“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 to say so he hung up.
Moments later, his phone made the ding for a text message. It was from Kit. Ask Della about Leslie.
Nate dropped the phone onto the bed as if it had caught fire. “No!” he said aloud, his frown so deep his eyebrows were nearly touching.
“No, no, no.” He’d had all the mysteries he wanted in his lifetime. Twelve years of them! Digging and researching and finding out who was doing what and why. That was Kit’s love, not his.
All Nate wanted was peace. He wanted to marry the girl he was madly in love with, set up retirement plans for people and make some babies. Peace. No more midnight runs. No more danger.
As he climbed into bed, he punched the pillow. He’d thought Kit had put him in a house with a pretty young woman because of... What? Some temptation before Nate got married?
But it looked like it had to do with some damned mystery.
Nate calmed himself. He needed sleep. There was no telling what was planned for him to do tomorrow. He tried to think of good things. What was it Terri had said? That her father wanted to adopt him.
Beats Mr. Hartman, he thought. Stacy’s father looked at Nate like he might accidentally knock the china cabinet over.
As Nate dozed off, he remembered Terri’s dad saying, Della Kissel tells us about everybody. The Gossip Queen. She had the same last name as the people who used to own the lake. Guess that meant she’d always lived there—which meant she’d heard and seen it all.
“Get out of my head, Kit Montgomery,” Nate murmured for the millionth time in his life, then finally went to sleep.
* * *
The next morning, Terri heard Nate moving around in the kitchen and within minutes the divine smell of coffee filled her bedroom. Last night, when she’d heard his low voice on the phone, she told herself she should shut the door. But she didn’t.
She lay in bed and listened to the sound—if not the words—of his voice. It had been years since a man had talked to her in that low, sexy rumble. It was intimacy that hinted at things to come.
The only time she’d had that closeness had ended so badly that she hadn’t risked it again. Since then, there had been a couple of men who’d let her know they wanted something more permanent than just dating. But Terri had always backed away. She’d learned that a joke at a serious moment, running off to work or even a yawn could stop what he had been about to say.
As she listened—felt—Nate’s voice, she told herself she was jealous. The Stacy Hartmans got it all. Cute, vivacious blondes with rich fathers seemed to own