Stranger in the Moonlight

  “I like the way the light plays on those maple leaves,” she said.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” He put his hands on the top of the broom handle and stared at the leaves. “Are you one of the people staying here?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy, but is it a family reunion? We don’t usually have this many guests here.”

  Kim suppressed a laugh as she thought of the truth of why so many people were there. Travis had planned to oversee her and Dave. Only Dave had been sent away. “No,” she said. “It’s just my . . .” She wasn’t sure what to call Travis. Her fiancé? But then he hadn’t officially asked her to marry him, not with a ring (what Kim told the young men who wandered into her store was necessary for a proposal), and she certainly hadn’t accepted.

  “Your young man?” he asked.

  It was an old-fashioned term that seemed to fit the situation. “Yes, my young man invited some people.”

  They were silent for a moment, then the man glanced at her sketchbook. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing, but if you need any help with anything, let me know. Just ask for Red. That’s what my hair used to be.” He started to walk away.

  “We have that in common. Actually,” Kim said, “maybe you can help us find someone.”

  Halting, he looked back at her. There was something about him that she liked. He had a sweet smile. “I have trouble keeping all the newcomers straight, but if the person is over forty I can probably help.”

  She smiled at his use of “newcomers.” It was the same term they used in Edilean. “How about if the person died in 1893?”

  “Then I probably went to school with him.”

  Kim laughed. “Dr. Tristan Janes. I assume the town was named after his family?”

  “Yes it was,” the man said as he motioned toward one of the empty chairs across from her. He was asking her permission to sit there.

  “Please,” she said.

  As he took a seat, he said, “Will your young man mind that you’re having a tête-à-tête with another man?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be wild with jealousy, but I’ll be able to calm his beastly spirit.”

  Red chuckled. “Spoken like a woman in love.”

  Kim couldn’t help blushing. “What about Dr. Janes?”

  “There used to be a library here, but when the mill closed the town pretty much died with it. They moved all the books and papers to the state capital. If they hadn’t done that you could go to the library and read it all. I’m a poor second best. Anyway,” he said, “a Mr. Gustav Janes started the town back in 1857 when he opened a mill that ground the flour for everyone in a fifty-mile radius. His only child, Tristan, became a doctor. I read that ol’ Gustav, who couldn’t read or write, was deeply proud of his son.”

  “As he should be,” Kim said. “Tristan died young, didn’t he?”

  “He did. He was rescuing some miners and the walls collapsed on him. It took them a week to find his body. He was well loved and hundreds of people attended his funeral.”

  “And I’m sure that number included an ancestor of mine,” Kim said. “It seems that she was carrying his child, who was my—let me get this straight—my great-granduncle.”

  “I think that makes you an honorary native of Janes Creek.”

  “Not a newcomer?”

  “Far from it.” In the distance they heard voices coming toward them, and Red stood up. “I think your young man is returning and I should go.”

  “The question everyone in my hometown wants to know is whether or not Dr. Janes was married.”

  “Oh no. I read that he was the town catch, a beautiful young man, but he never married. I’m sure that if he’d lived he would have married your ancestor. Especially if she was half as pretty as you are.”

  “Thank you,” Kim said as Red started to walk away. “Oh!” she called out. “Do you know where he’s buried?”

  “All the Janes family are at the Old Mill. If you go out there, be careful. The place is falling down. Take companions with you. Big, strong ones.”

  “All right, I will,” she said as he disappeared around a corner and out of sight.

  To the left, on the other side of the dense hedge, came Travis, frowning as he spoke on his cell phone. But when he saw Kim he smiled and said, “Forester, just do it!” and hung up.

  He held out his arm to Kim. “Ready for dinner?”

  “Yes,” she said as they walked toward the main building.

  Concealed in the bushes and watching them was the older man, Red. He was smiling.

  “Sir?” said a man in a suit.

  “What is it?” Red snapped.

  “You have a call from Hong Kong and Mr. Forester needs—”

  Red frowned. “My son took care of Forester. I need you to send someone to the state capital. I want to know everything about the Dr. Tristan Janes who died in 1893.”

  “In the morning I’ll—”

  Red gave the man a sharp look.

  “I’ll call the governor.”

  “You do that,” Red said as he walked away from the hotel.

  The man picked up the broom and followed Randall Maxwell to the waiting car.

  The sound of the shower running woke Kim, and as memories came to her, she stretched luxuriously. Last night had been wonderful. At dinner a table had been set up for them on a little glassed-in porch, and Travis had chosen the meal ahead of time. They’d had three different wines with their six-course dinner. Outside, the stars sparkled and the moonlight flowed over the soft glow from the candles. By the dessert course they were feeding each other—and it was all Kim could do not to jump on Travis and rip his clothes off.

  “Shall we retire to our rooms?” he asked before dessert was finished.

  “If you’re ready,” Kim said in her most demure voice.

  “I have been . . . ready for the last hour.” He sounded like a man in pain.

  Kim gave a very unadult giggle.

  They managed to bid their server—the same young woman who’d checked Kim in—good night and didn’t so much as touch each other on the long trip up the stairs. Travis opened the door and let Kim go in ahead of him. He closed the chain lock, and turned to look at her.

  There were no words needed. She made a leap and was in his arms. Clothes flew across the room and puddled on the floor. By the time they’d covered the few steps to the bed they were naked. They came together with all the passion they felt. And five minutes after their mutual climax, they began again, this time exploring each other’s bodies and finding what the other liked.

  “What about this?” Travis whispered, his hand between her legs.

  “Yes, very much.” Part of her still wished that they’d been together from the start of their adulthood. It would have been nice to learn about one another together. On the other hand, Travis knew some truly lovely things about a woman’s body. He knew just what to do to take her to new heights of ecstasy, and keep her there.

  As for Kim, she’d learned a thing or two also, and when she lowered her mouth onto the center of him, she was pleased by his gasp. Twenty minutes later she moved back up to his neck.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, his eyes full of wonder.

  “Late night TV,” she said without cracking a smile.

  Travis let her know he wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, but he liked thinking she’d learned from TV and not from another man.

  “You make me crazy, you know that?” he said as he rolled her to her back and began kissing her.

  They hadn’t gone to sleep until 3:00 A.M. They’d fallen across each other, naked, sweaty, and as limp as rag dolls. At some point Travis had awakened. He moved Kim from lying crosswise on the bed, positioned her head on his shoulder, pulled the covers over them, and immediately went back to sleep.

  It was morning now, and as Kim listened to the shower running, she kept smiling as she remembered last night.

  Travis entered the room
wearing a towel and drying his hair with another one. “You continue looking at me like that and I’ll need another shower.” He gave her a hot little look. “In an hour or so, that is.”

  Smiling, Kim stretched. “I had a good time last night.”

  “Yeah?” he said as he sat down on the bed beside her and stroked her hair back from her face. “I did too. How about if today we—”

  “Oh!” she said and sat up straighter. “I forgot to tell you that I know where Tristan Janes is buried.”

  “That isn’t what I was going to suggest we do, but we did come here for that purpose.”

  “Right. To find more of my relatives.” Bending, he kissed her earlobe. “Maybe we could just call people named Janes and ask what they know.”

  Travis got up and headed for the bathroom. “I already checked the local phone book and I asked Penny. There are no Janeses left.”

  “When did you talk to her?” Kim asked.

  “This morning while you were asleep,” he called from across the room.

  Kim glanced at the clock. It was a little after nine and she didn’t think she’d ever slept so late in her life. When they were kids she and Travis had been outside before six. “Are you still a morning person?”

  He put his head around the doorway, his cheeks covered in shaving foam. “I’m usually at the office by seven. What about you?”

  “In my garage workshop at six.”

  “Of course I’m having breakfast by five,” he said.

  “Four-thirty for me.”

  “I’m in the gym at four.”

  “I don’t bother to sleep at all,” she said and they laughed together at their one-upmanship.

  He came out of the bathroom, freshly shaved and nude. At Kim’s look he paused in starting to dress, but then he turned away. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  As she started to get out of bed, she realized she too was naked and hesitated. Travis had his back to her but he was watching her in the mirror. It’s not as though he hasn’t seen me nude before, she thought as she threw back the cover and walked across the room with all the bravado she could muster. She paused at the bathroom door and looked back at him. He was buttoning his shirt—and he was smiling broadly.

  She showered and washed her hair, copiously applying conditioner to make it as silky as she could. When she got out, she dried off, put on the hotel robe hanging from a hook on the door, and began to blow-dry her hair. Travis came in, fully dressed, and took the dryer from her. She was glad to see that he was a bit awkward with the big hand dryer—which meant he hadn’t done such a domestic task before. As Kim bent her head forward and felt his hands on the back of her neck and in her hair, she didn’t think she’d ever felt anything so sensual. There was something so very intimate, so private, about what he was doing that she thought it might possibly be sexier than sex. What a funny thought! Sexier than sex.

  “What’s that laugh for?” he asked as he turned the dryer off.

  “Nothing, just silliness.” Turning, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Thanks,” she said. “I enjoyed that.”

  “Me too.” He ran his hands down the back of her body, and gave a pat to her rear end. “Get dressed so I can get some food! You wore me out last night.” He left the bathroom.

  “You?” she asked as she began putting on her makeup. “You spent most of the time on your back. I was the one doing all the work.”

  Travis looked around the doorjamb. “So what channels of TV do you watch when you stay up all night? I think we should watch them together.”

  “Go away,” she said, laughing, “and let me get ready.”

  He went back into the bedroom and put on his watch. “So tell me how you found out where Janes is buried.”

  With a curler clasped to her lashes, she told him about meeting the caretaker, Red, and the highlights of what he’d told her. Minutes later, she was finished and went to the bedroom to get dressed. Travis sat down in a chair to watch the show.

  “So who’s here that we can take with us?” she concluded as she started to fasten her bracelet, but then held out her arm to Travis.

  “The man said we should take someone big and strong with us? Is that in case a rock falls on one of us and the other can’t pull it off?”

  “I don’t know why he said that. You think Russell is here?”

  “Probably. And since I’m footing the bill, I’m sure he’s eating truffles and Beluga.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Kim said. “After we go see this Old Mill, maybe we can walk through town.”

  “And see if there are any jewelry stores to check out?”

  “Exactly,” Kim said, pleased that he knew that about her.

  He smiled as he opened the door into the hallway, and they started down the stairs. “I think I’d enjoy that. Maybe we could find a ring that you’d like.”

  “I don’t copy other people’s work,” she said stiffly. They were outside the main dining room, which Kim hadn’t seen.

  “I was thinking more of something you’d like to wear for the rest of your life.”

  “I—” She wanted to say more but was cut off by a chorus of good mornings. The dining room had eight tables, and all of them were occupied by people she’d never seen before. But they all seemed to know them, as they said hello to Travis and “Miss Aldredge.” “You’ll have to introduce me.”

  Travis nodded to a table for four. “That’s Penny and you know her kid. I’ve never seen the rest of them.”

  “Your room fillers,” she said, amused. When Travis went after something he didn’t hold back; he covered all the bases. Am I what he wants next? she couldn’t help wondering.

  Penny—Mrs. Pendergast—looked at Kim and nodded toward the two empty chairs at their table. She was a handsome woman, younger-looking than Kim had expected. Her face was unlined, and she’d kept her slim figure, which she showed off in black linen trousers and a white shirt. Peeping out from under her hair, which fell softly to her collar, were the pearl earrings that Russell had bought in Kim’s shop.

  “Your choice,” Travis said.

  Kim didn’t hesitate as she walked to the table and took a seat. Her eyes were on Mrs. Pendergast. “I’ve heard nothing but good about you,” she said. “Travis doesn’t seem able to conduct his life without you.”

  “He gets in trouble; Mom gets him out,” Russell said.

  Penny gave her son a look to stop it, but he just smiled.

  “And I have heard about you for years,” Penny said.

  “Really?” Kim asked, surprised. “I had no idea that Travis had ever spoken of me to anyone.”

  “Did you show her the plaque?”

  “Not yet,” Travis said as he gave his order to the server. There was an antique sideboard against the wall that was covered with silver chafing dishes, but it looked like he wanted the meal served to him.

  Penny leaned toward Kim. “If you want something from the buffet, you’d better get it now before my uncle Bernie eats it all.” She nodded toward a corner table where a tall, skinny man was digging into three piled-high plates.

  Kim excused herself and went to get scrambled eggs, sausages, and whole wheat toast. When she turned back toward the table, she paused to look at the three of them. Travis and Mrs. Pendergast had their heads together, talking quietly. Actually, she was talking while Travis nodded solemnly, a slight frown on his brow.

  The familiarity between them didn’t surprise her, but what did was seeing Travis and Russell next to each other. When Kim had last seen Russell she’d been too upset to comprehend much of anything, but now she saw the similarities between the two men. They were the same height, had the same dark hair and eyes, and when they reached for their coffee cups, their hands moved in exactly the same way. Having lived in Edilean all her life, if there was one thing Kim knew about it was relatives. It was easy to see that Travis and Russell were closely related.

  With her eyes wide, Kim looked up to see Penny staring at her.
Kim raised her brows, as though to ask if Travis knew. Penny gave one sideways movement of her head to say no, and her eyes were pleading. They said, Please don’t tell him. Not yet.

  Kim didn’t like to keep secrets from Travis, but there was more here than she knew about. She gave a curt nod to Penny, then sat down.

  Travis and Penny went on talking about what the “moron” in New York was doing about some deal. While it was interesting to see another side of him, Kim was more fascinated by the similarities between him and Russell. She watched Travis’s hand gestures, the way he held a fork. When Russell spoke to his mother, she listened to his voice. It was very like Travis’s deep resonance.

  After a few moments of unabashedly staring, Kim felt Russ’s eyes on her, and she looked at him. He was smiling at her as though they shared a secret—and it looked as though they did. A very big secret.

  When Kim looked at Russell, he raised his glass of OJ slightly, as though in salute to her. She couldn’t help giving a little laugh. Unless she missed her guess, Travis had a half brother.

  “Sorry,” Travis said as he leaned away from Penny and looked at Kim. “We’re ignoring you.”

  “No one is ignoring me,” she said. “In fact I’m being well entertained.” She turned to Penny. “Didn’t you use to work for Travis’s father?”

  “For many years.” Penny’s eyes were alight, as though she was wondering what Kim was going to say next. Announce what she’d just figured out?

  But Kim wasn’t even tempted to tell. Hearing that he had a brother was going to change Travis’s world, and she was not the one to tell him. That news needed to come from Russell and Penny—and a lot of explaining was going to have to be done.

  “Maybe Russell could go with us today,” Kim said.

  “Go where?” He was looking at Kim as though he expected her to tell what she’d just discovered.

  “To some derelict old building,” Travis said. “Last night while I was working, the love of my life was flirting with another man, and he told her where to go today. He said that she’d need the help of someone big and strong. Kim seems to think that’s you.” His tone was light and teasing.