Met Her Match Read online

  “Put gas in them.” He was staring at her, waiting for her answer.

  “If you pay rent, you don’t have to work. Certainly not clean out entire buildings.”

  With a smile of satisfaction, Nate leaned back in his chair. “I like it here. Uncle Kit said I was part Montgomery because I like water so much.”

  “Don’t Berbers live in deserts?”

  “The desert is where you learn to truly appreciate water.” He was quiet for a moment. “Terri, I’m sorry about the mix-up. My uncle hasn’t answered any of the eight messages I left for him, but I think he put me here because he knows I need this. After Uncle Kit retired, I had a hard time working for the government. So hard, that I left.”

  Terri could hear the understatement in his voice and she waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “What about Stacy? Will she mind that you and I stay here alone? Just the two of us?”

  “She’s not the jealous type,” Nate said quickly, then heaved himself out of the chair. “I can’t stand the smell of myself any longer. You said your aunt used to invite people here. You mind if I have a few people over? I’ll cook.”

  “I guess not,” Terri said as she stood up, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

  He seemed to know what she was thinking. “But no silver or fine china. I promise.”

  She could hear the laughter in his voice. “Good because my tux is in the cleaners.”

  Nate grinned. “Rats! I brought my best ball gown and heels, and I really wanted to wear them.”

  “Mind if I borrow one of your high heels? I’ve always wanted to try kayaking.”

  Laughing, they picked up the cooler, the empty bottles and bags, and went into the house.

  Chapter 4

  Nate took a twenty-minute shower, but then it required that long to get clean. He smiled all the way through it. Terri had certainly won that round!

  The truth was that he’d enjoyed himself. For the last year he’d been stuck at a desk. The only exercise he got was the artificial kind in a gym. He’d had years of following Kit around, bumming rides with soldiers on seaplanes, hiding in tents when they didn’t want to be seen, on and on. It had nearly killed him, but he’d loved it.

  But all that ended when Kit retired. Nate had been assigned to a desk and—

  He broke off his thoughts when his phone rang. The ID said it was Stacy. Smiling, he answered it. “Hey, baby, I was just thinking about you.”

  “Miss me?” she asked.

  “Totally. What about you?”

  “I think about you every second. Did you get the boxes I sent?”

  “What address did you use?”

  “My parents’.”

  “Oh,” Nate said. “Sorry, but no, I haven’t seen them. I’ll go tomorrow. Are you having a good time?”

  “It’s wonderful! Giovanni is brilliant. The way he sees color is something I can only hope to achieve. He puts shades of purple with strips of old gold and...” She took a breath. “You have to see it to believe it.”

  Nate was laughing. “I think I would have to.”

  “Dad said you’re staying at the lake. Do you like it there?”

  “Very much. I cleaned out an old shed today.”

  “I thought you were going to rest. Did you see the prototype for the business cards I emailed you?”

  “Sorry,” Nate said. “I didn’t have time to open the attachment. What do you know about the people here at the lake?”

  “Not much. It’s a separate community from the town, but there’s a lot of money there. I’m really hoping to get some new clients at the fair. I know Mr. Rayburn has sold several houses in the last year. I’d like to decorate them.”

  “I hear you went to school with his daughter.”

  “Terri?” Stacy said. “I did but I never knew her very well.”

  “Oh?” Nate asked.

  Stacy hesitated. “She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she?”

  “I guess,” Nate said. “Was there something bad between you two?”

  “No.” Stacy’s voice had a coolness to it. “I wasn’t a Mean Girl and I didn’t ostracize her from my gang if that’s the insinuation.”

  With a chuckle, Nate stretched out on the bed, phone close to his ear. “Never thought you could be anything but your perfect self. I’m just curious about this place, is all. Since you went off and left me here alone, the least you could do is tell me about it.”

  “Guilt!” There was laughter in her voice. “Poor Nate. Three weeks’ vacation with nothing whatever to do so I should feel sorry for you.”

  “I guess I could ask someone else.” His voice was sexy, teasing. “There was a woman named Jenkins who seemed to like me.”

  “Red hair from a drugstore box? Just so you know, there isn’t anything on her body that’s real and her husband owns some big company. He would make a formidable enemy.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t a Mean Girl in high school?”

  “Okay, you win. I take it you want to know about Terri. She and I weren’t friends in high school because she was never there. She left the grounds as soon as class let out, and she was never in any extracurricular activities. She made okay grades but I don’t think she spent much time studying. We all felt sorry for her because she had so much work to do.”

  “But I get the idea that something happened. Something traumatic.”

  “In the ninth grade, Terri was suspended from school.”

  “For what?”

  “For injuring two boys.”

  “Two of them, huh?” Nate was grinning.

  Stacy didn’t join his humor. “The boys said she went crazy and picked up a rope from gym class. She swung it around and hit one of the boys in the ribs and he went down hard. I think she jumped the other one. For weeks, it was all the school could talk about.”

  “Was she a hero or was she ridiculed?” Nate was no longer smiling.

  “Sorry, but Terri was the object of laughter. The boys were popular and Terri was always an outsider. The boys were taken to a hospital to be checked out.”

  “Terri was suspended but what happened to the boys?”

  “Nothing. The principal—who was a great football fan, I might add—said their injuries might have damaged them for life and that fear was enough punishment.”

  “They didn’t miss so much as a practice, did they?” Nate said. “I bet that at the next game they were back on the field being safely slammed into by two-hundred-pound teenagers and not by some skinny girl.”

  “I’m sure it was very unfair,” Stacy said. “When I get back, maybe you and I can get to know the whole Rayburn family.”

  There was a tone in Stacy’s voice that Nate had never heard before—and something told him that he should shut up about another woman. “So what’s this Giovanni look like? He’s not some hand-kissing Italian, is he?”

  Stacy laughed. “Not at all, but the man who runs the company is a great flirt.”

  “I want to hear every word about everything. You aren’t planning to make our bedroom pink, are you?”

  While Stacy talked about fabrics and colors and furniture, Nate wondered what the boys had said that set off Terri’s anger. For a girl to take on a couple of high school football players, it must have been something serious.

  It was late when Nate hung up. He was smiling, feeling like he’d made up for putting his foot in it when he’d asked Stacy about Terri.

  You didn’t tell her you were living with Terri, an inner voice said. Not living exactly, just sharing a house. Roommates.

  As he got up and put on a pair of pajama bottoms, he called Kit for the ninth time that day. As with all of them, it went to voice mail.

  “I...” Nate began. “It’s okay. Terri and I worked things out. For the next three weeks, we’re going to be roommates.” He couldn’t think of anything else