“No thanks. Do you wait to see what needs to be done each day?”
“Pretty much.” He put two plates of eggs and toast on the counter. Hers was a bright yellow, but his had soft spots of color from the spices he’d used. She switched the plates. “Today you get the bland one.”
“Wait!” Nate said. “You might not like that. You—”
Terri took a bite, and her eyes widened. “This is really good. What is it?”
“I think they call it fusion cooking. I mix Western scrambled eggs with Middle Eastern spices.” He took his plate to the stove and sprinkled some spice from the jars. When he sat back down, he was smiling. “Most Westerners don’t like it.”
“I do. You did so much yesterday that you could take today off. Go visit Stacy’s parents.” A grimace flashed across his face so quickly that she wasn’t sure she saw it.
“That reminds me,” he said. “I have to go there today and pick up some boxes Stacy sent. Why don’t you go into town with me? We could have lunch and I saw a florist shop near Jamie’s office. I thought I’d send Hallie some flowers. She—” He broke off because the smile had left Terri’s face. Abruptly, she got up and put her empty plate in the dishwasher. “Did I say something?”
When Terri turned to him, there was no humor in her face. “Summer Hill is a small town. If you walked through there with me, it wouldn’t be ten minutes before Stacy and her parents were told that you and I are having an affair. Truth has nothing to do with gossip.”
“Ah, right,” he said. “Small towns. How could I forget? But what about here at the lake? No gossip?”
“Lots of it, but people in glass houses...”
“Can’t throw stones. I guess you know too much for them to turn against you.”
“That’s about right.”
Nate could see the way she was looking at the door, as if she meant to leave at any moment. He decided to change the subject. “I don’t know if I’m off base in this or not, but yesterday it seemed that the kids were divided into separate groups.”
Terri’s smile came back. “The Cutters and the Socs. Oh. Sorry. That’s from—”
“Breaking Away and The Outsiders.”
Terri was astonished. “Not many people know that.”
“Being stuck somewhere and waiting for Kit allowed me to see way too many movies. I take it the kids in T-shirts are the Cutters, and the Socs are the kids in head-to-toe Ralph Lauren.”
“Exactly. The Cutters are the offspring and siblings of people who work here. Sherry—who runs the kitchen—has two kids. The man who works the pizza stand has a daughter.”
“Who looks after the kids?”
“We all do, but the oldest watch out for the youngest. And they know there are rules.”
“And the Lauren kids?”
“Are content with owning the latest and the best. If you’re thinking there’s some kind of war between them, there isn’t.”
“Then you won’t mind if I take a swing at getting the kids together?”
“Have at it.” Terri looked at her watch. “I have to go. The fishermen will be going out so that means tackle will be falling overboard and I’ll have to retrieve it.” She stopped at the door and looked at him. “About earlier, I didn’t mean to freak on you about going into town. It’s just that the townies and the lake people don’t mingle very well.”
“Which one of you is the Cutters?”
“More like the Capulets and Montagues.”
Nate didn’t smile. “People ended up dead because of that war.”
“No deaths yet, just some people who wish they were. I’ll see you at Club Circle.”
Nate watched her go to the dock and get into her wooden boat. He raised his hand and she waved back, then he went to the kitchen to clean up. She’d liked his eggs, liked the spiciness of them.
Stacy hated them. She liked American-style Italian food and French cuisine, but past that, she had no interest in other foods. But Terri—