Manhunting (10 page)

“Thank you,” Kate said, repressing her retort so she could hear the rest of the story. “So what happened next?”

“Well, I was divorced and was making more than I could ever spend, and I was living in the city instead of Toby’s Corners, so it was like Monopoly money for me. For a couple of years, I played the market I lost a little, won a lot, lost a little, won a lot. It was fun. Like playing a game.”

Jake had fallen silent so Kate nudged him with her foot again.

“Go on,” she prompted.

“Well,” he said slowly, “meanwhile back here, Will was taking correspondence courses in hotel management, planning to open up this old eight-cabin motel that had been deserted for as long as anybody could remember. Since he was in Toby’s Corners instead of the city, he used his money to buy up some land and repair the cabins, which of course was a really dumb investment by city standards. The family dug up some old furniture to fill them up, and he advertised and some vacationers showed up. He built some more cabins, and then he borrowed from the bank and put in the little golf course behind them. Things went pretty well for him, but he wasn’t making what the city would call real money. He was just giving some people around here some jobs and supporting himself. Barely.”

“So you were in the fast lane, and he was in the slow,” Kate said.

“Well, Will and I always were different,” Jake said. “Although actually, it’s usually been the other way around. I’ve always been a loper, and he’s always been a sprinter. But I couldn’t wait to get out of here, and he couldn’t stand to leave.”

“So how did you end up back here mowing lawns?”

“I’m getting to that,” Jake said. “You sure you’re interested in this?”

“Fascinated,” Kate said.

Jake drank another slug of beer. “Where was I? Oh yeah, Will was hiring some people from the town to work up here, and as the place got bigger, so did the size of the staff. Pretty soon, he was the local tycoon. So when everything went to hell, they came to him.”

“Went to hell?”

“Well, most of our people worked at the plant over at Tuttle,” Jake said. “Little town, about fifteen miles north of here?”

Kate remembered it vaguely from her drive down—a lost, gray place full of empty stores and houses. “What happened?”

“Plant closed. Owners moved the whole operation to Mexico.”

“Ouch,” Kate said. “How many jobs?”

“About three hundred, give or take a few,” Jake said. He looked grim for a minute. “They just moved out; no warning at all.”

“So what happened?” Kate said.

“Well, people started showing up, asking Will for work, but of course, there was no way he could hire that many people. But they were all looking at him, and you know Will.” Jake looked over at her. “Well, actually, you don’t know Will. He thinks he’s everybody’s daddy, Will does.”

Kate thought about Will and Valerie taking over Nancy’s bar. “But...”

“But what?”

“Never mind.” Kate shook her head, confused. “What happened next?”

“Oh, he did what he always did when we were kids and he got into trouble—he called me.”

“And you saved the day.”

Jake snorted. “Hell, no. I was clueless and told him so. And he said he didn’t want a clue, he wanted money. A lot of it. And he asked me to fix him up with some investment types so he could build a resort that would keep people in jobs.”

“Oh,” Kate said. “This changes the way I look at the resort.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Every time I look at that damn plywood Taj Mahal, I think about the jobs, and I shut up.”

“So you found him the backers.”

“No,” Jake said, taking another drink from his can. “I just gave him all the money I had and came home.”

“You must have had a lot of money.”

“Will was impressed,” Jake said.

“This resort employs three hundred people?”

“Well, it did while it was being built,” Jake said. “And then with all the people coming in, the stores in town started to do a nice business in antiques and crafts and that kind of crap. And every time Valerie stages one of her stunts like that godawful luau, we hire everybody for miles around to help out. All in all, Will pretty well saved old Toby’s Corners.”

“Will and you,” Kate corrected him.

“Nope,” Jake said, pulling his hat back over his eyes. “Just Will. It was pure dumb luck that I was on a major roll in the market right then. Another time, I could have been flatter than roadkill.”

“And you don’t ever think about going back,” Kate said.

“Nope.”

“You must have been pretty good,” Kate said. “To have made all that money, I mean.”

Jake tilted his hat back and glared at her. “Well, I don’t have any now, so don’t start getting ideas.”

“Like what?” Kate asked, stung.

“Like I’m a Yuppie you might be interested in.”

Kate was speechless for a moment.

“I know your kind, lady,” Jake said. “You eat guys like me for breakfast. Well, forget it. I’m broke.” He went back under his hat.

Kate considered kicking him, but decided it would be unladylike. “You know, I find it absolutely amazing that this boat doesn’t sink under the weight of your ego.”

“Ha.”

“The only reason I might possibly be interested in you is because you helped your brother save this town. Since you obviously didn’t, there is absolutely nothing about a shaggy, lazy, arrogant, macho blowhard like you to attract me.”

“Shaggy?”

“Your hair and your mustache need trimming.”

“Now, see,” Jake said. “That is just the kind of attitude that made me leave the city.”

“Also that cowboy hat is ridiculous.”

“Hey.” Jake tipped the hat back. “Will gave me this hat. It is not ridiculous.”

“Why would he give you a dumb hat?”

“Because he said I was a hero,” Jake mumbled.

“What?”

“He said if I was going to act like a guy in a white hat and rescue everybody, I should have a white hat,” Jake said.

Kate laughed softly, and he glared at her.

“So that’s why you wear it all the time,” Kate said. “You big fake.”

“What?”

“You love being back here and knowing you’re half of the save-the-day Templeton brothers. You wear that hat because you’re proud of being a big hero. And then you go around saying, ‘Aw, shucks, ma’am, it twern’t nothin,’ and insulting perfectly innocent people from the city like me.”

“You are not perfectly innocent,” Jake said.

“I certainly am,” Kate said. “I can’t believe you think I’d make a play for you just because you have money.”

“I don’t have any money,” Jake said.

“Well, I do,” Kate said. “Lots of it.”

“How much?” Jake said. “I may make you start paying for the beer.”

“Not unless I get to drink some of it,” Kate said. “Did you really think I’d jump you for your money?”

“I have it on good authority that you’re up here looking for a rich businessman,” Jake said. “That ain’t me.”

“What good authority?” Kate said, startled.

“Valerie told Will.”

“Oh, hell,” Kate said.

Jake shook his head. “Women.”

“Well, that was the idea I was talking about,” Kate said. “The one that seemed great in the city and stupid here.”

“Stay out of cities,” Jake advised. “They have a worse effect on your brain than they do on mine.”

“Well, it wasn’t completely stupid,” Kate said. “I’m thirty-five. I want to get married, and that stuff they kept telling me about the right man suddenly appearing before me just wasn’t happening. So I decided to get serious about it.”

“And you came down here to get engaged to a suit,” Jake said.

“No, I’ve been engaged to suits. Three of them. I came down here to find someone I could seriously consider marrying.” Kate looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You are not him. Relax and drink your beer.”

“You were engaged three times?” Jake started to laugh. “What made them leave?”

“They didn’t. I did.” Kate tried to look detached and failed miserably. “I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.”

“I still don’t get why you came down here. Why didn’t you just go down to a nice big investment-banking firm and hang around the men’s room until somebody who looked good came out?”

“Fine, laugh at me,” Kate said. “At least I’m doing something about my empty life instead of mowing lawns and hiding out on lakes.”

“I don’t mow the lawns,” Jake said. “I supervise other people mowing lawns. It’s a management-level position. Also I own half of the resort, but the investment isn’t liquid so you’re not interested.”

“I don’t care if it’s vapor. I’ll never be interested.” Kate glared at him. “I can’t believe I’m listening to this.”

“Also, don’t look now, but you’re hiding out on this lake, too, kiddo. We are both, so to speak, in the same boat.”

“Yes, but this afternoon, I will be pursuing my plan while you go rot in the azaleas.”

“We don’t have azaleas,” Jake said. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Shopping in town with Donald Prescott, who is a stockbroker and possibly the man of my dreams,” Kate said.

“No, he’s not,” Jake said.

“Excuse me,” Kate said, “but I will determine my own dreams. You, by the way, are not in them.”

“He’s not a stockbroker,” Jake said. “You really can pick them.”

“He says he’s a stockbroker,” Kate said.

Jake looked at her sadly. “Do not believe everything men tell you, dummy,” he said. “He’s a scout for Eastern Hotels. He’s here to hire Valerie away from Will.”

Kate blinked. “What’s Will doing about it?”

“Praying that he hurries up,” Jake said.

“Aren’t they engaged?”

Jake snorted. “Who told you that fairy tale?”

“Valerie.”

Jake closed his eyes. “Well, I warned him.”

“What?”

“Forget Will and Valerie. Explain to me this plan of yours so I can avoid it.”

“You’re not even in the running,” Kate said. “I’m looking for someone tall, successful and distinguished.”

“I’m tall,” Jake said.

“You slump,” Kate said. “Forget it.”

“So tell me again why you came here of all places?”

“My best friend sent me. She thought it was a great idea. She, of course, is not here and has never been here, so she didn’t realize I’d end up on a lake with a bozo like you.”

“And this friend is an expert on men?”

“Jessie? Good heavens, no. She dates even bigger losers than I do.” Kate surveyed him critically. “She’d like you.”

“On that note,” Jake said, “I am going to sleep. Wake me up when it’s time for your date with Donald.”

“I certainly will,” Kate said. “It’s going to be wonderful, and I don’t want to miss a moment.”

At two, Kate met Donald and Penny and a new friend of Penny’s named Brian, and they all drove into town together.

The town was wonderful.

Donald was awful.

He was tall, looming over her in his designer suit. He was distinguished, his cologne discreetly exclusive, his hair cut strand by strand by a trendy stylist. He was successful, everything about him shrieking designer labels and money. He was detached, reserved and worldly. And he was, above all, what Kate would once have called discerning.

By the end of the afternoon, she had acquired a different, unprintable adjective for him.

They went first into a store called The Toby’s Corners Shop. It was crammed floor to ceiling with gifts and souvenirs in colors Mother Nature never made, and Kate drew back, her good taste offended by the cheapness of it all. Penny picked out a pink stuffed dog with a tag around his neck that said “Toby,” and Brian bought it for her. She hugged him to thank him, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy and hugged back.

Donald was patient while they looked through the store, although he told them firmly in a voice that carried from one end of the place to the other that the store was just an overpriced tourist trap. The little old man who ran it looked wounded, so Kate bought Jessie a neon-purple T-shirt that said “Somebody Went To Toby’s Corners And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt,” and an ashtray for her father that looked like a dog leaning against a tree.

“I really love your shop,” she told the old man to make up for Donald, and he smiled at her and thanked her and told her about how he and his wife had been running it for almost two years now, to help with their retirement.

Donald waited with ill-disguised patience by the door.

Then they went into The Corners Art Gallery and looked at walls hung with garish landscapes. Kate tried hard to think about all the work that had gone into the paintings instead of about how bad they were. Donald examined the paintings closely. “Amateur brushwork,” he announced. “Paint By Numbers stuff.” The young man behind the counter looked ready to defend his art with his fists, so Kate asked if he had any pictures of the lake and bought one that featured the willow in soft shades of green.

“This is beautiful,” she told the young man. “I love this part of the lake, and now I’ll always have it with me.”

“My mom painted that,” he said. “I’ll tell her what you said. She’ll be real happy.”

Donald snorted.

They went into Mother’s Sewing Basket and looked at locally made quilts and coverlets. Penny found a crazy quilt in shades of yellow. “This would look great on my bed,” she said. Brian grew pale at the thought and moved closer to her. “Cheap fabric,” Donald said. “They’re using polyester instead of cotton.” The little old woman stitching by the window looked ready to cry, so Kate bought a peach-and-blue comforter for her apartment.

“I’ve never had a real patchwork quilt before,” she told the old woman. “This will keep me warm all winter.”

“It will that,” the old woman said, and patted her hand.

Donald sneered.

They went into Cline’s Dry Goods and found rows of cotton and flannel shirts in bright plaids, stacks of dark blue jeans, and piles of socks, white T-shirts, and underwear that Donald snickered at. They also found, to Penny’s delight, a rack of cowboy hats.

Mrs. Cline came out from behind the counter to help her.

“You’re so pretty, you’ll look a treat in any of them, honey,” she told Penny. “It’s a real pleasure to see you try them on.”

Penny beamed at her and tried on a blue one with golden feathers around the crown.