When she leaned forward she unintentionally gave Travis a view down the top of her dress. Kim had told Jecca the neckline was too low, but she’d laughed. “With a set of knockers like yours you should show them off.” With a compliment like that, Kim couldn’t insist that the bodice have a modesty panel put in it.
Travis was so distracted by the view that for a moment he couldn’t speak.
“You can tell me anything,” Kim said. “I know we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but friendship lasts forever, and you and I are
friends
. Remember?”
“Yes,” he said, swallowing. He had to take his hand out of hers or he’d be pulling her closer to him. Why hadn’t he used the drive down to think about what he’d say if he did see Kim again? Instead, he’d spent most of the time on the phone planning the rock climbing trip he was going on in six weeks. Equipment had to be purchased and Travis needed to do some training. Wonder if there was a cliff he could climb in little Edilean? And did this backwoods town have a gym? He didn’t want his body turning to mush while he was here trying to figure out his mother’s problems.
He saw that Kim was still waiting for his answer. He hadn’t planned to ask for help, hadn’t even planned to see her again, but seeing her inside the tent, in that figure-hugging dress, had been too much for him. When she’d slipped out and disappeared into the woods, he’d followed her.
Now, he couldn’t keep sitting there in silence. Kim was going to think he was a moron.
“It’s my mother,” he said. “She’s living here in Edilean.” He fell silent again, not sure what to tell and what to keep back. He didn’t want to scare Kim away.
“What about her?” she coaxed as she tried to remember what she knew about his mother. When it had all happened, Kim had been too young to understand what was going on, but over the years she’d figured out some things. Lucy Merritt had been hiding from her abusive husband.
At the memory of the name, Kim gasped. “Lucy! Your mother’s name was Lucy. Is she Lucy Cooper, the woman who runs away every time I get near? She’s lived in Edilean for four years, but tonight was the first time I saw her, and even then it was only a partial view.”
Travis was genuinely surprised. He’d asked his mother about Kim a couple of times, but she’d always said that they traveled in different circles, then changed the subject. “I didn’t know that she hid from you, but I’m sure she would feel that she needed to. She didn’t see many people when we were here before, just that old man and your mother. And you.”
“Mr. Bertrand died the next year, and my mother would never tell anyone that Lucy was here.”
“What about you?” Travis asked. “If you’d recognized her, would you have told?”
“I—” Kim broke off. If she’d seen Travis’s mother here in Edilean she would have been on the phone to Jecca two minutes later. And she would have told her cousin Sara and maybe her new relative by marriage, Jocelyn, and she rather liked her cousin Colin’s new wife, Gemma, so maybe she would have told her. And she would have
had
to tell Tris, as he was Mrs. Wingate’s friend.
“Maybe,” Kim said in a way that made Travis smile.
“If this is your cousin’s house and Mom lived next door, it must have been difficult for her to hide from you.”
“She managed it,” Kim said but didn’t elaborate on the many times Lucy Cooper had escaped her view. Jecca had lived in Mrs. Wingate’s house for a while, and every time Kim visited, Lucy would magically disappear. Now Kim wondered if the poor woman had slipped into a broom closet. Whatever she did, Kim knew one thing for sure: Her mother had told Lucy not to let Kim see her.
Kim wanted to get the focus off her. “Is your mother here because of your father?”
“Yes,” Travis said as he leaned back against the bench. He was silent for a moment, then turned to smile at her. “I’m keeping you from your friends—and your relatives. Mom said everyone in Edilean is related to one another.”
“It’s not that bad, but close,” Kim said.
“Is that dress one of those . . . bride things?” He waved his hand.
“I was the maid of honor.”
“Oh,” he said. “Doesn’t ‘maid’ mean that you’re not married?”
“I’m not. What about you?”
“Never married. I work for my father,” Travis said. “The deal is that if I work for him he won’t pursue Mom.” He was telling her things that he never told unless necessary, but the words seemed to pour from him.
“That doesn’t sound pleasant,” Kim said and again wanted to reach for his hand, but she didn’t. She couldn’t imagine being in such a situation, but she thought how . . . well, how noble, heroic even, it was of him to sacrifice himself for his mother. Who did that today?
“It seems that now my mother wants to get married, but she’s still legally married to my father.”
Kim didn’t understand the problem. “She can get a divorce, can’t she?”
“Yes, but if she files that will let my father know where she is and he’ll do what he can to make her life unpleasant.”
“There are laws—”
“I know,” Travis said. “I’m not worried about the divorce. It’s the aftermath that I fear.”
“I don’t understand,” Kim said. The band was playing their last set, and she could hear people laughing. She wondered if Travis had ever learned to dance.
Travis turned to her. “Can I trust you? I mean,
really
trust you? I’m not used to confiding in people.” Every word he said was from his heart. This was Kim, the grown-up version of the little girl who’d changed his life.
“Yes,” she said and meant it with great sincerity.
“My father is . . .”
“Abusive,” Kim said, her jaw set.
“He is to anyone who is weaker than he is, and my mother is a delicate woman.”
“Jecca adores her.”
“Mom mentioned her. She’s the young woman who lived in the apartment next door.”
“And she’s the bride. I guess you know that Jecca and your mother became great friends. They worked out together, sewed together. There was a point when I was becoming downright jealous.”
Travis was looking at Kim in shock. He talked to his mother once a week—even if he was out of the country—but he’d heard nothing of this. He’d seen the article that said she’d made clothes for some woman, but he’d thought that meant his mother stayed in her rooms and sewed.
“Jecca is Joe Layton’s daughter,” Kim said when Travis was silent.
“Joe Layton?”
“I assume that’s the man she wants to marry, isn’t it? Tonight the two of them were dancing together as though they were about to tear each other’s clothes off. Jecca said Lucy was very flexible, but I had no idea she could do a back bend like
that
. I hope that when I’m her age I can—” She broke off at Travis’s look. “Oh. Right. She’s your mother. I feel pretty certain that the man she wants to marry is Joe Layton.”
“What’s he like? What does he do?”
“He owns a hardware store in New Jersey, one that’s been in his family for generations. But he’s turning it over to his son and opening a store here in Edilean.”
“Can the small population of this town support a hardware store?”
“We are near some large cities,” Kim said coolly.
“I didn’t mean to insult Edilean. I was thinking in terms of money. My mother stands to make a profit by the divorce.”
“I’ve known Jecca for many years,” Kim said tersely, “and I can assure you that her father is
not
after your mother’s money.” She really and truly did
not
like what he was insinuating. She stood up. “I think I’ll go back to the reception now.”
Travis didn’t say a word. Just as he’d known he would, he’d blown it with Kim. But then, he always messed up when it came to good girls. He didn’t call when he was supposed to, forgot birthdays, didn’t send a gift that she’d expected. Whatever he did seemed to be wrong—which is why he tended toward women like Leslie. Give her something shiny and she was happy.
Kim got to the end of the path before a strong sense of déjà vu hit her. She was eight years old again, she’d just let her temper override her and thrown a clod of dirt at a boy. She then ran away and hid, waiting for him to come after her. But
that
boy hadn’t come. She’d had to go after him. In the weeks that followed she’d found out that the boy didn’t know how to do much of anything. Couldn’t skip rocks, couldn’t ride a bike. He knew lots about science but couldn’t put a blade of grass between his thumbs and make a whistle. He didn’t know anything about the really important stuff in life.
She turned back to Travis. Just as he’d done so long ago, he was sitting there, not moving. She didn’t know what was in his head now—probably something he’d learned in a book—but it was obvious that he was as socially awkward now as he was then.
Slowly, she walked back to the bench and sat down beside him, her eyes straight ahead. “Sorry,” she said. “My temper sometimes gets the better of me.”
“Then you haven’t changed.”
“And you just sat there, so neither have you.”
“Maybe as children we’re the purest forms of ourselves.”
“In our case, I think so.” She took a breath. “Joe Layton isn’t after your mother’s money. As far as I know, no one knows she has any or will receive any. I don’t mean to reveal a confidence, but Jecca said that her dad knows little about Lucy, whether she has kids or not, anything. Whenever he asks about her personal life, Lucy starts kissing him and—I guess you don’t want to hear the rest of that.”
“I would prefer your descriptions to be less graphic.”
She smiled at the way he spoke. His extensive schooling was in every syllable. “I understand. I think you can rest easy that they are together for love, not money.”
When he said nothing, she put her hand on his arm—and Travis put his hand over hers. He had almost forgotten how caring she was. When they were kids she was appalled at the things he didn’t know. She seemed to have a checklist of what each and every kid in the world
must
know and she’d set about teaching him.
Right now there were a few things he’d like to teach her. She looked so good in that dress in the moonlight that it was difficult to keep his hands off her. But she was looking at him as though he were a stray dog that she needed to rescue. He had to work to keep desire out of his eyes, but she seemed to want to give him a bandage.
He knew he should let go of her hand, but her long fingers were—He lifted her hand. “Is this a scar?”
She pulled out of his grasp. “Very unfeminine, I know. But it’s a hazard of my trade.”
“Your trade?” Thanks to the Internet, he knew all about her jewelry shop. He’d followed her all through school, then back to Edilean, where she’d opened her own business. Kim never knew it, but Travis attended every one of her one-man shows while she was at school. One time, he’d barely escaped being seen. She’d come in with two other girls, a tall, slim, dark-haired one, and a short blonde girl with a figure that had every male in the room staring.
But Travis only had eyes for Kim. She’d grown up to be as pretty as she’d been when they were children. And he liked the way she laughed and seemed to be so happy. Travis didn’t think he’d ever been that happy in his life—at least not since he’d left Edilean and Kim so many years before.
“I make jewelry,” she said.
He turned on the bench to look at her. “The jewelry kit!”
She smiled. “You remember that?”
“You had me open it. You got it . . . ?”
“My aunt and uncle had given it to me for Christmas, but I wasn’t interested enough to even open it. I was an ungrateful child! It was in that box Uncle Ben brought to us.”
“With my bicycle,” Travis said, his voice softening with the memory. “You were very creative with everything in that kit. I was amazed.”
“And you were an excellent model,” she said. “No boy I knew would have let me put a necklace of beads around him.” She didn’t tell him that the pleasure of those two weeks and the jewelry kit were all tied together. Travis and jewelry and happiness were synonymous to her.
“I still have that necklace,” he said.
“Do you?” she asked.
“Yes. Kim, that was the best two weeks of my childhood.”
She started to say it was for her too, but she didn’t. “What are your plans about your mother?”
“I don’t really have a plan. I just heard of this yesterday. She called . . .” He thought it best not to say “my secretary.” “And left a message saying she wanted to get married, so she needed a divorce. That’s all she said. It was a total shock to me. I thought she was living in an apartment in a house owned by a respectable older widow and they were sewing children’s clothes. Now I find out that Mom is doing back bends in front of the whole town.” He looked at Kim. “So, no, I haven’t come up with a plan. Mainly, I want—”
“What?”
“I want to know if this man Joe Layton is good for my mother. Forget love—she thought she was in love with my father. I want to know if he’s a good person and that he’s not going to browbeat my little mother.”
Kim drew her breath in sharply. Jecca’s mother had died when she was young, and she’d been raised by her father. Joe Layton was a very strong-willed man who liked things done his way. All through college, there had been hundreds of girlfriend sessions where Jecca was tearing her hair out about some maddening thing her father had said or done. While the man could be very sweet, he could also be a serious pain in the neck. And he was
very
possessive! When Jecca fell in love with a man in Edilean, Virginia, Joe Layton had moved there to be with her—and his stunt had almost caused Jecca and Tris to break up.
“What is it?” Travis asked.
“I, uh . . .” She didn’t know exactly what to say. She was saved from replying by the sound of voices coming their way.
Kim could tell from Travis’s expression that he didn’t want to be seen. At least not yet, before he saw his mother. “Follow me,” she said as she stood and lifted her long skirt to start running down a narrow path through the woods.
“Gladly,” Travis murmured as he followed her. It was dark in the heavily wooded area, but there was enough moonlight to see Kim’s pale skin and the silvery blue of her dress. He loved watching her run.