Read Online Quiver by Peter Leonard - Free Book Online Page A

“There is one thing I have to explain,” his tone serious now. “Owen wanted Luke to have the lodge in Cathead Bay.”
    “Dick, if you think that’s a problem,” Kate said, “let me ease your mind.”
    “It doesn’t go into effect till he’s twenty-four.”
    Kate didn’t care. She just wondered if Luke would ever go back.
    That was it. The reading of the will took about five minutes, Counselor May offering his time if Kate needed further explanation about anything.
    She didn’t.
       
    Kate drove home and met her friend Maureen Kelso. They stood at the island counter in the kitchen, smoking and drinking wine. She put out a wedge of Saint Albray that smelled like a locker room but tasted like the best Camembert she’d ever had. “Try this,” Kate said. She sliced off a piece and put it on a stone-ground wheat cracker and took a bite.
    “I’m not eating for a while,” Maureen said. “I feel like a fat pig. I had a pair of jeans on the other day, bent over and split the seat. Imagine what that does for your ego.”
    “I think you look good,” Kate said. “Don’t get so skinny you look sick like Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.” She took another bite of cheese and sipped her wine.
    “Oh, okay,” Maureen said. “Are you kidding? I could lose twenty pounds, you wouldn’t notice. I’mback on South Beach, my last diet. If this doesn’t work, it’s lipo. Plastic surgeon said he’d take two quarts of cellulite out of my thighs and stomach. Said he could use some of it to give my ass more definition. What do you think?”
    Kate said, “I’d try exercise first.”
    Maureen took a cigarette out of her purse and lit it with an orange plastic lighter.
    “I did. Had a personal trainer, even. Little muscular guy named Avis.”
    “Was he Greek?”
    “I think Albanian. All he talked about was abs, delts, glutes and obliques. First couple of days I thought he was teaching me the language, pick up Albanian while you’re getting in shape.”
    “You have a crush on him?”
    “Who?”
    “The trainer.”
    “He was too little. Like a toy man. I need a guy with meat on his bones.”
    Kate took a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator, cut the top off with a foil cutter, and opened it with a screwpull opener. “Since you’re not in training at the moment, try this.” Kate reached over the island counter and poured Maureen a glass.
    She took a drag and turned and blew smoketoward the breakfast room. “The neighbor hit on you again?”
    “It’s been six months, he thinks that’s long enough,” Kate said. “I’m fair game now. He came over yesterday and said somebody looks like she could use a hug.” Kate poured more wine in her glass.
    Maureen said, “What’s his name?”
    Kate said, “Anders.”
    “Let me guess, he’s Swedish.”
    “You don’t miss much,” Kate said, “do you?”
    “Is he the real thing?”
    “You mean, was he born there? I don’t think so.”
    “I mean, does he eat raw fish for breakfast? Real Swedes eat it like they’re going to the chair. I dated this scene-maker named Sven Lundeen, couldn’t get enough, had breath like Shamu. He was a hottie, too. Had blond highlights in his slicked-back hair. Always wore a white shirt unbuttoned to his navel and tight jeans.” Maureen sipped her wine and took a drag, blowing smoke out. “What’d the hugger say?”
    “He put his arms around me and said, ‘I bet you could use a hug.’”
    “How well do you know him?”
    “We’ve been neighbors for ten years. I see him over the fence or through the pine trees. We’d wave toeach other, but that’s about it. Anders and Sukie came over for dinner one time a bunch of neighbors got together.”
    “Sukie? What’s her real name?”
    “I think Susan.”
    “What’s she like?”
    “Kind of ditzy,” Kate said. “A secretary who married her boss.”
    “So he came over and hugged you. Then what?”
    “He had his body pressed against mine and I could feel something hard