Love in a Nutshell (12 page)

Once upon a time, this had been a top-of-the-line cottage, but that time had passed. The Nutshell’s upkeep had to be a bear by virtue of its size, not to mention its windy perch over Lake Michigan. Though Kate had limited Matt’s indoor tour the other night, he’d guess the house held at least six bedrooms, and probably more.

The place’s white paint was pulling away from its trim, its entry porch had begun to sag, and its silvery cedar shingles were becoming gap-toothed in places. The Nutshell had character, though. He liked that it was as quirky as its current resident.

The front door swung open, and Kate appeared. She wore dressy boots, snug jeans, a clingy red V-necked sweater, and had a huge brown leather purse slung over her shoulder. Matt slipped from behind the wheel and rounded his truck. He opened the passenger-side door for her and waited while she climbed on board.

“Was it this big last night?” she asked, clicking her seat belt into place as they pulled out of her drive.

“What?”

“Your truck. Last night is kind of a haze of stage fright, adrenaline, and punch, so my memories are fuzzy. But it’s like
Land of the Giants
in here. My feet barely even reach the floor.” Her smile was brief, but it still made him feel good. “So the standard question would be: Tell me, Culhane, are you compensating for something with this monster vehicle?”

He grinned. “I’ve never worried about compensating.”

“Really?”

“Want to check?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Kate said.

That was a flirtatious warning shot across her bow, she thought. She’d set it up, and he’d followed in kind. It was fun, but she didn’t want it to go further just yet. She dug through her purse and pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses.

“I probably shouldn’t talk again until I’ve had my second coffee,” she said. “Anything before that is the insomnia speaking.”

“Do you really have insomnia?”

She nodded. “I’m having a little mold problem. The place is filled with negative air blowers, and there are guys coming today to remove the damage and HEPA vacuum the place.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Mold problems can be really hard to fix. And expensive. Are you sure you don’t want to bail now? I was going to raze the structure anyway.”

Kate felt her jaw drop. “Excuse me— You want to destroy my family’s lake house so you can build some tourist trap of a restaurant? Are you serious? I will never, ever, ever let you get your hands on my house.”

“I think I pushed a button best left alone for now,” Matt said. “Would you consider coffee as a peace offering?”

She reached for the mug in her cup holder. “Coffee would be a wonderful peace offering. Sorry I snapped. If I don’t catch more than three hours of sleep in a row soon, I’m going to be giving Deena Bowen a run for her money in the cranky department. And it isn’t just the blowers. I wasn’t sleeping too well even before they arrived. All night long the house is filled with creaks and groans and whispers. At four in the morning, it sounds downright haunted. Not that I have issues or anything.” She took a swallow of coffee. “But enough of my neuroses. Why not tell me where we’re going besides that motel you mentioned.”

“First, we’ve got to head to my office,” he said.

“Bad news, then. We’re heading in the wrong direction.”

“My Traverse City office.”

She turned her face his way, and he had to focus on the road not to smile at how cute she was in the big glasses.

“Okay,” she said. “So you
do
have a secret life. Are you a spy? Is this one of those ‘I’m going to tell you but then I have to kill you’ road trips?”

Matt laughed. “You stand a better chance of being bored to death by my secret life. All the same, it’s mine and I choose to keep it among certain people. Now that I’m making you one of them, no sharing this with Ella or anyone else.”

“Deal,” she said. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me be in the know. I’ve been kind of low on friendships since I moved here, and I like having one with you. It’s…” She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “I don’t know, really special, I guess.”

It was to Matt, also, but he didn’t want to make the moment sappy. He went for one more kick of caffeine before setting the mug back in its holder. “Today, among other things, I have to pull the plug on a business relationship that hasn’t worked out.”

“What kind of business? Is it at least something dangerous or exotic?”

He smiled at the excitement in her voice. “Sorry to disappoint, but he’s another microbrewer. I gave him a rescue loan a few years back. The guy brews some great beer, and I didn’t want to see him go under. But good beer isn’t enough to be a success.”

“Do you lend money often?”

“When I feel it’s right. I wouldn’t be in business today without the help I got when I started.”

“That’s pretty cool of you, actually.”

“Don’t let word get out. I like it better being viewed as the tough guy in town.”

“So you have a full second life as a business investor.”

“It wasn’t in the plan, but accidentally, yeah.”

“So why not at least tell the people at Depot what you’re up to? It could save you a lot of grief.”

“The more success I’ve had … at least, success from a Keene’s Harbor viewpoint … the tougher it’s become to have any privacy. And you have to remember that I’m the guy they’ve had stories about since I was eight years old and painted a bunch of the town dogs bright orange at the start of hunting season.”

She laughed. “Makes sense to me.”

“It did to me, too. Especially since I’d lost a family pet to hunters a year earlier. But a legend was born, and it’s only gotten worse. I guess on one level, it’s cool that everyone cares enough to watch me. But on another, it’s tough to be under that level of scrutiny, even if it comes with a whole lot of love.”

*   *   *

KATE HAD
last been to Traverse City when she was sixteen. Back then, it had been a quaint place of cherry festivals in the summer and hot cider in the winter. Now, as she looked up Front Street, she saw it had become the home of bistros, film festivals, and Pan-Asian food. The city had grown up while she did, and apparently with fewer glitches than she’d experienced.

Matt pulled around a corner and then into a city parking lot behind a three-story redbrick building. Kate grabbed her bag and tried to find a graceful way to exit his ginormous, but apparently noncompensating, truck.

“I’m going to leave you with Ginger, my office manager, while I finish up business with Chet,” he said as they headed toward the building.

“You have an office manager? How many people work for you up here?”

“Just Ginger, and I let her choose her title. So long as people do their work, I’m happy to call them Galactic Emperor or Most Royal of Personages or whatever they want.”

Matt led her up to the building’s metal security door and opened it. “I’m leasing the space from the yoga studio below. It’s cheap rent, since it doesn’t put out a fancy public face, but I don’t need one of those.”

They reached the third floor and Matt opened the door to a suite marked only with its number and ushered her in. Behind a desk in the moderately sized reception area sat a movie star–looking, twenty-something redhead. She wore a red wrap dress with a plunging neckline, red lipstick that matched the dress, and just the right amount of mascara to show off thick black eyelashes over her green eyes.

“Kate, this is Ginger Monroe,” Matt said. “And Ginger, this is Kate Appleton.”

Ginger gave Kate a blatantly inquisitive look. “Hi.”

Kate returned the greeting, but tried to keep her curiosity under control.

“Is Chet here?” Matt asked Ginger.

“I sent him into your office. You might want to consider a bulletproof vest before you go in.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Matt shot a dubious look at the closed door. “Then he knows why he’s here. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.” He paused. “Or maybe even sooner.”

Kate settled into a guest chair and Ginger pulled open a desk drawer and brought out a semi-full bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. “Want some? They’ve got a good bite.”

“I love them, too, but I’m all about coffee at this hour,” Kate said.

Ginger nodded. “Okay.” Without pausing a beat, she added, “So, are you Matt’s new girlfriend?”

“No, I just started working for him last week.”

Kate suddenly realized how much longer it felt, and not in a bad way. No, this was more a
What did I do with myself before all this craziness?
feeling.

“Interesting,” Ginger said.

The conversation was starting to feel a little interesting to Kate, too. “So, Ginger, have you two ever dated?”

Ginger raised her eyebrows. “No! My dad would kill him. Dad was Matt’s high school football coach down in Keene’s Harbor. Matt was a big star, but that was ages ago. I was just a kid. And then Dad changed jobs and we moved up here.”

“Matt was a football star? Figures.”

Ginger grinned. “Doesn’t it? He was hot stuff. I guess he had a full ride to Michigan State, but then messed up his knee during baseball season his senior year of high school. He lost the scholarship and ended up working around town before he took off for a couple of years. Everything turned out fine, though.”

Just then the younger woman’s eyes widened, giving Kate an instant of forewarning before Matt’s office door slammed into the wall, and a short, heavy man whose skin color had risen to a shiny puce marched out of the office.

The purple man was sputtering so much he could barely choke out his words. “You’ll pay, Culhane,” he said.

Matt followed him out and remained admirably impassive. Kate wanted to learn how to do that, though she suspected she lacked the talent.

“I agree this is tough, Chet, but you know I’ve been more than fair,” Matt said.

The older man’s breathing was ragged, and he opened and closed his hands into fists. “Another six months wouldn’t have killed you. Instead, you’re killing me.”

“You have four weeks before I’ll be filing anything. Just work on those other possibilities, okay?”

Chet told Matt in graphic detail what
he
could work on, then stormed out.

*   *   *

DOING THE
right thing and doing the easy thing didn’t seem to be lining up too well for Matt these days.

“I would have given Chet more time if I could have,” he said to Kate, who sat next to him in the truck as they headed to his next appointment. “But I need to think about my cash reserves and my business. The slow season is coming on. It’s going to hurt to take any more financial hits. I hate to be a survivalist, but it’s better it’s Chet’s business than mine, especially when he’s been in default for over a year.”

“There’s nothing else you could have done,” she said.

“But there is. I should have pulled the plug on his financing last year. I built up expectations that I’d just keep letting this slide.” He shook his head. “Big mistake.”

Kate eyes narrowed. “Does that mean you’re thinking of pulling the plug on our deal? You gave me until Thanksgiving to come up with the money, and if you try to back out, I’ll make Chet look like Gandhi.”

Matt laughed. “You caught him at an off moment. He’s not usually so purple.”

“Good news there, or he’ll be among the spirits pretty soon. One little vein in the brain goes
ping,
and it’s all over.”

Matt knew the feeling, even if he hadn’t yet achieved Chet’s color of purple. All the same, bringing a measure of calm and sanity into his life was now part of his game plan.

“True,” Matt said. “And the good news is that no one is purple at our next stop, though Travis is pretty tatted up.”

“And tatted Travis is…”

“The owner of Horned Owl Brewing and my newest project. Great concepts, but bad business decisions. Bart is spending today and tomorrow with him to go over his beer recipes and maybe tweak ’em where they need tweaking. Nothing too big.”

He wasn’t about to clue her into the other activity about to take place at Horned Owl. One that had occurred to him early this morning. Matt wasn’t totally up to speed on it, but he knew that surprise was crucial.…

NINE

Kate felt as though her fillings were going to fall out as Matt’s truck slammed and rattled down a pitted gravel road in the middle of nowhere. “Are you sure this is really the road to the microbrewery?”

“Positive,” Matt said. “It’s also the first of three issues that have been tanking Travis’s business.”

Kate couldn’t wait to see the other two.

“Do you think maybe you should slow down a little?”

“No way. Then we’d feel every rut in the road.”

Being airborne didn’t seem much better, but Kate also knew not to mess with a man on a mission.

“Hang on,” Matt said, skittering around a hairpin turn. “It gets a little rough right here.”

Kate’s gasp was involuntary, and she wasn’t real thrilled about the grin that appeared on Matt’s face in response as she fought the urge to brace her feet against the dashboard. “Very Indiana Jones of you,” she said. “I should have brought my bullwhip.”

Matt’s eyebrows raised a half inch. “Do you have a bullwhip?”

Kate smiled sweetly. Ms. Mysterious.

“Kinky,” Matt said, “but I can deal.”

He swerved around an unusually deep rut, barely missing a tree. They made a hard right turn onto a narrow ribbon of a drive. All that marked it as more than a trail was a huge, sour-faced plastic owl on a post.

“Horned Owl issue number two,” Matt said. “If you’ve got a customer ambitious enough to come back here, get a sign. Don’t scare them off with a weird fake owl.”

Now that they were traveling at normal speed, Kate took a look around. She imagined that the woods were lush and green in the summer. On this crisp autumn day, though, the maples were turning crimson and yellow, with the oaks not far behind. Only the scrubby jack pines still held much green.