As a child he’d been the one chosen first for teams—and he’d used his popularity to help underdogs. He used to say that he’d only be on a team if some scrawny, nerdy kid could be with him. Helping people had always made Nate feel... Well, powerful. Needed.
During all the years with Kit, it had been Nate who calmed nerves. When Kit yelled, “Come!” people followed. But after they were there, it was Nate who took care of them. He solved problems and settled arguments. Kit could never be bothered with where people could get food and water.
The fact that Stacy’s parents had taken one look at Nate and curled their upper lips in distaste had jolted him. In the two weeks they’d spent visiting in DC, Nate had done everything he could to please them. He called in favors and got Mr. and Mrs. Hartman—there’d been no invitation to call them by less formal names—into museums after hours, backstage at plays. Mr. Hartman had a long meeting with the Virginia senator.
But none of it had made a difference. On the last night, a
t dinner at an elegant restaurant, Mrs. Hartman had picked up her salad fork and nodded to Nate. It took him a moment to understand that she was showing him the correct fork to use. After all his work over an exhausting two weeks, their opinion of him as a lower-class, uneducated Neanderthal had not changed.
As he pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, he didn’t get out. He just sat there, dreading what was to come.
He didn’t like their house. It was probably built in the 1940s, but had been greatly added onto over the years. It was now two stories, with a roof that jutted out supported by two tall columns.
Stacy had seen Nate’s face the first time he saw the house. “Isn’t it dreadful? But Dad grew up wanting the Stanton house and when he couldn’t get it, he tried to make his parents’ house as Stantony as possible.”
Whatever the reason, Nate truly disliked everything about it—especially the location. Right in town, stores on both sides of it. It was too public for his taste, but Llewellyn Hartman was the mayor of Summer Hill and he took the idea of being available to the citizens—his subjects—very seriously.
Nate put on his best diplomatic face, got out of his car, went to the door and rang the bell.
Mrs. Hartman greeted him. Like Stacy, she was a small woman, all pink and blonde, with porcelain skin that had always been protected from sun and weather. She gave a bit of a smile but it wasn’t real. She even aimed a kiss at his cheek but her lips didn’t touch him.
“We have other guests.” Her tone implied that Nate needed to be warned. Or what? He’d misbehave?
Nate followed her into the living room that he knew had been decorated by Stacy. She’d done her best to give it what she called “the Kennedy vibe.” Fabrics that looked worn, almost careless. Cottons, not silk. “Rich but not flaunting it,” she’d said.
Standing to one side of the room were two men and a woman. One was Llewellyn Hartman, a short man who probably weighed the same as he did in high school. He kept his shoulders back in an almost military stance, although Nate knew the man had never been in service.
Next to him was a taller man, about the same age, with a look of prosperity about him. Close by the men was a woman, also taller, slim, wearing half a dozen pieces of gold jewelry. Mrs. Hartman went to stand beside them.
All four of them were staring at Nate in silence. He’d been in some tough social situations before, but this could possibly be the worst. Did he introduce himself? Or should he knock over a crystal vase and reinforce what they seemed to think of him?
“Hello,” came a voice from behind him.
Turning, Nate saw a tall, thin young man, good-looking in a polished sort of way, his hand outstretched in welcome.
“I’m Bob Alderson and these silent rocks are my parents. In case you haven’t guessed, everyone is furious with you for having stolen the girl they wanted for me.”
“Really, Bob,” the taller woman said. “Do you have to be so crass?”
Nate shook the man’s hand, gratefully.
Bob put his hand on Nate’s shoulder, and said, “Don’t let them get you down. It was mutual with Stace and me, but they won’t believe that.” Bob grinned at the two sets of parents. “I’m starving. Let’s eat!”
They went into the dining room, and as Nate knew it would be, the table was set formally. When Nate had worked in DC, he’d sublet an apartment from a cousin who was temporarily working in Milan. It was a big place, all the furniture was upholstered in white. The tables, big and little, had glass tops. Stacy had loved it so much that he’d never had the heart to tell her that he hated it.
Every night when he got home from a job he detested, he’d been greeted by Stacy dressed as sweetly as a 1950s housewife. She’d made him an exquisite dinner of salad and some low-calorie protein and lots of steamed vegetables. He never told her that on days when he hit the gym, he ate a foot-long sub with some hot and spicy filling before he went home to her cute little dinner.
Meals with Stacy weren’t like the ones he’d shared with Terri. The rain outside, feet propped up, big slices of pizza, beer—and revealing confidences.
“Nathaniel,” Mrs. Hartman said, “you seem to be amused by something. Care to share it with us?”
He looked up. The Aldersons were across from him, their eyes accusatory. The Hartmans were at opposite ends of the table. Bob was beside him. Nate couldn’t come up with a reply.
“Carol,” Bob said to Mrs. Hartman, “I bet Nate is thinking about how sublime this frittata is. You have outdone yourself.”
Mrs. Hartman blushed with pleasure. “Oh, Bob, you’ve always been so charming.”
The implication was plain. By comparison, Nate was a thug.