Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [31]
Hugh stepped forward and spoke in his most professorial and phony voice. “Okay, okay, okay. There’s something I’ve been meaning to say. Ready?” Nadine nodded, even if nobody else did. Pregnant pauses were Hugh’s stock in trade. “You have a camel, a donkey, and a kangaroo…” Everybody had stopped their separate discussions to watch Zak and Kasey go at it, and now they were watching Hugh. “A camel, a donkey, and a kangaroo…and three naked ladies.” Hugh blushed and stepped directly across the fire as if he hadn’t seen it, tripped on one of the logs, then danced about as if he’d been burned. “You girls don’t mind a joke about naked ladies and kangaroos, do you?”
The eager look on his face cracked up nearly everyone. It was a welcome respite to the quarrel Zak and Kasey had been waging. The only one not amused was Scooter, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Nadine since her arrival.
Once the laughter died down, Hugh said, “No joke. This isn’t the time for jokes. I have a bet to make. I said it before and I’ll say it again. My guys can beat your guys. Up this road. Down this road. Anywhere you say.”
“Wait a minute,” Scooter said. “Are you talking about your guys on bikes and us in trucks?”
Nodding rapidly, Hugh said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. My guys can beat your guys. Up or down. I’ll betcha a hundred dollars.”
“That’s just stupid,” said Jennifer.
“No, no,” said Scooter. “Let’s do it.”
“I like it,” said Kasey. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not racing a truck up this hill,” said Stephens.
“Then we’ll race down,” said Scooter. “We’ll make it easy for you guys. We’ll race from here down to the center of the bridge.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Stephens. “That sounds safe. My bicycle bumping up against a truck. Who’s going to get killed in that scenario?”
“Then let’s make it a time trial,” said Scooter.
The cyclists all looked at one another until Giancarlo said, “I’ll do it.”
“A hundred bucks,” said Hugh.
Scooter stepped into the center of the group. “Why don’t we make it a thousand?”
13
May
Nadine was aware that her laughter was drawing looks from the other patrons, but she couldn’t stop herself. Who would have guessed the stoic fireman who’d saved her from a life in a motorized wheelchair and who had such a dour outlook on the world would be hiding this streak of humor? She not only loved listening to his stories but found that he liked hers, which was refreshing, because until she met Zak she hadn’t known any guys who were good listeners.
They’d played tennis again, their seventh time, on the indoor courts at Seattle University and now they were having brunch together, a habit established after that first match: coffee or brunch, one or the other, depending on how long they played and what each had scheduled for the day. She never did call the police about the break-in to her car, mostly because she was 99 percent certain the culprit was Scooter, who had a key and who was likely to pull just that sort of stunt if he caught her playing tennis with another man.
It had taken her more than a year to realize two things about William Potter III. First: even though he was financially secure for life, he was more adrift emotionally than just about anybody she knew. Second: he was a bully, pure and simple, and probably always would be. Once she’d cemented those facts into her thinking, she knew she had to break up with him, and she did it in May. Largely because she made the mistake of announcing it in his car, the breakup took almost four hours. They were parked near Chism Park on Lake Washington, and he told her he wasn’t going to take her home until she changed her mind. They argued for hours, but eventually he relented and took her home.
Even though Zak still wasn’t much of a challenge for her on the tennis court, she looked forward to her matches with him, as well as to the after-match coffee sessions. He was playing better now, and despite her strenuous attempt to skunk him, he’d managed to win a couple of games that morning. Zak was the only male she’d ever played who didn’t get irked when she whipped him. In fact, despite how hard