Met Her Match - Jude Deveraux Page 0,51

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?”

“It was usually a big box of chocolates. But one year, one of the booth owners, Mrs. Preston from the knitting shop, was down with the flu and her booth was closed. Dad said to skip her on the card.”

“Let me guess. Billy didn’t do that.”

“No. He was eleven years old and—”

“Same age as you?”

“Yes. Same as Stacy and me. That year, Billy rode his bike miles into the country and banged on Mrs. Preston’s door until she got out of bed and answered it. She told him to go away but he insisted she sign his card.”

“Which made him the only one who had a full card.”

“Right. But when Dad gave him the box of chocolates, Billy said, ‘Is this all I get?’”

“Ungrateful, huh?”

“Very. But that was the first year that Mr. Stanley Cresnor was there.”

“Cresnor Industries. Billions.”

“Exactly. And he was in a bad mood because his wife had dragged him away from work for a vacation at a lake. He muttered, ‘What’d’ya want, kid?’”

“Ah,” Nate said. “Shortened to Widiwick?”

“Yes.”

“So what did young Billy ask a billionaire for? A jet?”

“No.” For a moment Terri looked into the distance and the way her eyes softened made Nate feel an emotion he hardly recognized: jealousy. If no one had told him that at one time Terri and Billy had been a couple, he would have known it then. “Billy asked to go to a big store in Richmond and buy all the toys he could put into a cart in four and a half minutes.”

Nate leaned back against his chair. “Wow. That is some ambitious kid.”

Terri smiled. “Mr. Cresnor was so amused by the idea that he agreed. I mean, how much could one kid get in four and half minutes, right? But he underestimated Billy.”

“I’m beginning to like this kid.”

“He’s one of a kind, that’s for sure. The event was

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