But Nate was staring out at the water. “I’m beginning to understand. Poor guy.”
“You mean Bob?”
“Sure. He lost Stacy. He must be miserable. Let’s go back.”
Terri was blinking at him. “Yeah. Sure. Uh... I left my...” She couldn’t think what to say but ran back into the seclusion of the woods. What she wanted to do was scream so loud she’d knock the leaves off the trees. Instead, she made her hands into fists and stamped her feet until she’d stirred up a cloud of dirt. “Poor Bob,” she mimicked quietly. “He lost Stacy. Lost the most wonderful, fascinating, beautiful, intelligent, interesting—”
“Come on!” Nate yelled. “There won’t be any beer left.”
“Princess Stacy will conjure some with her Wand of Perfection,” Terri muttered.
“Are you all right?” Nate was standing a few feet away from her.
“Ah, here it is.” She picked up a pebble off the ground and slipped it into her pocket. “Can’t lose that!” She walked past him with her nose in the air.
Behind her, Nate was smiling.
* * *
When Frank got to the party, it was already in full swing—and that’s what he wanted. He was taking a risk that Brody would throw him out because he was carrying his guitar.
The sight of it did cause Brody to groan, but it didn’t make him angry. That was a step forward! Terri began to ask questions. When Frank told her that her father used to sing in a band, she was shocked. “I never knew. You never told me,” she sputtered.
Frank noted that Nate Taggert was hovering behind her, as he always seemed to be. Since Nate had arrived, all Frank had heard about was this young man. He worked; he had ideas; he settled problems.
And Terri adored him. The two of them were never apart.
Since Nate’s arrival, Frank had been hoping that the presence of this man would change things at the lake. That he’d change Brody and his daughter. That he’d... Frank had his own ideas about what he hoped the man could do, but he didn’t voice them even to himself.
At the sight of Frank’s guitar, it took just minutes before a couple of old-timers raced off in their electric golf carts. An hour later, thanks to Nate, a sound system was set up outside Terri’s house. When the music started blaring across the water, if there was anyone at the lake who wasn’t there already, they showed up.
Brody sang. His voice was rusty from years of disuse, but he did well. Two of the old codgers could really make the strings on a guitar move, and the women! Lord but they could dance! Down and dirty as if they were sixteen again. When someone yelled, “Long live Woodstock!” there was a roar of agreement.
Through it all, Frank kept his eyes on Terri. What he wanted most in the world was for her to find happiness. She’d been working since she could pick up a fishing pole. She’d been twelve when she first saved the life of a tourist. The guy was drunk, fell off the dock, went under and didn’t come up—and only Terri had seen him. She ran down the dock and kept running off the end into the water, legs still churning. Brody was screaming at her to stop but when she didn’t, he went in after her.
When Terri came up, she had the drunk by the collar and Brody pulled him in. Later he bawled her out and hugged her, then yelled some more, then hugged her more. But it had no effect on Terri.
All through elementary school, high school and into college, Terri had never let up on her workload and her responsibilities.
There was a time during high school when they thought Terri was going to do something besides take care of other people. There’d been a young man. To everyone’s disappointment, it hadn’t worked out.
Since then, as far as they knew, there’d been no other men.
But now there was this Nate Taggert. He and Terri laughed together, danced, passed a beer back and forth.
Throughout the night, the many guests asked questions. Where was this? Was it time for that? Where’s the bathroom? Thousands of questions. What Frank liked was that as many questions were directed at Nate as they were at Terri. It was as though people already saw Nate as belonging at the lake. Maybe even saw him as belonging to Terri. Saw them as a couple.
At the first break the band took, Frank stepped away. He wanted to move around and see what was going on.
The first thing he noticed was that Nate was spending time with little Della Kissel. Damned if he wasn’t flirting with her!
What’s he up to? Frank wondered. He and Kit Montgomery had had some long talks about his work in the diplomatic services. Kit was a great storyteller. “If it hadn’t been for Nate I would have wrung that bastard’s neck,” was something Kit had said more than once. He told how Nate was calm even in the midst of gunfire. And Nate was “so damned likable that people believed he was on their side,” Kit said.
Frank had wanted to see Nate with Terri, but as he watched the young man get drink after drink for that gossipy little woman, Frank became more interested in them.
He wants something from her, Frank thought, and he couldn’t suppress a grin. Brody kept saying that Nate was deeply in love with Stacy Hartman, but what would Della have to say about Stacy? As far as Frank knew, no one had a bad thing to say about her.
Now, Terri... There were a lot of lies told about her. And many secrets were being kept.