Page 84 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
Cal pushed up onto his elbows, jostling her. “When?”
“Saturday.” When the sun rose, it would be Friday.
Cal’s taut muscles and sober expression—even more so than usual—put her on edge. This meant something to him. She thought she knew what. Her father, brother, and the head of the Jacky Boys were all going to be in one place at the same time. Her family’s home.
“Could Rod’s plans involve my father’s fete?”
Her mother. She would be there too. Fern’s stomach churned.
Cal pushed off the quilt and swung his legs over hisside of the cot, showing Fern his back. He sat there a moment, rubbing his jaw.
“It’s a good opportunity.”
Fern’s eyes slipped to his hip, his naked thigh and knee. Desire for him mixed with worry.
“I have to stop it,” she said. “I have to warn them.”
“If word gets out that you let off a warning about Rod’s intended hit, I’ll be dead before I can even leave the North Side, let alone Chicago,” he said. “He’ll know I told you about it.”
Fern sat up behind Cal, her arms shaking as she held the quilt to her chest. “You think he’dkillyou? But you’re his brother.”
“A traitor’s a traitor.”
“You’re not a traitor!”
Cal twisted around to look her in the eye. “I’m choosing you over him. I’m protecting you, not him. A traitor’s exactly what I am.”
The anguish in his eyes nearly turned Fern inside out. She shook her head. “I can’t let you do that.”
He gripped her wrist through the cotton quilt. “I made my choice. I love my brother, but I’m not giving you up, Fern.”
He never held back; Cal always said exactly what he felt without an ounce of sugar to coat the words. She loved him for that.
“I have to do something to protect my family,” she said. As callous as they were toward her, Fern couldn’t turn her back and do nothing if they were in danger. If Rod’s plans had to do with her father’sfete, and if he suspected Cal was lying to him, he might have kept Cal in the dark for that very reason.
If she couldn’t warn her family without endangering Cal, then the only other thing she could do would be to stop the fete from happening. Her father had already wanted to cancel once.
Cal faced forward again, releasing her wrist. “If you need to warn them, I understand.”
“No.” She shifted onto to her knees and hugged him from behind, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “I…I think I have another idea. One that Rod won’t necessarily be able to trace back to you.”
The idea had hurtled into her head with desperation. Cal covered her hand with his and then kissed her knuckles. She’d chosen him, and he knew it now. He waited for her to go on.
“The photographs,” she said. He cocked his ear. In the rising light of the early morning, Fern saw his eyes shutter. He hated what he’d done to her.
“What about them?”
“If they were printed in the papers, the way Rod threatened?—”
“No.”
His refusal was unexpectedly endearing.
“—my mother wouldn’t show her face for a month, maybe longer,” Fern continued.
Fern felt ill at the idea of those wretched photographs landing on the front page of every rag in the city. No doubt there would be a lurid headline and story to go along with them, all of it pure fiction.But if it drove her mother to cancel the fete, the humiliation would be worth it.
Cal reached for his pants, discarded on the floor, and started to get dressed. “I don’t want anyone seeing you like that. We’ll find another way.”
