It wasn’t easy for Nate to pull his mind away from his own problems, but Rowan looked awful. He had a big bandage on his forehead, a greenish eye and a bruise on his jaw. “You get shot again?”
“No. Blacked out and fell down the stairs, or the other way around. I don’t remember clearly.” He sat down on the opposite couch. “What about you? Last time I saw you, you were in a hospital. You looked better then than you do now.”
“Felt better then.”
“Ah,” Rowan said. “Your girl dump you?”
“Girls. Plural.”
Rowan raised his eyebrows. “That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard in days. Tell me about it.”
For a moment they sat in silence, two very handsome men, physical opposites. Rowan was as slender and lithe as Nate was big and solid. But both of them had eyes sunken with misery.
“I guess you could say I have memory problems too. I was in love with one woman, spent a couple of weeks with another one and could hardly remember the first one. First one won’t speak to me and the second one told me to come back in a year. I think your dad set me up with the second girl.”
Rowan gave a tiny bit of a smile.
Nate grinned. “The second girl, the one I like, has an old boyfriend coming back to town. Everyone likes him but the whole town wants to hang me from the courthouse.” When Rowan looked skeptical, Nate said, “First girl’s father is the local mayor.”
Rowan laughed. “I think maybe you win—or lose. So what are you going to do?”
“Can you arrest the old boyfriend? Hold him in prison for a year?”
“Is this year to allow the town to get over what you did to the mayor’s daughter?”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “And so Terri doesn’t have another mark against her in that damned town.”
“Is she the one you and I went to dinner with? Yes, and I know her. Stacy Hartman.” Rowan stood up. “Are you planning to stay here in DC or go back home?”
“Haven’t decided.”
“Who is the second girl?”
“Terri Rayburn from the lake.”
“I think I met her one time when I was with Dad. Tall girl? Can swim well?”
“Legs like a thoroughbred.” Nate stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor.
“You hungry? We can order in from a place down the road. They have a chopped kale salad that’s good. Or do you want a Taggert feast of meat on top of meat?”
When Nate looked up, there was a sparkle in his eyes. “Kale, huh?”
Rowan knew it was a joke at his expense, but it didn’t bother him. “If you’re no longer welcome in Summer Hill, what are you going to do to earn a living for the next year? Don’t you have an office there?”
Nate sat up on the couch. “A big one. Stacy modeled it on this apartment.” He looked at the white furniture with distaste. “She thinks this place is beautiful.”
“Yeah?” Rowan smiled. “I agree. Simple. Clean.”
“You remember the Stanton house?”
Rowan put his hand to his forehead. “Stanton house? Big place smack in town? Falling down but could be restored?”
“That’s it.”
Rowan opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of menus and looked through them. “That’s a great old house. I always liked it.”
Nate shook his head. “You like that house?”
“Very much.” Rowan handed Nate a menu. “Italian. Lots of meat. If you can’t read it, I can translate. Call and order while I take a shower.” He left the room.
Nate looked at the menu but didn’t see it. Likes kale, loves the Stanton house, his apartment is all white. Maybe Kit had been right in matching his son with Stacy. And maybe he’d been right in putting Nate in Terri’s house.
But Nate had messed it up. He’d been so jealous that Kit had given his son a beautiful young woman that Nate had... He took a breath. He’d done whatever he had to do to win her—including becoming someone he wasn’t. He didn’t want to think this was true, but maybe he’d tried to be a Montgomery—specifically, he’d tried to make himself into Rowan.
“I gave Stacy beer when she wanted champagne,” he whispered.
Rowan appeared in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Did you order?”
To Nate’s eyes, Rowan was too thin. In good shape, but with little muscle on him. But maybe that’s what Stacy liked. From the way she was always trying to get