“And now your dad still runs the place. What about your mother?”
“She died when I was two.” Terri didn’t meet his eyes.
For a moment they sat in silence, both of them looking out at the lake, coffee mugs in hand. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but she felt comfortable around this man. Usually, she was running out the door to do whatever had to be done. Since she’d been away for nearly forty-eight hours, she had no doubt that her father’s secretary, Anna, would have a long list of things for her to do.
But Terri didn’t feel any urgency to leave to deal with raccoons and garbage and whatever gross stuff was littering one of their two beaches.
She took a breath. “There are about six cabins vacant right now and you could rent one of them.” There were birds flying across the lake and the sun made beautiful shadows on the water.
“What do the cabins look like?”
“The usual. Two of them have porches along the front.”
“But no glass-walled bedrooms?”
“Not a one. In the winter the sun is lower and it comes all the way across my floor.”
“If I promise to be quiet and respectful and do all the cooking, could I rent the bedroom in this house? I’ll pay double whatever you usually ask.”
Terri was pleased at the idea, but she suppressed her smile. “I don’t know... We have our yearly festival coming up and rents are pretty high.”
“You have a month’s worth of laundry that needs doing. I could help with that.” When she looked startled, Nate gave a half smile. “Sorry. I looked around a bit, but not enough to figure out that the manager’s sister wasn’t living here but his daughter is. You think my uncle and your dad were up to something with this?”
“Oh yes. Definitely.” Terri could feel her eyes growing warm with the thought of what the two matchmaking old men had in mind.
But Nate quickly looked away. “Maybe Kit wants me to help you with all the work around this place. Rescuing idiots, that kind of thing.”
When Terri looked back toward the glass, she was smiling. “I’m sure that’s it. Today I have to tell some Enders that they need to keep the lids on their garbage cans closed, and no, we will not shoot the raccoons.” She looked back at him, at his shoulders straining against the soft cotton shirt. “You’re big enough that if you told them, they might listen.”
“You allow firearms here, do you?” He was frowning. “And who are ‘Enders’?”
“Guns are not permitted. But then, perfectly sane people come here and they drink and party and cause as much trouble with a BB gun as someone with a twelve gauge. Enders is our name for people who come for the weekend. There are also Rounders and Players. Rounders are—”
“Let me guess. They stay year-round. So who or what are ‘Players’?”
“They live elsewhere, but spend the summer here. Some are retired, but a lot of them are families with one person who earns the money. He or she is away during the week.”
“And the ones left here like to play?”
“They do.”
“You have activities for them?”
“There are some things for the kids, but the adults usually entertain themselves.”
Nate looked at her, but Terri kept her gaze straight ahead. Explaining what the Players did was too embarrassing.
“Players. I get it.”
Terri put her empty mug down. “Did you say something about three weeks?”
“Yes. That’s when Stacy gets back. She has a booth at your festival and she wants me to get it ready for her. She shipped back a tent and I’m supposed to put it up.”
Terri blinked at him. “Stacy?”
Standing, Nate collected the dirty dishes. “My fiancée, Stacy Hartman. She’s in Italy now, but she’ll be back in three weeks, so I wouldn’t be here for very long.” He turned away to go into the kitchen.
For a few moments Terri sat utterly still. How stupid could a person be? She’d thought the man was put into her house for... Well, for her.
She’d thought her father and his friend, Kit Montgomery, had been so concerned about her complete and total absence of a personal life that they’d sent her a gift. One tall, gorgeous man wrapped in a pair of wet swim shorts. It had seemed so obvious that they might as well have put a bow around his neck.
She buried her face in her hands. Stupid and naive. She was living in a fantasy world of glorious men appearing on her doorstep.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked.
She looked up. The sunlight was behind him, making a golden halo around his head. The damned shirt matched his damned eyes! The lake had never been as blue as this man’s eyes were.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I have a lot to do today and I’m late.” She stood up. “I need to go. I just have to get my red notebook.” She went to the couch to look for it, but when she turned around, he was so close she could feel the warmth of him. She did not look up into his eyes. Instead, she kept her head down and took three steps back. “Notebook. In office,” she managed to say.
Turning, she hurried toward the front, slid the door open and ran out to the dock. Within seconds, she was in her pretty little wooden boat, had started the motor and was moving toward Club Circle.
When she looked back at her house, she saw Nate Taggert standing on the dock. Even from this distance she could see his puzzlement.
She truly hoped this man was unaware of what was going on.
Chapter 2
As Nate watched the young woman speed away in her nifty little boat as though she were leading a race at Monte Carlo, he grabbed his phone out of his pocket. As well as he knew anything on earth, he was sure Kit Montgomery had done this.
He called Kit’s private number, the one only four people in the world knew. After years of being at the man’s beck and call, Nate deserved access at all times.
Of course Kit didn’t answer. Nate hadn’t expected him to, but he was going to leave a voice mail the man wouldn’t soon forget. “What are you up to?” Nate shouted, then lowered his voice as he walked back toward the house. “I know you did this, but why? You like Stacy. No, you love her. You introduced us, so why are you dangling another woman in front of me? Why did you—”
He broke off. There was no way in the world a man as stubborn and as sure that he was always right as Kit Montgomery was would listen to the message. Nate had seen Kit erase unheard voice mails from the President of the US. “Why should I listen? The bastard’s always dead wrong,” Kit had said.
Nate stopped in front of the house and calmed his breathing, slowed his heart rate. He’d learned how to do that the first year he worked for Kit. “If we go in there with your heart hammering in your oversize chest, they’ll know we want this,” Kit said.
“Doesn’t our being here tell them that?” Nate had asked, and Kit responded by making Nate stand outside the door and wait—and miss all the action.
Now it was second nature to him to not show any trace of emotion. It had been very useful this morning when a tall, very pretty girl with a mass of brown hair tumbling about her head had walked into his bedroom. He’d been so deep in the thought of What the hell am I going to do for three weeks? that he hadn’t heard her approach.
Nate had been in the house for two days but he’d spent most of the time with Jamie and his new wife.
Stacy’s parents had said that he should stay with them, but they all knew no one wanted that. He’d told them he wanted to be at the lake so he could fish and rest and have a vacation. The truth was that he needed time to get over his anger at Stacy. The plan had been for them to be together for these weeks. But the day before he left DC, she’d told him that she’d won an internship in Italy with some big shot interior designer. “It’s only for three weeks,” she said over the phone. “I’ll be back for Widiwick and after that we can start planning our wedding. I’m dying to sh
ow you the office I set up for you. And I have a fabulous surprise from Dad.”
“This is all the surprise I can handle,” Nate had said gloomily. The thought of spending three weeks living in the same house as Stacy’s parents was enough to make him jump on a military helicopter and go back to a war zone.
Of course Kit picked up on Nate’s misery. You couldn’t hide emotions from someone you’d spent years with and who’d taught you how to hide them in the first place. “I’ll take care of it,” Kit said in his best fatherly voice. “My friend Brody is the manager for all of Lake Kissel and his older sister owns a house there. She’s in Florida and we all miss her. She was always cooking and making people feel at home. Terri might be there, but there are three bedrooms, so you’ll be fine.”
Nate leaned back against a tree. Why hadn’t he been suspicious? He knew Kit had a silver tongue. He could twist anything around so it was true—but it also said exactly what he wanted it to. In this case, he’d made it sound as though Terri was Brody’s sister and she was in Florida.
As Nate looked at the house, he felt sad at leaving it. Since he’d spent so much of the last twelve years living in tents, the glass-fronted house, with its indoor/outdoor feel, appealed to him.
He ran his hands over his face. He needed to man up to this. He couldn’t possibly stay here. Terri was much, much too pretty. She looked like one of those girls who played baseball with the boys—and won. She probably used live bait on fishing hooks and—
Nate pushed away from the tree. He’d better end this now. Immediately. He knew she’d been attracted to him. And forgive him, but he’d felt the same about her. Her legs! They must be four feet long. Tanned. Strong.
Again, Nate calmed his breath. Quickly, he went through the house. When he grabbed his keys, he saw a red notebook that had fallen to the floor. He picked it up and hurried to his car. The passenger seat had one of his big green Dartmouth rugby shirts on it and there was a matching mug on the floor.
As he backed out of the drive, he hoped that when he told her he couldn’t stay that she wouldn’t get teary. He’d had girls do that. “I thought we had something between us,” they’d said.
He and Terri had spent little time together, but he’d felt her interest in him. Seen her flirty looks.
And when he’d told her about Stacy, she’d nearly exploded. Jealousy?
As Nate pulled into the parking lot of the Lake Kissel clubhouse, he had a horrible thought. What if she and Stacy were friends? What if Terri told Stacy that they’d had a sort of flirtation? Spent some “meaningful” time together? But then, what could Terri say about their time together?
He got out of the car. I’ll be nice when I let her down, he thought. Gentle. It’ll be easy, friendly. And once it’s done, I’ll run back to the house and get the hell out of it!
* * *
Terri threw open the door to Anna’s office, but the secretary didn’t look up.
“Where is he?” Terri demanded.
Anna just slanted her head toward Brody’s closed office door. She’d worked for father and daughter for fifteen years and she was used to their arguments. Although, since Elaine had arrived four years ago, the storms were quieter from Brody’s side.
Terri stopped in front of the desk. “Remember that photo Della gave us of Stacy Hartman and the guy she’s going to marry?”
“No,” Anna said, and finally looked up. Terri’s face was red with anger. That wasn’t unusual, but the fact that she had on makeup and her hair was combed was very unusual. “Della probably put it on the Shame Board.”
One wall of the office had an eight-foot-long bulletin board where people pinned photos. It hadn’t been the plan, but it had become a place to exhibit every embarrassing, nearly fatal, humiliating picture taken at the lake. If a girl turned too fast and her top popped open, you can bet a photo of it was on the board.
Terri only looked at it when she was trying to figure out things, like who stole flowers or fishing gear or any petty crime.
She scanned them all, then started lifting photos to see what was under them. She was annoyed to see six pictures of herself bending over. Butt shots of Terri seemed to be a favorite. “Someone should clean this thing up.”
“Not my job,” Anna said by rote. She’d learned that if she didn’t refuse to do things she’d be like Terri and given responsibility for all of it.
“Ah ha!” Terri snatched a photo from beneath three others. She stared at it for a moment, then held it in front of Anna. “Know who this is?”
It was a picture taken at what looked to be a formal dinner. A young, very pretty blonde woman was leaning toward a large, handsome man wearing a tuxedo. He had his arm around her in a possessive way. “It’s the mayor’s daughter and some guy in a monkey suit. What a dress! I wonder where she buys her clothes.”
“Not in Summer Hill, that’s for sure. That man!” Terri tapped her finger on the picture. “He’s living in my house. I woke up this morning and there he was.”
“In your bedroom? Can I stay there tomorrow night and make a wish?”
With a look of disgust, Terri took the picture, pulled the door to her father’s office open and slammed it behind her.
“I didn’t do it,” Brody said. He wasn’t as tall as his daughter and the years had thickened his waist, but he was a good-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair. He and his daughter had the same eyes. They were a deep shade of brown that could go from softness to hardwood in seconds.
Right now Brody was uninterested in whatever his daughter was angry about. “Did you put the life jackets in the dock room?”
Terri was standing by the door. “You sent me to Richmond so you could move a man into my house.”
Brody was going over a stack of invoices. “I think we need a new vendor for the ropes. This one is getting too expensive.” He looked up at his daughter. “Yeah, so? Kit said the poor guy needed some peace and you needed some time off. He’s only there for three days. So what’s the problem? The old guy drooling in his soup?”
Terri tossed the photo onto his desk. “This look familiar?”
Brody picked it up and studied it. “He looks like Billy. That’s still bothering you after all these years?”
Terri narrowed her eyes at him.
“Okay, don’t look at me like that!” He looked back at the photo, knowing that he needed to cover his earlier mistake. Billy was not to be mentioned. “Isn’t this Mayor Hartman’s daughter? She has a booth this year, doesn’t she? She’s the cause of your anger? If so, where you gonna put her? Out on the Island?” It was his attempt at a joke. A booth set up on the little Island wouldn’t get much foot traffic.
Terri didn’t smile.
Brody sighed, put the photo down and leaned back in his chair, arms across his chest. “Okay, I’m sorry. Kit asked a favor of me. He wanted me to send you away so his old friend could stay there for three days. I offered another cabin, but Kit said Aggie’s is the nicest. Anyway, you got a holiday and an old man had a place to stay. Now we’re done. Could you go see about the mess on Moon?”
Terri put her finger on Nate in the photo. “That is the man staying in my house. And he’s there for three weeks, not days. And he’s going to marry Stacy Hartman.”
Brody picked up the photo, looked at Nate and gave a smile. “That old devil, Kit,” he muttered, then looked up at his daughter’s angry face. “He was there when you woke up? So what’d you say? We have to stop meeting like this?”
“This is not funny.”
“It is, actually. If this guy’s engaged, why did Kit pair him up with you?”
“He’s your friend, so you tell me!” Terri nearly shouted.
Brody was looking at the photo. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Nathaniel Taggert.”
“Ah. There’s your answer. Kit mentioned him. They used to work together. Obviously, h
e wanted the boy to be around family, not stuck in a cabin by himself. I hope he doesn’t expect you to cook for him.” Brody looked alarmed. “You didn’t cook anything, did you? He doesn’t deserve—”
“I am not a babysitter,” Terri said through her clenched teeth. “I know about this guy. Della told us about him.”
Brody rolled his eyes. “Della Kissel tells us about everybody. The Gossip Queen. Since when did you ever listen to her?”
“Since the last time she said she was going to have you fired.”
“She can’t. The trust says—”
Terri clenched her fists. “I’m not getting into your fights with Della. She knows about this because she helped Stacy’s mother sew the costumes for Kit’s play and—”
“Wasn’t that a great show? Of course after the first night, they had someone else playing Wickham and it wasn’t as good, but—”
“Stop it!” Terri yelled. “You’re trying to distract me from the subject. This guy is worthless! He’s engaged to Stacy Hartman.”
Brody looked confused. “I never knew you disliked her. You’ve never said anything bad about her. Did she...?”
Terri began to pace. “Stacy is perfect. Always has been. She’s a flawless human being. I went to school with her from the first grade to the twelfth and I doubt if we ever exchanged even a dozen words. But why should we? Hers is the ruling family of Summer Hill, while mine is—” Terri glanced at her father. There were some places they didn’t go no matter how angry they got. “Stacy Hartman is so wonderful even the principal consulted her.”
“That’s because he was friends with her father and—” Brody looked at his daughter’s face. “Okay, so what’s wrong with her?”
Met Her Match Page 2
