Met Her Match Read online

  Instantly, expressions of distaste were back on the faces of the four older adults. Their spines went rigid and they looked at Nate with glaring stares.

  “I can assure you,” Mrs. Alderson said, “that there is no connection between the two families. The Thorndykes were our friends. Why young Billy was so infatuated with Terri Rayburn from the lake, no one could understand—but a Wilkins? Certainly not!”

  Mr. Alderson put his hand over his wife’s. “I seem to remember that Abby was friends with Leslie Rayburn.”

  “Sometimes,” Nate began, his voice low and hard, “people—”

  “Hey!” Bob said as he abruptly stood up. “I think I should take Nate to see his office. Anyone object to our leaving?”

  No one moved but their expressions said it all. Please take him away was written on their faces.

  * * *

  When they were outside, Bob said he’d come with his parents so they’d better take Nate’s car. “Unless you want to walk. Your office is very close.”

  “Of course it is,” Nate muttered. “Let’s use my car.” He drove as Bob directed him. They went down a side street and pulled into the drive of a big Victorian house. Nate was glad to see that it wasn’t too gaudy. With the mood he was in, if the house had been painted a dozen shades of purple he might not stop.

  He and Bob got out of the car. There were tall shade trees around the house and a gentle breeze swayed the leaves. The pleasantness of it was calming Nate.

  “I want to apologize for my parents,” Bob said. “You won’t believe it, but they’re very nice people. It’s just that they love Stacy so much. Her mom and mine have been best friends since before Stace was born.”

  “And they wanted their kids to marry.”

  “Right,” Bob said.

  “What about you?” Nate’s eyes zeroed in on Bob’s.

  “I love Stacy and we really tried to make it work. We wanted to please our parents, but...” He shrugged. “It was boring. We knew everything about each other. I sat beside her in the first grade so I know she hates peanut butter. I was there when Elliot Pierce hit her with a stick and she kicked him back, so I know why they still dislike each other. I helped her glue fabric swatches in her notebooks. I cried with her when Daisy died.”

  Nate was trying to keep his expression neutral. He didn’t know any of these things about Stacy. Twice he’d bought her chocolate-covered peanut butter cups. She’d eaten a few but she’d never said she didn’t like them. And what notebooks? “Daisy?” he asked.

  “Her cat. She loves cats!”

  “Oh, right.” When Nate said he liked dogs, not cats, Stacy hadn’t registered an opinion one way or the other.

  “I just want to say that it was a mutual breakup. One night after we went to a movie together we didn’t have a word to say because we knew what the other one thought. There was no reason to talk. When we got in the car, Stacy said, ‘Let’s break up.’ I said, ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard in years.’ We were both very happy.”

  Bob gave Nate a look of apology. “Sorry for this, but Stacy and I were too cowardly to tell the parents. We just kind of avoided the whole subject.”

  “Then she met Kit.”

  “She did,” Bob said. “She worked on that play with him and he sent her to DC to meet his son—not his workhorse of an assistant.”

  “And she returned with me.” Nate wasn’t good at hiding his bitterness over that. Kit sent a princess to his prince of a son.

  “And as you saw, the parents haven’t recovered. But don’t worry. Stacy will straighten them out.”

  That idea bothered him. He’d helped solve international skirmishes but it would be his wife-to-be who’d handle four disappointed parents?

  “You ready to see your office?”

  Nate looked up at the house with its deep porch. “Who owns this place?”

  “I don’t know. Someone in the Thorndyke family, but it’s all done by mail.”

  “Could it be Billy Thorndyke?”

  Bob grinned. “The boy dumped by the beauteous Terri? Speaking of whom, the scuttlebutt is that you two are more than friends.”

  “Not true,” Nate said, but he looked away. “After you.”

  Bob took a key from his pocket, unlocked the big front door, and they went inside.

  Within seconds, Nate knew he hated the place. There were two large rooms plus a kitchen, a bath and a pretty garden room in the back. Stacy had done a brilliant job of decorating. She’d used the apartment in DC as her starting point, and mixed modern furniture with pieces from the Southwestern US. On a big pine door was a brass plaque: Nathaniel Taggert. Inside was a desk of heavy oak, with Western carvings down the sides. It was something that someone from Colorado would be assumed to like.

  The framed paintings and drawings were of ranch scenes. There was even a glass-fronted box containing different kinds of barbed wire. The rugs were Navajo.

  “Look like your home state?” Bob asked.

  “Sort of.” Nate didn’t add that it was a tourist’s version of Colorado. He looked out the window of what would be his office and saw a shaded front yard and the street. There was a sidewalk where a woman was walking her dog.

  This is it, he thought. This is where I’ll be spending most of the rest of my life. Behind the desk was a huge chair done in artfully aged brown leather. “I’ll be a Colorado cattle baron in Virginia.”

  “What was that?” Bob asked.

  “Nothing.” He turned back to the man. “So what do you do?”

  “I have a law degree but so far I haven’t used it. I’m going into politics so I’m trying to build my résumé. I’m going to Africa to do some teaching.” He paused. “I think I ought to tell you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stacy’s father bought the old Stanton house for your wedding gift.”

  Nate looked at him in question.

  “You know that big white house in the center of town? The one with the fountain in front of it?”

  For a moment Nate was blank, then his eyes widened. “You don’t mean that derelict old place with the columns, do you?”

  “The very one. Stacy and her dad love that house.”

  “Stanton,” Nate whispered as he began to remember. “Her parents’ house was remodeled to look like it.”

  “Yeah,” Bob said. “When Lew was a young and ambitious lawyer, he wanted the biggest house smack in town, where he could see and be seen. But the owners wouldn’t sell, so he made his house as much like it as possible. He laughs about it now. So anyway, he finally bought the big old house, and he’s going to give it to you and Stace. She will love making it back into the showpiece it once was. You’ll have to live in construction for a couple of years, but someday you’ll have a grand staircase to walk down. Stacy will wear one of her Dior gowns and—Are you all right? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

  “I, uh, I need to go to the doctor.” Nate’s voice was barely audible. “I mean Jamie. My cousin. I need to see him. Now.”

  “Sure,” Bob said. “I’ll walk back to Lew’s place.” He put the key on the corner of the desk. “This is yours now.” He started for the door, but turned back. “Nate, I don’t really know you, but I do know Stacy. She’s mad about you. You’re all she could talk about the last time she was here. The elegant dinners, your apartment, your glamorous nights out. She kept saying that you were her dream man, that it was as though she’d made you up, that you were too perfect to be real. She’s so happy you’re going to come here to live and open an office. She can’t bear to leave her parents, and now that her brother has moved to LA, she’s tied even tighter here.”

  When Nate was silent, Bob said goodbye and left the house.

  Nate waited a while then he went outside, locked the front door and sent a text to Jamie.

  Meet me in the gym. 2 m