Met Her Match

by Jude Deveraux

  “Where do you want to live?”

  “I’m thinking about buying a cabin at the lake and remodeling it. Have you ever seen Terri’s house?”

  “No, I haven’t. Tell me about it.”

  “The whole front of it is glass. It doesn’t make me feel closed in. There are people around but I never feel exposed. You should have come to the party we had. We just left the doors open and people came and went as they wanted to.”

  “Is that the kind of party you and Stacy had in DC?” Jamie’s voice was quiet, and very serious.

  Nate turned to him in anger. “What are you hinting at?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I think you should go home with me and stay for dinner. Hallie’s better at talking than I am and she can—”

  “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to five. Why?”

  “I have to go,” Nate said. “Can you...?” He waved his arm at the gym.

  “Sure, I’ll clean up. You have an appointment?”

  “Yeah. I’m meeting Terri at five and we’re going to sort out Widiwick. She’s going to tell me—”

  Jamie didn’t hear the rest of it because Nate was already in his car and speeding away. He hadn’t showered or changed out of his sweaty shorts and tank top. He’d been so anxious to get to a girl who was like a sister to him that he’d forgotten everything else. “Poor Stacy,” Jamie said, then began racking the weights.

  Chapter 10

  As soon as Terri saw Nate inside his car, she knew he was in a bad mood. Since she’d never known him to be late, she was waiting for him when he pulled into the drive. His brows were drawn into a single line and turned down so much that he looked like an emoji.

  This could be interesting, she thought. Wonder how he deals with anger? The fact that a visit to his future in-laws had caused his bad temper made her feel good. When she remembered seeing Nate laughing and drinking beer with her friends and relatives, she had to suppress a smile.

  She went to the passenger side of the car, but Nate got out. He had on a tank top and big shorts that reached to his knees. And heavens! but he was pumped. Muscles bulged out on him like he was a toy action figure.

  Only he was real and he was sweaty. Glistening. Glossy with it. The curve of his muscles highlighted by sweat made her put her hand on the car to steady herself.

  “Here!” he said in a growl as he tossed a towel at her. “I didn’t have time to shower.”

  “Oh? I didn’t notice.” She did her best to sound sarcastic and not as though she was being consumed with lust. Bet the hood of the car would be very warm against my bare backside, she thought.

  Nate turned his back to her and peeled off his shirt, exposing about three acres of hot, damp skin.

  Terri put both hands on the car. Otherwise, her knees were going to collapse.

  He turned his head toward her. “Can you wipe down my back?”

  Could she...? Only your back? she wanted to say. Not any front bits? She said nothing as she picked up the towel and walked around the car. She stumbled only once.

  Nate bent forward so she could wipe his back.

  Control! she thought. Act like every cell in your body isn’t tingling. Act like you do not want to jump on him, knock him to the ground and tear at him with your teeth and tongue.

  She swallowed. “So what’s got you so riled up?”

  “Nothing,” he snapped.

  Ah, she thought. One of those. A man who had to be coaxed into telling what his problem was. Billy had been like that.

  As she ran the towel over him, her hands slowed. And then her left hand slid off the towel onto his skin. She wiped with the right, and followed on bare skin with her left. Her hand on his moist skin. She moved from his shoulder down to his spine, to his waist. The furrow that ran down his backbone was deep enough to run a boat in. A boat that contained just her.

  “Are you done?”

  Abruptly, Terri stepped back. “If you weren’t so fat it wouldn’t take so long.”

  Nate gave a grunt—then proceeded to slide his shorts off.

  Not thighs, she thought. Chest, back, arms, okay, but not thighs! “Do you mind?”

  He looked at her in surprise, as though unaware of what he was doing. He opened the back door of his car and stepped behind it, using it as a screen. “Didn’t mean to shock your delicate sensibilities. I didn’t want to be late to meet you, so I ran over here straight from the gym.”

  Terri was holding the towel, damp with his sweat. She wanted to bury her face in it. Instead, she held it at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger. “So I noticed.”

  Nate gave her a look over the top of the door as though he knew the truth. “Where do you want to eat?”

  “Depends on what you want.”

  “A sixteen-ounce T-bone and a potato the size of my foot. Plus a gallon of liquid.”

  “I know a place.”

  In minutes, Nate was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and he got in behind the steering wheel. As Terri sat beside him, he wiped his face with the towel.

  “I could get you a clean one.”

  “Don’t need it.”

  Terri didn’t reply to that, but told him where to turn to get to the local steak house. He drove in silence, a muscle working in his jaw, his eyes glaring at the road.

  “So tell me about this wicked thing.”

  At first, she didn’t know what he meant. “Right. Widiwick.” When she glanced at him, she could see that he wasn’t paying attention to her. But then, she didn’t dare say what was in her mind. He looked so good she wanted to rip his clothes off. Run her tongue—She took a breath. “We paint our naked bodies green and purple and run from house to house setting off firecrackers.” His angry expression didn’t change. “Turn here.” She pointed to the left but Nate went right. “This isn’t the way. You need to turn around.”

  Nate pulled into the big gravel parking lot of a two-story building with a rough wooden front. There was a sign across the front. Kale House.

  “This isn’t the steak restaurant,” Terri said. “This is new and I think it’s—”

  “Then we’ll eat something else here.” He got out of the car and waited for her.

  Inside the restaurant, it was like stepping back into the 1970s. Tables with red-and-white-checked cloths, Chianti bottles with multicolored candle wax running down them. Peace symbols everywhere. The three young waitresses wore long skirts and long peasant blouses. Their hair was straight and flat, their feet encased in sandals that seemed to have pieces of tires as soles.

  “Here’s what we have today.” A woman handed each of them a small chalkboard.

  “No menu?” Nate asked.

  “The food changes every day. This saves paper.” Her tone had a deep I-don’t-care vibe. She walked away without another word.

  The chalk on the board was difficult to read.

  “Is this...?” Nate asked.

  “Everything is made with kale. Soup, salad, bread, entrée.” Terri looked at him. “The steak house is about a mile away. They have two-inch-thick sirloins. Charred on the outside, red in the center. Last year we used the peel from one of their potatoes as a canoe. And cheesecake. Real cheese.”

  “Yeah?” Nate exchanged her chalkboard for his. They had different items on them.

  The waitress returned, pad in hand. Her sandals were so heavy she could hardly lift her feet. On her skirt was a long string of tiny bells that jingled with her every step.

  “Your mom put you in this getup?” Nate asked.

  The girl grimaced. “Grandma. But it was either raid her closet or skip college. She’s paying.”

  Nodding in sympathy, Nate handed her the two chalkboards. “We’ll take one of each.”

  The girl didn’t so much as blink at the huge order. “With or without bacon?”

  “With!�
�� Nate and Terri said in unison.

  The girl smirked. “In your dreams.” She walked away.

  When they were alone, Terri turned to Nate and waited. She wasn’t going to beg him to talk, but if he wanted to, she would listen.

  “So what shade of green are you girls going to wear, and can I apply it on the places you can’t reach?”

  Terri laughed, glad that he had paid attention to her. “What are you so mad about?”

  “I hate my office.”

  She couldn’t help but be pleased by that. “Get Stacy to change the furniture.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I think the problem is that I can’t stand the thought of staying inside all day. The windows face the street and the buildings next door.”

  She waited for him to go on. When he looked up, his eyes were so bleak that she knew there was more.

  “Stacy’s father bought the Stanton house. He’s giving it to us for a wedding gift.”

  “That old piece of...?” Terri halted, swallowed. “I’m sure Stacy will make it beautiful.”

  “No doubt she will. It’s just that when it’s done, the house will still be smack in the middle of town.”

  At the sight of his despair, Terri did her best to put aside her own thoughts and hopes. Whatever else he was, Nate was her friend. “Look, these are serious problems and you need to talk to Stacy about them. What I can’t figure out is why you ever thought that you’d like being in an office all day. When you two were living together in DC, Stacy had to know that you hated your job. She—”

  “I never told her.”

  “What do you mean? You never told her about playing Tarzan and ripping your shirt open to show your bullet wounds?”

  “No, I didn’t. Stacy and I aren’t like that. We don’t sit around and reminisce about the past.”

  Terri didn’t like his insinuation that that’s what she and Nate did. “Which is why you never heard about Bob Alderson. I think you two need to talk to each other. Or did you spend all your time in bed together?”

  “We didn’t—”

  “Here it is.” As the three waitresses began putting plates and bowls on the table, the first one named them. “Kale salad with cranberries. Kale salad with beans. Kale rolls. Kale and roasted vegetable soup. Kale minestrone.” When they ran out of room, the girls pulled a table next to theirs. “Kale potato salad. Kale pasta. Kale and mushrooms. Spicy kale bake. Grilled kale with ricotta. And my favorite, kale ice cream on top of kale apple cake. And four kale smoothies to wash it all down.” She stepped back. “Anything else? We could—” Another waitress handed her a ceramic bowl. “Oh yes, baked kale chips. Enjoy!” Smiling, she walked away.

  Nate and Terri looked at the two tables full of food, but neither of them said a word. Their disagreement made the air heavy between them.

  Nate picked up his fork, lifted a large piece of kale from a salad and said, “I don’t eat green food.” It was a quote from a Hobbit movie and Terri knew it. When they laughed together, the air cleared.

  “I can’t take any more delving into my life and my mind,” Nate said. “I’ve had it from Jamie and now you. Tell me about Widiwick—without the paint. That makes me think of Della Kissel in her pink...” He waved his hand. “Thing.”

  “It’s a fair. Shopkeepers from Summer Hill set up booths and people come from miles around to buy things.”

  “Great,” Nate said, his mouth full of kale and potatoes. “That’s the tourist version. Now tell me the lake story. Start with the name. What does it mean?”

  Terri gave a half smile. “Widiwick was started because Billy Thorndyke didn’t like his prize.”

  “Thorndyke?”

  Terri’s eyes lost their amusement. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “My new office is in the Thorndyke house.”

  The smile came back to her. She had an idea Nate had heard about her and Billy, but she was glad he wasn’t prying. “That’s a nice house. Anyway, it was my mother who began the original fair. She wanted to unite the town and the lake so she came up with the idea of the town merchants setting up booths around the lake. And as an incentive to get people to come, every visitor was given a card with each booth’s number on it. If they got it initialed at every place, they put the card into a tub, and somebody drew one out. The winner got a prize.”

  “Such as?”

  “It was usually a big box of chocolates. But one year, one of the booth owners, Mrs. Preston from the knitting shop, was down with the flu and her booth was closed. Dad said to skip her on the card.”

  “Let me guess. Billy didn’t do that.”

  “No. He was eleven years old and—”

  “Same age as you?”

  “Yes. Same as Stacy and me. That year, Billy rode his bike miles into the country and banged on Mrs. Preston’s door until she got out of bed and answered it. She told him to go away but he insisted she sign his card.”

  “Which made him the only one who had a full card.”

  “Right. But when Dad gave him the box of chocolates, Billy said, ‘Is this all I get?’”

  “Ungrateful, huh?”

  “Very. But that was the first year that Mr. Stanley Cresnor was there.”

  “Cresnor Industries. Billions.”

  “Exactly. And he was in a bad mood because his wife had dragged him away from work for a vacation at a lake. He muttered, ‘What’d’ya want, kid?’”

  “Ah,” Nate said. “Shortened to Widiwick?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what did young Billy ask a billionaire for? A jet?”

  “No.” For a moment Terri looked into the distance and the way her eyes softened made Nate feel an emotion he hardly recognized: jealousy. If no one had told him that at one time Terri and Billy had been a couple, he would have known it then. “Billy asked to go to a big store in Richmond and buy all the toys he could put into a cart in four and a half minutes.”

  Nate leaned back against his chair. “Wow. That is some ambitious kid.”

  Terri smiled. “Mr. Cresnor was so amused by the idea that he agreed. I mean, how much could one kid get in four and half minutes, right? But he underestimated Billy.”

  “I’m beginning to like this kid.”

  “He’s one of a kind, that’s for sure. The event was to take place the next Saturday, so Billy used the week to organize our entire elementary school. He passed out maps and assigned kids places to be in the store. He got his dad to drive him to Richmond so he could talk to the store manager. The man was so intrigued that he advertised it in the newspaper and put a giant banner across the front of the store. He got a lot of press.”

  “Did you help?” Nate asked.

  “Oh yes. Billy put me in the section with the water toys. On the day, the store was packed with people. They were three-deep around the perimeter, but they let us kids run it all. Billy took a cart, the manager blew a whistle and Billy began running. We kids handed him toys that Billy put in the cart because—”

  “That was the deal,” Nate said.

  “Yes. Billy had to put them into a cart. Every few feet a kid shoved an empty basket forward and it was filled in seconds. I ran three carts to the register.”

  “With all those toys, Billy must have been the most popular kid in town.”

  Terri smiled softly. “He was, but not for that. It took forty-five minutes to ring everything up. The manager totaled the tabs and handed it to Billy. He climbed up on the checkout counter and read the number. It was a whopper! When the cheering stopped, Billy reached down, picked up a yo-yo and held it up. ‘This is mine,’ he said. Then he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the manager. ‘The rest of this goes to them.’ There were four names on the list—an orphanage, a hospital, a women’s shelter and the local fire department.”

  “Charity.” Nate’s voice held awe. “Was
that planned?”

  “Only by Billy. He hadn’t told anyone what he was going to do, not even his parents. Everyone started dancing around, and I remember his mother crying. The press was there and they were so stunned they nearly forgot to take photos of it all. Billy was a hero!”

  Nate took a moment to reply. “That’s some kid.”

  “Yeah, he was.” She leaned back in her chair. “That’s how Widiwick started. Mr. Cresnor now comes to Lake Kissel every year and he grants a wish. Within reason, of course, and only to Summer Hill residents or he’d start a worldwide riot. And it’s become a custom that the wishes must be for someone else.”

  “What a great act of charity. So what kind of things has Cresnor given out?”

  “A new van for the church. A two-year college scholarship. A wedding for a couple whose house flooded. My favorite was when a woman asked Mr. Cresnor for the meanest divorce lawyer on the planet for her best friend. Her friend’s husband was a real jerk.”

  “All the wishes couldn’t have been unselfish.”

  “Mr. Cresnor decides. He sits on a big chair and says yes or no. Some years the negotiations go on for hours. He truly enjoys himself! And his wife gets time with him when he’s in a good mood. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

  For a while, they were silent, Nate with his head down.

  “I got my aerobics for today.”

  He looked at her.

  “Chewing kale? Workout for the jaw? Get it?”

  “Yeah. I—” He broke off to take his buzzing phone out of his pocket.

  Terri saw the name Stacy, but Nate didn’t answer, just put the phone back in his pocket. “Why aren’t you answering her calls?”

  Nate gave a one-sided grin. “Noticed that, huh? I don’t want to have to lie. I still haven’t picked up the tent and boxes she sent from Italy. After today, I don’t think her parents will let me have them.”

  “The brunch was that bad?”

  “Worse.”

  She waited for him to go on, but he said nothing. Terri took her cell out of her pocket and sent a text. “There. It’s taken care of.”

  “What is?”

  “I told Bob to go get Stacy’s things and deliver them to Dad. What other problems do you have?”