Moonlight in the Morning Read online

  “You’re so damned nice to them that they think there’s going to be more. You’re so sweet and considerate that the women begin to buy bridal magazines after the first date. [ fi"1em"When you tell them to get lost, they’re shattered.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t be courteous to the women I date?”

  “I think you should be more honest. If you don’t like them, let them know.” Kim waved her hand. “This conversation is going nowhere. Jecca isn’t for you, so I ask you to please leave her alone.”

  Tristan couldn’t help but be shocked by her words—and no little hurt. How many people saw him as a man who broke women’s hearts? In his mind, he was a good guy for having always been polite to the women. No matter how obnoxious, aggressive, or vain his date turned out to be, he did his best to make her feel as though she was an appealing woman.

  To hear that his cousin, someone he loved, saw what he did in a different way, was a blow to him. He chose his words carefully. “I’ve heard nothing but good about your friend and I’d like to ask her out.”

  Kim fell back against the seat. “Damnation! Reede and Jecca have a history. He’s grateful to her for helping him at what he says was the lowest point in his life. When I told him she was spending the summer here, he rearranged everything in his life so he could come back three weeks earlier. For years I’ve imagined Jecca with my brother.”

  “What would be so tragic if she fell for somebody else and lived in Edilean?” Tris asked in exasperation.

  “She likes this little town, but she can’t live here,” Kim said. “Her family, her career, all of it is elsewhere. What would she do here? Paint Florida Point three hundred times? Open a gallery here and have tourists talk about how cute her work is? Even if she was madly, insanely in love with you, you’d still be killing her spirit.”

  Kim slid to the end of the booth and looked at him. “Tristan, you know I love you. I always have. You were the only one of my teenage male cousins who paid attention to a little girl who liked to make jewelry out of flowers. You used to let me cover you with daisy chains. I’m sure that if you turned on your charm you could make Jecca fall in love with you, but then what? You put her in your old house and watch her spirit die? Please don’t do that.”

  When he said nothing, she kissed his cheek good-bye, then left.

  As Tristan drank another cup of coffee, he stared out the window and tried to think what to do. Honor his beloved cousin’s request, or keep on meeting Jecca?

  His first thought was that he couldn’t bear not to be with Jecca again. To not spend another night talking with her, laughing, snuggling? It wasn’t something he could contemplate. Last night he’d had to cut their time together short because his desire for her had nearly overtaken him. But he already knew that what he was feeling for Jecca was more serious than a tumble in the playhouse. He didn’t want to make things go too fast. When they did make love, he wanted it to be more important than just a nightly fling.

  “Kim give you a hard time?” the waitress, Doris, asked. She and her husband and their two children were patients of his. When her husband cut his ankle with a Weedwacker, Tristan had sewn it back together. When it got infected but he refused to go to Tris, he’d made a house call and saved the man’s foot.

  “Yeah,” Tris said. “She did.”

  “Anything else she like to do?”

  “Besides give me grief?” Tris asked. “She doesn’t usually, but today—”

  “No, I mean this girl who doesn’t like Edilean. Can’t she do anything besides paint pictures? And she doesn’t always have to paint those fancy flowers of yours, does she?”

  Tristan looked up at the woman, checked that the mole on her neck hadn’t changed, then tried to figure out what she was talking about.

  “You think about it,” Doris said. “And don’t worry that I’ll tell. I never hear private conversations.” She winked at him, then took the coffeepot and turned away.

  Tris wasn’t sure what Doris meant, but he gave her a tip that matched the ticket and left. He knew it was no use going to his office, as his father would just tell him to go rest.

  Instead, he went to the gym that was temporarily set up in a building in the center of the town. It was for members only, and he had a key. No one was there and he was glad as it gave him a chance to think.

  The owner of the gym, Mike Newland, had some lockers in the back where Tris had left workout clothes. It was difficult to unbutton his shirt and get his jeans off. By the time he managed to undress and dress, he was angry about what Kim had said to him. But after thirty minutes on the treadmill, he realized that she’d told him not to hurt her friend. In her long-winded way, that was all she’d said. He had no right to get angry over that.

  He spent two hours alone in the gym and did what he could with only one arm. As he expended the energy, his anger began to leave him and he started smiling again.

  So Jecca liked creativity, did she? Doctors weren’t known for being creative, but he thought he could manage.

  He looked at his watch, half hidden under his sling. He had hours before he saw Jecca again.

  Seven

  When Jecca awoke it wasn’t quite daylight, and her first thought was of Tristan and how their fathers were so alike. In fact, they seemed to have a lot in common.

  This is not good, she thought. She couldn’t begin her day thinking of a man, and certainly not one she’d never seen. She needed to put her mind on Kim’s ad campaign.

  She needed to come up with something to unite the twelve pictures. That could be different kinds of orchids. She’d have to talk with Tristan about which ones to use. Smiling, she thought of the way the long Latin names rolled off his tongue.

  That made her think of his lips on her temple.

  “Forget that!” Jecca said as she threw back the covers. She’d made it twenty-six years without being obsessed with some man, and she wasn’t going to start now. She’d always been disgusted when Andrea came in cryi ^Dithng and saying her life was over because of whatever her latest boyfriend had done to her.

  Jecca made her bed, dressed, and went downstairs. The house was quiet and she thought about having a bowl of cereal and setting up her camera equipment. But when she opened the refrigerator she saw a large box of blueberries. Yesterday she’d given Lucy a short list of food she wanted and it looked like she’d gone to the grocery.

  Jecca took the carton of berries out and decided that it was only fair that she make breakfast, since Lucy had done it the day before.

  When the women came into the kitchen they were greeted with blueberry pancakes, sausage patties, cut-up cantaloupe, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

  “What a lovely surprise,” Mrs. Wingate said.

  “Really great,” Lucy said. “It looks like Tristan was right to tell us to let you live here.”

  “I heard he did that,” Jecca said. “Has he been here this morning?”

  “If he were, he’d be at the table,” Lucy said. “The man does so love to eat. On movie night he sometimes has three pieces of pie.”

  “That’s because you look like you might cry if he doesn’t take them,” Mrs. Wingate said.

  “I just feel sorry for him over there all alone,” Lucy said. “You know, Jecca, Tristan is a very eligible bachelor.”

  Jecca put a stack of pancakes on the table as the women took their seats. “Interesting thought, but how would I make a living here in Edilean?”

  “In my family,” Mrs. Wingate said, “a woman’s husband supported her.”

  “In mine too,” Lucy said, but there was a tone of bitterness in her voice. “Jecca dear, take my advice and earn your own living.”

  As Jecca took her seat, she looked from one woman to the other. Lucy’s mouth was in a tight little line, while Mrs. Wingate’s eyes were downcast. Whatever has made Lucy so bitter, Jecca thought, Mrs. Wingate knows what it is.

  “So what do you have planned today?” Mrs. Wingate asked, and the somber mood lifted.

  As