Met Her Match

by Jude Deveraux

  Finally, Terri stood up straight, faced them, then held her arms up, her thumbs pointed to the sky. He was alive!

  Nate started the boat motor and took off so fast that Terri would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to the seat beside him. They disappeared around the bend.

  For a while Stacy just stood there, clinging to the lifeguard stand. The people on the beach were laughing and some of the kids were dancing. What she heard most was “Nate and Terri.” Only it was said as one word: nateandterri.

  “You want us to give you a ride back to town?” Brett asked. His tone was as to someone who’d just seen the death of a loved one. Sad and full of caring.

  If there was one thing Stacy didn’t want, it was to be the object of pity. She gave the smile that as a cheerleader she’d learned to put on after the team lost. “No,” she said brightly, “I need to clean up and...” She couldn’t think of an excuse. “My booth.”

  “But how will you get back?” Brent asked.

  “Nate warned me that something like this might happen so he left me his car keys. He told me he and Terri worked together, but I had no idea they were so good. It was like watching a ballet, wasn’t it?” She smiled broadly.

  The twins looked dubious, but then nodded. “You’re sure you don’t need us?”

  “Of course not.” I had no idea I was so good at lying, she thought. I’m an absolute master at it.

  It took a few moments to get rid of them, then Stacy stood by her basket full of uneaten food and looked about the bystanders. Who could she get to tell her the truth of what was going on?

  To one side, digging up shells, was Colby Felderman. He was nine years old, went to her church, was in her mother’s Sunday school class and was a great talker. She knew his parents lived in a house at the lake.

  “Hi, Colby,” she said.

  “Hi, Miss Hartman. Did you see it?”

  “I sure did. I have some food here that needs to go to Nate but I don’t know where he lives. Do you know?”

  “With Terri. Up there.” He pointed toward a house on a bit of land that stuck out into the lake.

  “That’s a pretty place. Have you seen Nate up there?”

  “Sure. He and Terri sit in the chairs and drink beer.”

  “Every night?”

  “No. Sometimes they have parties and everybody goes.”

  “That sounds like fun. Does Nate help around here, at the lake?”

  “He does everything.”

  “With Terri?”

  “Oh yeah. My mom says they’re in love but too dumb to know it. But I don’t think Nate is dumb. He fixed the motor on my dad’s boat. And one night he and Terri took my brother to jail, but Dad got him out.”

  “That doesn’t sound dumb to me either,” Stacy said softly.

  “I gotta go. See ya in church.”

  “Yes, I’ll see you in church.”

  Chapter 15

  “Where’s Nate?” the man asked Terri. It was Saturday and Widiwick was in full swing, with hundreds of visitors.

  “I have no idea.”

  “But I need him to carry one of my sculptures to a truck. It weighs about four hundred pounds.”

  Terri was stapling the side of a tent that had fallen down. “I don’t know where he is. Go ask Stacy Hartman.”

  “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “Stacy and Nate are engaged to be married.”

  “Married?” The man looked shocked.

  “You’ve never heard of it? Marriage has been around for a while.”

  “I thought you two were—”

  She stepped around the man and started toward her next job.

  “Terri, I’m serious,” he called after her. “How am I going to move this thing? It’s a polished tree stump with a piece of glass on the top.”

  “How did you get it there in the first place?” When he started to speak, she put up her hand. “Don’t tell me. Nate did it. I don’t know how we ran this place before he showed up. Go find Stacy and ask her. I haven’t seen him.” She picked up her pace and went to her utility truck and got in.

  For today, no cars or trucks were allowed on the road that encircled the lake. People had to park on the outside and walk. That caused a lot of grumbling but it saved them from running over each other.

  Terri needed a break from the noise and the questions and the general chaos of the fair. They didn’t have a count, but it looked to be the biggest one yet. A vendor said she’d stamped over two hundred tickets as the people tried to get them ready to be put in for the Wish drawing. Summer Hill Residents Only seemed to have been lost along the way.

  Mr. Cresnor had been sitting on his throne chair off and on since yesterday morning. Terri hadn’t okayed it but the kids on the staff had started gluing seashells to the big wooden chair. As soon as the children saw it, they added things. One of the girls who worked in the kitchen was in charge of the glue gun. Matchbox cars, diaper pins, hair clips, feathers, and lots and lots of fake jewels were being glued on. Mr. Cresnor sat in his chair and approved or disapproved what could be added. His wife said he was in heaven.

  Smiling, Terri waved to people as she entered Elaine’s shop. There were six college girls working today and from the sound of it, they were mostly running the register.

  One of them pointed toward the storeroom door. It looked like Elaine was hiding out. Terri went inside, closed the door behind her and leaned on it, her eyes closed.

  “Come on,” Elaine called. “Sit down. Have you had anything to eat?”

  “Not since 6:00 a.m.” Terri stepped around some open boxes, past shelves that were nearly empty, to get to the little table by the back door. It was set with soft drinks and sandwiches wrapped in plastic. Gratefully, she sat down. “Are you going to run out of stuff to sell?”

  “Close. I’ve had eight requests for suits and cover-ups like you wore. I want you to be my model more often.”

  “Sure. I’ll get a tattoo on my forehead that says I got it at Elaine’s.”

  “No one will see it. Now if you put it on your behind, everyone would see it.”

  Laughing, Terri took the drink Elaine held out to her. “Really, how are you doing?”

  “Financially, excellent. I actually have sold out of nearly everything. Next week I’ll have to go to New York to buy more.”

  “Take Dad with you. Have lots of sex and cheer him up.”

  Elaine didn’t smile. “You, Brody and Frank all need cheering up.”

  “A three-way? No thanks.”

  Elaine still didn’t smile. “How are you? And don’t you dare say, ‘Fine.’ What’s going on in that busy mind of yours?”

  “Nothing. I’ve had too much to do to think about anything.” Elaine was glaring at her. Terri gave a deep sigh, picked up a sandwich and unwrapped it. “I haven’t seen Nate since the picnic on Thursday.”

  “You mean, not since you two saved that man’s life?”

  Terri shrugged. “I guess so. We got him to the ambulance, then Nate left.” She finished the sandwich and reached for another one. “To be fair, the picnic was awful. I was angry and I said too much. Poor Stacy. I don’t think she had a clue what was going on.”

  “Have you talked to her since then?”

  “I’m too cowardly for that. I figure that by now she’s been told and I fear her wrath. ‘You lived with my fiancé?’ That sort of thing.” She dropped a crust of bread onto the table. “I am like my mother,” she whispered.

  Elaine stood up and clasped Terri to her.

  Terri clung to her tightly and for a moment there were tears in her eyes. She pulled away. “I’m all right.”

  Elaine sat down across from her. “Terri.” Her voice was terse. “I haven’t been here that long but you have to get over this obsession about
what-my-mother-did. Her sins are not yours. You aren’t responsible for them.” She picked up Terri’s hands and held them. “Honey, you work all the time. You are twenty-six years old and you’ve hardly had any life outside of work. The only reason you became attached to Nate was because he showed up inside your house. If he’d been staying somewhere else you wouldn’t have looked at him.”

  “No. I would have looked.”

  “Looked, lusted, then done nothing.” Elaine sat back in her chair. “You need to have some fun.”

  Terri was getting suspicious. “You’ve got something in mind, don’t you?”

  “The dance is tonight.”

  “So?”

  “What are you going to wear?”

  “Black pants and jacket. Uncle Frank and I will be on drunk duty.”

  “You and Frank and Brody. Three old men.”

  Terri started to reply, but then squinted her eyes. “What are you planning?”

  Elaine got up and went to some dresses hanging inside plastic bags. She removed one from the back. Inside was a very plain gown, off-white, with a high, rolled collar and long sleeves. It was very modest.

  “It takes a perfect figure to pull this off and you can do it.”

  She’d expected Elaine to pull out some ghastly concoction that sparkled and bared her legs. But this was as covered up as a nun’s habit. It would cling, true, but there’d be no skin showing.

  “Try it on.”

  “I need to...” At Elaine’s look, Terri broke off. “Okay.” She pulled her T-shirt over her head and stepped out of her shorts and sandals, leaving only her two pieces of underwear. She held up her arms as Elaine slipped the dress over her head, then tied it in the back.

  Terri looked at herself in the mirror. The dress fit perfectly. The sleeves were bat wing, and the fabric was a slinky silk charmeuse. All in all, the dress covered her from neck to toes. Not even her arms were showing.

  “It’s nice,” she said. “A far cry from the bikini. It’s—Holy hell, Elaine!” Terri had twisted around to see the back—except that there wasn’t one. There was a little shoestring tie across her shoulders, then nothing else all the way down to...to... “Is my crack showing?”

  “Of course not.” Elaine turned her to face the mirror. “I knew it would be perfect.”

  Terri reached her arms back to feel how much skin was exposed. All of it. The band of her bra was showing. “What underwear am I supposed to wear with this thing—not that I will wear it but I was just wondering.”

  “None whatever. Full commando.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Terri, when you get to my age and everything is going south, you need strong foundation garments. But you, my dear, are so young and firm you could run hurdles and not bounce. You are to wear nothing whatever under this gown. No panties to show a line, no bra to show seams. Naked. Like a wood nymph.”

  “No,” Terri said, “absolutely not.” She reached for the tie but Elaine put her hand over it.

  “When you’re forty-five I want you to tell me about the parties you missed and the dresses you didn’t wear because...because... What was your reason again? You’re afraid of what people will say?”

  Terri was looking at herself in the mirror. The dress was really pretty. It slid down her body as though it had been poured over her. The only flaws were the seams in her undies. If she wore nothing under the dress, those lines wouldn’t be there.

  Elaine had been dressing people for twenty years, and she knew that look. She handed Terri a big round mirror and turned her around.

  The dress really did expose her entire back. What with all the lifting of motors and chains, etc., there was a lot of muscle there. Muscle that gave shape to her back.

  Sometimes, Terri thought, she did get fed up with trying to live down what her mother had done. Worse was that it didn’t seem to be working.

  She moved the hand mirror to the side and looked at the front of the dress. “Full commando, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She and Elaine smiled at each other in the mirror.

  * * *

  As Nate drove to the dance, Stacy’s words were ringing in his ears. She’d been told that he and Terri had “lived” together and he’d tried to explain. But it hadn’t gone well, especially not when he added the truth about not liking the office she’d created for him.

  “I was trying to help your career—the one you said you wanted. I wasn’t trying to make you give up your free spirit to work in an office. It’s what I did to make a home for the man you told me you were. I never saw you in any clothes that weren’t made by some Italian designer. Forgive me, but I thought that was who you were. But no. It seems you’re denim and boat shoes and you want a woman who drools over you.”

  “Terri doesn’t—”

  “If you defend her to me, your fiancée, the woman you asked to marry you, so help me, I’ll make you sorry. Damn you! But you’ve cast me in the role of some uptight, priggish female who’s trying to force you to...to play bridge and someday be the mayor of a little Southern town. I don’t know if you’re the man I fell in love with or you’re some guy who spends his days in a motorboat. And you know what, I don’t think you know either. Nathaniel, you don’t need to decide which woman you want, you need to decide who you actually are.”

  With that, she left the room and Nate nearly fell into a chair. It seemed that everyone he knew was angry at him.

  * * *

  Nate wasn’t there. That was Terri’s first thought as she searched the crowded dance floor. She had a red cashmere shawl that Elaine had lent her over her dress. An end was flung over her shoulder and pinned. But it was warm inside and unless she wanted to start sweating, she was going to have to remove it—and reveal her bare back.

  Her second thought was that she was an idiot. Why was she standing against a wall and looking for some other woman’s man? Or was he? She’d seen Stacy at her booth during the two days of the fair. She’d been talking enthusiastically to the many people who stopped to look at her designs.

  One time Stacy had given a quick wave and a smile at Terri. She knew Stacy had been told about her and Nate “living” together. She’d expected Stacy to be livid. You know, like in every book and movie and girl fight since the beginning of time. Women didn’t fight to the death over recipes. They went to battle over some man.

  But Stacy’s smile had been genuine. Or was it? Terri wondered. Should she watch alleyways for possible assassins?

  She looked up to see the Turner Twins standing in front of her. They had on identical tuxedos, perfectly fitted and classically plain. It cost thousands to look that simple—and it made them look even more gorgeous than they usually did. “Got your names sewn into your cuffs?”

  “We’ll take them off and you can look.”

  Terri couldn’t stop her laugh. “Don’t you two have dates?”

  “The world is our date,” Brett said.

  “If we need a chaperone, will you volunteer?” Brent asked.

  At first she didn’t know what they meant, but they were looking her up and down with little smirks. The floor-length dress with its long sleeves, and the big wool throw covered her.

  “Who dressed you? Your grandmother?”

  “Actually, it was Elaine.” Terri unwrapped the throw and handed it to Brett. When they saw the dress clinging to her body, their eyes widened.

  “Hi, Terri,” called a teenage boy from behind them. He was with a pack of other boys.

  “That dress is on backward,” one called.

  “Will you dance with me?”

  “With all of us?” another boy snickered.

  The twins’ faces showed that they didn’t understand what was going on. Terri smiled at them. “Put that in the coat check, will you?”

  She lifted her chin, stepped between them and walked onto the da
nce floor, exposing the backless dress.

  Behind her was a very satisfying silence from the twins. When she reached the dancers, she looked over her shoulder. They were staring in openmouthed astonishment.

  Terri didn’t dance much, although she was repeatedly asked. She was sure that if she moved too much she might pop out of the gown. Slow dances made her partner wonder where to put his hands—or he put them all over her bare skin.

  It wasn’t until after eleven that Nate showed up. He was in a tuxedo, as perfectly fitted to him as a tailor could make it. His broad shoulders, small waist and heavy thighs were accentuated. Terri had never seen anyone as beautiful as he was.

  She was fighting the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy as he tried to slide into areas that were covered by silk.

  Nate picked the kid up by the waist and set him aside, then stood there looking at Terri for a moment before extending his hand to her. When she took it, the lights changed. A soft spotlight shone on the two of them and the rest of the room darkened. The music changed to soft and easy.

  She didn’t have to be told that he’d arranged this.

  The smile he gave her seemed to say that he knew what she was thinking. He pulled her to him, her back to his front.

  They’d never danced together but they’d worked and lived together. Their bodies were well suited. Even in four-inch heels, Terri wasn’t as tall as he was, and their athletic bodies matched.

  This is the other Nate, she thought. The one Stacy had told her about but she’d never seen.

  She followed him as he spun her around, dipped her down, his arms supporting her. It was a ballet of a dance: elegant, graceful, refined.

  Just when she thought it was over, the music changed to down and dirty rock and roll.

  Nate pulled off his jacket, tossed it onto one of the twins, then loosened his tie.

  The crowd looked at Terri. What was she going to remove? She raised her hands and turned around slowly. It was easy to see that she was saying that she had on only the dress.

  There was a murmur around them: laughter, giggles, teenage smirks.