Love in a Nutshell - Janet Evanovich [18]
Matt grabbed a slice of pepperoni from the pan. “I don’t think so. She’s new to town. Her name’s Kate Appleton.”
“Hmmm … Is she Larry and Barb’s youngest?” his mother asked.
Matt looked up, intrigued that his mother might know Kate’s parents. “I don’t know.”
“Short, cute, long and curly blond hair?” his mother asked.
In Matt’s estimation, Kate had also gone from cute to sexy. Not that his mom needed to know that. “Short, with short blond hair.”
“I’ll bet that’s Kate, all grown up. And you’d know Larry if you saw him,” his mother said. “He always used to have his Saturday morning coffee with the group in the hardware store.”
Maura smiled at her brother. “Matt didn’t like working Saturday mornings. It cramped his Friday night style.”
“Well, back when we’d spend our Friday nights together at Bagger’s Tavern, I remember Barb being quite the social butterfly. Great singing voice, too,” his mother said.
“As I recall, Larry was a bigwig in the auto industry,” his dad added.
“Advertising,” his mom corrected.
“Cars,” Dad said.
His mother patted his father’s hand where it rested on the table. “No matter. They were good people, though they haven’t been around much in recent years. They own that big old house, The Nutshell. Sits right at the end of Loon Road, on the cusp of the lake, and has a great view of the bird sanctuary across the way.”
Matt stopped eating. “That’s Larry and Barb’s house?”
He knew the house well. He owned the mortgage. The owner was three months behind on the loan and his lawyer had already begun the foreclosure process. He was the jerk evicting Kate Appleton from her bed-and-breakfast.
Matt wanted to ask for more details, but he knew that would tip off his family to the fact that Kate had caught his attention, and in a big way, too. Matt looked toward the front windows, where the iron crow ornaments were silhouetted in the setting sun. He pushed away from the table and went to get one.
“Mind if I take this?” he asked his mother.
“Of course not. Are you actually going to start decorating your house? I could come over with the spare decorations up in the attic, and—”
“Thanks, but all I want is the bird,” he said before she could offer up anything else.
Matt returned to his seat, moved the bunny away from his water glass, and put the crow in its place. The ornament was really kind of creepy, with feet too big to ever work and corroded spots that gave it a diseased look. No matter. Kate was either going to understand the spirit of his peace offering or think he was nuts.
FOUR
Night had fallen. Kate sat on the overstuffed floral chintz sofa in The Nutshell’s circa 1976 living room. She’d left the room’s beach-facing windows open enough that a crisp breeze pushed through them. As a teen, when she’d been feeling a little blue, this couch had been her landing spot. While Kate wasn’t blue, exactly, she did feel the need to decompress. Between the cooler incident, the market nonmeeting, and a wild dinner shift that had followed, she was tapped out. A half-eaten bag of chocolate chips and an equally depleted bottle of white wine, along with its glass, sat on the oak coffee table in front of her. She’d had a decompression fest.
To make matters worse, there was something wrong with her living room floor. The floorboards on the western side of her house, next to the master bedroom, had buckled, bowing upward. She had noticed it a week ago and moved a heavy armoire to the affected area in order to flatten the wood. But it had only gotten worse, much worse.
Kate suddenly felt a twinge of late-night loneliness. She picked up the telephone and dialed her friend Ella Wade. Ella answered on the third ring.
“Chocolate chips and Chenin blanc for dinner aren’t necessarily signs of a pity party, are they?” Kate asked.
“I think that depends on the hour and the quantity consumed,” Ella said.
Kate rested the phone between her ear and