by Lexi Eddings
“The trout is fresh,” Angie said. Lake Jewell was good for more than boating in the summer. Anglers of all ages fished its crystal waters year-round. The cold, spring-fed lake was perfect for rainbow trout.
After a quick look at the menu, Peter ordered rib-eye steaks for both of them. Angie had forgotten how much he liked being in control and would have complained that she’d rather have had surf than turf, but he’d already insisted on the way over that he was paying. A lavish supper at Harper’s wasn’t in her budget. If she’d been on her own dime, she’d have had to go with the chef ’s salad, no starter and no dessert.
Once their server left the table, an awkward silence stretched between them. A flood of memories from her time with Peter came rushing back to her, leaving her slightly breathless. Peter Manning had been the catch of the campus. She’d been so astonished when this godlike fellow turned his attention to her. Wild Saturday nights together morphed into lazy Sunday mornings. He’d been her first and only love. She didn’t think it was possible to be that happy.
Then the relationship that had started with a bang ended with a whimper. He’d crushed her so completely, she hadn’t thought she’d ever recover.
Now, her insides didn’t seem to remember that part of it.
Her heart didn’t have a toggle switch.
What would a Jane Austen heroine do? she wondered. She’d fill the empty air with polite small talk and no one would ever know what a mass of contradictory emotions seethed in her heart.
“So, where do you live now, Peter?” she asked. Sometimes, Austen was so right. If not for her favorite author, Angie might have done something stupid like gushing over him as if she were as clueless as her student Emma.
“My firm is in DC, but I live in Bethesda and take the Metro to work each day,” he said, resting his forearms on the table as he leaned toward her. “If I want to get out of the city for a while, I get the Beemer out of the garage and run down to my weekend house near Virginia Beach.”
“A weekend house. Sounds lovely.”
He shrugged. “It is, I guess, but I don’t get to use it very often. My accountant says it serves me better as a rental property right now.”
“It seems sad that you have a house you can’t use.” Her apartment was fine as far as it went, but Angie longed for the permanence of a real home. She always had.
“Who says I’m not using it? The write-off really helps my tax situation.”
Oh, to make enough money to have a tax situation! “Well, maybe you’ll retire there someday.”
Peter had taken a sip of his water and nearly choked on it. “Are you nuts? The place would drive me crazy in half a week. The cell service is spotty at best and the area my house is in rolls up its sidewalks at eleven.”
She chuckled. He had Coldwater Cove beat. The Square was usually deserted by nine unless it was Karaoke Friday or the local big band was playing dance music in the little ballroom upstairs in the Opera House.
“A place in the country is okay for a getaway now and then, but not to live in permanently. Give me the city, even on a bad day.” He leaned forward a bit. “So are you going to tell me what you’re doing in a town like this?”
“I happen to like Coldwater Cove.”
Peter shook his head. “I never figured you for life among the hairy unwashed. That Parker fellow is my exhibit A, by the way.”
“He’s not so bad.” Angie wondered what Peter would think if he met Junior Bugtussle. The self-confessed hillbilly wasn’t unwashed exactly. His wife Darlene would never stand for that, and made sure his overalls were always clean and well mended. But Junior certainly qualified as hairy. Angie thought he could pass as an escapee from Duck Dynasty. “Actually, Seth owns a successful business here.”
“Last time I looked, a still in the hills didn’t qualify as a business,” Peter said dryly.
“I’ll have you know Seth owns a major construction company. He employs a lot of people,” she said testily. “Probably more than your law firm does.”
“I’d be happy to compare bottom lines with him.”
“I don’t get the feeling that making a buck is the only reason Seth works,” she said. If he was volunteering for the Warm Hearts Club, it stood to reason he wasn’t just looking out for himself. “He doesn’t seem to be all about money.”
“That’s a shame,” he said harshly. “It’s the only way to keep score.”
“Why does everything have to turn into a contest with guys?” she asked. At least that flutter in her chest had settled down now. She realized that she liked Peter less when his mouth was moving.
Peter must have sensed she was mentally pulling away from him because his tone turned more conciliatory. “Look, Ange, I don’t want to argue. Really. I want to hear about you and what you’ve been doing with yourself. So why don’t you tell me how you come to be working on that community project with that guy?”
That guy has a name, she almost said, but decided she’d defended Seth Parker enough for one night. It was becoming a habit she didn’t much care for.
For which I don’t much care.
Angie launched into the whole tale of how she’d been drafted to run the pageant. She shared about meeting Mrs. Evans, her detailed instructions for the annual event, and the community’s high expectations for the pageant.
“Sounds like you’ve inherited a mess,” Peter said sympathetically.
“It’s my own fault,” she admitted. “I got a reputation around town for being a serious director when I tackled Shakespeare with my ninth graders last year.”
“What was that like?”
“Let’s just say I was too ambitious by half. But my students finally warmed up to Macbeth, and we made a decent amateur production of it.” She was proud of her kids. At first, Elizabethan English was like another language to them, but after a few weeks, they started calling each other by their character names as they passed from one class to another in the hall. “Unfortunately, our opening night was not without a wardrobe malfunction or two.”
“No kidding?”
“I messed up big time,” she said. “I should have told my students that when you wear a kilt, you need to bend from the knees. On opening night, the boys who stooped to lift Duncan’s body and bear him away mooned the whole theater.”
Peter laughed. “I bet that went over like a lead balloon.”
“Fortunately, they had gym shorts on under their kilts.” Angie shook her head. “If someone had told them real Scotsmen go commando, I’d have been fired on the spot.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad.” He reached across the table and ran his fingertips across the pulse point at her wrist. Stupid little tingles raced up her arm, so she pulled away and reached for her own water glass. She tried to make it seem casual. He didn’t need to know how he still made her feel. “If you’d lost your job here, maybe I could persuade you to come to Bethesda with me.”
Her breath hitched a time or two. With me, he’d said. He couldn’t possibly mean it.
“That’s silly,” she said. “We’re not the same people we were at Baylor.”
“Maybe not, but some things don’t change.” He sent her such a smoldering look it was a wonder the tablecloth between them didn’t catch fire.
She had to lighten the mood. “Time has a way of changing everything. If we hadn’t run into each other at the college today, you still wouldn’t know where I am, and you wouldn’t care, so don’t go all Sexiest Man Alive on me.”
That made him smile. Then his expression sobered.
“Seriously. Come back to DC with me. We’ll never miss a single Bard in the Park. I mean it, Ange.”
Ange. He was the only one who’d ever called her that.
Angie could hear her own heartbeat thudding in her head. She wished her pulse wouldn’t shoot up like that, but it was proof that she wasn’t immune to Peter’s brand of uber good looks and smooth charm.
“Peter, let’s lay aside the fact that we really don’t know ea
ch other anymore”—and maybe never did—“it’s just not practical.” She willed her insides to stop jittering. “I’m certified to teach in this state. I wouldn’t be able get a job in Maryland until I met a slew of new requirements. I’d have to take a ton of classes and would probably lose a whole year of work. Maybe more.”
“Then don’t come with me to find a job. I work hard enough for both of us. Hang out at my place and give yourself some time off.” He cocked his head and shot her another intense look designed to turn her insides to Jell-O. “You might find there’s something else you want to do besides teach Shakespeare to kids who are never going to get it anyway.”
When she used to fantasize about Peter coming back for her, it was always a cross between the end of An Officer and a Gentleman and Cinderella. Her pretend Peter always begged her to take him back, and he always had a ring in his pocket.
When she considered his real offer for her to “hang out” at his place, she decided it was vaguely insulting. It reminded her of Tad Van Hook and his fondness for “hanging” with Emma. It didn’t mean anything to Tad. And this offer didn’t mean anything to Peter.
She deserved more than that.
“Peter, you can’t waltz into town as if years haven’t gone by and expect us to pick up where we left off.” Her words were measured and clipped. She fought the urge to stand up, lean across the table, and slap his ridiculously handsome face.
Why, oh why, couldn’t his insides live up to his outsides?
“Why not, Ange?” he said, clearly not realizing she was ticked. “Even felons get parole.”
“Yeah, but you’ve done no time.”
“Yes, I have. I’ve been without you all these years.”
She snorted. “I doubt you were lonely. In fact, I have trouble believing you don’t already have someone back east.”
“I don’t,” he said. “When you bill eighty hours a week, there’s not much time left for other things. More important things.”
“It sounds like your plate is still pretty full. There’s no room for anyone else.”
“Yes, there is. I’m better at compartmentalizing now.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms. “How could I forget your little mental boxes?”
“It’s not just mental. I do it in all areas of my life now. For example, my firm’s work doesn’t interfere with my pro bono cases,” he said. “And my personal life is separate from each of them.”
She had to turn the conversation away from either of their personal lives. “Pro bono, huh? What kind of cases do you take for the public good?”
“I handle litigation for the UCFF.”
“What’s that?”
“United Civil Freedoms Front,” he explained. “It’s a national organization that serves as a sort of watchdog. We make sure government entities don’t trample the rights of the people.”
“Sounds good,” she agreed. “I’m glad you’ve learned to give back. That’s sort of the point to the CWHC here.”
“What’s that?”
“The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club,” she said with a smile. It was fun to elevate their little group to the status of a national organization. “We help people, too, but according to my friend Heather, we have an ulterior motive and we know it.”
Peter’s brows arched in a question. “What kind of motive? Political? Religious?”
“No. Selfish. Heather claims when we help others, our own lives get better. Or if not better, at least it’s easier to deal with our problems if we lighten the load others are carrying.”
He made a hmph-ing sound. “Pretty pragmatic for a service organization. How does a community Christmas pageant figure into this picture?”
“It’s a way of bringing people together.”
“Usually a crèche on a courthouse lawn divides people.”
“To paraphrase the natives, ‘You aren’t from around here, are you?’ This pageant is so steeped in the town’s history, everyone turns out for it.”
“And no one minds the use of public space for a religious purpose?”
“I’ve never heard anyone complain.”
Their salads arrived just then, and Angie was relieved when Peter started telling her about the summer he’d spent at Oxford between his second and third year of law school. She discovered the secret to keeping the conversation light was to ask Peter questions about himself. It was a topic he never tired of.
Strange that she’d never noticed that about him before.
After they polished off their steaks and finished with a delightful crème brûlée, she rose to leave. He started to come with her.
“No, Peter. Thanks for dinner, but I can walk across the Square by myself. That’s another reason I love Coldwater. It’s safe as houses.”
He tried not to take no for an answer, but Angie was insistent. It was the best way she could think of to avoid an awkward scene at her door. She wanted to believe she was strong enough to resist Peter, but there was that troubling fluttery feeling that rose up when he looked at her a certain way, or said something in just the right tone of voice. She felt like a jar filled with honey bees, all drowsy and softly buzzing.
It might have been the wine she’d had with dinner, but there was still something about this guy that set her humming. If she let him kiss her, all bets might be off.
* * *
Once he got back to his room in the only motel in town, Peter pulled out his cell phone. Not even one bar. He wandered across the parking lot until a single bar popped up. He punched the third number on speed dial.
Sabine answered on the second ring. A heavy bass boomed in the background. She was clubbing someplace and had to shout to be heard over the din.
“Peter, is that you? So, what’s it like in flyover country? Julian bet me you’d drop off the map. Here there be dragons and all that.”
He leaned against the streetlight post. “No, no dragons, but I hear there are some catfish in Lake Jewell that are big enough to swallow a MINI Cooper.”
She laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Peter. You always make me laugh. Can you cut yourself loose a day or two early? I miss you.”
“Me too,” he said noncommittally. Her use of the word love was casual enough, but just hearing her say it was enough to make him wince. He and Sabine had a friends-with-benefits arrangement that he had no intention of allowing to morph into something deeper. Not only were they business partners, they also did pro bono work for UCFF together. Recreational sex with Sabine was all well and good, but introducing actual feelings into the relationship could cause things to deteriorate post haste.
Sabine would really be ticked if she found out he’d manufactured a reason to come to Coldwater Cove because he’d been trolling the internet looking for Angela Holloway. It wasn’t that his life in DC wasn’t full and rich, and getting richer all the time if he considered only his brokerage account. But there was something missing, something empty inside him he hadn’t been able to fill since he’d left Angie at Baylor. Maybe he needed to win her back. Maybe he just needed to bang her one more time to get her out of his system. One way or another, he needed to close the book on Angela Holloway.
Peter had finally found her when her semidisastrous production of Macbeth made the online version of the Coldwater Gazette. After combing the insipid little paper for months, he’d called Bates College with an offer to speak to its students about pursuing law. It was dumb luck that he’d bumped into Ange so quickly, but he should have expected it. Coldwater Cove was a very small town.
“It’ll be a couple of days before I’m done here,” he said to Sabine, “but I have some news.”
Sabine must have made her way to the ladies’ room because the head-banging music faded into the background. “What’s up?”
“You know how you’ve been looking for a good test case for the UCFF?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve found one for you.” He imagined her eyes lighting up. “It’s got everything—church and state issues, mis
use of civic funds and resources. There are even public employees involved. It’s perfect.”
“Stop it, Peter. You know how hot I get when you talk litigation.”
“Well, hold that thought.” He wandered back across the parking lot toward his room to sprawl across the slightly saggy bed. “I’ll be home Friday.”
It was probably a good thing Ange turned down his offer to come home with him. Sabine could make him miserable when she was angry.
Sometimes, the path of least resistance was the right way to go.
Chapter 9
No spiders in the chocolate. I checked.
—Peter Manning’s note, tucked into a big box of chocolate-covered cherries
Of course, Peter hadn’t actually checked. He couldn’t have. This box of sugary goodness came by way of UPS. But the card still made Angie smile.
She put the berries away in the fridge and decided to pretend they weren’t there until Seth had come and gone. She felt a little mean about hiding them since he’d provided the pizza for their working supper, but chocolate-covered strawberries weren’t the sort of thing you gave a guy you were just collaborating on a Christmas pageant with.
With whom you are collaborating on a Christmas pageant, she amended. Tidy grammar, tidy life.
Even if she ate a strawberry now, it would bring back thoughts of Peter and she didn’t want to dwell on his handsome face longer than necessary. She’d done well last night, if she did say so herself. Barring a few odd flutters in her gut, she’d proven to be pretty well inoculated against him. She must have developed some “Anti-Peter” antibodies in the wake of their stormy break up. She was protected against him now.
His out-of-the-blue suggestion that she pull up stakes and move across the country to live with him—correction! “Hang out” at his place—had made her wish she still carried a pound of pennies in a sock in her purse. When she was an undergrad, she never went anywhere without that makeshift weapon. Though she’d never had to use it, she felt safer walking home from a late night at the library, knowing she had means to protect herself.