“No. We measured. Besides, they hate each other. She says he’s exploiting the masses and he says she’s making the planet ugly.”
“Coin flip?” Terri said.
“I was going to suggest pistols at dawn and my money’s on her.”
“We could let them shoot Dad,” Terri said.
“Now there’s a good idea!” Frank pulled a quarter out of his pocket. “You do it.”
She reached for the coin but a big hand took it.
“I’ll take care of this,” Nate said.
“Don’t you have some champagne to drink?” Frank’s voice was full of venom.
“Aren’t you worried that tone will make you grow cat’s whiskers?” Nate shot back.
Terri had to cough to cover a laugh.
Frank gave Nate a glare, then walked away.
“It’s not good to anger a man wearing a firearm,” Terri said. Oh! but she was glad to see him. She thought that he’d join the Summer Hill crowd and never look back. She turned toward the tall man and the short, plump woman going at each other. Terri was standing as close as possible to Nate without touching him. “I hear you have a new house.”
Nate gave a grunt in answer. “Don’t you think those pot holders look great with that glass stuff?”
“Fine art with crude crafts?”
“I think they’re an excellent match.”
“Her proceeds go to charity.”
“I bet he could donate 10 percent,” Nate said.
Turning, they smiled at each other.
They looked at each other—and for a moment their fingers touched.
“I refuse to move!” the glass man shouted. “I will not give away my space no matter how much you beg.”
“Beg! Why you egocentric, selfish, elitist! I’ll—”
“Terri!” someone shouted. “A tent just fell into the lake and they can’t get it out. Could we use your boat?”
“Absolutely not!” she yelled back, then looked at Nate. “You play mediator and I’ll rescue a tent.”
“Lunch? One? House?”
With a nod, she took off running.
It didn’t take Nate long to settle the dispute between the two people. They both wanted the same thing—to sell their objects. Nate made them see that their variety of goods would bring in different clients. The man’s glass was so elegant that it would turn off the regular buyer. And her crafts were so crudely made that anyone in twenty-dollar shoes would walk away. Nate challenged the glass guy by saying he couldn’t make her things look good. Forty-five minutes later, they were like mother and son working together.
With a sigh of relief, Nate left them. Where to now? he thought. Anybody with guns he could separate? Or maybe a fistfight. Anything rather than have no excuse to stay away from Stacy and her parents and... And that house.
The reunion with Stacy—the woman he was to marry—had been awkward. Since no one was speaking to Nate, all his information about where people were going to be when had come through Bob. Nate was waiting in front of the mayor’s house when they returned from the airport.
Stacy, ever happy, ever enthusiastic, had leaped from the car and thrown her arms around Nate. She was smaller than he remembered, shorter, and she seemed almost fragile. But then, he’d had weeks with a woman who would grab the heavy end of a motorboat and lift it.
When she raised her face to his to kiss, he was glad. It seemed like months since he’d touched a woman. Days of yearning, of dreaming, of desiring. He opened his mouth over hers and—