Chapter 2

Mademoiselle Sophiette quickly wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and stood up from her make-up table, extending her hand and smiling as if she were trying to make the Barkley brothers believe she hadn't been crying. "Hello," she said, "I hope you don't think I'm being overdramatic in asking you to come to my dressing room, but I when I saw you in the house, I wanted to be sure I had a chance to meet you."

Jarrod and Nick were both uneasy. Jarrod was first to get his voice. "I'm Jarrod Barkley, this is my brother Nick," he said, took her hand and kissed it.

Nick did the same thing as Mademoiselle Sophiette said, "Yes, I recognized you, Mr. Barkley. We've met before, or at least I've seen you before in San Francisco, not that long ago. Please, call me Sophie."

Nick let his eyes meet hers. Now he knew. Hers were a beautiful shade of green. "I enjoyed your performance," Nick said.

She smiled. "I'm glad you did."

"Even though I'm not quite sure about the last of it you addressed to me."

"Well, I'm not quite sure about it either. That's another reason I wanted to see you. I'm not sure what was happening, but don't let it bother you."

Don't let it bother you, Nick thought. That was hard to do, but the more he looked at her, the less worried he was. She was beautiful. "I was hoping for a private reading sometime before you leave Stockton."

Jarrod almost cleared his throat. She was reeling Nick in.

"I would like that," Sophie said, "but not tonight. Tomorrow. Come by here before the show, about five?

"I'll be here," Nick said.

"Is there any other reason you wanted to see us tonight?" Jarrod asked.

"To apologize to you for suggesting to your lady that she break up with you," Sophie said and smiled a bit more. "I have what they call a photographic memory. I remember everything I see, everything I'm told, everything I tell anyone else. So, I remember you and your lady."

"That's a remarkable talent," Jarrod said, but he purposely did not pursue what she said or ask for a private reading. While he might be ready to believe she had a superlative memory, he was not ready to believe she saw the future or talked to the dead.

"I suggested she break up with you because she was not for you, not because you were not for her," Sophie said. "But of course, any woman who breaks up with a man because a soothsayer tells her to doesn't really want the man anyway."

Jarrod wasn't ready to discuss his love life with this stranger – or even discuss it in front of Nick – so he just nodded. He also wasn't ready to believe she only called them back to apologize to him. She wanted that reading that Nick asked for.

They exchanged only a few more words before she said, "I need to get ready for the next set. It takes a few minutes for me to settle my mind. Thank you for coming back, and I will see you tomorrow, Nick."

They parted company with Nick smiling and Jarrod as skeptical as ever. It wasn't the reading Nick was smiling about – although it was the private part he was smiling about. They left the theatre through the stage entrance and were out in the alley before Jarrod said, "She saw you coming, Nick."

"What?" Nick asked as they walked toward the street. "What do you mean?"

"She knows a pigeon when she sees one," Jarrod said. "She knew who you were when she saw you. She knows you have money. That's why she brought on that wiping the tears act when we came in. She knew you'd fall for it."

"Just how do you suppose she knew all that when she's never met me before?"

"The fact that you were with me, and the look in your eyes when you looked at her from the audience. She reads people for a living, Nick."

"Ah," Nick brushed him off. "What's money good for if not to spend it foolishly now and then?"

"Be very, very careful, Nick," Jarrod said. "These people are experts at separating a man from a lot of that money."

"Tell you what, Pappy," Nick said. "I'll make you a little bet. I will pay you double however much she gets out of me."

"How is that a bet?" Jarrod asked.

"I pay you if she gets more than fifty dollars out of me. If she doesn't get more than fifty dollars out of me, you pay me double what she gets."

"And just who am I going to go to to find out how much she's gotten out of you? Neither one of you is going to tell me the truth!"

"I will swear on a stack of bibles that I will tell you the truth. When she leaves town next week, I will tell you exactly and honestly how much of my money she's leaving with. How's that?"

"All right," Jarrod agreed. "You're on. But that includes how much money you spend on her while she's here."

"Fair enough, except I do want one night out with her, if she'll do me the honor, and we don't count that money. Deal?"

Jarrod held his hand out. "Deal."

Nick shook it.

XXXXXXXX

"A fortuneteller?" Victoria blurted out when Nick told her who he was planning to see the next night and that she would give him a private reading.

"Oh, yes!" Audra said. "Mademoiselle Sophiette! I saw the billboard when I was in town the other day. How was it, Nick? Did she tell anyone anything surprising?"

"If she did, whoever she told it about wasn't talking," Jarrod put his two cents worth in. He sat down in his thinking chair with a glass of scotch, watching Heath near the fireplace as he privately laughed.

"Big Brother is a skeptic," Nick said, "but he has to admit that the lady remembered him from when he saw her in San Francisco a while back."

"You saw her?" Victoria said.

"My date's idea," Jarrod said. "She told my date to break up with me, and she did."

"Well, no wonder you don't like her," Audra said.

Jarrod laughed. "That's got nothing to do with it, Audra. We were finished anyway."

"And we never even knew her name," Victoria said.

"Abigail," Jarrod said and left it at that.

"Well, I have to admit to being a bit of a skeptic, too, Nick," Heath said. "I've seen these fortunetellers at work. The good ones are very, very good. They tell you something awful is gonna happen to you and then sell you some kind of token or a dozen tokens to prevent the bad thing from happening. They can suck the money right out of your pocket and make you happy they did."

Heath felt a little bad about the way he'd put that, but he had an agenda he wasn't sure about. He wasn't ready to reveal it yet.

"Nobody's gonna suck any of my money out of me," Nick said. "Or at least, not much. Jarrod and I have a bet. If she gets more than fifty dollars out of me, I have to pay him double, and if she gets less, he pays me double. And I promised not to lie to him about the amount."

"I made the bet because I thought it would keep him frugal," Jarrod said.

"I certainly hope so," Victoria said. "Do you plan to take her to dinner, Nick?"

"Maybe once, if I can talk her into it, but she's only here for a week," Nick said. "I'll have a private reading with her tomorrow, maybe take her to dinner, and chances are that will be it. So you can all quit worrying."

"Just remember one thing, Nick," Victoria said. "She will be here for a week. You have to live with me forever." And she gave him one of those "you watch yourself" looks.

Jarrod chuckled, and Heath grinned. Nick looked to Audra for help, but she just shrugged a little.

Later in the evening, as they were heading up the stairs for bed, Heath spoke quietly to Jarrod. "You think this is a good idea, letting Nick be alone with this fortuneteller?"

"He's a grown man, Heath," Jarrod said. "We can't stop him."

"Yeah, but you know how gullible he can be sometimes, especially if there's a pretty girl around."

Jarrod laughed a little. "Well, Nick and I have that bet. The prospect of winning some money from me will probably keep him in line. Besides, nothing terrible happened to me the first time I came across this Mademoiselle Sophiette."

"You lost your girl."

"That wasn't terrible. She was bleeding me drier than the Mademoiselle will ever bleed Nick."

Heath laughed a little, but then he said, "I wonder if I should go see this Mademoiselle in action tomorrow night at the Gaiety, see if Nick needs his wallet held for him after he has this private reading."

Jarrod slapped his younger brother on the back. "It might not be a bad idea. I've got a lot of work to do. I'll probably be in my office too late to catch her performance. If anything drastic happens, you can come get me and we'll get Nick home in one piece together."

Heath nodded. Then he said, "You don't think he'd really believe her if she told him something awful, do you?"

By now they were at Heath's door, and they stopped. "Normally, I'd say no, but she is a beautiful woman. Very beautiful."

"And we both know how Nick is around a beautiful woman," Heath said, nodding.

"Besotted," Jarrod said. "Absolutely besotted."