Stranger in the Moonlight

  The two men were almost exactly the same height, appeared to be the same age, and they were both handsome. But Travis’s face showed a lifetime of struggle, a life of loneliness. Every time he’d faced death in his extreme sports was in his eyes, and the war between his parents showed on him.

  Russell’s eyes were angry. He’d grown up in the shadow of the powerful Maxwell family, and he’d come to hate the name because whatever that family wanted came first. This week he hadn’t been surprised when his mother asked him to help Travis Maxwell. It was a name he’d known before his own. He hadn’t even been shocked to be told that Travis had never heard of Russell, didn’t know he existed. The anger he’d felt was on his face, in the way he stood, as though he’d just love for Travis to say something that would allow him to fight.

  “You’re Penny’s son,” Travis said as they stood at the door. “I didn’t know she . . .” He trailed off at the look in the man’s angry eyes. “Please come in,” he said formally, then stepped back as Russell entered the house and went into Kim’s blue and white living room.

  “A bit of a downsize for you, isn’t it?”

  Behind him, Travis let out his breath. The Maxwell name! Being in Edilean and especially being around Joe, had nearly made him forget the preconceived ideas people had about him. All his life he’d heard, “He’s Randall Maxwell’s son so he is—” Fill in the blank.

  It seemed that Penny’s son had already decided that Travis was a clone of his father.

  Travis’s face went from the friendly one he’d adopted in the last week to the one he wore in New York. No one could get to him, so no one could hurt him.

  Russell took the big chair and Travis saw it for what it was: establishing that he was in charge.

  Travis sat on the couch. “What did you find out?” he asked, his voice cool.

  “David Borman wants control of Kimberly Aldredge’s business.”

  Travis grimaced. “I was afraid of that. Damn! I was hoping—” He looked back at Russell and thought, the hell with it! This was Penny’s son, and this was about Kim. It had nothing to do with the Maxwell name. “You want some coffee? Tea? A shot of tequila?”

  Russell stared at Travis as though he were trying to figure him out—and whether or not to take him up on his offer. “Coffee would be fine.”

  Travis started toward the kitchen but Russell didn’t follow. “I need to make it. You want to come in here and talk while I do?”

  The ordinariness of the invitation seemed to take some of the anger out of Russell’s eyes as he got up and went to the kitchen. He sat down on a stool and watched Travis get a bag of beans out of the refrigerator and pour some into an electric grinder.

  “I guess I was hoping,” Travis said loudly over the noise, “that I was going to have to fight him over Kim. A duel, I guess.” He lifted his hand off the top of the machine and the noise stopped. “It’s going to hurt Kim to find this out.”

  Russell’s eyes were wide as he watched Travis put the grounds into a filter and drop it into a machine. He didn’t seem to be able to grasp the concept that a Maxwell could do something so mundane as make coffee. Where were the servants? The butler? “He’s the third one.”

  “Third one what?”

  “He’s the third man who was more concerned with her success than with her.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “According to Carla . . .” Russell paused as he ran his hand over the back of his neck.

  “Was the date bad?” Travis asked.

  “She’s an aggressive young woman.”

  Travis snorted. “Seemed to be. Keep you out late?”

  “Till three,” Russell said. “I barely escaped with . . .”

  “Your honor intact?” Travis gave a half smile.

  “Exactly,” Russell said.

  “Have you had breakfast? I make a mean omelet.”

  “No. That is . . .” Russell was still staring at Travis as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “It’s the best I can do for Penny’s son after all she’s put up with from me.”

  “All right,” Russell said slowly.

  Travis began getting things out of the fridge. “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

  “Do you mean Carla’s complete sex history that she delighted in telling me in detail, or what I could dredge out of her about Miss Aldredge?”

  Travis laughed. “No Carla, but lots of Kim.”

  “It seems that small town men can’t handle a woman who earns more than they do.”

  Travis would have liked to think that he could deal with that, but he’d always had the opposite problem. “So they dumped her?”

  “Yes,” Russell said as he watched Travis pour him a cup of freshly brewed coffee and set it on the counter along with containers of milk and sugar. He wasn’t surprised that the coffee was excellent. “St. Helena?”

  “It is,” Travis said. “I get it here in Edilean at the local grocery. Can you believe that?” He was pleasantly surprised that Russell had recognized the taste of the rare and expensive coffee. “I take it that this Dave is different from the others.”

  “Carla and Borman’s ex-girlfriend are friends, and Carla told the girl all about Kim, even about the men who’d walked away from her. Carla has no understanding of the word discretion.”

  “Or loyalty,” Travis said. “Onions, peppers, and tomatoes all right with you?”

  “Yes,” Russell said. “As far as I can piece together, the girlfriend told Borman and he made a plan.”

  “Let me guess. He dropped the girlfriend and went after Kim.”

  Russell reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out several pieces of paper folded together into a thick stack. “These are the financials of Borman’s company for the last two years.”

  Travis let the vegetables sizzle while he went through the first pages, but then he had to stop to add the eggs to the skillet and put bread in the toaster. “Would you . . . ?” he asked Russell.

  He took the papers and started to go through them, but then paused to remove his suit jacket and drape it over a dining chair. He loosened his tie. “The bottom line is that David Borman isn’t a good cook, he spends too much, and he’s lazy.”

  Travis slid the omelet onto a plate, put it before Russell, and got a knife and fork out of a drawer. “So he dropped his girlfriend and went after Kim—or rather, her business.”

  “It gets worse,” Russell said as he took a bite. “Not bad.”

  “Worse isn’t bad?”

  “No. Borman gets worse; the omelet isn’t bad.”

  “Oh,” Travis said as he watched Russell eat. He could see things about him that reminded him of Penny. He’d spent a lot of late nights with her and they’d shared many meals. Now he wondered why he’d never asked her about her personal life. But then, he would have thought that if he had, Penny probably wouldn’t have answered.

  Russell looked up at him as though expecting something from Travis.

  “The ring,” Travis said. “What about the ring?”

  “Borman took Carla out to dinner, told her a sob story about how he was in love with Kim. He got Carla to ‘lend’ him a ring to give to her when he proposed this weekend.”

  “Then Carla told the whole town that’s what Borman was going to do.” Travis handed Russell the toast and got out the butter. “That’s why Borman invited himself to go with her to Maryland.”

  “Carla didn’t seem to see anything wrong in the fact that you and Miss Aldredge are living together just before she’s to get a marriage proposal from Borman. Carla’s exact words were, ‘I think you should take things when they’re offered.’”

  “I’m staying in the guesthouse,” Travis said absently as he thought about what he’d just heard.

  “The whole town thinks you and Kim are . . .”

  “It’s just gossip,” Travis said, then looked back to see Russell staring at him, his eyes disbelieving. Travis felt anger rising in him. “It
looks like you believed them.”

  Russell looked back down at his food. “It’s not for me to judge.”

  “And a Maxwell takes whatever he wants, is that it?” If Travis had been hoping for an argument, he didn’t get it.

  Calmly, Russell finished his coffee. “In my experience, yes.”

  The truth of that made Travis’s anger calm down. He refilled Russell’s cup. “Maybe so,” Travis said. “Taking what he wants is a creed of my father’s.”

  “But not yours?” Russell asked.

  Travis wasn’t fooled by the man’s nonchalant tone. He was asking a very serious question. “No, it’s not what I believe in at all.”

  Russell ate his toast and for a moment he didn’t reply. “How do you plan to get the ring back?”

  “I’m a lawyer, remember? I’ll threaten him with grand larceny and prison.”

  Russell used the napkin Travis had given him to wipe his mouth. “And what will you tell Miss Aldredge? That her boyfriend only wanted her for her successful little shop?”

  Travis grimaced. “That will kill her ego.”

  “And this weekend you’ll have a depressed, crying female on your hands.”

  Travis looked at Russell and they exchanged a male understanding between them. An unhappy woman wasn’t a good companion.

  Russell stood, picked up his coat and prepared to leave, but then he turned back to look at Travis. There was no humor in his eyes. “If you leave your father’s firm, what will happen to my mother? Will she be thrown out with the rubbish?”

  Travis was used to being attacked, used to barely suppressed rage from people who’d had encounters with his father. But this man was different. His resentment was for Travis. “It’s all happened so quickly that I haven’t had time to think about it. I guess I assumed she’d go back to working for my father.”

  “No,” Russell said. His expression said that he wasn’t going to elaborate on that statement, but it was final.

  “Tell me what she wants and I’ll see that she gets it.”

  “It must feel like being an emperor to have such power,” Russell said.

  Travis understood the man’s hostility toward him. He knew the late hours, weekends, and holidays that Penny had worked for his father. And Travis hadn’t been much better. He’d never thought twice of calling her on Sunday afternoons—and Penny had never complained, never even commented. Her son must have spent most of his life without his mother. He must hate the Maxwell name. And it looked like he especially hated Travis, the Maxwell son who was the same age as he was. But then, did he think Travis grew up with loving parents who doted on him?

  “What do you do? For a living, I mean?” Travis asked.

  The friendliness that had started between them was gone. Russell’s face was hard, unforgiving. “I don’t need anything from you or your father, so there’s no need to pretend interest. I’ll get back to you about my mother and I expect you to keep your word.”

  The hostility in his voice and eyes made Travis’s hair stand on end. To lighten the mood, he said, “Within reason, of course. I can’t give her the Taj Mahal. It isn’t for sale.”

  Russell didn’t smile. “If it were, your father would have bought it and fired the caretakers. Are we finished here?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  As soon as Russell was out of the house, Travis called Penny. She seemed to be expecting the call because she answered before the first ring finished. The first thing he needed taken care of was business. He wanted to know where David Borman was right now. As Travis expected, Penny said she’d find out and text an answer.

  That was Travis’s cue to hang up, but he didn’t. “I met your son,” he said tentatively. “He, uh . . .”

  Penny knew what he was trying to say. A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have dared comment, but lately Travis seemed to be jumping off the fast track to becoming a second Randall Maxwell. “Hates everything with the Maxwell name on it,” she finished for him.

  “Exactly. Is it curable?”

  “Probably not.”

  Travis took a breath. “I promised him that when I leave the Maxwell firm I’d see that you got whatever you wanted. To make sure I get it right, why don’t you tell me what it is you want?”

  “Happiness for my son. Grandkids,” Penny said quickly.

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “From you, that is high praise indeed,” she said. “But let me think about this. From what Russ says about Edilean, I may want to retire there.”

  “Not a bad idea. You see the jewelry he bought for you?”

  Penny chuckled. “I did. Quite, quite beautiful! Your young Kim is very talented.”

  “She is,” Travis said, smiling.

  They exchanged good-byes and hung up. She texted him the address of where Borman was working before he got the kitchen cleaned up.

  “I’m going to kill him,” he muttered and started for the door.

  Ten

  But Travis didn’t make it to the door. His male instinct was to find the man and tear him apart. He could almost feel his fists in his face. But then what? Do as he’d told Russell and threaten the man with prosecution? With prison time? Would Travis use the Maxwell name to intimidate the man?

  And what would be the repercussions? A man like Borman who had no morals—or he wouldn’t have planned to marry for money—wouldn’t skulk away quietly. He’d go to Kim and . . . Travis didn’t want to think what damage the man could cause.

  For a moment Travis stood there and tried to cool his temper enough that he could think clearly about what needed to be done. He had to become more calm and figure out how to solve this in a way that would guarantee that Kim wouldn’t be hurt.

  Travis realized that this meeting could be the most important of his life. The last thing he should do was go in there with guns blazing, so to speak. Travis had dealt with men like Borman before, ones who thought that whatever they did to obtain what they wanted was permissible. If it took marrying a woman to get her business, then that was all right with them.

  Travis had also learned that men who lost in a big way tended to retaliate in a like manner. If he threatened the man and forced him to get out of Kim’s life, Borman could contact Kim, and maybe he could turn it all against Travis.

  No, it was better to get rid of the man in a way that made him believe that he had won, even that he’d put one over on someone. That way, he wouldn’t feel a need for revenge, wouldn’t want to get back at Kim, wouldn’t want to hurt her.

  Travis called Penny again, and she picked up immediately.

  “Rethinking the dueling pistols?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I thought you might,” she said and seemed to be proud of him. “The Maxwell in you always keeps a cool head.”

  Travis wasn’t sure he was pleased by her words. “I want you to set up a meeting between Borman and me for today. I need for it to be held somewhere impressive. Maybe a library. Big desk. Rich surroundings. All the grandeur you can find. Talk to him, tell him I want to buy his catering business, that I’m in awe of what he’s done with it. Flatter him.”

  “I’m not sure I’m that good of a liar.”

  “If you worked for my father, you can lie.”

  “More than you know,” she said, sounding amused.

  “I’ll need a contract saying he turns everything over to me, equipment, employees, all of it. Leave the price blank. I’m planning to give him a ridiculous amount of money to buy that dying business of his. Then I want you to tell him—in confidence—that you happen to know that I’m afraid of the competition from him so he has to leave the state. Today. Before nightfall. He can’t even take time to move out of his apartment.”

  “What name do you want to use on the contract?”

  Travis frowned. “If Maxwell is on there, he’ll come back to get more.”

  “How about if it’s signed by Russell Pendergast? I can run the money through his account.”

  “P
erfect,” Travis said.

  “Want Borman to call Kim to say good-bye?”

  “No! But I’ll take care of that. Let me know when it’s all set up. Think you can do all this in just a few hours?”

  Penny didn’t bother to answer his question. “How about four P.M.? That’ll get you home in time to have dinner with Kim.”

  “Penny, I love you!” he said.

  She took a while to respond and he thought maybe he’d overstepped himself. “I’m going to have a Realtor send me some information about living in Edilean. I think it must be a magic place.”

  “Dad will be glad to buy you a house.”

  For some reason, Penny found that statement downright funny. She was laughing as she hung up.

  At a quarter to four, Travis drove onto the palatial estate of a man who’d benefitted greatly from his association with Randall Maxwell. It was an hour outside of Williamsburg and Travis had had three calls with Penny on the drive down. The idea was for him to be familiar with everything in the room where he was to meet Borman so it looked like the place belonged to Travis.

  “The contract will be on the desk,” Penny said, “and both Russell and I have already talked to Borman. He’s primed to sell, and he thinks you’re so afraid of the competition of his company that you’ll pay anything to get him out of your way.”

  “Which I will,” Travis said. “Just not for the reason he thinks. What’s it worth?”

  “Russ said no more than a hundred grand, if that. He has too much equipment and not enough commissions. Last week he used a cheap fish in place of crab for a job. He told an employee that no one would be able to tell the difference, but the bride’s mother did. The father refused to pay him.”

  “Good to know,” Travis said. “Wish me luck on this.”

  “I do, and you may not believe this, but so does Russ. Whatever you did this morning has softened his edges more than I’ve been able to do in his lifetime.”

  Travis smiled. “For all that a couple of times he looked at me as though he wanted to burn me at a stake, I liked him. He reminds me of you.”