“No, I didn’t,” Kate said, stung. “I just walked out of the lake, put on my shift, and went back to the cabin.”

“You let some guy see you in the nude?” Jessie shrieked.

“Well, it’s not as if no man had ever seen me naked before,” Kate said.

“Full frontal nudity in broad daylight with a complete stranger?”

“Jessie, it was just Jake.”

“Just Jake.” Jessie was silent for a minute. “Did he say anything?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “He said that I’d improved his morning. Now tell me about the cake.”

Jessie started to laugh again. “How are you ever going to face this guy again?”

“I spent the rest of the morning on the lake with him,” Kate said. “He’s teaching me to play pool tonight. He’s just a friend. That’s all. Not part of the plan. But speaking of the plan, I went horseback riding with a very nice man this afternoon who may be perfect.”

“You were on a horse?”

“Certainly,” Kate said. “Eric showed me how. He was very patient.”

“You went horseback riding?”

“Well, not exactly.” When Jessie didn’t say anything, Kate sighed and went on. “The horse kicked him in the knee, so we had to go to the emergency room-” She stopped because Jessie was laughing again. “Stop it. He was a wonderful man.”

“Well, he’s not dead, just lame,” Jessie said. “Tell me more about Jake.”

“I’m not interested in Jake,” Kate said.

“Well, I might be,” Jessie said. “He sounds great. How old is he?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said, annoyed. “Late thirties, maybe.”

“Married?”

“Divorced,” Kate said. “From an assistant district attorney named Tiffany who was great in bed.”

“My, my, my,” Jessie said. “Tell me more.”

“No,” Kate said. “He’s not your type. I have to go. I have to get ready to bartend. And then I have to call Eric and see how he’s feeling because he has real potential for my plan. And tomorrow, I’m going out with an environmentalist named Rick, whom even Jake says is a great guy.”

“Jake, again. Are you sure he’s not my type?”

“Absolutely,” Kate said.

“Does he have any brothers?”

“Will,” Kate said. “He’s younger than Jake, very good-looking, extremely nice, wears a suit like a GQ cover, runs the hotel almost by himself, and is considered a local hero by the town because he saved the place single-handed. Come on down. I’ll introduce you.”

“A suit? No thanks, but he sounds like the perfect guy for you,” Jessie said. “You could run the hotel together.”

“Will?” Kate thought about it. “No. He’s darling, but he’s not for me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Kate was annoyed again. “He’s practically engaged to this barracuda named Valerie. And he’s not… I don’t know.”

“He sounds like your plan in the flesh,” Jessie said. “I’d go for it if I were you and if I were still committed to following an extremely dubious plan that I should have dumped days ago.”

“This plan is going to work,” Kate said. “Now I have to go. I’m bartending tonight.”

“Call me tomorrow,” Jessie said. “I want to know what happens with Ron.”

“Rick.”

“Whatever. And give Jake my love. Tell him I can’t wait to meet him.”

“I told you. He’s not your type,” Kate said and hung op to the sound of Jessie’s laughter.

I don’t know what she thinks is so funny, Kate thought, and then dismissed Jessie from her mind as she opened her suitcase to find something to wear.

Black underwear? She found some sheer stuff embroidered with pink and gold flowers. Classy. Her black straight skirt was calf-length, and on an impulse, she took her nail scissors and cut it off above the knee. She took down her hair, and then because her head looked sort of vulnerable under all those curls, she put on her black cowboy hat before she went out the door.

She stopped on the top step. Her car was gone. She’d left it at Nancy ’s the night before when she’d had too many beers to drive. Now what? Did she call Nancy? Walk? What?

After a little thought, she sat down on the top step to wait. He wasn’t distinguished, discerning, or successful, but he was dependable. Jake, she knew, would remember she had no car and would come to get her.


? ? ?

At seven-thirty, Jake got into his car to go to Nancy ’s and found one of Kate’s shoes in the front seat. Terrific. Her car was down at the bar. He sighed and drove to Kate’s cabin, pretending an exasperation that he really wasn’t feeling. When he pulled up in front, she was sitting on the cabin steps in a tight, short skirt, waving at him. She had very nice, very long legs, he noticed. She would be collecting some hefty tips. And probably a few hefty passes. He felt a faint concern, which he told himself was solely for the men of his town.

Kate got in and smiled at him. “I was getting ready to walk, but then I realized you’d show up and rescue me. I’m very grateful. And I’m giving up drinking forever so you won’t have to bring me home.”

“No problem,” he said. “Just do me a favor and try not to make a date with anybody from town tonight. The population’s pretty small as it is.”

“Very funny,” Kate said.

Jake grinned. “Speaking of you and men, what did you do to Allingham this afternoon?”

“Nothing,” Kate said.

“I saw the rescue squad.”

“The horse kicked him.”

“You sure you left those three guys you were engaged to?” Jake said. “Have their bodies been found?”

“Just drive,” Kate said.


Nancy handed her a tank top and vest as she came through the door. “You’re a professional now. Here’s the uniform.”

When she put them on in the storeroom, the tank top was a little tighter than she would have chosen, the vest a little looser. Who cared? She was in Toby’s Corners, and she was going to have fun.

“I feel like Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy” she told Nancy as she tilted her hat back. “Except taller, fatter, older, and blonde.”

“Other than that, you’re a dead ringer,” Nancy agreed, handing her a tray with six beers on it. “The hat’s a nice touch. Keep it on. This goes to the corner table at the front. Watch the guy in the bowling shirt. He has hands. Oh, and the records you wanted for the plan are in the back. You can take them back to the cabin with you for tonight, if you want.”

“I want,” Kate said. “I’m really looking forward to this. I love financial planning.”

“I’d rather shoot myself in the foot,” Nancy said. “But each to his own, I guess.”

“Well, right now my own is being a barmaid,” Kate said, checking her hat in the mirror. “I’m going to be great.”

She felt great. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her body round in the low-cut tank top, her face flushed from the heat and exercise. She would never have planned to look that way, but she found after her first embarrassment that being riotously feminine was intoxicating. She knew she looked good because of the way the men looked at her, a way she wasn’t used to. She was used to cool, approving looks that evaluated her like she was an expensive piece of porcelain. The men at Nancy’s looked at her like she was flesh and blood. It was disconcerting and fun. She felt powerful instead of possessed, appreciated instead of coveted. She tilted her hat back and smiled at everyone, practicing her own version of the friendly, mild flirting that Nancy used on every male she met; and the men were responsive to a flattering degree. The women, she found, were just plain friendly. She felt happy and curiously alive. The only plan she had in mind now was the one for Nancy ’s bar.

However, being a barmaid, Kate discovered, wasn’t all bounce and smile. The bonuses were the friendly people, the cheerful atmosphere, the tips, and working with Nancy. The downside was the constant walking and the hands.

“Just move around them, honey,” Thelma, one of the barmaids advised her. “If they connect, spill a little beer on them.”

Sally, the other barmaid, pointed out the worst offenders. “Give them their drinks from across the table. They’ll look down your bra, but they won’t be able to reach you.”

Nancy showed her how to mix drinks, draw beer, and work the register. Kate concentrated like she hadn’t since college, learning not only the names of the drinks but the names of the customers and what they drank. When Jake’s Uncle Early, a potbellied man in a stained shirt, came to the bar and said, “Another one, please,” she said, “Gin,” and poured.

Nancy was impressed. She was even more impressed when she realized that Kate could do it with anyone by their third drink.

“How’d you do that?” she asked.

“Mnemonics,” Kate said. “It’s the way I got through college. You make up a sentence that links the two words. You know, it’s too Early for Gin.”

Nancy shook her head. “Amazing.”

“I think I’ve got the hang of it.” Kate felt absurdly proud.

“I think so, too.” Nancy handed her two beers. “Jake and Ben. They’re due.”


? ? ?

Kate threaded her way back to the pool table.

“Hey,” she said, and they stood back for her.

Jake looked at her tank top as he took his beer, and then he looked away. “Nice outfit,” he said. “Injured anybody lately?”

“Give it a rest,” Kate said. “Not everyone is as big a wimp as you.”

“Oh, almost forgot,” Jake said and tipped her five bucks.

“What’s this for?”

He picked up his cue and chalked it. “Helping me settle a bet with Ben.”

“What bet?”

“Whether you were a real blonde or not.”

The lake that morning. Kate blushed brick red and turned back to the bar. She stopped before she got there and walked back to him.