns what around here. You gonna invite me in?”

  “Could you put out the cigar?”

  The old man’s sigh was deep and resigned. “Hell. You bet.” He used the tall, sand-filled ashtray that Evie had conveniently set at the end of the bench, then he grabbed his cane and followed Evie through the door into the dim interior of her shop.

  After taking a minute to close and lock the door behind them, Evie led her uncle around the shadowed groupings of furniture and clothing, past the button cabinet and the carnival glass display and the big, antique brass cash register that sat on a glass-fronted case in the middle of the room. Behind her, she could hear the old sweetheart huffing and puffing, his cane tapping the hardwood floor as he hastened to keep up with her.

  They went through an archway and a short hall at the back, and then up the narrow stairs to Evie’s apartment above the shop.

  Evie got the old man settled into a big chair in the living room and turned on a window air conditioner to cut the growing heat of the day. Next, she made sandwiches and brewed some coffee—when Oggie came to visit, no matter what time of day it was, he always liked a good, strong cup of coffee with mountains of sugar in it.

  After the coffee was made and she’d served him, Evie asked him if he had something special on his mind. But Oggie only asked wasn’t he welcome, even without a reason to call.

  Though she sensed evasion in his reply, Evie assured him that he was always welcome. As they shared the simple lunch, he told her a story or two of long ago, of growing up in Kansas. He spoke of his wonderful mama and his cruel daddy. Oggie said his mama had adored his daddy, in spite of the meanness in his daddy’s soul. Thus his mama’s gentle heart was broken when his wicked daddy died.

  Oggie talked a little about his brothers, too, though not much. He only mentioned his youngest brother, Gideon, one time. But one time was enough.

  “Is that it?” Her appetite gone, Evie set her half-finished sandwich on the battered steamer trunk that she used for a coffee table. “Have you heard from my father?”

  Oggie’s black eyes were fathoms deep. “Sometimes, gal, it’s like you really are psychic.”

  Evie absently brushed away the few sandwich crumbs that had dropped onto her antique silk dress. She wanted to cry. And she couldn’t help thinking how carefully she’d chosen the dress that morning, humming and feeling good and thinking that she was headed off to church in her new hometown, where every face was becoming familiar to her— and everyone thought of her as an ordinary woman named Evie Jones.

  “I’ve explained to you, Uncle Oggie,” she said tightly. “There’s nothing psychic about me. I know how to read people, that’s all. My father taught me. And he was a pro.”

  Oggie shook his head. “Whatever you say.”

  “It’s the truth, Uncle Oggie. I am not psychic.”

  Oggie put up both hands. “Hey. Am I arguin’?”

  She drew in a long breath. “I’m just telling you, all right? My father taught me everything. You don’t know the… tricks he uses. You hardly knew him, after all.”

  “Gal, he’s my brother. I knew him.”

  “You know what I mean. You lost track of my father when he was ten or eleven, you said.”

  Oggie couldn’t resist correcting her. “Twelve. He was twelve, the way I remember it. Gideon was five and I was fifteen when poor Ma went to her reward. They farmed all of us boys out to foster care. I did my level best to keep in touch, even after I was grown-up and on my own. But then Giddy ran off. He was twelve, then, like I said. And I was twenty-two. I tried to track him down, but then the war came. And after I got back from France, his trail was as cold as yesterday’s flapjacks.”

  “Fine. And it’s been fifty years since then.”

  “More’n that, I’m sorry to say.”

  “So take my word for it. I know him better than you ever did. Gideon Jones is a cheat and a swindler. He finds out a person’s dreams and desires and hopes and fears. And he uses what he finds out.”

  “But—”

  Evie wasn’t finished. “As I said, he knows how to read people and he taught me how to read people, too. I turned out to be good at it. Very good. And that’s all there was to the famous psychic, Evangeline.”

  Oggie was watching her. He said very softly, “Gal, don’t let bitterness get its teeth in you.”

  Evie glanced away. “I’m trying, Uncle Oggie. I’m doing my best. Most of the time, I do pretty well. But sometimes, when all that old garbage comes up, it’s hard, you know?”

  “But I don’t really get it. I don’t really understand why you’re so sensitive about it after all this time.”

  “Uncle Oggie, I—”

  He cut her off, intent on making his point. “No, I’m serious. I read some of those articles about you. I can’t believe it was all a fake, those lost people you found and the sick ones who got well after you—”

  Evie couldn’t take anymore. She stood. “Please, Uncle Oggie. Please.” She turned away from him, away from the light that flooded in the window at his back.

  “Come on, now,” Oggie said from behind her. “It’s ancient history, that’s all I’m sayin’. It’s time you let it go.”

  Evie spoke in carefully measured tones. “I want to let it go. Honestly. I want to be just an ordinary person.” She turned, and made herself face him. “That’s why I hope you’ve remembered your promise. I hope you haven’t said anything to anyone here in town about who I was and what I did all those years ago.”

  Oggie fiddled with the head of his cane. “I don’t get it. I don’t see what you did that was so bad. You really did help people. And if there was anything dishonest about it, well, you were only a child. A child who was used. It wasn’t one damn bit your fault.”

  “Uncle Oggie.” She made herself look right into his eyes. “I’m grateful to you. You came and found me in Santa Fe last year, when everything was going so wrong for me. And you brought me here with you and you helped me to start over.”

  “How many times you started over, gal?”

  She pushed the uncomfortable question away with a wave of her hand. “Please, Uncle Oggie. I’m just Evie here, and I like that. I’ve got you and all the family and you all treat me like I’m one of you.”

  “You are one of us.”

  “Look. I just want to know. Have you kept your promise to me?”

  “Hell, gal.”

  “Evangeline is gone. She doesn’t exist. She hasn’t existed for fifteen years. T
hat’s how I want it. So answer me. Have you kept your promise to me, Uncle Oggie?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I have. No one in this town knows about your past but you and me—or if they do, I ain’t the one they heard it from.”

  Relief made Evie weak. She sank to the flowered, overstuffed sofa once more. And then she asked the question she really didn’t want the answer to. “And was I right, then? Have you heard from my father?”

  “Gal…”

  “Uncle Oggie, please. Just tell me what you heard.”

  Oggie studied her for a moment, and Evie did her best not to fidget under his sharp regard. Then at last, he leaned forward in the soft chair, grunting at the pain in his aged joints as he did it. He felt in a back pocket and pulled out a card, which he held out to her across the steamer trunk.

  Evie saw that it was a postcard with one of those silly pictures of dogs playing poker on the front. She took the thing gingerly and looked down at it as if one of the dogs might come alive and bite her. Then she made her numb fingers flip the card over. It was addressed to Ogden E. Jones, General Delivery, North Magdalene, California.

  There was a brief message in a scrawl Evie knew like she knew all her own darkest secrets.

  Hey, big brother. How you been all these years? Lately, for some reason, all my thoughts turn to you. Keep in touch now, you hear?

  There was no return address.

  Evie felt numb. She looked up at her uncle. “He knows I’m here.”

  Oggie snorted. “It’s a definite possibility. Can’t see any reason for him to send me that otherwise, after all these years when I ain’t heard a word from him.”

  She looked down at the card again. “It’s postmarked Las Vegas.”

  “You think maybe that’s where he’s livin’ now?”

  Evie shook her head. “Knowing him, Las Vegas is just what he wants us to assume.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Evie handed the card back to her uncle. “I had hoped maybe he wouldn’t find me here.”

  “Yeah. So did I.” Oggie stuck the card in his back pocket once more. “But maybe we were wishin’ for the impossible. I suppose I ain’t a hard man to find, if you’re lookin’. I’ve lived in this town for over forty years. And I ran a bar for most of that time. I know lots a folks all over the western states.” Oggie regarded her solemnly. “I didn’t want to show it to you. But I felt I oughtta.”

  “I understand. And you did the right thing. I needed to know.”

  Oggie said nothing for a moment, then asked wearily, “Does this mean you’ll be pullin’ up stakes on us?”

  Evie sank back into the deep cushions of the couch, rested her head and looked at the ceiling. She thought of all the years she’d been running. Sometimes it seemed that everything she had, she’d earned on the run. She’d never finished high school, but she’d managed to earn her G.E.D.

  And she was a hard worker. She’d saved her money. Three years ago, in Santa Fe, she’d finally opened a shop of her own.

  Such a lovely little shop. But she’d pulled out of it quickly, losing a bundle on her lease. All because a reporter from the New Mexican dug up all the old tales about her and plastered them all over the newspaper. The story had been picked up by the wire services—and her father had found her once again.

  She thought of this beautiful little town. And her new shop that she loved. And the people here. Her family. Not since she and her sisters had gone their separate ways had Evie known real family close by like this. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the contact, the closeness with others of like mind and heart, until she’d found it again.

  In his chair on the other side of the steamer trunk, her uncle was silent. It was one of the many things she loved about him. He could drive you crazy with talking, but when the time came to be quiet, Oggie Jones knew how.

  Evie lifted her head and looked at him.

  And that was when he spoke. “Giddy’s an old man now, gal. An old man like me. And you’re a grown woman in the fullness of your strength. Here, you got your people all around you. Here, you ain’t alone.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing, Uncle Oggie.”

  “Maybe here you’re meant to discover that an old man doesn’t have any power over you that you don’t give him of your own free will.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Tell me you’ll stay.”

  Evie’s throat felt tight. She swallowed. And then she nodded. “You’re right, Uncle Oggie. It’s time I quit running. It’s time I put the past away.”

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, on Evie’s thirty-third birthday, both of her sisters called early in the morning while she was sitting at the table savoring her second cup of coffee.

  Nevada, the oldest, called first. Nevada sang “Happy Birthday” in that rusty contralto of hers and then she chatted a while about her life in Phoenix and her talk-radio show, Honeymoon Hotline, that was getting such high ratings. Before she hung up, Nevada promised she’d take some time off real soon to visit the town where her baby sister seemed to be settling in so contentedly.

  Faith, Evie’s middle sister, called next from the huge Queen Anne-style mansion in the bay area where she’d been the housekeeper for about ten years now. Faith was much more reserved than Nevada, so Evie did most of the talking during that conversation. Evie told Faith how Wishbook was doing. She talked about Oggie and her cousins and their spouses and children and how much she loved living in such a great little town.

  Before Faith said goodbye, she too mentioned coming for a visit soon. Evie said she’d love that.

  When the calls were over, Evie sat, her chin on her hand, wondering if she should have mentioned the postcard Uncle Oggie had received.

  But what was the point? Faith and Nevada had nothing to do with the postcard. It had been aimed at Evie, just as all of their father’s energies had been directed at his youngest daughter, ever since the day he’d discovered how imminently exploitable she was. Over the years that they lived with him, Gideon had never had much time for his other two daughters—except to heap abuses on them when either was foolish enough to get in his way or go up against him.

  The way Evie saw it, there was really nothing her sisters could do. To tell them about this latest contact from Gideon would only worry them—or worse, make them think they should rush to her side to protect her.

  And protect her from what? Nothing, really, but a cryptic note from an old man—a note that hadn’t even been addressed to her.

  No, Evie thought, as she stood at the sink and rinsed out her coffee cup. She was staying put this time and she was going to handle whatever came up herself. When her sisters did come to North Magdalene for a visit, it would be strictly for her pleasure and theirs.

  Evie hummed as she took her shower and donned another of her favorite flowered silk dresses. She brushed her long red-brown hair and pinned it up loosely. As a final touch, she wore the single strand of pearls that she’d discovered under a pile of junk jewelry at a flea market a few years before.

  Still humming, she descended the stairs to her shop. Once there, she dusted a few display cases and straightened things up a little. And then it was time to switch on all the lamps, unlock the door and turn the Open sign around.

  There were lots of tourists in town, strolling up and down Main Street, soaking up the atmosphere of an authentic gold-rush town. Business was good. Within an hour after opening, Evie had sold a set of ivory napkin rings, four antique bottles collected from local mining sites, a lovely maple-topped bin table and two silk dresses very similar to the one she was wearing herself.

  At a little past noon, there was a lull. Evie got out the light lunch she’d prepared before coming downstairs. She sat down to eat at a little secretary near the front door.

  She was halfway through her Camembert and crackers when the bell over the door told her she had more customers. She looked up as two children came in: a round-cheeked blond cherub of five or six and behind her, a
slightly older girl with thick bronze-colored hair and the faintest dusting of freckles across her nose.

  Evie knew immediately who they were: Erik Riggins’s girls. Her heart gave a silly lurch inside her chest as she thought his name; she almost choked on a bit of cracker. But she recovered. Their father wasn’t even with them. And really, she hadn’t even thought of the man since the incident in church two days before. Just the sight of his children shouldn’t bother her at all.

  Evie downed a little iced tea to wash away the cracker. The older girl carefully shut the door. The younger one, her baby-angel’s face lit from inside with frank delight, moved a little deeper into the shop.

  “Ooh, Jenny,” the little one sighed. “It’s so pretty. Like a magic place.”

  “Becca,” the older girl, instructed. “Don’t touch anything.”

  Becca stuck out her lower lip. “I won’t. You know that. I’m behaving myself, just like you said.”

  Evie slid her chair back and stood. “Hello. May I help you?”

  The older girl, Jenny, moved a step closer. “Are you Miss Jones?”

  “I am. But please call me Evie. Everyone does.”

  Becca, the little one, spoke up. “It’s rude to call grownups by their first names. Our dad says so.”

  “Hush,” Jenny said in the tone of a miniature mother. “It’s all right if the grown-up gives you permission.”

  Becca’s nose wrinkled in perplexity. “It is?” She looked at the only grown-up in the room—Evie—for confirmation.

  “Yes,” Evie said. “I’m sure your sister’s right.”

  Becca thought about that. Then she grinned. “Well. Gee. Good. I’m Becca and she’s Jenny and guess what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s our dad’s birthday today. He’s thirty-three years old.”

  That news sent a shiver through Evie. Born on the same day, in the same year, as I was…

  Which meant nothing. Less than nothing. A meaningless coincidence, and that was all.

  So why did it seem such a significant thing?

  “Umm, isn’t that nice?” Evie knew that she sounded utterly inane.