Met Her Match

by Jude Deveraux

  “None taken. Weren’t you originally supposed to meet Kit’s son?”

  “Yes.” Stacy got down from the ladder and held out the staple gun to Terri. “I think you’re better at this than I am. Would you mind?”

  “Not at all.” Terri climbed up and Stacy handed her the fabric. “Tell me about him.”

  “Rowan is a beautiful man. Tall and slender and graceful. I would imagine that he’s an excellent dancer.”

  “Didn’t you meet him and Nate at the same time?”

  “Yes. And...” Stacy paused, a long blue cloth in her hands. It was intricately embroidered in silver thread. “This is terrible to say but everyone has a physical type they like, and Rowan was... Well, he was...”

  “Your type?”

  Stacy gave a little laugh. “I shouldn’t say that since I’m going to marry Nate, but yes. Nate is really... Well, you know. Larger.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Terri thought of Nate just back from the gym, muscles bulging, sweat dripping off him.

  “I’m not complaining because Nate is a wonderful lover. Very thoughtful and...” Stacy smiled. “Long-lasting, if you know what I mean.”

  All Terri could do was nod.

  “But the size of him is a bit off-putting. I’ve suggested he try yoga and I do believe I’m making progress. Anyway, Rowan...” Stacy grimaced. “Beautiful or not, he was a jerk! I don’t know what his father had told him about me, but Rowan acted like I was a girl who couldn’t get a date. He seemed to think I was pursuing him. He made some remarks that were so cutting that I wanted to dump my wine over his head.”

  “But Nate stepped in and calmed you both down?”

  “Yes, he did. Did you know that Nate was a diplomat?”

  “I did,” Terri said. “So you and Nate moved in together right away?”

  “Not instantly. Actually, it was never official. I just sort of stayed. But then my parents were going crazy about Bob and me getting back together. I needed to tell them that there was someone else.”

  “How did your parents like Nate?”

  Stacy groaned as she began pulling picture frames out of a box. “They were awful! My father said Nate looked like a guy who pulled up the anchor on a ship. Dad said Nate could never be the—” She broke off with a sideways look at Terri. “I talk too much.”

  “Nate could never be the mayor of Summer Hill?”

  “Right.” With a sigh, Stacy plopped down on the wicker sofa. “It’s been awful between my parents and Nate. They don’t like each other at all. Mother keeps locking up her Lladró figures for fear Nate will break them, and Dad...” She shrugged.

  Terri didn’t dare sit on the white fabric so she threw a green scarf over the seat.

  “I don’t know what to do. I love Nate. He’s so interesting and we like exactly the same things and...” Stacy looked at Terri. “At least I thought so. I’m not sure he likes his office or the Stanton house.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Of course, but he just says he has so much work to do that he can’t talk about it now. He seems to love the lake. In DC he never once said that he wanted to be near water. And I modeled his office after the apartment we were in. I thought he liked it. But now I’m not sure he even likes his job. Last night I tried to talk to him about his future clients and when his uncles could help him open the office. But he wouldn’t talk about it. He just said he had to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “He’s staying with Dr. Jamie and his wife. I told Nate we could camp out in the Stanton house, so we could be alone. But he said his cousin needed him and...” Stacy threw up her hands. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. I was only gone for a few weeks, but it’s as though everything has changed. It’s like he doesn’t even want to be with me.”

  “I think you two need to sit down and talk,” Terri said. “You should be honest about what you want out of life and honest about yourselves.”

  Stacy turned toward Terri. “I’ve never been dishonest with Nate. Do you know something that I don’t?”

  “Just that he’s been quite grubby around here and he seems to enjoy the physical labor. He hasn’t been like the man you described.”

  “Yeah, well, men like to watch football. They all have that part of themselves.”

  “Rugby.”

  “What?”

  “Nate likes rugby.”

  Stacy was quiet for a moment. “He hasn’t been, you know, having...?”

  “An affair? No,” Terri said. “Not even a hint of sex. I never saw him going after any of the females here, even the ones who let him know they were willing.”

  Stacy gave a sigh of relief. “We just need time. Tomorrow I’m making a picnic for Nate and me. It’s to be at six, after everything is set up. I thought we’d go to Moonlight Beach. Would you join us?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Please?” Stacy asked. “Nate seems so at home here. Maybe you can get him to relax, to open up, to talk. If he’d just tell me what’s wrong, maybe I could fix it. Maybe—”

  “Okay.” Terri stood up. “I need to go. Other people...”

  “Sure. I can do the rest of this.” Stacy smiled. “I’m sorry you and I missed out on a lifetime of friendship. You’ve been great today.”

  “Uh... Yeah, me too.” Terri said as she practically ran back to the road.

  * * *

  Terri was in the kitchen going through the cabinets trying to find a blue pan that she’d seen Nate use. It was oval and had a rough coating inside. He’d said it was perfect for fish and that’s what she had. Mr. Allen had given her a big striped bass in thanks for figuring out how his tent was to be put up. He’d held the poles while she screwed them together. This was his first Widiwick and he was very excited.

  When the doorbell rang, Terri grimaced. It was nearly 9:00 p.m., she was hungry and she did not want to have to solve even one more problem.

  She wiped her hands on a towel, took the frown off her face and went to the door. When she saw Nate through the glass, she smiled so wide her skin nearly cracked. She flung open the door. “Why didn’t you use your key?” It wasn’t easy to keep from throwing her arms around his neck. It seemed like years since she’d seen him.

  He stepped inside and he started to say something, but then he glanced at the kitchen and saw the long white package on the counter. “Is that a fish?”

  “Mr. Allen gave it to me. I was going to cook it but I can’t find that big blue pan.”

  Nate went into the kitchen, opened an overhead cabinet and pulled the pan from the top shelf. “I was going to hang it on the wall, but it’s so heavy that I’d have to use a grappling hook.”

  Terri laughed, glad to again feel the easy, light camaraderie between them. She leaned on the counter and watched him season the fish. How often she’d watched him cook!

  Nate put oil in the heavy pan, then set it on the stove and turned on the burner.

  “Did the Turner Twins help you today?” Terri asked.

  “Those two pretty boys don’t know which end of a hammer to use.” As he got a potato out of the pantry and began to peel it, he smiled at her. “Why did they call Jamie this morning?”

  “Mr. Arnold thought he was having a heart attack, but it was just anxiety. Mrs. Mellerson was there in one of her low-cut tops. Besides him, Jamie had to deal with two smashed thumbs, four splinters, a twisted ankle and a sprained wrist.”

  Nate put potato slices in the hot pan. “I know that later he had to deal with an allergic reaction to a bee sting. He sent the boy to the hospital.”

  Terri was watching him. For all his small talk about the day, she could see that he had something more serious he wanted to say, but it looked like he needed time. “How’s Hallie?” she asked.

  “Big. Tired. She hates Jamie. He thought for sure that it was twins as they run in our
family. Jamie is a twin, but she’s carrying only one huge baby.”

  As Nate turned over the browning potatoes, Terri gathered her courage. “How are you and Stacy?”

  “Fine.”

  If this were a few days before, she would have called him on the tight tone of his voice, but she didn’t. “Did you tell her that you hate your office and the Stanton house?”

  “No. We haven’t had time to talk about that. I’ll tell her after Widiwick. On Sunday, maybe.” He took the potato out of the pan, put it on a plate, then reached for the fish. “I need to talk to you about something. Maybe you’ve noticed that your dad and Frank are angry at me.”

  Terri grinned. “You mean the way Uncle Frank sneers at you? My dad wants to tie rockets to your ankles and launch you. Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

  As he put the fish in the pan, he didn’t laugh and she could tell that something was bothering him. She braced herself. He was going to tell her of his great love for Stacy. Would he use terms like “light of my life”? Please not “soul mate.” She was so sick of that term.

  “I owe you an apology.” He sounded as though he was announcing the end of the world.

  “For not putting the sheets on the bed?” There was no smile from him. “Okay,” she said. “An apology for what?”

  “I knew what was going on.” He glanced at her as though this was something she’d understand.

  “What was going on?”

  “With you and me that first day. I saw it.”

  “Saw what?” When Nate looked up from the fish, she could see his pulse pounding in his throat. Wow! Whatever he was trying to say was certainly difficult for him.

  “I saw the way you looked at me.”

  “You mean when I yelled at you to get out? Sorry about that, but I thought you were an Ender in the wrong house. How you got the key was a mystery.” She was smiling.

  “No, not that.” He took a breath. “You let me stay because you liked...liked the look of me.”

  “I guess so,” Terri said. “You’re certainly not ugly.”

  “I’m afraid I played on that knowledge. See, I was angry with Stacy for leaving. I’d come all the way here from Colorado for her. I was planning to move to her hometown, but she appreciated my sacrifice so little that she ran off to Italy. How could she leave the country when I was here?”

  Terri lost her smile. She hadn’t thought about it but it was rather inconsiderate—dare she say selfish?—of Stacy to do that. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt you. She just took an opportunity when it was offered.”

  Nate waved his hand. “I realize that now. She was right and I was wrong, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh? So what exactly is the problem?”

  “You.”

  “Me? How am I a problem between you and Stacy?”

  “You’re not.” Nate paused. “I’m not explaining this well. That first day we met, I knew you...you were interested in me in...in that male-female way. Not friendship, but as something else. That was okay on your part, but not on mine. I knew I was engaged and that nothing could happen between us. But I stayed anyway. And I think that staying may have encouraged you to think there could be something else.”

  “Possibly.” Terri still didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

  “I didn’t tell you about Stacy until the last minute. Until I had to. I was enjoying that a woman was paying attention to me when the one I loved wasn’t.” He looked back at the fish.

  At last, Terri was beginning to understand. She’d thought that her father, or maybe Uncle Frank, had arranged the mix-up and had gifted her with this beautiful man. But after he told her about Stacy, she felt that she’d been stupid and naive. At the memory, Terri could feel the blood rising in her face. “It’s okay,” she managed to say.

  “No, it isn’t, because I’ve known all the time.”

  She looked at him. “What have you known?”

  “About what’s between us. What we never speak of. The...the attraction.”

  If a person could blush all over her body, Terri was doing so.

  “Because I knew about it, I was wrong,” Nate said. “I shouldn’t have walked around shirtless so often. I know how much you like...rugby bodies.”

  “Ah.” Terri was at last fully understanding what he was saying. He had done things on purpose. Nothing had been an accident as she’d thought. “You pulled off your sweaty shirt and asked me to rub you down.”

  “Yes, and at that house when it was raining, I knew you could see me when I undressed.” He stood up straighter, as though preparing himself for punishment.

  “And when you dived underwater to get the garbage up, you were shirtless. Later you said that when a pretty girl...”

  Nate nodded. “I said that when a pretty girl watches, I tend to strip off. That was true even in the danger of that water. And by the way, there’s something big down there and it’s not farm machinery.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Terri mumbled. All he was mentioning was the physical. What was important to her were their moments together. Their easy laughter and talk. Sharing what was inside their minds. But he seemed to care only about what their bodies wanted. Was that all she had meant to him? Who had the hots for whom?

  Terri clamped her teeth together. “I guess it was all a challenge, like a peacock showing off his tail feathers to a pretty hen. And I’m the hen.”

  Her tone made Nate look at her in alarm, but she smiled sweetly.

  He slipped the fish out of the pan onto the plate beside the potato. “That isn’t it at all. The point is that I take the blame entirely onto myself. I should have been more honest with you from the beginning. And I should have moved out immediately. I shouldn’t have led you on.” He looked at her. “Terri? Are you all right?”

  “Considering that you’re making me sound like Della Kissel, I’m just great. Should I put on an old-fashioned negligee and come on to the young bucks around the lake?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “So how did you mean it? Explain it to me.”

  He held out the plate of food he’d just cooked for her, but she didn’t take it. They were still standing in the kitchen. “It’s more serious than that. More than once I thought about breaking up with Stacy. I thought...” Nate took a breath. “I’ve done my best to treat Stacy honorably, which meant that I couldn’t give in to my baser urges. If I had, that would have meant that I wasn’t being honorable with you. I made you think... I mean, not that I haven’t thought about...”

  “Thought about what?”

  “Us. You and me. Together.”

  “I think I understand. You’re saying that you’ve been working hard to decide which of us two women to choose?”

  Nate’s eyes went back and forth, as though he was trying to figure out if her question was real or a trick. “I guess so.”

  “You’re saying that I was a woman living all alone, then big gorgeous you showed up, and I dreamed of having you? But no! You’re engaged, therefore you should have moved out so poor me, a woman who obviously can’t get a man of her own, wouldn’t be heartbroken when you went back to the woman you truly love. Is that right?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “What a dilemma for you.” Terri’s voice rose. “‘Should I choose sweet little Stacy or strong, sassy Terri? Both women want me so very, very much. But I just can’t make up my mind.’”

  Nate looked trapped, frantic. “That isn’t what I meant,” he whispered.

  “Explain to me what’s so wonderful about you that you’ve managed to make two women fall in love with you. From what Stacy told me, you’re whatever we women want you to be. You’re wine for her and beer for me. Tell me, Nathaniel Taggert, who are you really?”

  Nate’s eyes looked bleak. “I’m beginning to think that I don’t know.”

  “I can tell you that I d
on’t know.” She glared at him.

  Nate took a step back. “I think I should go.”

  “You think your ego can get through the door? I sure hope you don’t meet a woman on your way out. You might have to choose from three women, all of whom are, of course, just dying to have you. A decision like that would probably tear your tiny dinosaur brain into so many pieces even sonar couldn’t find them.”

  “I better leave.”

  “You think?”

  Without another word, he left the house.

  * * *

  For a while, Terri stood there, staring at the space where Nate had been. Part of her thought she should be upset. Shouldn’t she be gnashing her teeth? Wringing her hands? Feeling like she should throw herself into the deepest part of the lake and never come up?

  She had just been nasty—really, really nasty—to a man she liked so much that she’d... Well, she’d almost been willing to leave family, friends and all she knew in the world just to be with him. But tonight she had irreparably broken the bond between them. Cut it with a chain saw made of words.

  But another part of her felt only freedom. Stacy Hartman had won and Terri had lost. It was over. Again, Terri had lost a man she liked very much. First Billy and now Nate.

  Only she’d never actually had either of them. She and Billy had been too young to be serious about the future. And she’d always known that Nate could never be hers.

  He’d asked her what she saw as her future. The truth was that she’d never thought about it. Maybe she’d always assumed that her future would just happen. She’d meet a guy, fall in love, get married, have kids. Normal.

  But with the way Terri conducted her life, that was never going to happen. Except for Billy, then Nate, if a man got near her, she backed away. She was not going to give people reason to believe she was like her mother!

  So where had that taken her? Nearly every girl she’d gone to high school with was married. Half of them had kids. But Terri was still tiptoeing around like one of the Players to secretly meet some football player in his cabin.