Janet Evanovich - Love in a Nutshell

“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.

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 her shoulder while she corralled a few more chips. “Started early, and lots of both.”

“I’m sorry to say, then, that your meal has all the earmarks of a pity party.”

Kate smiled at Ella’s answer. They had become friends as teenagers, sneaking Strawberry Breeze wine coolers behind the then-abandoned train station. Ella had always been the brainy one of the pack. Kate had gone on to a middling college and lots of parties. Ella had cruised through Harvard and then moved on to Stanford for law school with every intention of becoming a professor. She’d changed course a couple of years ago and joined her family’s law practice in town. Ella’s family had been lawyering in Keene’s Harbor since the late 1800s.

Kate dug around in the bottom of the bag for a chip. “I’m going to continue to think of my meal as decadent pampering.”

“A handful of chips is pampering. A bag is pity-scarfing. I heard that plastic crinkling. What’s going on?”

“I’m never going to get this house fixed. What do you know about warped floorboards?”

“Sounds like you’ve got a water leak. The water gets trapped under the wood, causing it to expand, and it buckles to relieve the pressure.”

Kate sucked in her breath. “Great. A water leak. I’ll call a plumber tomorrow and see if he can find the problem.”

“So,” Ella said, “not to change the subject, but I had lunch at Bagger’s yesterday. How’d you get Matt Culhane to give you a job?”

Kate refilled her wineglass. “Equal parts desperation and determination. And the end result seems to be a whole lot of suffering on my part.”

“I don’t see how a person could suffer too much with Culhane to look at,” Ella said.

“The suffering comes from running Hobart, the dishwasher from hell. As for my boss, I’ll admit he’s a stellar decorative item, when he’s around. But really, after Richard, I’m not looking at men as anything more than decorative. There are good substitutes for any of their other uses.”

“Ouch! That’s a little bitter.”

And a lot easier to say to Ella than it would’ve been to Matt when he was handling her cauliflower, but Kate was determined to keep her head on straight.

“I’m going to continue to think of it as a practical attitude,” she said. “As a species, men are great-some of my favorite people. But I need to sort out a whole lot of stuff before I date, let alone do anything else, ever again.”

“Okay, I can agree with that. I’ve taken the celibacy pledge until I can bring in enough work to support the salary Dad insists on giving me. Not that there’s anyone around here to date, in any case. Except Matt Culhane,” Ella added in a teasing voice.

“So, anyway, how’s work?” Kate asked.

“Pretty much how you’d expect it to be when working with a father, a brother, and two cousins. Wonderful, except when it’s not. And then, at least we all still love each other. The other day-”

Kate was distracted by the crunch of tires on the gravel drive out front of the cottage. She set aside her wineglass and stood.

“Hang on,” she said to Ella. “I think someone’s here.”

“Out there? You’re kidding.”

The drive to The Nutshell was a good, winding stretch off the road just inland from the shore. People didn’t end up at her door by accident.

“Wish I were,” Kate said.

A ratty black T-shirt emblazoned with the words SEX AND BEER in fat white block print, and plaid flannel sleep pants so worn that they were frayed over her knees weren’t exactly “meet the visitor” wear.

Then again, who could possibly be visiting her? Her wine buzz was swept away on a sea of adrenaline.

“Don’t hang up,” she whispered to Ella.

“Why would I? And why are you whispering?”

Kate nudged aside the lighthouse-themed curtain that covered the front door’s window and peeked outside. A pair of truck-height headlights shone directly into her eyes. She let the curtain drop and turned the door’s dead bolt.

Her visitor’s vehicle had come to a stop. “Don’t know,” Kate said to Ella. “I’m just a little edgy. You’re the only one who’d be out here, and you’re there.”

“Okay, you have a point,” Ella said. “Should I dial the police on my cell?”

“A lot of good that will do when I’m way out here.”

The truck’s headlights were off. Kate scurried to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife she could find in the knife block.

“Single girl. Lake house. Mysterious midnight intruder. This is so straight out of Friday the 13th, ” she told Ella.

Kate glanced at thrlanced e serrated bread knife in her hand. Great. She’d have to saw the prowler to death.