Stranger in the Moonlight

  “Did you really not read these?” Travis asked as he put the papers on his stomach and drew her to him.

  “I saw the word cemeteries and closed the file. What did I miss?”

  “Let’s see . . . You want the facts presented as a fairy tale or as in a courtroom?”

  She was tempted by the courtroom idea. She’d like to see him talking to a jury. But then, he’d probably use his good looks to charm the jurors—and she wouldn’t like to see that. “Fairy tale,” she said.

  “All right.” He was smiling. “Once upon a time, way back in 1893, a young woman from Edilean, Virginia, by the name of Clarissa Aldredge, wanted to spend the summer in Janes Creek, Maryland.”

  “Why?” Kim asked. “Why did she leave Edilean?” She knew her tone told something deeper than her words.

  Travis kissed her forehead. “I can’t imagine why she’d leave a town where everyone knows everything about everyone else.”

  “Except people’s mothers,” Kim muttered.

  “Are you going to listen or throw barbs at me?”

  “Let me think on that,” she said. At Travis’s look she told him to continue.

  “Where was I? Miss Clarissa Aldredge went to Janes Creek, Maryland, in the summer of 1893. No one knows why she went there but it’s my guess that she had friends in the little town and she wanted to spend the summer with them. Okay?”

  Kim nodded.

  “Whatever the reason she left, all that’s known for sure is that when she returned to Edilean in September of that year, she was pregnant. She wouldn’t tell anyone about the father, so the townspeople—who are given to a bit of gossip now and then—assumed that he was married. Clarissa never corrected anyone no matter what they said. The big problem was that after Clarissa returned, she was different. Melancholic. Depressed.”

  “I would think so,” Kim said. “Unmarried and pregnant in 1893? It’s a wonder she wasn’t stoned.”

  “I think that happened in a much earlier time period. Anyway, it seems that poor Clarissa died a few hours after her son was born.”

  “Oh!” Kim said. “Joce and Gemma didn’t tell me that part.”

  “Probably didn’t want to upset you. On her deathbed Clarissa said to her brother Patrick, ‘Name him Tristan and pray that he’ll be a doctor like his father.’” Travis put the papers down and looked at Kim. “Aren’t the Aldredge doctors today still named Tristan?”

  “That name is saved for the ones who inherit Aldredge House.” Her voice showed that her mind wasn’t completely on what he was telling her.

  “Not your branch?”

  “No, which is why my brother is named Reede.”

  “So I remember,” Travis said as he slid down in the bed beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t tell him what was in her mind, that she and Clarissa had a lot in common. Everything was temporary between her and Travis. He’d come to Edilean to help his mother and soon he’d be involved in a big divorce case. He’d go back to being a lawyer, back to his glamorous life in New York. Kim and boring little Edilean would be just a memory. Years from now, would he smile when he thought of her? She tried to put those images out of her mind. They were together now and that’s what mattered. She gave her attention back to him. “I’m fine,” she said. “Go on with the story.”

  “It seems to me that if Clarissa admitted the father was a doctor and his name was Tristan, wouldn’t that make it easy for your friends to find him through an online site?”

  “Actually, they did,” Kim said. “They told me that they found a Dr. Tristan Janes—”

  “Like the town name.”

  “Yes.” She gave a sigh. “He died in 1893.”

  “I see,” Travis said as he began to piece the story together. “Clarissa comes to Janes Creek to visit, falls for the local doctor, they tumble in the hay, but before they can get married she’s pregnant and he dies. She returns to Edilean, has the baby, then . . .”

  “Joins him,” Kim said.

  “Let’s hope that’s the way it works.” He paused. “If your friends know all this, why did they send you here?”

  “Joce and Gemma are newcomers.”

  Travis waited for her to explain that odd statement.

  “They weren’t born in Edilean. They want me to see if this Dr. Tristan was married and if so, did he have any other children.”

  “Cousins,” Travis said. “Is this about finding more relatives?”

  “’Fraid so,” Kim said. “If I do find any young descendants, Joce will probably adopt them and Gemma will want to research the whole family.”

  “And will you decorate them?”

  Kim groaned. “If I come up with some new ideas, yes. Since I met you, I haven’t had even one new design for jewelry come to me. In fact I can hardly remember what I do for a living.”

  Travis’s eyes were serious. “Kim, if you wanted to—”

  She wasn’t certain what he was about to say, but she thought maybe he was going to speak of his ability to pay for things. She didn’t want to hear it. She changed the subject. “So when do we talk to the natives and ask who’s old enough to remember 1893?”

  “If Dr. Tristan died here, we should look for a grave marker and photograph it. Maybe there’s something on it, and maybe someone is buried near him. If he had a wife, she’d be there.”

  “Maybe we’ll be lucky and her name was Leslie.” Kim hadn’t meant to say that—or anything like it. She wanted to be cool and sophisticated. Instead, she was sounding like someone from . . . well, from a small Southern town. “I’d better get dressed,” she said and started to get off the bed.

  But Travis caught her arm. “I think I should tell you the truth.”

  She kept her back to him, the sheet covering her front. She felt as though her words had bared a lot more to him than just her body. “Your life is your own. I’m just in it for the . . .” She wanted to say “sex” but couldn’t do it. With her other boyfriends she’d always managed to keep it light between them. One of them had said she made jokes about everything. But this was Travis. The day after he’d returned to town she’d sent an e-mail to her friend Jecca saying the man she’d been in love with since she was eight years old had come back to town. Lover or not, she couldn’t make a joke about him and his beautiful girlfriend.

  When she didn’t turn to look at him, Travis dropped his hold on her. “It took me so long to get back to you because I had to find out about myself,” he said softly. “I was a rich man’s son and I needed to know if I could support myself. I didn’t want to be one of those trust fund guys who lives off his father. What kind of a man would I be if that’s all I had to offer you?” When Kim didn’t move, he took a breath. “After I passed the New York bar, Dad offered me a high-powered, highly paid job, but I turned him down. He was furious! He shut off my trust fund, so I was on my own. He said I’d not make it and the truth was that I was afraid he was right.”

  Kim turned to look at him.

  “I wanted to get as far away from him as possible, so I bummed a ride with someone”—Travis gave a half grin—“on a private jet to L.A. I stayed with a college buddy while I looked for work. I was so angry that when I heard of an opening for stunt work, it appealed to me. I got the job because I’m the same size as Ben Affleck. I was shot twice for that man.”

  He smiled at her. “I succeeded and I proved that I was able to support myself. But I’d made it in the physical world by performing stunts. I was good at it, but I could see that my body wouldn’t last, so I quit. And besides, it was no life for . . . for you.”

  “Me?” She blinked at him.

  “Of course for you. I told you that my life has always been about you.”

  “But . . .” She’d thought he was saying one of those things that all men do. She hadn’t taken it literally. “So what did you do?”

  “My plan was to join a law firm. I was hired by a nice, conservative place in northern California. I thought I would work there for a year or so, then
I’d return to Edilean to see you again. I wanted to know if there could be anything . . . adult between us. And if I had a year or two of legal work under my belt, maybe I could get work in or around Edilean.”

  Kim caught her breath, but said nothing.

  “Everything was right on schedule until my mother stole millions out of one of my dad’s accounts. He came to me in a rage and said he was going to kill her.”

  Kim gasped.

  “He didn’t mean it literally, but I knew he’d make her so unhappy she’d wish she were dead. I knew exactly where she’d gone: the town where she and I had been the happiest.”

  “Edilean.”

  “Right. And knowing that, I knew my hope of seeing you again anytime soon was gone. I knew my dad. He’d have me followed and when he did, he’d find my mother.”

  “So you went to work for him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t plan to stay with him forever, did you?”

  “I didn’t think that far ahead. It seemed that one moment I was on my way to obtaining my lifelong dream—since I was twelve, anyway—and the next I was working eighty hour weeks for my father. I didn’t have time to sleep, much less think.”

  “But you had time to see shows of my jewelry,” Kim couldn’t help saying, and there was anger in her voice. “If I meant so much to you, why didn’t you say something to me? ‘Hi, Kim. Remember me?’ It could have been anything. I didn’t know your last name and I searched for you for years. I—”

  Reaching out, Travis pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair. “How could I come to you? You were doing so well. You were a rising star in the jewelry world. I had an Internet alert on you and it seemed that every day you achieved something new. While I . . . I was still my father’s puppet. I needed to prove myself as a man.”

  “And in bed?” she said and more venom than she meant came out.

  “Yes,” he said. “I had to prove myself there too. It’s one thing to have a girl teach you how to ride a bicycle but quite another for her to teach you what to do in bed. ‘Now where do I put this big thing?’” he said in a falsetto voice.

  Kim couldn’t help laughing, then she pulled back and looked at him. “Did you break me up with any men besides Dave?”

  “No, but I kept a close eye on them.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Travis shrugged.

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  “A few background checks, that’s all. Nothing invasive. When I saw that they were much less successful than you, I relaxed. You would scare the hell out of them.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “You make me sound like I wield a sword and ride bareback.”

  “I like the image.” His eyes were laughing.

  “You!” she began. “You’ve put me through hell for years. I missed you and I couldn’t find you and—” She broke off when he kissed her.

  “I want to make it up to you.” He kissed her nose. “I want to spend years and years making it right between us.”

  For all that she liked what he was doing, she drew back to look at him. “What does that mean? Exactly.”

  “I love you and I want to marry you. If you’ll have me, that is.”

  Kim suddenly lost the power of speech. “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “We hardly know each other. You’ve been back for a week and before that—”

  He kissed her again. “How about this? You take as long as you want to get to know me, and every day I’ll ask you to marry me. When you feel that you know me well enough, say yes and we’ll go find a preacher. How’s that?” Turning, he put his feet on the floor. “I’m starving. What about you? Penny has an uncle who eats so much she said I wouldn’t be able to afford his bill. I’d like to see that, what about you?”

  “I, uh . . .” Kim’s head was still reeling from what he’d just said to her. “Where will you live?” she managed to get out. Travis was on his way to the bathroom.

  “With you if you’ll have me. I like your house, but I think you should move your workroom to Joe’s place. You want to take a shower with me? That way your garage will be free. I believe in taking care of automobiles. Are there any good mechanics in town?”

  As he disappeared behind the bathroom door, Kim sat there, staring. The sheet fell away but she didn’t notice.

  Travis looked around the door. “If you keep sitting there like that, I’ll have to come back and make love to you again and I really am hungry. Have mercy on me, will you?”

  He moved out of view but Kim still sat there. She wasn’t at all sure of what she’d heard or what she was feeling. This weekend she’d expected a man she’d known for months to ask her to marry him. Instead, she’d just received a proposal from . . . From Travis, she thought and smiled. She envisioned him on the bicycle as he flew down the hill of dirt. His face and clothes were filthy, his teeth were coated in grime—but she’d never seen anyone happier. That boy had just asked her to marry him!

  She heard the shower water. She took a few more seconds to blink, then she went running. “I like where my workroom is,” she said. “I don’t have to get in a car to get there, so I can work late at night. You can’t—” She didn’t say any more because Travis’s long arm swept out and encircled her waist. The shower curtain was trapped between them.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said before he kissed her again. “I’m good at driving.”

  “Yeah, if you like roller coasters without brakes.”

  “And you do,” he said as he kissed her again.

  Thirteen

  Kim was sitting outside the B&B waiting for Travis. Just as they were at last dressed—the shower had taken a very long time—his cell phone rang. “On this number it’s either Penny or my mother or you,” he said as he dug the phone out of his trouser’s pocket. “Penny,” he said as he answered the call.

  Minutes later he told Kim that “an incompetent moron named Forester” was having a meltdown and needed some help. “Sorry,” Travis said, “but this will take some time. He’ll destroy the entire deal if I don’t walk him through it. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Kim said. “I’ll wait for you outside.” As she left the room, she picked up her sketchbook. Maybe she’d have an idea or two for her designs. She doubted that she would, since all she could think about was what Travis had said to her. Had he really planned his entire life around her? Was that possible? But then, a part of Kim wondered if she’d done the same thing. Not consciously, as Travis seemed to have done, but unconsciously. Since she was a child and began sneaking into her brother’s room where there was an Internet connection that wasn’t ruled by her mother’s iron parental controls, Kim had been searching for him. Her quest to find Travis had fluctuated with how her personal life was going. After a breakup with a boyfriend she had cried, eaten ice cream, and spent whole days on the Internet.

  Now she realized that she’d probably seen photos of the rich Travis Maxwell, but she hadn’t given them a second glance. She’d long ago figured out that Travis and his mother had been running from an abusive father. No one ever thought of super rich young men as having been anything but pampered and spoiled. She’d kept her searches off the society pages.

  As for what Travis said about their getting married, more than anything in the world, Kim wanted to throw her arms around his neck and say yes. But she couldn’t do that. There were too many problems yet to solve. Travis was still too connected to his other life, to his bastard of a father. How could they be happy until all that was settled? And his mother was going to need a great deal of help. As much as they all loved Joe, he was a small town man; he’d never be a match for Travis’s notorious father. Randall Maxwell was known all over the world as a man who held his own against anyone—on a global scale. How could Joe, the owner of a small hardware store, cope with that? Travis would have to step in and take care of it all. How long did it take to divorce a superwealthy man who didn’t want to part with a dime? Years?
How could she and Travis have a life when he was constantly wrapped up in that mess?

  It seemed that the obstacles around them were insurmountable. Not that she’d give him up. Not ever. But it was a question of time before they’d have their own lives, their own home, their own . . . children.

  When she stepped outside into the cool evening air, she took a breath. She reminded herself that no matter what the obstructions, they’d have each other and there was light at the end of the tunnel. The thought that she did have a future where she wasn’t alone—as she’d started to fear—made her smile, and as she did, her mind began to clear. And as she had since she was a child, she began to think about jewelry. In the fading light the leaves on a nearby maple tree looked like moonstones. Or maybe cut quartz. Of course the ones in the shadows were pure garnets. She hadn’t used garnets in a long time so maybe now was the time to start again.

  There was a little seating area set back under the trees, and she sat down on a pretty wooden bench and began to draw what she saw in her mind. The stones, even the curve of the leaves reminded her of a woman’s neck. She could make the gold flow along the skin, then angle up over a collarbone. If she did it right, the necklace could be really sensual. Of course each one would have to be fitted to the wearer, but that would be nice to do. She hated those necklaces that were a stiff, round circle. No one had a perfectly round neck and she thought the jewelry stood out awkwardly.

  She was so busy with her thoughts and her drawing that she didn’t see or hear anyone until a man almost tripped over her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  Kim looked up to see a short, stout, sixtyish man standing to her right and holding a broom. He had on an old pair of jeans and a plaid shirt that looked as though it had been washed hundreds of times. He was smiling at her in a way that reminded her of people at home.

  “Please go back to what you were doing.” He nodded toward her sketch pad in a way that made her think he was curious.