Stranger in the Moonlight (14 page)

Since Joe had met Lucy he’d tried to get her to tell him about her past, but she would say nothing. If he were a different kind of man he would have enjoyed her attempts to redirect his inquiries. But he didn’t like her discomfort, so he was careful not to ask.

But it was easy to see that this young man was connected to Lucy. Her son? he wondered. They had the same eyes, only his were darker. The way his hair curled around his neck was just like hers, and the way he held his hand as he closed the car door was pure Lucy.

So she had a son, he thought. The real question was, Who was the father?

As for the second observation, Joe had felt bad for Kim as all her friends got married and moved on to a different life. She and Jecca had kept in close touch over the years, and Joe had heard how, one by one, all Kim’s friends and cousins got married. Even Jecca had left. She’d gone to Edilean to visit Kim but had ended up spending all her time with Dr. Tris.

Now, it was good to see some man in love with Kim. She deserved all the best life had to offer.

Joe cleared his throat and put his shoulders back. It wouldn’t do to let his sentimentality show. He opened the front door. “You here for the job?”

“What job?” Kim asked as she kissed Joe’s cheek. She’d known him for many years, had spent several nights at his house in New Jersey. One night when she was in college he’d stayed up listening to Kim cry over what some fraternity guy had done to her.

“To help me get this place set up. I had to fire the first one I hired.”

Travis was looking hard at the man. He was short and solidly built, and he seemed to be scowling.

“This is my friend Travis”—she hesitated—“Merritt, and I was telling him about your new store. Is that big room you were going to use for Jecca still empty?”

Joe was looking at Travis. His father must be tall, he thought, as the boy was, but his resemblance to Lucy was uncanny. It was a moment before Joe realized that Travis was holding out his hand to shake. Joe took it and kept looking in the boy’s eyes. When Travis pulled his hand away, Joe felt the calluses. “You in construction?”

“No,” Travis said. “Just a misspent life.”

“He was a Hollywood stuntman,” Kim said.

“That right? What tricks can you do?”

“Get shot, mostly,” Travis said. “I’m the guy in the police uniform who gets killed by the bad guy. I’ve been killed four times in the same movie. Low budget.”

“You’d think that as pretty as you are that you’d be the star of the picture,” Joe said.

Travis laughed. “I agree. I even suggested that to a director, so he gave me a screen test. The verdict was that I have no acting talent at all.”

“Why would that stop you from being a star?” Joe asked, his face serious.

“Beats me,” Travis said. “But anyway, I never liked sitting around in a trailer doing nothing. What’s this job you need done?”

“Manager,” Joe said. “I need someone to look after the place so I have time to spend with my girls.”

“Girls?” Travis asked and his smile disappeared.

“Maybe we could—” Kim began.

“My daughter and my intended,” Joe said. “You think you could handle the job? You need to know a lot about tools.”

“Travis knows about . . .” Kim began but hesitated. “Balloons,” she said at last.

Both men looked at her.

“You the guy that got that kid’s balloon out of the tree?”

“Yes,” Travis said, “but I didn’t think it would be known all over town so fast.”

“The sheriff stopped by.” Joe nodded toward the doorway to the other side of the building. “You want to see Jecca’s studio?”

“Yes, we would,” Kim said, and they followed Joe.

“What do you think?”
Kim asked Travis. They were in a booth in a little restaurant off the road into Williamsburg, eating dinner.

“About what?” he asked as he toyed with his fork.

“Opening a sporting goods store?”

Travis took his time answering. “I liked him.”

“Mr. Layton? Of course. He’s a nice man. And he was certainly taken with
you
. I couldn’t believe he was asking your opinion about his finances.”

“Me neither. You don’t think he knows . . .”

“That you’re Lucy’s son? How could he?”

“I’ve been told that I look like my mother, so maybe he recognized me.”

“Since I’ve never seen your mother, at least not clearly anyway, I wouldn’t know.” Kim looked at him, at his dark brows like gull wings over his eyes, at his jawline with its dark whiskers just under the skin. She couldn’t imagine that anyone as masculine-looking as he was could resemble any female.

What Travis saw in her eyes made him want to reach across the table and drag her to him. She had a pretty mouth that he’d very much like to kiss. When his mother’s words rang in his head, he looked away. He didn’t know where his life was going and it wasn’t fair of him to pull Kim in with him.

Kim had seen the glow in his eyes, had felt the spark between them—but then he’d turned away. For some reason she didn’t understand, he wasn’t allowing the attraction between them. The normal, sexual pull that men and women felt for each other was being stomped down by him.

So be it, she thought. Friends is what he’d said and friends is what they were going to be. But she couldn’t help the anger that rose in her. Was there someone else in his life? Had he decided that a small town girl wasn’t good enough for him? Or was it that he just couldn’t see her as anything but a child?

Whatever it was, she didn’t like it one little bit.

“You mind if I make a phone call?” she asked in the sweetest voice she could muster. It looked like in her case, the old adage about a woman scorned was true.

“No, go ahead. You want some privacy?”

“No, it’ll just take a moment. I’m sure he’s working.”

“He?”

“Dave, my boyfriend.”

Travis nearly choked on the bite he’d just taken. “Boyfriend?”

Kim started to speak, but then Dave answered.

“Hey, babe, what’s up?” he asked.

Kim held the phone away from her ear so Dave’s voice could be heard. “I was wondering if you had any ideas about what to pack for this weekend. Is this B&B formal? Should I take a long dress?”

“I don’t know,” Dave said. “You found the place, but I can tell you that I’m not taking my tux. I have to wear it too often at work. Hey! Why don’t we solve the dilemma by having dinner in bed every night?”

Kim was smiling as she looked at Travis. His eyes were wide, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I thought breakfast in bed was more usual.” Her voice was low, sexy—the same one she’d heard Travis use with women. Women other than her.

“How about if we compromise and do them both in bed?” Dave’s voice was low.

“What in the world would we do for lunch?” she asked innocently.

“You’re the creative one, so I’ll let you figure that out. I gotta go. We’re loading the truck for a dinner party. See you Friday at two. And Kim?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t pack
anything
to wear at night.”

Laughing, she hung up, put her phone away, then took a long sip of her drink.

Travis was staring at her. He hadn’t moved a muscle since she opened her phone. “Boyfriend?” he said at last, his voice close to a whisper.

“Yes. What’s wrong? Don’t you like your sandwich? We could get something else. You want me to call the waitress?”

“The food is fine. Since when do you have a boyfriend?”

“Dave and I have been together for six months now.” She smiled at him. “I think it’s serious.”

“Serious as in how?”

She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “The usual. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just surprised is all. I didn’t realize there was someone . . . important in your life.”

“Please tell me that you didn’t assume that since I live in a small town that I was . . . What? Waiting for some big city man to come and rescue me? Not quite.”

“Actually,” he said, “I thought maybe the wedding going on when I arrived was yours.”

If Kim had had any doubts that their relationship was only friendship, it vanished with that statement. He didn’t seem bothered that he’d thought she was about to get married. But why should he? They hardly knew each other, and he’d made it clear that in three weeks he was leaving. “So what about you? Anyone special in your life?”

“I don’t know . . .” he said. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kim had a boyfriend, certainly not one that she called “serious.”

“You don’t know if there’s a woman in your life? If there is and you two need wedding rings, I can design and make them for you. Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” Travis said, but he hadn’t recovered from the blow. He didn’t know what he’d imagined, but Kim talking of meals in bed with another man hadn’t been part of it.

He put money on the table and walked out of the diner behind Kim. A pretty young woman smiled at him, but Travis paid no attention to her.

Kim got behind the wheel of her car. “I have work to do at home,” she said, her voice cool.

“Have I made you angry?”

“Of course not. What would I be angry about?” She wanted to yell at him. He flirted with other women but looked at her as though she were his sister—or an eight-year-old girl.

She took a deep breath and when she let it out, she released her anger. It wasn’t fair of her to be angry because he wasn’t attracted to her. How many times had men come on to her but she’d shot them down? At least once a week some man came into her shop and let her know that he was available. Sometimes his wife would be standing three feet away.

You really can’t control sexual attraction, she thought. You either felt it or you didn’t. She’d thought she felt it coming from Travis, but it looked like she was wrong. He’d been very clear that he wanted and needed friendship, so that’s what she was going to give him.

“How serious are you with this man?”

Think of him as a girlfriend, Kim thought. Don’t look at him, don’t get pulled in by the smoldering good looks of him. He’s a buddy, a friend, and nothing else.

“I think it may be permanent,” she said. “Carla giggles every time she mentions this weekend, and one of my best rings is missing from the case. A big sapphire. I can’t find the receipt and when I asked her about it she said . . . I don’t remember her excuse, but the register receipt isn’t there.”

“You don’t seem worried that this Carla could have stolen it. I guess that means you think this guy is going to give you one of your own rings. As an engagement ring?”

“Maybe,” Kim said.

“What was it about a B&B?”

“My cousin Luke’s wife, Jocelyn, has been doing the genealogy of the seven founding families of Edilean, but there’s a gap in the Aldredge family. A female ancestor of mine went to a place called Janes Creek, Maryland, in the 1890s and came back pregnant. Joce wants to try to find who the father was. But she has two little kids, so she asked me to go up there and see what I could find out.”

“And this man is going with you?”

“Yes,” Kim said. “Dave owns a catering company and weekends are his busiest time. He’s had to pay his employees a lot to cover for him this coming weekend.”

“That he’s taking off and that a ring and its sales receipt are missing is what makes you think he’s going to . . . What? Ask you to marry him?”

Kim could again feel anger rising in her, but she stamped it down. She pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine, and looked at him. “There is also the fact that Dave is mad about me. We spend every day he’s off work together. We call each other. We talk about our future together.”

“Future? What does that mean?”

“Travis, I really don’t like this inquisition. I agreed to help you with your mother and I will, but I’d just as soon keep my private life to myself.” She got out and went into the house.

Travis stayed in the car, too stunned to move. Kim was about to accept a marriage proposal from some man who ran a catering company! How could he have ever been so wrong about a person? He’d thought that she was, well, interested in
him
!

He flipped open his phone and punched the button to reach Penny. As soon as she answered he said, “I need to know about a man named Dave, don’t know his last name. Lives in a city around Edilean, owns a food catering company. He’s registered for this weekend at a B&B in Janes Creek, Maryland. I want to know everything about him, and I mean
everything
.”

“Should I cancel the B&B?” Penny asked.

“Yes! No. Book me a connecting room. And fill up all the other rooms. In fact, fill up all the rooms in the entire town.”

“Any choice of guests? Leslie has been calling.”

For a moment Travis thought of inviting her. He didn’t know whether he was angry at Kim or jealous or . . . well, hurt. Whatever he was feeling, he didn’t think Leslie’s presence would help.

“She’d probably love Miss Aldredge’s jewelry store,” Penny said into the silence. When Travis didn’t reply, she said, “Life isn’t so easy without the Maxwell name, is it?”

Her words came too close to home for Travis’s comfort. “Just put some people in the rooms. Your relatives.” It occurred to him that he knew nothing about Penny’s personal life. “Do you . . . ?”