Stranger in the Moonlight Read online

  Kim had to remind herself that neither of the women had grown up in Edilean surrounded by what seemed to be thousands of relatives. Joce and Gemma had come from small families where they didn’t know their aunts and uncles, much less their fourth and fifth cousins. Between this lack and their shared love of history, the two women were fiendish at finding out everything about everyone—and as far back as they could go.

  “Why me?” Kim had asked when she’d been invited to Joce’s house for lunch. She lived in the big old Edilean Manor, the place Kim had so hated as a child. Joce had done a lot with it, and it was beautiful now, but Kim wouldn’t have taken the house if it were given to her. She much preferred her one-story newer house with its big windows, and floors that didn’t creak with age.

  In answer to her question, Gemma had put her hand on her growing belly and Joce had glanced at all the toys around them. She had toddler twins.

  Kim grimaced. “If I get pregnant in the next two weeks can I get out of this?”

  “No!” Joce and Gemma said in unison.

  Joce had done everything. She’d made the reservation at the B&B in Janes Creek and she’d prepared a portfolio with papers that told all that they knew about Clarissa Aldredge, the ancestor she was to search for information about.

  Gemma had written a veritable treatise of where Kim should look for the information they sought. Kim glanced at it, saw “cemeteries” at the top, and closed the folder. She didn’t understand why those two women liked doing this.

  Kim had been almost grateful when Dave invited himself along. He didn’t seem interested in looking for dead ancestors, but at least he’d be someone to share meals with.

  When Carla started giggling and talking about the weekend and saying that she had put a ring in the safe before closing time, it didn’t take much for Kim to figure out what was going on. Just the weekend before, Dave had admired the ring and made a joke about it exactly fitting Kim. His eyes had said the rest of it.

  But that had all changed. Just a few days ago Travis . . . Maxwell—she wasn’t used to the name—had shown up and turned Kim’s life upside down.

  “But that’s over now,” she said as she pulled into the Sweet River B&B. It was 2:00 P.M. and the parking lot was full of cars bearing plates from the Northeast. She hadn’t seen the town but had assumed it was about the size of Edilean. Maybe they were having some local event and that’s why they were so full.

  She got her bag out of the back, put the portfolio under her arm, and went inside. It was an old house that had been converted into some semblance of a hotel. She could hear voices in the back but saw no one. She thought she should get her camera out and photograph the interior for Joce and Gemma, as she figured they’d like the place. There were carvings everywhere, where the ceiling joined the walls, on the stair posts, and on an enormous cabinet against the wall. She was sure there were people who would love the house, but to her it was dark and gloomy.

  “Just like me,” she said aloud, then turned at a sound.

  “You must be Miss Aldredge,” a young woman said. She was blonde and thin and pretty, and was looking at Kim as though she’d been waiting for her.

  “Yes, I’m Kim. I’m early, but is my room ready?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I mean it is now, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Nothing.”

  Kim got out her credit card but the girl wouldn’t take it.

  “Everything has been taken care of,” she said. “Meals, extras, it’s all been paid for in advance.”

  Luke, Kim thought. Her rich writer-cousin, Joce’s husband, was footing the bill. “All right,” Kim said and did her best to smile but she couldn’t quite make it.

  “You’re on the top floor,” the girl said, then picked up Kim’s bag and went up the stairs.

  The room was lovely. Large and airy and done in peach and green florals, with striped curtains at the tall windows. Had Kim been in a better mood, she would have been more appreciative.

  Kim started to tip the girl but she refused and minutes later Kim was alone.

  She flopped down in a chair. Now what? she wondered. Unpack then go look at cemeteries?

  “What a fun life I lead,” she muttered.

  She knew she was indulging in self-pity. Every self-help book said she needed to look at the positive, not the negative. But at the moment all she could think was that she had lost two men in one day.

  Jewelry! she thought. Think about jewelry. But then she remembered the necklace she’d made for Travis so long ago. He’d said he still had it.

  That thought made her realize that she’d never see him again. Why was it that when you asked a man to do something like stop driving so fast that he paid no attention to you? You could tell him a hundred times and he’d still “forget.” But tell him one time to go away and never come back and he obeyed absolutely. No second chances. No reminders needed.

  Kim told herself to get a grip. The two men she’d lost weren’t worth all this angst. Dave was . . . She didn’t know how to describe him. In fact, she could hardly remember him. In less than a week, Travis had taken over her mind.

  “But not my body,” she said as she heaved herself up out of the chair. What she needed to do was to “bury herself in work,” that phrase she read so often in books.

  That was easy to do when you worked in an office. The other people, the noise, would distract a person. But Kim’s job was creating. She did it alone, just her and a piece of clay or wax, or paper and pen. There were no other people to help put her mind on something other than what she’d lost. No boss telling her he wanted the report done now so she was forced to think of something else.

  Kim looked at the wall in front of her and saw three big white doors. She assumed one was a closet and one led to a bathroom, but what was the other one?

  “Lady or the tiger?” she murmured as she reached for the middle door and turned the knob.

  It was a door into an adjoining room that was just as big and beautiful as her room. Standing there, at the end of a four-poster bed, was Travis. He had on a pair of sweatpants that hung down low on his hips, his beautiful upper body nude. Muscles played under his golden skin, richly tanned and glowing with warmth.

  Kim stood there, frozen in place, staring at him. In some deep recess inside her she still had a mind, could still think rationally. If Travis was here it meant he had again manipulated her and her life to suit himself.

  But those thoughts were at the bottom of a very deep well. Right now all Kim could do was feel. Every molecule in her body was alive, vibrating, pulsating with her want, her need of this man.

  Travis didn’t say a word, just turned toward her and opened his arms.

  Kim ran to him, her arms going around his neck, her mouth on his. His kiss was hungry, as ravenous as she was for him. His lips were on hers, hard, searching, first on her mouth, then her cheeks, her neck.

  Kim put her head back and let his hands and lips take what they wanted.

  Her clothes came off. She didn’t know how. She didn’t feel buttons being undone, heard no fabric tearing. One minute she was dressed and the next she wasn’t.

  She laughed as Travis picked her up and flung her on the end of the bed. Covers and pillows billowed out around her and she laughed again. This wasn’t polite, respectful sex but pure, raw passion.

  Travis stood over her, looking down at her nude form for a moment, then he gave a grin that was so devilish, so wicked, that Kim fell back on the bed and opened her arms to him.

  He picked her up with one arm around her shoulders, the other entwined in her hair, and pulled her head back to give him access to her face.

  When he put his mouth on hers it was with all the passion he felt.

  His sweatpants fell to the floor and she wasn’t surprised to feel that he had nothing on under them. Her hands went down his back over the hills and valleys of his muscles. She curved out over the firm set of his buttocks, then down his thighs. His mouth was on he