Manhunting (2 page)

Jessie waved Kate’s objection away. “You’re just jealous because she’s ten years younger than you are. Okay. Number two. He has to be older than you by about, oh, fifteen years.”

“Why?” Kate asked, mystified.

“Because you’re obviously looking for a father figure.”

“I am not. Give me that.” Kate took the paper away from Jessie and crossed out one and two. “All right. One, he has to be intelligent. Very, very intelligent.”

“Intelligent’s good,” Jessie said, grinning.

“And not only the academic kind of intelligence. He has to be, well,
discerning.
He has to...know quality.”

“Look for the designer label?” Jessie made a face. “This is your dream man?”

“And distinguished,” Kate said, caught up in the plan. “Well-mannered. Someone who would be comfortable at the opera.”

“You hate opera.”

Kate waved the objection away. “And aggressive. He has to know what he wants and go after it.”

“Okay.” Jessie picked up her coffee cup and tried to drink while Kate worked. The cup was empty so she swapped it for Kate’s.

“And successful. He has to be successful.”

“In whose eyes?”

“What?” Kate looked up, distracted.

“Well,” Jessie said reasonably, “different people define success different ways.”

“Making at least four times his age, with the same in blue chips.” Kate spoke automatically, barely aware of what she was saying as she went back to her list.

“Sounds like a quote,” Jessie said. “Now let me guess who said it first? Shakespeare? Naw. Mark Twain? Naw. Wait. Wait. I’ve got it Bertram Svenson, father of the year.”

“What?”

“So have we got to the good stuff yet?” Jessie asked.

“What good stuff?”

“Great sense of humor. Equal rights for women. Terrific in bed. Loves you to the point of madness.”

“Well, yes, of course.” Kate looked down at her list “Did I mention successful?”

“Several times.” Jessie took the paper back. “Okay, we have the animal defined. Now, what’s the next move? To find him, right?”

“Right.” Kate picked up her coffee cup, frowning when she saw it was empty. “Did you drink my coffee?”

“Yes. I was feeling aggressive. Now, your next step is to find a hunting ground.”

“Jessie, I don’t...”

Jessie held up her hand. “Which I have already found for you.” She carefully tore Kate’s list out of the paper and handed it to her. “Keep that.” Then she turned back to the Travel and Leisure section. “Look at this.”

Kate looked at the ad that Jessie shoved in front of her. A tall distinguished man in golfing clothes was posed on a golf course that looked hike it was built on a hillside in the middle of a woods. “Come to the wilds and face the danger of the toughest course in America,” the ad read. “Come to The Cabins.”

“A golf course?” She looked down at the bottom of the page. “In Kentucky?”

“Well, actually, there’s a lot more stuff,” Jessie said. “If you read on, it tells you about horseback riding and hiking trails and other outdoor stuff. There’s even a lake. You could go skinny-dipping.”

Kate looked at her with contempt.

Jessie shrugged. “Okay, you couldn’t, but somebody fun-loving and exciting could.” She leaned forward. “But the real killer is the golf course—even I’ve heard of it. Executives pay a fortune to play it. It’s like Outward Bound with martinis.” She sat back and grinned at Kate. “Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead there, but I bet your Mr. Right is all over the place. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Well, it does sound... interesting, I guess,” Kate said, frowning at the ad. “But, I...”

“It’s a goal and a plan,” Jessie said. “You’ve gotten everything else you’ve ever wanted in life. You can get this, too.”

“What makes you think I’ve gotten everything I’ve wanted?” Kate said, stung.

Jessie looked startled. “Well, you’ve...”

“If I have everything I want, why am I still running so hard?” Kate felt the resentment well up again. “Listen, I know I’m doing well—”

“Making four times your age with the same in blue chips,” Jessie murmured.

“But I’m not happy. I want...I want a partnership with a man.”

“A partnership is good,” Jessie said, nodding. “Go for it.”

Kate warmed to her fantasy, seeing herself beside that distinguished man, building an empire together while holding hands. “I want to work with my husband to build a business. I want...”

“A business!” Jessie was so disgusted she almost spat “Forget business. Think relationship.”

“I can’t,” Kate said. “Business is the only thing I know.”

“Wrong.” Jessie took a deep breath. “You’re warm and loving. You take care of people. Or at least you used to.” Jessie leaned over the table and grabbed Kate’s arm. “You’d love to work with real people full-time, but the pay for working with people sucks, so you work with a bunch of suits instead and you go home alone. It’s stupid, and you hate it.” Jessie let go and then leaned back in her chair and sighed again. “I can’t believe you’ve let money and success go to your head like this.”

“Well, it’s been lovely having breakfast with you,” Kate said. “Leaving soon?”

Jessie took a deep breath. “Kate, please listen to me. Go to The Cabins, find a nice guy who’s got all the things on your list and who can keep you with him forever, and be happy. All you have to do is choose to be happy. You can do it.”

Jessie was so obviously concerned that Kate relented. “That’s all,” Kate said. “All I have to do is choose.”

Jessie nodded once. “Yes.”

Kate looked back down at the ad. Of course, the man in the picture was a model, but he was perfect. And she was due for a vacation before the summer was over, and since it was August she was definitely running out of summer. And she hadn’t golfed in years.

And she was lonely. So lonely, sometimes she felt it in her bones.

“All right,” she heard herself saying. “All right. I’ll go.”

“Yes!” Jessie pointed to Kate’s French Provincial phone. “Go make your reservation now.”

“I’ll call later,” Kate said. “Let me think about it for a while.”

“No.” Jessie folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “I’m not leaving here until you call.”

“I said I’m going,” Kate said. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Jessie said. “I’m keeping my eye on you on this one, because if anybody can screw up a perfectly good shot at happiness, you can. Call.
Now.”

Two hundred miles away, Jake Templeton sat in an Adirondack chair on the back veranda of his brother’s Kentucky resort with his feet propped on the rustic wooden rail, watching the sun rise over the lake and trying to feel content. Hell, he did feel content. There was the slight nagging feeling that he got sometimes that he might be missing something, but he was good at ignoring nagging—his long-ago marriage had taught him how to do that. And after all, he lived in God’s country; he was free, he had no responsibilities aside from keeping a hundred acres of resort land mowed and watered, and no real worries. True, in the best of all possible worlds, his over-achieving younger brother would not have built a rustic resort on perfectly good farmland and would not have lured some of the biggest snobs in the East to play golf there. But the snobs did bring in a lot of money that kept the local population in food and shelter, and in general Jake didn’t have to deal with them.

No. All in all, things were good. Jake pulled his big cream-colored cowboy hat down over his eyes and wallowed in his freedom. “I’ve got it made,” he said out loud.

His brother backed out the door to join him carrying two steaming coffee mugs. Will was already in a suit, ready to meet his guests as they streamed in through the big carved-wood double doors of The Cabins. He looked at Jake in his tattered jeans and worn flannel shirt, and rolled his eyes; Jake looked up at his brother’s dress-for-success tailoring and laughed.

“You’re disgusting,” Will said, looking down at him.

“What did I do now?” Jake asked, not caring.

“It’s what you don’t do.” Will passed him a mug of coffee and sat down beside him to stare out at the lake.

“Hey, I keep this place looking good,” Jake said, pushing his hat back with one hand while he balanced his mug in the other. He looked at his brother with a total lack of concern. “The grass is cut, the weeds are pulled, the golf courses look like artificial turf, the stables are—”

“I’m not talking about outdoor management,” Will said, shaking his head as he warmed his hands on his own coffee mug. “You are the king of the riding lawn mower. I’m talking about your life.”

“I like my life. Stay out of it.” Jake turned back to look at the lake and sipped the hot coffee carefully.

“You could be rich,” Will said, looking at him with disgust.

“I was rich,” Jake said. “Then I gave it all to you and you built this place.” He shook his head. “That’s the last fortune I give you.”

“If you gave it to me, why do you own half of this place?” Will asked.

“So you’ll be forced to support me in my old age,” Jake said, grinning. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

Will shook his head again. “You’ve got a law degree. You were a tax attorney, for God’s sake. And you gave it all up to mow lawns for your little brother. You should be ashamed.”

“I don’t actually mow the lawns,” Jake pointed out “I grab one of the college kids you hire for the season and say, ‘Kid, mow that lawn.’ It’s not—”

“I don’t understand why you quit,” Will said.

“They bitched about my mustache, and they wouldn’t let me wear my hat,” Jake said. He looked back out over the lake and relaxed a little more. “Helluva sunrise, isn’t it?”

“The sunrise was hours ago,” Will said. “It’s nine.”

“Well, it’s not all the way up yet,” Jake said, slumping a little farther down in his chair. “So it’s still rising. So it’s still sunrise.”

“Knock it off. I’m worried about you.” Will frowned at him. “I think it’s great that you’re back home, and I couldn’t run this place without you, but let’s face it, you’re wasting yourself here.”

“I’m considering my options,” Jake said lazily.

“You’ve been considering your options for five years,” Will said bluntly. “And frankly, at the rate you’re going, you don’t have that many options to consider. It’s time you made something of yourself again. One lousy marriage and you’re down for the count.”

Jake stared out at the lake and shook his head. “Boy, you sure don’t see sunrises like this very often.”

Will glared at him. “You see sunrises like this every damn day here.”

“
I
do,” Jake said, looking at him with equal disgust “You don’t. You’re too busy being Mr. Hotel. If I’d known you were going to take this resort stuff so seriously, I would never have given you that money. Hell, you’re going to have a heart attack any day now. Then I’ll have to run this place.”

“Well, somebody around here has to be an adult,” Will said.

“And if you do croak on me, the first thing I’m going to do is blow up the golf courses.”

“That’ll piss Dad off.”

“I think it’s the clothes they wear that bother me the most,” Jake began.

“We need to talk about this,” Will said.

“No, we don’t.”

“Damn it, Jake...”

“Okay, okay. Get to the point. I’m missing a sunrise here.”

Will shifted uneasily in his chair. “Look,” he said finally. “You’ve always been my...well...?”

“Hero?” Jake suggested. “Idol?”

“Let’s just stick with role model,” Will said. “I spent my formative years trying to be just like you. It got to be a habit after a while.” He looked over at his brother. “You were always the best. At everything.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Jake said, irritated. “You just thought that because you were my younger brother.”

“Jake, you haven’t done anything for five years,” Will said. “Nothing. Not since you moved back here to help me.” Jake started to speak and Will cut him off. “I know, you run the outdoor staff. But hell, you could do that without getting out of bed. In fact, that’s practically the way you do run it.”

“Hey,” Jake said.

“Listen, I need you here. You are a great help, and I will hate to see you go, but you’ve got to go back to the city.”

“No,” Jake said.

“You’re not doing anything with your life,” Will started, but this time Jake broke in.

“And that’s the way I like it,” Jake said. “Don’t get the idea I’m sacrificing myself for you and this place. I’m not. I like it here. I’m staying.”

Will tried another tack. “You ever think about getting married again?”

“No,” Jake said. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because if you were going to find anybody to marry in Toby’s Corners, you would have married her by now,” Will said. “This is another good reason to go back to the city.”

“I’m not going back to the city,” Jake said. “Now, will you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Oh, hell.” Will slumped down in his chair and rubbed his hand across his forehead.

“Just spit it out,” Jake said, kindly. “You’ll feel a lot better.”

“Mom’s worried about you,” Will said. “And Valerie thinks I’m taking advantage of you.” He turned to face Jake. “You’ve really saved my life on this place. There are times when I look at the hell breaking loose inside the hotel and think, ‘Thank God, Jake’s got the outside under control.’ I mean it. You make a big difference.”

“I know,” Jake said. “That’s another reason I’m not leaving. But the main reason is because I don’t want to.” Jake sipped his coffee. “So Valerie’s concerned for my welfare, huh?”

Will shot him a glance. “Yeah. I thought that was a little strange myself.”

“I wondered when she was gonna make her move,” Jake said.

Will raised his eyebrows. “Want to cut me in on this?”

“Valerie likes to think the hotel is a partnership deal.”

“It is,” Will said, confused. “You and me.”

“No,” Jake said. “You and her. I’m in the way.”

“The way of what?” Will looked exasperated.

“The way of the two of you becoming the Leona and Harry Helmsley of the Midwest.”

“God forbid,” Will said. “You know, that woman is becoming a problem.”

“Becoming?” Jake said. “I know she’s sharing your apartment, which probably clouds your judgment. I know she’s a great social director which, since you live and breathe this hotel, probably clouds your judgment even more, but she’s also been a major pain in the butt ever since she got here.”