Moonlight Masquerade Read online

  Sophie watched Reede unfasten something from his belt. She hadn’t noticed that there was a whip coiled at his side. “You’re Zorro!” she said.

  “That’s what Sara told me I was.” He was unrolling the whip.

  “So where’s your cape? I was promised a cape.”

  “I left it at Sara’s house. Sorry to disappoint you, but I couldn’t handle it. A man has limits.”

  “Probably didn’t want to hide your muscles,” Sophie said under her breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I—” She broke off because he looked to be about to unleash the whip in the direction of the rafters—and she had an idea of what he planned to do. “I’m hungry!” she said loudly. “I’d really, really like to have something to eat. Now. This minute!”

  Reede heard the fear in her voice. “This is nothing. It’ll only take a moment.”

  Before Sophie could reply, he’d cracked the whip over the nearest rafter, high above his head. With her hand to her mouth she watched him pull on it to test its strength, then he went flying across the room, swinging on the whip handle. He ended up on the far side of the room and dropped down, grinning like a boy.

  “You should have dressed as Tarzan,” Sophie said, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment. His dangerous little stunt had scared her.

  “A leopard loincloth wouldn’t hide my muscles, would it?” he said, letting her know he’d heard her previous comment.

  Sophie couldn’t help but laugh.

  Reede retrieved the whip, rehooked it to his belt, grabbed the picnic basket, and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

  Within minutes he was seated across from Sophie on her improvised sofa and opening the basket. Inside were lots of little sandwiches, three kinds of salad, and two bottles of wine.

  “Did you pack this yourself?” she asked as he opened a bottle and filled two glasses.

  “Not a bit of it,” he said cheerfully.

  She didn’t ask, but she figured his adoring staff or even his patients had put it together for him.

  “Tell me everything about your life,” Reede said as he removed a plate from the straps on the back of the basket.

  A montage of everything ran through Sophie’s mind: fighting to get to go to college, her mother’s death, taking care of her sister, and the icing on the cake: stealing the Treeborne cookbook from Carter.

  Reede seemed to understand Sophie’s hesitation. “On Monday morning between eight and ten a.m. a FedEx man will stop at Kim’s house to pick up your package. I called a friend of mine in Auckland and it’ll go to him. He’ll send it to Earl.”

  “Earl?” Sophie asked, then remembered the pseudonym she’d used. “Yes, of course. Earl. I can’t thank you enough for this. In other circumstances I wouldn’t be so dependent, but—”

  “I don’t think you’re dependent at all. Sophie, that little sculpture you made was beautiful. Your talent amazes me. Why—?” He cut himself off as he bit into a sandwich.

  “Why aren’t I exhibiting my work?” She could tell by his expression that he hadn’t meant to be so serious, but she didn’t mind. “I have a theory.”

  “And that is?”

  “That every person on this earth was given a talent, whether it’s for art or music or . . . or the ability to keep a house clean even when you have young children.”

  “The clean house gene missed me,” Reede said, holding up the bottle. “More wine?”

  She nodded. “What makes the difference between people are personality traits. Take you and Kim for example.”

  “Go on.”

  “She wanted to make jewelry and you wanted to be a doctor, so you did it.”

  “I’m not understanding your point,” Reede said.

  “Kim had an ambition that equaled her talent, so now she has her own shop and a brand-new contract with Neiman Marcus. And you became a doctor.”

  “I think I see,” Reede said. “People let life get in the way and don’t follow their visions—or their talent.”

  “Exactly! When I was in school studying art I met some fantastically talented people, but after graduation I heard nothing about them. There was a young man who wrote a play that awed all of us. Know what he’s doing now? Selling used cars.”

  “Didn’t want it enough?” Reede asked, looking at her intently. “Is that what happened with you?”

  “I never had the drive of Jecca or Kim. I—” She looked down at her hands.

  “You thought of others before yourself,” he said. “I can attest that my sister never let anyone or anything stand in the way of her jewelry making. But you . . . You were needed, so you set your own wants aside.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” He was making her feel good about herself. For years, when she saw online anything that Jecca or Kim had done, Sophie had felt like a failure. But Reede made her sound, well, almost noble.

  She wanted to talk of something besides herself, and she was interested in his world travels. “What’s the most beautiful country you’ve ever visited?”

  “New Zealand.”

  “Really?” she said. “I would have thought someplace tropical, like Tahiti, would be.”

  “Too much traffic; too many houses.”

  “Most impressive place?”

  “Galapagos Islands, with Petra a close second.”

  “Scariest?” she asked.

  “Tonga, with Easter Island right behind.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “Most surprising?”

  “Hong Kong. Very clean, very modern.”

  “So where would you like to live?” When he started to speak, she put up her hand. “Let me guess. New Zealand.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have friends there, and I like everything about the country.”

  “Have you always felt out of place here in Edilean?”

  He took a moment before answering. “I think so. It wasn’t easy living here as an Aldredge who wanted to be a doctor, but I wasn’t the Aldredge.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “See this house?” He waved his hand toward the living area below. “I didn’t really like the kid who lived here. He used to make fun of me because I was interested in medicine. But I hung around him because of this house.”

  Sophie ate in silence, waiting for him to explain.

  “It’s like Aldredge House, the one Tris inherited. He got the name Tristan and the ancestral home.”

  “And you wanted what he had?”

  “I thought I did. But what I think I really wanted was to belong, to have that feeling of being part of a place.” He opened a box of cupcakes and held them out to Sophie.

  “If your family has lived here for generations I’d think you’d feel that you were part of the town.”

  “Maybe. I’ve been told that the Aldredge who settled Edilean was a doctor, but he was also a wanderer, that he rode on horseback all over the U.S.”

  “So you’re like him,” Sophie said as she broke off a piece of chocolate and ate it. The rain was still coming down steadily, and combined with the small space, she was feeling very close to this man. It was a day for revealing secrets. She thought that if they stayed there much longer that she’d tell him more about Carter. She needed to keep the conversation on Reede. “So you’ll leave as soon as you can.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “The very second.”

  Sophie did her best to conceal her disappointment. This was a man she knew was going to leave. Not like her previous boyfriends, whom she’d broken up with, or like Carter who’d shoved her out his front door then run upstairs to call his real girlfriend. At least with them for a while there had been hope that a man would be in her life permanently.

  “What’s that look for?” Reede asked.

  “Just thoughts,” Sophie said. “Heather called the party tonight McTern. I haven’t heard that name before.”

  She could tell, even through the mask, that Reede was frowning, and it took him a moment to r