Met Her Match

by Jude Deveraux

  “Put gas in them.” He was staring at her, waiting for her answer.

  “If you pay rent, you don’t have to work. Certainly not clean out entire buildings.”

  With a smile of satisfaction, Nate leaned back in his chair. “I like it here. Uncle Kit said I was part Montgomery because I like water so much.”

  “Don’t Berbers live in deserts?”

  “The desert is where you learn to truly appreciate water.” He was quiet for a moment. “Terri, I’m sorry about the mix-up. My uncle hasn’t answered any of the eight messages I left for him, but I think he put me here because he knows I need this. After Uncle Kit retired, I had a hard time working for the government. So hard, that I left.”

  Terri could hear the understatement in his voice and she waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “What about Stacy? Will she mind that you and I stay here alone? Just the two of us?”

  “She’s not the jealous type,” Nate said quickly, then heaved himself out of the chair. “I can’t stand the smell of myself any longer. You said your aunt used to invite people here. You mind if I have a few people over? I’ll cook.”

  “I guess not,” Terri said as she stood up, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

  He seemed to know what she was thinking. “But no silver or fine china. I promise.”

  She could hear the laughter in his voice. “Good because my tux is in the cleaners.”

  Nate grinned. “Rats! I brought my best ball gown and heels, and I really wanted to wear them.”

  “Mind if I borrow one of your high heels? I’ve always wanted to try kayaking.”

  Laughing, they picked up the cooler, the empty bottles and bags, and went into the house.

  Chapter 4

  Nate took a twenty-minute shower, but then it required that long to get clean. He smiled all the way through it. Terri had certainly won that round!

  The truth was that he’d enjoyed himself. For the last year he’d been stuck at a desk. The only exercise he got was the artificial kind in a gym. He’d had years of following Kit around, bumming rides with soldiers on seaplanes, hiding in tents when they didn’t want to be seen, on and on. It had nearly killed him, but he’d loved it.

  But all that ended when Kit retired. Nate had been assigned to a desk and—

  He broke off his thoughts when his phone rang. The ID said it was Stacy. Smiling, he answered it. “Hey, baby, I was just thinking about you.”

  “Miss me?” she asked.

  “Totally. What about you?”

  “I think about you every second. Did you get the boxes I sent?”

  “What address did you use?”

  “My parents’.”

  “Oh,” Nate said. “Sorry, but no, I haven’t seen them. I’ll go tomorrow. Are you having a good time?”

  “It’s wonderful! Giovanni is brilliant. The way he sees color is something I can only hope to achieve. He puts shades of purple with strips of old gold and...” She took a breath. “You have to see it to believe it.”

  Nate was laughing. “I think I would have to.”

  “Dad said you’re staying at the lake. Do you like it there?”

  “Very much. I cleaned out an old shed today.”

  “I thought you were going to rest. Did you see the prototype for the business cards I emailed you?”

  “Sorry,” Nate said. “I didn’t have time to open the attachment. What do you know about the people here at the lake?”

  “Not much. It’s a separate community from the town, but there’s a lot of money there. I’m really hoping to get some new clients at the fair. I know Mr. Rayburn has sold several houses in the last year. I’d like to decorate them.”

  “I hear you went to school with his daughter.”

  “Terri?” Stacy said. “I did but I never knew her very well.”

  “Oh?” Nate asked.

  Stacy hesitated. “She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she?”

  “I guess,” Nate said. “Was there something bad between you two?”

  “No.” Stacy’s voice had a coolness to it. “I wasn’t a Mean Girl and I didn’t ostracize her from my gang if that’s the insinuation.”

  With a chuckle, Nate stretched out on the bed, phone close to his ear. “Never thought you could be anything but your perfect self. I’m just curious about this place, is all. Since you went off and left me here alone, the least you could do is tell me about it.”

  “Guilt!” There was laughter in her voice. “Poor Nate. Three weeks’ vacation with nothing whatever to do so I should feel sorry for you.”

  “I guess I could ask someone else.” His voice was sexy, teasing. “There was a woman named Jenkins who seemed to like me.”

  “Red hair from a drugstore box? Just so you know, there isn’t anything on her body that’s real and her husband owns some big company. He would make a formidable enemy.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t a Mean Girl in high school?”

  “Okay, you win. I take it you want to know about Terri. She and I weren’t friends in high school because she was never there. She left the grounds as soon as class let out, and she was never in any extracurricular activities. She made okay grades but I don’t think she spent much time studying. We all felt sorry for her because she had so much work to do.”

  “But I get the idea that something happened. Something traumatic.”

  “In the ninth grade, Terri was suspended from school.”

  “For what?”

  “For injuring two boys.”

  “Two of them, huh?” Nate was grinning.

  Stacy didn’t join his humor. “The boys said she went crazy and picked up a rope from gym class. She swung it around and hit one of the boys in the ribs and he went down hard. I think she jumped the other one. For weeks, it was all the school could talk about.”

  “Was she a hero or was she ridiculed?” Nate was no longer smiling.

  “Sorry, but Terri was the object of laughter. The boys were popular and Terri was always an outsider. The boys were taken to a hospital to be checked out.”

  “Terri was suspended but what happened to the boys?”

  “Nothing. The principal—who was a great football fan, I might add—said their injuries might have damaged them for life and that fear was enough punishment.”

  “They didn’t miss so much as a practice, did they?” Nate said. “I bet that at the next game they were back on the field being safely slammed into by two-hundred-pound teenagers and not by some skinny girl.”

  “I’m sure it was very unfair,” Stacy said. “When I get back, maybe you and I can get to know the whole Rayburn family.”

  There was a tone in Stacy’s voice that Nate had never heard before—and something told him that he should shut up about another woman. “So what’s this Giovanni look like? He’s not some hand-kissing Italian, is he?”

  Stacy laughed. “Not at all, but the man who runs the company is a great flirt.”

  “I want to hear every word about everything. You aren’t planning to make our bedroom pink, are you?”

  While Stacy talked about fabrics and colors and furniture, Nate wondered what the boys had said that set off Terri’s anger. For a girl to take on a couple of high school football players, it must have been something serious.

  It was late when Nate hung up. He was smiling, feeling like he’d made up for putting his foot in it when he’d asked Stacy about Terri.

  You didn’t tell her you were living with Terri, an inner voice said. Not living exactly, just sharing a house. Roommates.

  As he got up and put on a pair of pajama bottoms, he called Kit for the ninth time that day. As with all of them, it went to voice mail.

  “I...” Nate began. “It’s okay. Terri and I worked things out. For the next three weeks, we’re going to be roommates.” He couldn’t think of anything else
to say so he hung up.

  Moments later, his phone made the ding for a text message. It was from Kit. Ask Della about Leslie.

  Nate dropped the phone onto the bed as if it had caught fire. “No!” he said aloud, his frown so deep his eyebrows were nearly touching.

  “No, no, no.” He’d had all the mysteries he wanted in his lifetime. Twelve years of them! Digging and researching and finding out who was doing what and why. That was Kit’s love, not his.

  All Nate wanted was peace. He wanted to marry the girl he was madly in love with, set up retirement plans for people and make some babies. Peace. No more midnight runs. No more danger.

  As he climbed into bed, he punched the pillow. He’d thought Kit had put him in a house with a pretty young woman because of... What? Some temptation before Nate got married?

  But it looked like it had to do with some damned mystery.

  Nate calmed himself. He needed sleep. There was no telling what was planned for him to do tomorrow. He tried to think of good things. What was it Terri had said? That her father wanted to adopt him.

  Beats Mr. Hartman, he thought. Stacy’s father looked at Nate like he might accidentally knock the china cabinet over.

  As Nate dozed off, he remembered Terri’s dad saying, Della Kissel tells us about everybody. The Gossip Queen. She had the same last name as the people who used to own the lake. Guess that meant she’d always lived there—which meant she’d heard and seen it all.

  “Get out of my head, Kit Montgomery,” Nate murmured for the millionth time in his life, then finally went to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning, Terri heard Nate moving around in the kitchen and within minutes the divine smell of coffee filled her bedroom. Last night, when she’d heard his low voice on the phone, she told herself she should shut the door. But she didn’t.

  She lay in bed and listened to the sound—if not the words—of his voice. It had been years since a man had talked to her in that low, sexy rumble. It was intimacy that hinted at things to come.

  The only time she’d had that closeness had ended so badly that she hadn’t risked it again. Since then, there had been a couple of men who’d let her know they wanted something more permanent than just dating. But Terri had always backed away. She’d learned that a joke at a serious moment, running off to work or even a yawn could stop what he had been about to say.

  As she listened—felt—Nate’s voice, she told herself she was jealous. The Stacy Hartmans got it all. Cute, vivacious blondes with rich fathers seemed to own the world.

  Yes, Terri thought, that’s good. Make yourself hate Stacy.

  But even as she thought it, she knew she was lying to herself. Stacy had nothing whatever to do with this. Terri’s problem was that she liked Nate Taggert. He made her laugh; he challenged her. He could do things. He could...

  She knew she had to stop thinking like that but it was a long time before she could sleep.

  Now it was morning and he was in her kitchen making breakfast. By the time she’d dressed—and put on a small amount of makeup—she had herself under control. Maybe.

  “Good morning,” Nate said. He had on a rugby T-shirt, cotton trousers and Top-Siders. The soles of the shoes prevented slipping on slimy surfaces. “What’s on for today?”

  Terri sat down at the counter. “I could hire you out to clean basements.”

  “No thanks. Do you wait to see what needs to be done each day?”

  “Pretty much.” He put two plates of eggs and toast on the counter. Hers was a bright yellow, but his had soft spots of color from the spices he’d used. She switched the plates. “Today you get the bland one.”

  “Wait!” Nate said. “You might not like that. You—”

  Terri took a bite, and her eyes widened. “This is really good. What is it?”

  “I think they call it fusion cooking. I mix Western scrambled eggs with Middle Eastern spices.” He took his plate to the stove and sprinkled some spice from the jars. When he sat back down, he was smiling. “Most Westerners don’t like it.”

  “I do. You did so much yesterday that you could take today off. Go visit Stacy’s parents.” A grimace flashed across his face so quickly that she wasn’t sure she saw it.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “I have to go there today and pick up some boxes Stacy sent. Why don’t you go into town with me? We could have lunch and I saw a florist shop near Jamie’s office. I thought I’d send Hallie some flowers. She—” He broke off because the smile had left Terri’s face. Abruptly, she got up and put her empty plate in the dishwasher. “Did I say something?”

  When Terri turned to him, there was no humor in her face. “Summer Hill is a small town. If you walked through there with me, it wouldn’t be ten minutes before Stacy and her parents were told that you and I are having an affair. Truth has nothing to do with gossip.”

  “Ah, right,” he said. “Small towns. How could I forget? But what about here at the lake? No gossip?”

  “Lots of it, but people in glass houses...”

  “Can’t throw stones. I guess you know too much for them to turn against you.”

  “That’s about right.”

  Nate could see the way she was looking at the door, as if she meant to leave at any moment. He decided to change the subject. “I don’t know if I’m off base in this or not, but yesterday it seemed that the kids were divided into separate groups.”

  Terri’s smile came back. “The Cutters and the Socs. Oh. Sorry. That’s from—”

  “Breaking Away and The Outsiders.”

  Terri was astonished. “Not many people know that.”

  “Being stuck somewhere and waiting for Kit allowed me to see way too many movies. I take it the kids in T-shirts are the Cutters, and the Socs are the kids in head-to-toe Ralph Lauren.”

  “Exactly. The Cutters are the offspring and siblings of people who work here. Sherry—who runs the kitchen—has two kids. The man who works the pizza stand has a daughter.”

  “Who looks after the kids?”

  “We all do, but the oldest watch out for the youngest. And they know there are rules.”

  “And the Lauren kids?”

  “Are content with owning the latest and the best. If you’re thinking there’s some kind of war between them, there isn’t.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I take a swing at getting the kids together?”

  “Have at it.” Terri looked at her watch. “I have to go. The fishermen will be going out so that means tackle will be falling overboard and I’ll have to retrieve it.” She stopped at the door and looked at him. “About earlier, I didn’t mean to freak on you about going into town. It’s just that the townies and the lake people don’t mingle very well.”

  “Which one of you is the Cutters?”

  “More like the Capulets and Montagues.”

  Nate didn’t smile. “People ended up dead because of that war.”

  “No deaths yet, just some people who wish they were. I’ll see you at Club Circle.”

  Nate watched her go to the dock and get into her wooden boat. He raised his hand and she waved back, then he went to the kitchen to clean up. She’d liked his eggs, liked the spiciness of them.

  Stacy hated them. She liked American-style Italian food and French cuisine, but past that, she had no interest in other foods. But Terri—

  He told himself to stop that. His mother had always said that when you love someone, you accept them as they are. You don’t say, “I love you, now change everything about yourself.”

  He checked his cell phone, saw that he had some emails from his family and took the time to answer them. He told them he was doing well, and yes, he was holding up in Stacy’s absence. As he was about to leave, he tried to resist, but he couldn’t help looking again at the text Kit had sent. Ask Della about Leslie.

  Even though Nat
e wanted nothing to do with Kit’s mysteries, he remembered some of the gossip he’d been told yesterday. Several people had stopped by the shop while he was cleaning it and one of the people they’d talked about was Della Kissel. She was the youngest daughter of the family who had once owned the lake and the surrounding land. Word was that she was a very nosy little woman who snooped into everything about everyone. Something that was interesting was that no one had said she was a liar. She just seemed to listen and observe and repeat. Endlessly repeat.

  As Nate got into his car, he stopped. Was it his imagination that Terri had frozen at the mention of a flower shop? Of course not, he told himself. He’d spent too many years working with people who had secrets on top of secrets—and more buried beneath them.

  By the time he got to Club Circle he was smiling—but he lost it when he saw three kids sitting on a bench in the shade doing nothing but swinging their legs. To his left were four older, Lauren-clad boys with a brand-new boat and motor, and it looked like they had no idea what to do with it.

  Nate stood there for a moment, looking from one group to the other. For the most part, the people who had stopped by the shop were retired men who desperately wanted to tell Nate that they used to “be somebody.”

  An idea began to take shape in his mind. But first, he wanted to do something about the idle kids. In the trunk of his car was some sports equipment, mainly balls for soccer and rugby. In front of the big clubhouse was an area of lawn, well kept and lush. It was not meant to be a sports field.

  Too bad, Nate thought as he kicked a soccer ball into the middle of the field. When all the kids stopped moving and stared at him, Nate began to smile.

  * * *

  “Come on!” Terri yelled at Nate. It was early afternoon and she was standing up in her boat, wearing her yellow slicker, a waterproof hat pulled down over her face. The rain was starting to hit hard.

  Nate was on the dock, three soccer balls in his arms, and blinking against the rain.

  Terri waved her arms at him to get in the boat.

  Nate motioned toward the parking lot and his car, but Terri shook her head. When Nate still stood there, water beginning to run off his nose, she pointed to her open mouth, then rubbed her stomach. He pretended that he didn’t know what she meant.