Met Her Match

by Jude Deveraux

  “If she likes this guy, then everything is wrong with him. Since he has to live up to her standards, that means he’s rich. Ivy League school all the way. From the size of him, my guess is that he played that game... It’s like American football but our teams have enough sense to wear padding.”

  “Rugby.” Brody had dropped his arms and was looking at his daughter with interest. She was deeply and sincerely riled up about something. “I don’t mean to be profoundly stupid here, but what exactly is your complaint about this guy?”

  Terri stopped pacing. “I don’t know. It’s just everything, I guess. They’re all alike. He’s a money person. Probably moves Daddy’s millions around. I wonder if he’s ever been on a boat that didn’t have a crew and a captain. I bet he’d squeal if he had to use live bait on a hook.”

  Brody was watching his daughter. Usually, the incompetence of the people around them made her laugh. At the end of a trying day, they’d sit in the big chairs at Aggie’s house, beers in hand, look out over the water and laugh about it all.

  But right now, there was something genuinely bothering her. He picked up the photo on his desk. Good-looking man, muscles straining against his clothes. Looked like he did flyes with boat motors. And Brody knew he was the only kind of man his daughter ever looked at twice.

  Terri was saying how this guy probably only ate off china and silver—which may or may not be inside of Aunt Aggie’s cabinets. Terri said she wasn’t an overly domestic kind of female, so how did she know what was in there?

  When Brody looked back at his daughter more carefully, he saw that she was wearing lipstick. Not like Elaine wore it so that a man couldn’t keep his eyes off her lips, but there was some.

  She likes him, Brody thought. Whatever happened this morning, his daughter liked this man. Then she’d found out he was engaged to cute, vivacious, everybody-loves-her Stacy Hartman. The mayor’s daughter might be considered the Summer Hill Princess in the town, but at the lake—and in Brody’s heart—Terri was the one who mattered.

  On the desk were three listings for available cabins. Since Widiwick was just weeks away, he knew he’d rent all of them, but right now they were empty.

  Terri was saying that Nate Taggert would probably spend the whole three weeks drinking beer with his frat brothers who would fly in from Connecticut. When she turned away, Brody slipped the papers into his desk drawer.

  She whirled around to face her father. “Put him in the Camlock place. He and his frat brothers can get drunk and trash it and there won’t be much loss. But even if there is, I’m sure his daddy will pay for it all.”

  “It’s been rented.” Brody was hoping his eyes didn’t show his lie. “Every cabin is taken.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “There was a flurry of activity while you were gone and I rented everything.” He knew he was talking too fast. “Maybe this man can get his dad to buy him a place. I’ve got several that—”

  “No! He’s not staying here. The lake is just a diversion for him so he can see how the other half lives. I’m sure Stacy is grooming him to become mayor. If they have a cabin it will be in Italy. Or the South of France. Certainly not here.” Terri sat down on a chair. “I’ll just have to tell him that he can’t stay at the lake.”

  “Or charge him rent.”

  “He said he’d pay double what I usually charge. As if I live in a boardinghouse!”

  “Double, huh? How’s your new car fund going? Is your roof still leaking? Did you fix those broken tiles in the front?”

  Terri glared at her father.

  Brody threw up his hands. “I understand. You can’t—” His eyes widened. “Wait a minute! This guy didn’t come on to you, did he? Did he make a pass at you?”

  “Of course not. He cooked breakfast for me. We sat at the dining table and talked. He...” She trailed off.

  “You don’t think you could put up with him for just three weeks? The money would be useful. You know that I’d lend you some, but you said—”

  “No! I mean, no to your giving me money. I earn my own way.”

  “You’re only there at night.” He was looking at her expectantly.

  “Maybe,” she said as she stood up. “You talk to him. I have a lot of work to do. You get Moon cleaned up?”

  “Yeah, but it was, uh, littered again.”

  Terri grimaced. “We got them to clean up after their dogs, so why can’t they clear up after themselves?”

  Brody smiled. “Why don’t you invent a different kind of pooper-scooper? One for what people leave behind on the beaches. You could go on that TV show and get somebody to invest in it. You’d make millions.”

  Terri gave a tiny smile. “Beach owners the world over would love me.”

  “Not difficult to do,” Brody said.

  “Thanks.” She put her hand on the door. “Okay, I’ll do it for the money. But you do the negotiating. I’m planning to stay away from him.”

  “I have a couch,” he said.

  “I may use it.” Terri left the office, closing the door behind her.

  Anna didn’t look up. “Here,” she said as she held out a list of things Terri had to do.

  “Oh goody. What’s in store for me to do today?”

  “Same as always. Just because you were gone doesn’t mean anyone else did your jobs. The Farleys are threatening to use a rifle if you—”

  “Don’t do anything about whatever their problem is,” Terri finished. “Sure. I’ll get on it.” She was looking down the list. “Anything important?”

  “I found your notebook.” Anna nodded toward the little table by the wall.

  Terri looked at it in puzzlement. She’d had it with her when she was in Richmond and she’d jotted down some boat prices. Since she’d gone straight home, how did the notebook get into Anna’s office? “How did—”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there!” Anna yelled toward Brody’s office, then stood up and looked at Terri. “Anything else you need from me or are you going to spend the day in here looking at pictures on the wall?”

  “No, I—” She didn’t say more because Anna went into Brody’s office and closed the door behind her.

  “What a weird day,” Terri said.

  By lunchtime, she didn’t know if she was angry or ready to laugh. Everything on her list had already been done. The heavy grill that had fallen had been set upright. Bungee cords were holding down the lids to garbage cans. Two boat motors had been fixed. A glass repairman had been called for a window. Calling servicemen was something the residents never did for themselves. Why should they since Terri and her toolbox were at their beck and call? A child’s bicycle had been found. Poison ivy vines had been pulled off a tree. Four boys were having a loud discussion about how rugby was a better sport than American football.

  The answer that Terri heard to her every question was, “Nate.” He fixed it; he said it; he suggested it; he showed them how. Mostly it was, “Nate did it.” With his superhuman strength, he’d lifted the iron barbecue grill. With his extraordinary intelligence, he’d figured out how to lock the garbage can lids down. This was said as Terri stood there with bungee cords in her hand.

  “He was great,” said Mrs. Williams. Her husband only visited every other weekend. “Nate used my phone and called a local repairman. He should be here—Oh! There he is now. Isn’t Nate just fabulous?” She ran toward the van pulling into her driveway.

  “He can use a phone,” Terri muttered. “Truly gifted man.”

  A little girl on a pink bicycle rode by and waved at Terri. “Nate found my bike,” she called.

  Terri put on a smile. “I bet it was on Timmy Gresson’s porch because he wanted you to visit him,” she said under her breath.

  “Timmy had it,” the girl called over her shoulder.

  With an eye roll, Terri went back to her boat. There was one more thing on her li
st. The Coldmans needed their huge cabin cruiser on its long trailer put into the water. Mr. Coldman, an attorney, couldn’t back up a trailer to save his life, so someone in the office—meaning Brody or Terri—had to back it up for him.

  When she pulled up at the dock, the big boat was already in the water. Mrs. Coldman waved and called out, “Thanks for sending Nate to help us. Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No,” Terri shouted back. “He’s not.”

  “Too bad. If I weren’t already married I’d go after him.” She laughed as though she was the only person to ever have said that cliché.

  Terri managed to give a weak smile and a wave, then she turned her boat toward home. But when she got halfway across the water, a wicked little smile transformed her face. She went from anger to smirking. Turning around, she headed back to Club Circle.

  Mr. Nathaniel Taggert wanted to play games, did he? Well, let the best woman win!

  Chapter 3

  Terri was sitting in the wooden chair in front of her house, sipping a beer and looking out over the dark water. It was nearly 9:00 p.m. when she heard the glass door behind her open. Ah, she thought, wonder if he’s tired. She repressed a snicker.

  She didn’t take her eyes off the water as Nate plopped down in the chair next to hers. Even though she didn’t look at him, she could smell him: sweat, grease, old oil, years of dust and grime.

  She made an effort to hide her smile but only half succeeded. Without so much as a glance at him, she reached into the cooler beside her, withdrew an icy cold bottle of beer and handed it to him.

  Nate drained it in one go, and she handed him another one. When it was half-empty, she passed a paper bag of burritos to him. He ate the first one in three bites.

  “Smugness chokes a person,” he said, his mouth full. “Too much of it and you die on the spot. And you can’t be buried in hallowed ground.”

  Terri couldn’t contain her laughter—and when she looked at him, it increased. There were cobwebs clinging to his shirt and in his hair. Not clean, new cobwebs, but the kind that were so filthy the spiders had abandoned them.

  “Go on,” he said. “I deserve it.”

  “If it helps, Dad said you did a great job. Better than I would have. And best of all, you didn’t complain about having to do it. No siree bob, you cleaned that whole workshop all by your little self. Dad said you even cleaned under that old transmission. How’d you move it?”

  Nate was on his third burrito. He didn’t say anything, just held up his arm and flexed a bicep.

  “Ooooh,” Terri said. “Impressive.”

  He held out his hand and she gave him another beer. “So when’d you figure it out?”

  “It was the notebook and Anna acting like she was downright eager to do anything my dad wanted. You heard it all?”

  “Every word you yelled to your father went through my ears. Kind of like a verbal machine gun going off.”

  Terri felt guilty at what she’d said and opened her mouth to apologize.

  “Don’t,” Nate said. “It was all true. Or used to be, anyway. My first two years in college I had a second major in beer drinking. I set records in my fraternity. I was world-class.”

  “Yeah?” Terri was smiling as she sipped her own beer. The lake was Y-shaped and her house was at the fork. With a bit of twisting and turning, they could see all of it. At one end a flashlight was moving along the path that ran beside the water. A rowboat with a light on the end was stealthily going southward. “So what made you stop drinking—or did you?” She nodded toward the empty bottles on the little table in front of them.

  “This indulgence is a rarity. Brought on by having to clean out an eighteen-foot-long boat repair shop all by myself.”

  “And I thank you for it. It’s been years since anyone could get farther inside than three feet. I hear the place is now so clean it could be used as a cafeteria.”

  “I just wanted to prove to you that I could actually do things.”

  “And I wanted to get out of having to clean that mess.”

  Nate held his bottle out to her and they clinked. “We both got what we wanted.”

  “So we did. What I want to know is what happened in your third year of college.”

  “Ah. That. The summer after the second year, I went home to Colorado and slept. Since I’d done little but party all year long, I was worn-out. I was on the couch, half-asleep, and when I opened my eyes, my dad was staring down at me. He said, ‘We all make choices about what we want to do with our lives.’ Then he stuck a finger in my belly—which was pretty soft.”

  “Then what?”

  Nate shrugged as he wadded up the paper from the fourth burrito. “That was it. I took some summer courses at the University of Colorado, and when I went back to Dartmouth, I changed my major to business.”

  “All from one comment from your dad?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But a business major? Dad said you worked with Kit. Wasn’t he some sort of diplomat?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said, and she heard the hesitation in his voice.

  “Top secret? Can’t tell me anything?”

  Nate gave a half grin. “More or less. Uncle Kit is an expert on the Middle East and he wanted someone he could trust with him, so he asked me to join him, and I did.”

  “For how long?”

  “Twelve years.”

  She turned in her chair to look at him. “Are you saying you spent twelve years traveling around the Middle East and now you’re going to open a business office in little Summer Hill, Virginia?”

  “I am.”

  Terri turned back toward the water. There were more flashlights now and three silent rowboats. “When you were in the Middle East with Kit, I guess you were working in glamorous embassies, and traveled in limos, and—” When he gave a snort of laughter, she looked at him.

  “Kit grew up mostly in Egypt. He’s as at home in a Berber tent as he is in an embassy. He fit right in.”

  “And you were with him.” There was wonder in her voice. “I’ve never been out of the US. One time Aunt Aggie and I drove up to DC to see the cherry trees in bloom, and I’ve been to Fort Lauderdale twice to see her. We drove up to Boca Raton and that was nice.” She reached down to pick up a white bag and handed it to Nate. “Fried apple pie from Sherry. She runs the kitchen at the Club.”

  “Thanks,” he said as he bit into it.

  They were silent for a moment. “This was nice of you.” He motioned to the beer, the burrito bag and the pie. “I’d planned to eat some of your cereal, then shower and sleep. I have an idea you weren’t too happy about what I did.”

  “You could say that. After everyone told me you’d done all my chores, I was pretty angry.”

  “More than the way you were with your dad?”

  “About a hundred times worse.”

  “Remind me to never get on your bad side. Not again, anyway.”

  “I was halfway back to the house when it all hit me. I knew you had to have heard me with Dad, and...” She looked at him. “You sweet-talked Anna into giving you my list, didn’t you? My guess is that you were there because you found my notebook and took it over.”

  “I did. It fell off the table by the front door. So you gave Anna another list. But there was only one thing on it: clean up the shop. Since I thought it was your job on your list, I kept expecting you to show up.”

  “Couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. The Roper family and all their possessions fell off the big dock. I had to save a dog, a five-year-old and three picnic baskets.”

  “A five-year-old, huh?” Nate said softly. “He okay?”

  “We’ve learned to require kids under seven to wear life jackets. The child was floating along and smiling. He thought it was all part of his vacation. It was the parents who were screaming. I swear that hysteria causes more problems th
an the accidents.”

  Nate finished his pie and looked out at the water. “Can we talk about the coming three weeks? I’ll pay—”

  Terri’s groan cut him off. “Now I really am sorry you heard what I said. I think I should apologize about Stacy.”

  “For saying she’s perfect? She is. She’s gracious and kind to everyone. Did you know that she helped Uncle Kit write the play they put on last summer? She was supposed to do all the sets and supervise the costumes, but she was with me so she couldn’t. She—What the hell are all those lights?”

  There were now over a dozen of them moving along the paths and through the water. “Dad and I call it The Dance of the Players.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You see,” Terri said slowly, “when a man and a woman really love each other, they come together in a very special way that sometimes creates babies. It’s—”

  Nate was looking at her to cut it out. “You mean they’re meeting for...for assignations?”

  “If you mean sex, yes. Pretty much. I guess. I mean, I never look, but based on the evidence they leave on Moonlight Beach, I’d say yes, definitely for sex. I do know that sometimes the sand bothers the women in an...uh, intimate sort of way. Dr. Jamie might be able to tell you more about that.”

  Nate’s face showed his shock.

  “Husbands and wives are separated all summer,” Terri said. “I imagine the ones who stay in the city are fooling around too.”

  “You seem very blasé about this.”

  “Grew up with it.”

  Nate was frowning. “What about you?”

  “You mean, am I one of the Players?” Her smile disappeared. “Of course. When you’re not here, I grab my big flashlight and run off to the cabin of whoever is available. I’m not in the least particular.” She started to get up, but Nate put his hand on her arm.

  “I apologize. Please don’t leave. I need a bit more time to digest all this food before I can move. What have you decided about me?”

  “Dad wants to adopt you so he can get free labor forever. How did you fix those boat motors so quickly?”