Stranger in the Moonlight (35 page)

“They’re here!” Penny said in a voice of relief and joy. She got up and started running.

“Who’s here?” Kim asked.

“It seems that since my little brother”—he looked directly at his mother, but she didn’t meet his eyes—“left us at breakfast, he has met a woman, fallen in love, and asked her to marry him.”

The others paused with food to their lips.

“Who is she?” Kim asked.

“I have no idea. Everything about my brother is a mystery. Shall we go meet her? It seems that she has a five-year-old son who loves fire engines.”

All of them got up and started walking toward the fire truck when they heard a squeal of delight, and a beautiful little boy was running toward them.

“Tristan!” Kim said, then she too started running. “He looks like my cousin Tristan!” she called over her shoulder. “Russell found my cousins!”

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and Travis, Joe, and Lucy hurried after her.

The little boy was already halfway up the side of the truck, all the firefighters helping him up. The happiness on the child’s face made everyone smile.

Behind the little boy, wearing a look of pure bliss, came Russell, and he was holding hands with a pretty young woman.

“I like the ring,” Kim said to Travis.

He looked at her in question.

She nodded toward the woman’s left hand. “It’s the four-carat pink diamond from the tray you showed me. It was my second choice. She has taste.”

Smiling, Travis nodded. As he’d hoped, Russell had used one of the rings he’d offered Kim for their engagement.

Russell stopped in front of his brother. “Dad said he wanted to meet me at the Old Mill this morning. Seems that Clarissa goes there to work every Sunday morning.”

“If Russell hadn’t shown up I’d be dead now or at least broken into bits,” Clarissa said and everyone looked at her.

“You two have to tell us everything,” Kim said, “and I think we’re cousins.”

“Second cousins once removed,” Travis said.

“I need to see to my son,” Clarissa said. “Jamie will—”

“He has a grandmother now,” Russell said softly, and they all turned to look. Penny was on the ground, but her arms were extended over her head. As they watched, two big firefighters lifted her to the top of the truck to sit beside Jamie. He smiled at her, and when the engine started, Penny put her arm around the child.

“I think he’s going to be fine,” Russell said as he smiled at Clarissa. “Shall we all sit down?”

“And eat,” Clarissa said. “I’m sure you’re hungry again.”

Like the lovebirds they were, that inside joke seemed to amuse them greatly.

It was three hours later before they were all sated with food and drink and news. The fire engine had returned and they’d all listened to Jamie’s excited description of everything he’d seen and done. He’d been given a hat and a bright yellow coat, both of which he wouldn’t take off.

After he’d eaten he wore down and snuggled on his mother’s lap. When he fell asleep, Russell took him and stretched him out, his head on Russell’s lap, his feet in Penny’s.

Everyone had listened in silence as Russell and Clarissa tripped over each other as they told of their meeting. Travis looked at Penny, and communication based on years of working together passed between them. Randall Maxwell had found the Aldredge descendant they were looking for and he’d set his son up to meet her.

When Clarissa told of her brush with death from trying to renovate the Old Mill, Travis again looked at Penny, and she nodded. Randall Maxwell was going to give his son a wedding gift of a renovated building.

But what everyone was most interested in was the first encounter between Russell and Clarissa. They were both shy and reticent when telling that part of the story, but the looks on their faces told it all.

Several times Travis looked at his mother, and her expression showed that she was as fascinated as they all were by the story. Twice Travis caught her looking at Russell in wonder. He really did look like her son.

At about four they were all winding down from the excitement of the day. Travis and Kim were looking at each other as though they wanted to be alone, as were Lucy and Joe, and Russell and Clarissa.

The odd man out, the only one unattached, was Penny.

“Maybe we should go back to the hotel,” Kim said. “We could all meet later for—” She broke off because a long black limo had pulled into the area beside their cars. The back door opened but no one got out and the engine wasn’t turned off. Inside they could vaguely see the shadow of a person, but he or she didn’t get out.

“That’s Randall,” Lucy said and she sounded like the party was over, but then her face lightened and she looked at Penny directly. Not with the sideways looks she’d been giving her all afternoon, but full into her eyes. “He’s here for
you
.”

Penny shrugged. “He probably wants me to pick up his dry cleaning.”

Everyone continued to look at her.

“Mother,” Russell said, “you have been in love with that man for nearly thirty years. Don’t you think it’s time you showed it?”

Penny looked at Lucy, and her eyes were asking permission. In answer, Lucy snuggled up to Joe. “I have what I want right here.”

Penny took only seconds to make her decision. Looking as though she was finally going to get to do what she wanted to in her life, she got up, smoothed the front of her skirt, kissed Russell, then Jamie, then Clarissa on the forehead. She turned her back to them and started a slow, sedate walk toward the open limo. But when she got closer, she broke into a run. They saw her smile when she got to the door. She didn’t hesitate as she stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her. The limo drove away.

The stunned silence of everyone made Jamie stir. He looked up and saw Russell, and smiled that he was still there.

“You gave me a fire engine,” he said and slipped his arms around Russell’s neck.

“I think we should go,” Russ said to Clarissa, and they stood up.

The others stayed seated on the cloth, looking up at them. Russell with the little boy clinging tightly about his neck, holding him in one arm while helping Clarissa with her bags with the other. It was impossible to believe that these people had just met that morning. If ever there were three people who were a family, it was them.

“So what are your plans?” Travis asked.

Clarissa looked up at Russell. As she folded a blanket, the big ring sparkled on her finger. “It’s a little early to say yet.”

Russell said, “I guess it depends on where I get a job.”

“All right, little brother,” Travis said, “we’re all waiting. What
is
your vocation?”

Russell smiled in a way that said he wasn’t telling.

Clarissa looked confused that these brothers didn’t know such an elemental thing about each other. “Russell is a Baptist minister.”

That silenced everyone.

Russell shrugged. “I trained to be, but I haven’t had much practice at it. I was told that I have some, uh, anger issues, and it was strongly suggested that I deal with them.”

Travis looked like he was about to laugh, but Kim gave him a look that warned him not to.

Kim spoke up. “You know, half of Edilean hasn’t forgiven our current pastor for stealing my brother’s girlfriend. Besides, he’s been there for years now and . . .” She let the rest of that hang in the air.

“What my dear wife-to-be is saying is that there may be an opening in Edilean for a minister.” Travis was looking at his brother with wide eyes, but he managed to recover himself. “I think we should talk about a camp I want to set up. There’s a place for you.”

“Gladly,” Russell said, “but first Clarissa is going to med school. She wants to be a doctor.”

“She’s a real Tristan,” Kim said, and they all laughed. She looked at everyone smiling, then up at Travis. At last she had what she’d wanted since she was eight years old.

“Ready to go?” Travis asked softly.

“Yes,” she said. “Always yes.”

Epilogue

It was late
when Kim’s cell phone buzzed. She and Travis were in Paris on their honeymoon and she thought about not looking at the e-mail. But Travis heard it.

“Go on, see who it is. I’m hoping to hear from Mom and Joe.”

Kim clicked the phone and read in disbelief. “It’s from Sophie.”

“Who?”

“My other college roommate, besides Jecca.”

“Oh yeah, the blonde bombshell.”

As Kim kept reading, she collapsed on the bed.

“Is it bad news?”

“Yes and no,” she whispered. “Sophie says she needs a place to hide and a job.”

“To hide? From what?”

“She doesn’t say,” Kim said.

Travis sat down on the bed beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “If you want to go home, we can.”

“No,” Kim said. “Sophie said I wasn’t to do that. I—” Her head came up. “I’m going to call Betsy.”

“Who’s that?”

“My brother’s office manager. Reede doesn’t know it, but he’s getting a new employee.” She held the phone to her ear.

Travis stood up. “Sounds to me like you’re matchmaking.”

“Heavens no! Reede and Sophie? It could never work. She’s too smart, too
nice
for my brother. However, I think I’ll send my cousin Roan an e-mail and ask him to look in on Sophie.”

Travis shook his head as he sat down in a comfortable chair and opened a newspaper. It looked like his wife was going to be a while in organizing her friend’s life.

Behind the paper he smiled. He was sure he was the happiest man on the planet. “Take your time,” he said. “We have a lifetime ahead of us.”

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from

MOONLIGHT MASQUERADE

By Jude Deveraux

February 2013
From Pocket Books

Prologue

Edilean, Virginia

“I quit!” Heather said. “I cannot take any more of that man’s bad temper.”

She was in the outer office of Dr. Reede Aldredge’s medical clinic and she was talking to Alice and Betsy. Alice wanted to retire and she was nearly desperate for Heather, young, recently married, and new to Edilean, to take on her job. But Heather was having a difficult time adjusting to Dr. Reede’s sharp tongue. Betsy and Alice referring to it as his “perfectionism” wasn’t helping Heather to adjust. “He never says a pleasant word.”

“But what he does say is usually right,” Alice said, her face encouraging.

“Yes, but it’s the
way
he says it. Today I said, ‘Good morning,’ he says, ‘I’m inside so how would I know?’ And yesterday, he told Mrs. Casein that her only problem was that she ate too many of her husband’s pies.”

Betsy and Alice just looked at her. Betsy was in her late forties and had lived in Edilean since she was six. She was glad she wasn’t a nurse as Heather was. Instead, she sat at the computer all day and answered the phone—and that kept her away from young Dr. Reede for most of the workday.

Heather understood the looks the women were giving her. “I know, I know,” she said. “That’s true about the pies, but couldn’t he at least
try
to be diplomatic? Hasn’t he even
heard
of a bedside manner? Last week Sylvia Garland left here crying. He wasn’t at all sympathetic.”