* * *
MATT SAT looking at the dining table, worn and scarred from decades of family dinners. Lots of happy memories were contained in those scars and, even though he and his sisters were adults with their own lives and dining room tables, there was something comfortable and special about that particular table that drew them all together for the occasional family meal. So, here he was, women to the left, women to the right, and his dad at the far end.
In just about every way, Matt was a younger mirror of his salt-and-pepper-haired dad. Now, they got along great. When Matt had been in his teen years, however, there had been some friction. It hadn’t been anything bad—just the usual stuff involved when a kid’s testosterone level jumps ahead of his common sense.
When he was a kid, his friends had always told him he was lucky to have the “cool mom” in the neighborhood, and he agreed. He liked that she had bowled in the same Thursday bowling league for the past thirty years, walked three miles every day, and was an eagle eye of an archer. He did, however, feel that pretty soon they were going to have to stage an intervention when it came to her holiday decorations. Every year, for each holiday, she tried to outdo herself. This year, she’d added an assortment of bunny figurines dressed in Halloween costumes parading down the center of the dining table like a zombie army. And last year’s creepy wrought-iron bird figures still glowered at him from the bay window’s sill.
This house had been in the family since it was built in the late 1800s, back when the Culhanes had money enough to build a three-story, seriously ornate Victorian. The locals still called it the Culhane Mansion. Matt found the mansion reference to be overkill, just like his mom’s decorations. He frowned at the bunny in a tiger costume lurking by his water glass.
Matt’s mother leaned forward from her seat to his father’s right. “Is something wrong, Matt?”
Matt opted not to insult the bunnies. “Tough day at work.”
The buzz around the table quieted and Matt knew he’d made a mistake. All his sisters and his mother focused their attention on him. His father pretended to be lost in thought, abandoning Matt to his Inquisitors.
Matt’s sister Maura, nine months pregnant, gave him a concerned look, implying that he lived in a constant state of chaos. Her four-year-old, Petra, sensing something interesting was about to happen, stopped coloring and gave Matt the same look.
“What happened now?” Maura asked.
Petra looked up at her mom and then to Matt. “Yes. What happened now?”
“The walk-in cooler had an issue last night. We lost a lot of food, and I had to scramble to make today work. Did it, though.”
Maura looked relieved. “Now that Dad’s sold the business, you really should have him help out at the brewery. God knows you could use it.”
Matt smiled. His family might be overprotective, but they all looked out for one another. “Got it covered. I added staff last week.”
Petra put down her crayons. Her face was covered with tomato sauce. “Is it a girl or a boy? Boys smell sometimes.”
Matt’s sister Rachel laughed. She was the family’s baby and undisputed princess. She was also the only one in the family with curly hair. Matt’s mother always said it was her mischievious nature that made her hair curl.
She turned to face Matt, her hand resting on her hip. “That’s an excellent question. How does your new employee smell?”
Matt concentrated on chewing his food.
Petra looked around the table. “Boys have a penis and girls have a bagina.”
“Come on, Matt,” Rachel said. “We all want to know if your new staff member has a bagina.”
“Jiminy Cricket. I’m eating pizza. Do we really have to talk about baginas?”
Rachel put her index finger to her lips and studied Matt. “You know what I think?”
She paused for effect. “I’m reading a book about body language right now, and yours is very closed. As if you don’t want to talk about baginas at all.”
Matt put his hands flat on the table. “That’s what I just said. I said it two seconds ago.”
Rachel leaned over to Maura. “Matt’s always been very excitable when it comes to baginas.” Everybody at the table nodded.
“Anyone I know?” Lizzie, his second-youngest sister, asked. She was his best friend as a kid and the tomboy who’d always kept up with him. Her brown hair was still cut short, and her years of playing sports with Matt and his friends had given her an athletic body that looked great in her Keene’s Harbor police uniform. Matt’s friends hadn’t shown a lot of romantic interest in her back then, but they sure did now.
Matt grabbed a slice of pepperoni from the pan. “I don’t think so. She’s new to town. Her name’s Kate Appleton.”
“Hmmm … Is she Larry and Barb’s youngest?” his mother asked.
Matt looked up, intrigued that his mother might know Kate’s parents. “I don’t know.”
“Short, cute, long and curly blond hair?” his mother asked.
In Matt’s estimation, Kate had also gone from cute to sexy. Not that his mom needed to know that. “Short, with short blond hair.”
“I’ll bet that’s Kate, all grown up. And you’d know Larry if you saw him,” his mother said. “He always used to have his Saturday morning coffee with the group in the hardware store.”
Maura smiled at her brother. “Matt didn’t like working Saturday mornings. It cramped his Friday night style.”
“Well, back when we’d spend our Friday nights together at Bagger’s Tavern, I remember Barb being quite the social butterfly. Great singing voice, too,” his mother said.
“As I recall, Larry was a bigwig in the auto industry,” his dad added.
“Advertising,” his mom corrected.
“Cars,” Dad said.
His mother patted his father’s hand where it rested on the table. “No matter. They were good people, though they haven’t been around much in recent years. They own that big old house, The Nutshell. Sits right at the end of Loon Road, on the cusp of the lake, and has a great view of the bird sanctuary across the way.”
Matt stopped eating. “That’s Larry and Barb’s house?”
He knew the house well. He owned the mortgage. The owner was three months behind on the loan and his lawyer had already begun the foreclosure process. He was the jerk evicting Kate Appleton from her bed-and-breakfast.
Matt wanted to ask for more details, but he knew that would tip off his family to the fact that Kate had caught his attention, and in a big way, too. Matt looked toward the front windows, where the iron crow ornaments were silhouetted in the setting sun. He pushed away from the table and went to get one.
“Mind if I take this?” he asked his mother.
“Of course not. Are you actually going to start decorating your house? I could come over with the spare decorations up in the attic, and—”
“Thanks, but all I want is the bird,” he said before she could offer up anything else.
Matt returned to his seat, moved the bunny away from his water glass, and put the crow in its place. The ornament was really kind of creepy, with feet too big to ever work and corroded spots that gave it a diseased look. No matter. Kate was either going to understand the spirit of his peace offering or think he was nuts.
FOUR
Night had fallen. Kate sat on the overstuffed floral chintz sofa in The Nutshell’s circa 1976 living room. She’d left the room’s beach-facing windows open enough that a crisp breeze pushed through them. As a teen, when she’d been feeling a little blue, this couch had been her landing spot. While Kate wasn’t blue, exactly, she did feel the need to decompress. Between the cooler incident, the market nonmeeting, and a wild dinner shift that had followed, she was tapped out. A half-eaten bag of chocolate chips and an equally depleted bottle of white wine, along with its glass, sat on the oak coffee table in front of her. She’d had a decompression fest.
To make matters worse, there was something wrong with her living room floor. The floorboa
rds on the western side of her house, next to the master bedroom, had buckled, bowing upward. She had noticed it a week ago and moved a heavy armoire to the affected area in order to flatten the wood. But it had only gotten worse, much worse.
Kate suddenly felt a twinge of late-night loneliness. She picked up the telephone and dialed her friend Ella Wade. Ella answered on the third ring.
“Chocolate chips and Chenin blanc for dinner aren’t necessarily signs of a pity party, are they?” Kate asked.
“I think that depends on the hour and the quantity consumed,” Ella said.
Kate rested the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she corralled a few more chips. “Started early, and lots of both.”
“I’m sorry to say, then, that your meal has all the earmarks of a pity party.”
Kate smiled at Ella’s answer. They had become friends as teenagers, sneaking Strawberry Breeze wine coolers behind the then-abandoned train station. Ella had always been the brainy one of the pack. Kate had gone on to a middling college and lots of parties. Ella had cruised through Harvard and then moved on to Stanford for law school with every intention of becoming a professor. She’d changed course a couple of years ago and joined her family’s law practice in town. Ella’s family had been lawyering in Keene’s Harbor since the late 1800s.
Kate dug around in the bottom of the bag for a chip. “I’m going to continue to think of my meal as decadent pampering.”
“A handful of chips is pampering. A bag is pity-scarfing. I heard that plastic crinkling. What’s going on?”
“I’m never going to get this house fixed. What do you know about warped floorboards?”
“Sounds like you’ve got a water leak. The water gets trapped under the wood, causing it to expand, and it buckles to relieve the pressure.”
Kate sucked in her breath. “Great. A water leak. I’ll call a plumber tomorrow and see if he can find the problem.”
“So,” Ella said, “not to change the subject, but I had lunch at Bagger’s yesterday. How’d you get Matt Culhane to give you a job?”
Kate refilled her wineglass. “Equal parts desperation and determination. And the end result seems to be a whole lot of suffering on my part.”
“I don’t see how a person could suffer too much with Culhane to look at,” Ella said.
“The suffering comes from running Hobart, the dishwasher from hell. As for my boss, I’ll admit he’s a stellar decorative item, when he’s around. But really, after Richard, I’m not looking at men as anything more than decorative. There are good substitutes for any of their other uses.”
“Ouch! That’s a little bitter.”
And a lot easier to say to Ella than it would’ve been to Matt when he was handling her cauliflower, but Kate was determined to keep her head on straight.
“I’m going to continue to think of it as a practical attitude,” she said. “As a species, men are great—some of my favorite people. But I need to sort out a whole lot of stuff before I date, let alone do anything else, ever again.”
“Okay, I can agree with that. I’ve taken the celibacy pledge until I can bring in enough work to support the salary Dad insists on giving me. Not that there’s anyone around here to date, in any case. Except Matt Culhane,” Ella added in a teasing voice.
“So, anyway, how’s work?” Kate asked.
“Pretty much how you’d expect it to be when working with a father, a brother, and two cousins. Wonderful, except when it’s not. And then, at least we all still love each other. The other day—”
Kate was distracted by the crunch of tires on the gravel drive out front of the cottage. She set aside her wineglass and stood.
“Hang on,” she said to Ella. “I think someone’s here.”
“Out there? You’re kidding.”
The drive to The Nutshell was a good, winding stretch off the road just inland from the shore. People didn’t end up at her door by accident.
“Wish I were,” Kate said.
A ratty black T-shirt emblazoned with the words SEX AND BEER in fat white block print, and plaid flannel sleep pants so worn that they were frayed over her knees weren’t exactly “meet the visitor” wear.
Then again, who could possibly be visiting her? Her wine buzz was swept away on a sea of adrenaline.
“Don’t hang up,” she whispered to Ella.
“Why would I? And why are you whispering?”
Kate nudged aside the lighthouse-themed curtain that covered the front door’s window and peeked outside. A pair of truck-height headlights shone directly into her eyes. She let the curtain drop and turned the door’s dead bolt.
Her visitor’s vehicle had come to a stop. “Don’t know,” Kate said to Ella. “I’m just a little edgy. You’re the only one who’d be out here, and you’re there.”
“Okay, you have a point,” Ella said. “Should I dial the police on my cell?”
“A lot of good that will do when I’m way out here.”
The truck’s headlights were off. Kate scurried to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife she could find in the knife block.
“Single girl. Lake house. Mysterious midnight intruder. This is so straight out of Friday the 13th,” she told Ella.
Kate glanced at the serrated bread knife in her hand. Great. She’d have to saw the prowler to death.
A knock sounded at the front door. Kate considered this a good sign. So far as she knew, homicidal maniacs didn’t knock. Then again, she had limited experience with homicidal maniacs.
“Jeez, this is like one of those horror movies!” Ella said. “Don’t go to the front door. That’s the equivalent of the stupid babysitter who goes down into the basement. Just hide.”
Kate approached the door. “My car is out front, Ella. The lights are on in my house. Clearly, I’m here.” Funny how calm she sounded when her heart was slamming its way out of her chest.
Another knock …
“Do you have the knife?” Ella asked.
“Yes.”
Kate ducked below the door’s window. She had no intention of losing the element of surprise. Slowly, carefully, Kate moved the curtain. Inch by inch, Matt Culhane’s face appeared, lit to glowing perfection under the porch light.
“Oh, no.” Kate let the curtain drop.
“Who is it?” Ella asked. “Freddy Krueger? Your ex, Richard?”
“No. Worse. It’s Culhane.”
“You’re kidding!”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Nope. He’s here in all his glory.”
“Really! All his glory? Nice.”
Matt knocked again and called her name.
“I have to go,” Kate whispered into the phone, and disconnected over Ella’s pleas to stay on the line and eavesdrop. Then holding the phone and knife in one hand, Kate released the dead bolt and opened the door just enough to peek out.
Big, strong guy, eyes full of ambition, and a smile that was full of humor—at himself and the world—the kind of humor that only comes with a healthy dose of self-confidence. Yep, it was Culhane all right.
“Hey,” Matt said.
Kate tried to process how best to get rid of the knife, which now seemed a little excessive. “Gosh, this is a surprise. How’d you find my house?”
“Well, that’s an interesting story.”
That got Kate curious.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me inside?” he asked.
Good grief, she thought. She was a wreck. Almost-empty wine bottle, ratty clothes, hair from hell, and she had a bread knife in her hand.
“I thought we were going to talk tomorrow?” she said to him.
His smile was crooked and endearing. “I decided I like tonight better. And, I come bearing gifts.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a weirdly shaped object.
Kate squinted down at the thing, uncertain what it was.
“Is it chocolate?” she asked.
“Sorry, no chocolate. It’s metal.”
“Metal what?”
“A metal crow.”
Kate reached to accept the gift, inadvertently brushing her hand against Matt’s. A little tingle of heat rushed through her, leaving a breathless lump in her throat.
The knife in her other hand dropped to the floor, interrupting the moment. “Come in. I was having a glass of wine. Can I get you anything?”
He stepped inside. His gaze shifted from her to the knife at his feet, then back to her. He took his coat off and casually hung it on the rack. “No, thanks.”
Matt followed Kate into the living room. “So, why aren’t you drinking beer?” he asked.
Kate hastily cleared the coffee table of the remnants of her Not a Pity Party. “I’ve never been much of a beer drinker. To be honest, I hate the stuff. Have a seat.”
Matt settled on one end of the sofa, and Kate took a spot on the opposite end, leaving a fabric field of poppies and chrysanthemums between them. She was glad for the space, because he looked good. Really good.
“Let me get this straight,” Matt said. “I hired someone who hates beer to work in a microbrewery?”
“It looks that way.”
“I think I need a more detailed application form.” He pointed at her shirt. “Should I assume you hate both the things listed there?”
She glanced down at her SEX AND BEER T-shirt, then back at Culhane, who gave her a grin.
“Neither of them are at the top of my priorities these days. But this is a song title, and the shirt’s from Milwaukee 2006 Summerfest.”
“You sound pretty certain about that no sex or beer thing. I think I’m going to have to take you up on the challenge.”
Her heart stumbled. “You’re talking about the beer, right?”
“Of course I am. I have my priorities, too.”
Yeah, and not for a minute did Kate believe it was beer. Okay, truth was she hoped it wasn’t beer.
“So what is it we really had to talk about?” she asked.
“First, you were right and I was wrong.”
Kate laughed. “That’s always a good start.”
He pointed to the ornament. “And this comes with the admission. I’m not much for eating crow, so I thought I’d give you one.”
Love in a Nutshell Page 5