Met Her Match (Summer Hill 2)

?? Nate and Terri said in unison.

The girl smirked. “In your dreams.” She walked away.

When they were alone, Terri turned to Nate and waited. She wasn’t going to beg him to talk, but if he wanted to, she would listen.

“So what shade of green are you girls going to wear, and can I apply it on the places you can’t reach?”

Terri laughed, glad that he had paid attention to her. “What are you so mad about?”

“I hate my office.”

She couldn’t help but be pleased by that. “Get Stacy to change the furniture.”

He was silent for a moment. “I think the problem is that I can’t stand the thought of staying inside all day. The windows face the street and the buildings next door.”

She waited for him to go on. When he looked up, his eyes were so bleak that she knew there was more.

“Stacy’s father bought the Stanton house. He’s giving it to us for a wedding gift.”

“That old piece of...?” Terri halted, swallowed. “I’m sure Stacy will make it beautiful.”

“No doubt she will. It’s just that when it’s done, the house will still be smack in the middle of town.”

At the sight of his despair, Terri did her best to put aside her own thoughts and hopes. Whatever else he was, Nate was her friend. “Look, these are serious problems and you need to talk to Stacy about them. What I can’t figure out is why you ever thought that you’d like being in an office all day. When you two were living together in DC, Stacy had to know that you hated your job. She—”

“I never told her.”

“What do you mean? You never told her about playing Tarzan and ripping your shirt open to show your bullet wounds?”

“No, I didn’t. Stacy and I aren’t like that. We don’t sit around and reminisce about the past.”

Terri didn’t like his insinuation that that’s what she and Nate did. “Which is why you never heard about Bob Alderson. I think you two need to talk to each other. Or did you spend all your time in bed together?”

“We didn’t—”

“Here it is.” As the three waitresses began putting plates and bowls on the table, the first one named them. “Kale salad with cranberries. Kale salad with beans. Kale rolls. Kale and roasted vegetable soup. Kale minestrone.” When they ran out of room, the girls pulled a table next to theirs. “Kale potato salad. Kale pasta. Kale and mushrooms. Spicy kale bake. Grilled kale with ricotta. And my favorite, kale ice cream on top of kale apple cake. And four kale smoothies to wash it all down.” She stepped back. “Anything else? We could—” Another waitress handed her a ceramic bowl. “Oh yes, baked kale chips. Enjoy!” Smiling, she walked away.

Nate and Terri looked at the two tables full of food, but neither of them said a word. Their disagreement made the air heavy between them.

Nate picked up his fork, lifted a large piece of kale from a salad and said, “I don’t eat green food.” It was a quote from a Hobbit movie and Terri knew it. When they laughed together, the air cleared.

“I can’t take any more delving into my life and my mind,” Nate said. “I’ve had it from Jamie and now you. Tell me about Widiwick—without the paint. That makes me think of Della Kissel in her pink...” He waved his hand. “Thing.”

“It’s a fair. Shopkeepers from Summer Hill set up booths and people come from miles around to buy things.”

“Great,” Nate said, his mouth full of kale and potatoes. “That’s the tourist version. Now tell me the lake story. Start with the name. What does it mean?”

Terri gave a half smile. “Widiwick was started because Billy Thorndyke didn’t like his prize.”

“Thorndyke?”

Terri’s eyes lost their amusement. “You’ve heard of him?”

“My new office is in the Thorndyke house.”

The smile came back to her. She had an idea Nate had heard about her and Billy, but she was glad he wasn’t prying. “That’s a nice house. Anyway, it was my mother who began the original fair. She wanted to unite the town and the lake so she came up with the idea of the town merchants setting up booths around the lake. And as an incentive to get people to come, every visitor was given a card with each booth’s number on it. If they got it initialed at every place, they put the card into a tub, and somebody drew one out. The winner got a prize.”

“Such as?”