Stranger in the Moonlight Read online

  Travis stood still as he thought about that, and it made sense. He bent back to the box but then straightened up again. “Just so you know, a threesome is with three people, not half a dozen.” He went back into the carton.

  “Make her need you,” Joe said after a while. “Not want you, but deep down need you. Whether it’s to give her a foot rub at the end of the day, or to fix the kitchen sink, find an empty place in her life and fill it.”

  “Does my mother need you?” Travis asked in curiosity.

  “She can hardly thread those sewing machines of hers without me.”

  Travis smiled at that. Since they’d first visited Edilean his mother had sewn, and she’d never had trouble threading anything.

  Joe seemed to understand his smile. “Okay, so Lucy pretends she can’t thread the serger or change the needles. But she gave me pointers on filling out the form for the mortgage application. She even told me what to wear and what to say when I went to the bank. She helped me order everything in here, and she and Jecca picked out all the colors of paint and tile. Lucy made the curtains.”

  “Sounds like you need her more than she needs you.”

  “That’s just it!” Joe said. “She needs me and I need her. We’re twisted.”

  “Intertwined,” Travis said.

  Joe narrowed his eyes. “You may have been to school more than me, but I got the woman I’m in love with.”

  “You have a point. What am I supposed to do with these pieces of metal?”

  “I’m going to show you how to use a screwdriver.”

  “My life is at last complete,” Travis muttered and picked up a socket wrench.

  Eight

  “Hello,” Travis said softly as he opened the door that led to Kim’s garage. She was bent over a sturdy workbench, looking through a lighted magnifying glass at something that appeared to be made of gold. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I wanted to apologize for yesterday evening.”

  “It’s okay,” Kim said without looking up.

  “No, it wasn’t. I was rude and . . . I guess I just feel protective of you, that’s all.”

  “You and Reede both,” Kim said under her breath. Just what she needed, two brothers.

  Travis was looking about the large room at all the equipment. There were deep shelves full of boxes, a couple of what looked to be microwaves, a large safe in the corner, a desk with a computer beside a foot-tall stack of fat folders, and three workbenches filled with more tools than Joe had. “This is some workshop,” he said. “You need all this to make jewelry?”

  “Everything in here. In fact, I need a drafting table, but I don’t have the room, and it would get dirty.”

  Travis thought that what she needed was some natural light. There were three little glass panels in the big garage door and one small window on the far wall. It was night out, but he’d like to see the stars.

  Kim glanced up at him and did a double take. “What have you been doing all day?”

  “I went to Joe Layton’s place and ended up unpacking boxes for him.”

  “You have . . .” She touched the side of her head.

  Reaching up, Travis removed three foam beans from his hair. “Damned things are all over me. Joe made me sweep the floor and flatten boxes before I left.” He went to the chair by the desk and dropped down on it. “I wasn’t this tired after I climbed Mount Everest.”

  “What an exciting life you lead.” She was using a tiny file on what looked to be a ring held in a padded vise. She had put a black cloth around it to catch the gold shavings.

  “So far, the excitement here in Edilean beats everything I’ve done. Between your brother, who’s going to come after me with a shotgun when he remembers where he saw me, your sheriff wanting me to rescue injured tourists, and Joe belittling me because I don’t know what an orbital router is, my dad is looking pretty good.”

  Kim laughed. “Orbital sander. A router is something else.”

  “Et tu, Brute?” Travis said as he put his hand to his heart.

  “Just keeping you straight,” she said, smiling.

  He was looking at the papers and folders on the desk. “Speaking of straight, what is all this?”

  Kim groaned. “Money. Accounts. The bane of my life. I used to have a part-time secretary who put it all in the computer for me, but she got married and quit.”

  “Pregnant yet?” Travis asked. “That seems to be the main occupation of this town. You guys should invest in cable TV.”

  “You should try not watching TV,” Kim retorted. “It’s a lot of fun.”

  “You’ll have to show me sometime,” he said softly.

  Startled, Kim looked at him, but he had pulled the folders onto his lap and was reading the labels.

  “Mind if I look inside these? I know some about financial organization.”

  “If you don’t mind seeing how much I make, and how much I spend on everything from groceries to diamonds, go ahead.” Kim tried to sound light, but she was actually holding her breath. Never before had she allowed a man other than her father to see her finances. Her success was what had ended her romantic relationships.

  But Travis was different. They were friends. She nearly choked on the thought.

  “Did you say something?” he asked.

  “No, nothing.”

  “Have these receipts been entered into some system?”

  “Not for weeks. My accountant is going to scalp me.”

  “Do you mind?” Travis asked as he nodded at her computer.

  Kim shrugged. He could look if he wanted to. She listened as he settled into the chair and started going through the folders. She heard the click of the keys, and now and then looked up, seeing him bent over the papers. She was sure that if anyone knew what she was doing she’d be told she was a fool for letting a man she hadn’t seen since she was a child look at her accounting charts, but whatever else she had to say about Travis, she trusted him.

  It was nearly two hours since Travis had returned and they were in the kitchen together. He’d gone into her accounting software—but had insisted that she type in her password—and looked at the way her secretary had set it up. He asked if he could consolidate the accounts, and she’d said yes. After that he’d asked some questions about companies and about a few receipts, but for the most part they were quiet.

  All in all, it had been very pleasant working with him in the room. As they had when they were children, they just seemed to naturally meld together.

  “I can’t believe you drove all the way into Williamsburg and got barbeque,” Kim said as she pulled the package out of the fridge. As often happened, she hadn’t thought aloud about dinner. She’d been surprised, and pleased, when Travis said he’d brought food home.

  She’d smiled at his use of the word home. It sounded almost as though he lived there too.

  “Joe told me about a back road, so it didn’t take long,” he said, and they looked at each other and laughed. “I went the speed limit and used asphalt.” He glanced at the clock. It was late.

  “You and Mr. Layton seem to have hit it off well.”

  Travis took his time answering as he put coleslaw on plates and took them to the table. “He knows who my mother is.”

  “You’re kidding!” Kim said.

  “No, he saw the resemblance right away. But he made me swear not to let her know that he’d figured it out.”

  “And I guess she doesn’t want you to tell either.”

  “Precisely. I have been placed in the middle of my mother and him,” Travis said as he looked at her across the table. He’d liked being in her workroom—but he’d always enjoyed the outdoors and he wanted to see it day or night. The converted garage was too closed-in for him. “Joe has no use for that big room at the end of his store. It has windows that look out into the forest. He says Jecca will never use it and I understand why. He greatly admires her ability to reassemble electrical tools and he’d put her to work.”

  Reaching over, Kim removed a foam pellet cl