Met Her Match Read online

  She kept her eyes on her book. “What was the food like at the brunch?”

  Nate turned off the TV, which made Terri put her book down.

  “That woman has the ability to take the flavor out of anything. She had some baked egg thing that was crusty hard all the way through. Bob seemed to like it.”

  “Bob hasn’t lived all over the world and sampled lamb roasted over an open fire.”

  Nate gave a bit of a smile. “I doubt if he’s even tasted Mr. Parnelli’s sausages.”

  He was facing the dark screen of the TV, while Terri had her feet on the couch. She extended her leg and nudged him in the hip with her heel. “Talk! You’ve been brooding since you got back, so tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “I do not brood.”

  Terri stuck her lower lip out, hung her head and deepened her voice. “I’m so down I ate green food.”

  Nate chuckled. “I guess that is pretty depressed.” He turned so he was facing her, one foot on the floor, the other stretched out on the couch. Not quite touching her, but almost. “I really hate my new office.”

  “So tell Stacy and change it. Get some different furniture.”

  “It’s not that. It’s...”

  Terri knew what was wrong but she wasn’t going to say it. She’d never seen anyone less suited to sit in an office all day than Nathaniel Taggert.

  “Maybe I’m not made for small-town life. Maybe I should return to the Middle East. I’m sure Kit could find something for me to do.”

  “Running away would sure solve all your problems. No more of the Hartmans. No more office that you can’t see out of. You think Stacy will want to leave her parents? Didn’t I hear that she’s opening a design business in town?”

  Nate rolled his eyes. “I’m trying for some sympathy here. Help me out.”

  “Nope. You have to man up and tell Stacy you hate that office. And what about the old Stanton house?”

  He groaned. “What are you going to do? I mean, how do you see your future?”

  “I’ll stay here,” Terri said. “I can’t imagine not living here. The lake, Dad, even this house. It’s where I belong.”

  “Alone?”

  Terri started to answer, but changed her mind. “How about some popcorn?”

  “Why do we talk so much about me and never about you?”

  “I’ve told you some of my most intimate secrets.”

  “Like how you’d like to visit the locker room of the rugby players?”

  Terri laughed. “You asked me what I thought of the game and I told you what it meant to me. I like men with meat on them.”

  “Like Billy Thorndyke,” Nate said.

  “What is it with you and Billy?” Her voice was rising. “He and I broke up years ago. Since then I’ve had three boyfriends.”

  “Three, huh?”

  “If you’re going to make fun of me, I’m leaving.” But she didn’t move.

  “Let’s see. There was the NFL player here at the lake. Who else?”

  Terri looked astonished for a moment, then grimaced. “I’m going to kill Della Kissel. I thought I saw her spying on me.”

  “Why’d you break up with him?”

  “He lives in Pittsburgh.”

  “Steelers?”

  She nodded.

  “What about the other two?”

  “What’s caused this interrogation?” she asked.

  “Just curious. I’ll tell you about all the women in my life.”

  “I can’t imagine why you think I’d want to hear that. Okay! I have a quirk in me that says I want a brain with a body. It took me years to find out that brains and brawn rarely go together. But then, those years were...” She smiled in memory.

  For a moment they stared at each other. They could hear a boat motor outside; otherwise it was quiet. But the images in their minds were very loud.

  Terri and Nate locked eyes and she could feel herself leaning toward him. Thoughts of honor and integrity, commitment and promises, weren’t in her mind.

  Nate broke the contact, abruptly. He stood. “I have to get up early tomorrow. I better...” Swallowing, he gestured toward the bedroom.

  “Me too,” Terri said, and she stood, as well. “Widiwick. Booths.”

  “Yeah. I, uh...” With a quick nod of good-night, he hurried down the hall to his bedroom and shut the door firmly.

  * * *

  The next morning, as soon as Terri opened her eyes, she knew that Nate was gone. The house had an emptiness that she felt in her bones. She pulled the covers over her head and wished she could go back a few days. Go back to when the smell of coffee woke her, to a time when she’d stumble into the kitchen, yawning, and Nate would be frying bacon.

  But she’d known it was all temporary. Only on that first day had she had about an hour when she thought she and Nate could be... Could be more than friends. She’d bragged to her father that it was better to love and lose than...

  “Oh hell!” she muttered, and got out of bed. She had to look to the future, not the past. Someday Nate would be married to Stacy Hartman and they’d all laugh in fond memory of these past weeks.

  “Yeah, right,” she mumbled. She got dressed. It was early, the sun just rising. Today was the opening of the festival and she’d be inundated with work. Good. And where would Nate be? With Stacy? Laughing together as she told amusing stories about her adventures in Italy?

  “One time I had a flat tire on the way to Richmond,” Terri said under her breath. Changing that on the side of the highway with seventy mile an hour traffic had been a real adventure.

  As she walked into the kitchen, she saw that Nate had taped a piece of paper on the fridge. It was a drawing of the back of a muscular man wearing a towel and holding a rugby ball. Hank Bullnose, prop forward, says he’ll meet you in the dressing room at noon. Bring sausages.

  Terri knew the cartoon was supposed to make her smile, but instead, it brought tears to her eyes. She ran across the room, threw the door open and went outside to fall into one of the chairs. Her chair. The one next to Nate’s. Where the two of them had sat in the evenings and on weekends. Where they’d shared meals and laughter and confidences.

  The lake was beginning to come alive. She saw lights coming on, heard a couple of shouts and motors.

  It was Widiwick, she thought. It was a festival that had been started by an eleven-year-old boy with a heart as big as the earth. A boy the town came to love to the point where he was their ideal of perfection. WWBD. What would Billy do? they asked one another. It became a motto. Something to achieve.

  All through school Terri had been too busy to think about the things other girls did. She wasn’t interested in the dances—unless they were to be held at the lake. Then her concern was feeding people and getting them across the docks without falling in after they’d had too much spiked punch.

  She’d heard the girls giggling over beautiful Billy Thorndyke. Who was he going to date when he ever did? He couldn’t spend his entire life studying and playing sports, could he?

  Because Terri had always been exposed to the sexual shenanigans that went on at the lake, she knew more of the world than the townies did. She truly believed Billy was gay. It made sense. He was always with boys, never alone with a girl. Girls threw themselves at him, but Billy ignored them.

  When she and Billy were in elementary school together, they’d been buddies. Terri had been a tomboy, strong from all she did at the lake, so she could keep up with Billy on the playground. When the school set up swimming classes at a nearby pool, Billy had been impressed when Terri swam the length easily and quickly.

  But by the time they reached the seventh grade, the sexes began to separate. It was like the Garden of Eden and the kids became aware of bodies and feelings they didn’t understand. Terri hadn’t had time to be part of all that. By that time, she’d gro