Moonlight in the Morning Read online

  “We can’t,” she said.

  “I’m a very patient man.” He settled back against the wall. “What do you plan to do tomorrow?”

  “Start my watercolors. Kim wants me to do a series of a dozen paintings that she can use in a new ad campaign.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Kim’s mother told my dad when she went to his office. He called Mom and told her, she told Addy and my sister told me. The Edilean gossip drums.”

  “Did anyone tell you what I’m going to paint?”

  “We all agreed with Kim’s idea of the orchids.”

  Jecca laughed. “Everything by committee. What are those weird-looking ones under the bench?”

  “Paphiopedilums.”

  “And the ones from the Eisenhower era?” She heard him chuckle.

  “Cattleyas.”

  “Why do you have orchids at Mrs. Wingate’s house?”

  “From a fight with my dad.”

  “You have to tell me this one! Maybe it will help me with my own father.”

  “If you figure out how to deal with a father who believes he knows everything and that I’m still teething on a stethoscope, let me know. Please.”

  “My father thinks I don’t know a claw hammer from a ball pein. Unless he sends me to get a tool. Then I’m supposed to know what he wants, even if he doesn’t tell me. I want to hear about you and your dad and the orchids.”

  “Do you mind, but my leg has gone to sleep and my broken arm is aching. If you’ll move to the side, and I move here, then . . .”

  He was a lot bigger than she was, and the bed in the playhouse was very small. Jecca wasn’t sure how it happened, but one minute she was leaning against the wall and the next her back was against his chest, his long legs on each side of hers. He lifted his injured arm and brought it down over her head to rest across her stomach. His sling seemed to have disappeared in the position change.

  “Hey!” Jecca said. “This isn’t—”

  “Don’t move or you’ll hurt my arm. Now where was I?”

  “Making the smoothest move I’ve ever had played on me,” Jecca said. “I bet in high school when you took a girl to a movie you were a terror in putting your arm around her.”

  “She never knew what hit her. You can’t believe how good I am at stealing kisses.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, now stop distracting me and let me tell you about my orchids.”

  Jecca leaned her head back against him and couldn̵ Sd c my orchid7;t help marveling at how well they fit together. Her head set just into his shoulder, and when he spoke she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

  His voice was soft and deep and so very masculine as he told about growing up in Aldredge House. There was a little conservatory on the end of the house, put there by the woman who’d built it in the 1840s.

  “Did she live there alone?” Jecca asked.

  “Winnie’s story is for another night. Is my arm too heavy on you? I can move it.”

  “No!” Jecca said. Her arms were wrapped around his. “I mean, no, it’s fine.”

  Tristan smoothed Jecca’s hair back with his free arm and kissed her temple. “Where was I?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jecca said. His lips had made her want to kiss him. What would be so wrong with a single kiss?

  “Orchids,” Tristan said and started talking again. It seemed that down through the generations whichever Aldredge owned the house took care of whatever he put in the little greenhouse. Tristan’s father liked bromeliads. “Know what they are?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.” She was very aware of his body against hers.

  “Not my favorite plants,” Tris said. “I was about nine when I was at some store with my mom and saw my first orchid. An oncidium. She bought it for me, and Dad let me put it in with his plants.”

  “That was nice,” she said.

  “It was until I had six orchids and that’s when he told me to stop buying them.”

  “And I guess Mrs. Wingate and the big conservatory her husband built came to the rescue,” Jecca said.

  “Yes,” Tris said.

  “Was she a widow then?”

  He took a while before answering. “I think Olivia Wingate was a widow even when she was married. Her husband was a bastard.”

  “That’s awful,” Jecca said.

  Tristan shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “She never remarried?”

  “Never so much as looked at a man as far as I know.”

  “Maybe she and Lucy are a couple.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tris said. “I’d like both of them to find companions. They’re very nice women, and they deserve the best.”

  Jecca realized that Tristan’s hand was again in hers. In just two days his hand had become very familiar to her. “When Kim came to the house this morning, Lucy ran out of the room.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you might have heard something.”

  “Nothing. Lucy works very hard, and she doesn’t go out much. I try to get over t Sto ;

  Jecca laughed. “I bet they shower you with buttered popcorn and lemonade and—”

  “Chocolate cake and cherry pie and apricot tarts with almonds in the crust. I have to spend an extra forty minutes on a treadmill to counteract all the calories.”

  Jecca ran her hand up his arm. It was well muscled, strong. “It doesn’t feel like any fat has been put on you.”

  For a moment they were both still, and Jecca knew that if he turned his head toward hers she wouldn’t pull away. He seemed to be debating what to do next and she held her breath.

  “It’s late and we have to go,” he said abruptly, then moved quickly as he disentangled their bodies.

  To Jecca it seemed that one second they were close to kissing and the next they were both standing up.

  Without a word, he took her hand and led her through the two low doorways to the outside. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and clean.

  Still holding her hand, they went through the darkness at a pace that left her breathless. In what seemed to be seconds, they were at the edge of the woods. There was a small yellow porch light shining from the house.

  “Tristan,” Jecca said and her hand tightened on his.

  He stepped close to her, but he didn’t put his free arm around her as she hoped he would. Instead, he put his hand on her cheek, his fingers entwining in her hair.

  “Jecca,” he whispered. “I like you. There’s been only one other woman I’ve felt so comfortable with. Bear with me on this. I don’t want to mess this up.”

  Damn! Jecca thought and couldn’t help frowning. He sounded serious. “Please don’t forget that I’m going back to—”

  He put his thumb over her lips. “I know. You’re going to leave to go back to New York. I’ve thought about that. But you know what, Jecca my sweet?”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “I’m all grown up. If I get some of the sweetness of you, I’ll be able to handle the pain of good-bye.”

  She felt him bend his head down and thought he was going to kiss her, but he moved so his lips were by her ear.

  “Tomorrow at dark?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she said, then he let go of her hand and he was gone.

  Six

  Tristan was struggling with breakfast, determined to scramble some eggs rather than eat yet another bowl of cereal. But doing anything with just one arm was difficult. He broke eggs into a bowl then picked out the shells.

  He put butter in a hot skillet, but it burned because he was distracted. He kept sta Vto ;

  Yesterday he’d had to give excuses to the two women as to why he couldn’t stay. Lucy had believed him. She’d kissed his cheek and told him he worked too hard.

  But Miss Livie had looked at him the same way she did when he was twelve and had told some lie about where he’d been and what he was doing. Even his mother didn’t catch hi