Stranger in the Moonlight Read online

  “I like the way the light plays on those maple leaves,” she said.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” He put his hands on the top of the broom handle and stared at the leaves. “Are you one of the people staying here?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy, but is it a family reunion? We don’t usually have this many guests here.”

  Kim suppressed a laugh as she thought of the truth of why so many people were there. Travis had planned to oversee her and Dave. Only Dave had been sent away. “No,” she said. “It’s just my . . .” She wasn’t sure what to call Travis. Her fiancé? But then he hadn’t officially asked her to marry him, not with a ring (what Kim told the young men who wandered into her store was necessary for a proposal), and she certainly hadn’t accepted.

  “Your young man?” he asked.

  It was an old-fashioned term that seemed to fit the situation. “Yes, my young man invited some people.”

  They were silent for a moment, then the man glanced at her sketchbook. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing, but if you need any help with anything, let me know. Just ask for Red. That’s what my hair used to be.” He started to walk away.

  “We have that in common. Actually,” Kim said, “maybe you can help us find someone.”

  Halting, he looked back at her. There was something about him that she liked. He had a sweet smile. “I have trouble keeping all the newcomers straight, but if the person is over forty I can probably help.”

  She smiled at his use of “newcomers.” It was the same term they used in Edilean. “How about if the person died in 1893?”

  “Then I probably went to school with him.”

  Kim laughed. “Dr. Tristan Janes. I assume the town was named after his family?”

  “Yes it was,” the man said as he motioned toward one of the empty chairs across from her. He was asking her permission to sit there.

  “Please,” she said.

  As he took a seat, he said, “Will your young man mind that you’re having a tête-à-tête with another man?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be wild with jealousy, but I’ll be able to calm his beastly spirit.”

  Red chuckled. “Spoken like a woman in love.”

  Kim couldn’t help blushing. “What about Dr. Janes?”

  “There used to be a library here, but when the mill closed the town pretty much died with it. They moved all the books and papers to the state capital. If they hadn’t done that you could go to the library and read it all. I’m a poor second best. Anyway,” he said, “a Mr. Gustav Janes started the town back in 1857 when he opened a mill that ground the flour for everyone in a fifty-mile radius. His only child, Tristan, became a doctor. I read that ol’ Gustav, who couldn’t read or write, was deeply proud of his son.”

  “As he should be,” Kim said. “Tristan died young, didn’t he?”

  “He did. He was rescuing some miners and the walls collapsed on him. It took them a week to find his body. He was well loved and hundreds of people attended his funeral.”

  “And I’m sure that number included an ancestor of mine,” Kim said. “It seems that she was carrying his child, who was my—let me get this straight—my great-granduncle.”

  “I think that makes you an honorary native of Janes Creek.”

  “Not a newcomer?”

  “Far from it.” In the distance they heard voices coming toward them, and Red stood up. “I think your young man is returning and I should go.”

  “The question everyone in my hometown wants to know is whether or not Dr. Janes was married.”

  “Oh no. I read that he was the town catch, a beautiful young man, but he never married. I’m sure that if he’d lived he would have married your ancestor. Especially if she was half as pretty as you are.”

  “Thank you,” Kim said as Red started to walk away. “Oh!” she called out. “Do you know where he’s buried?”

  “All the Janes family are at the Old Mill. If you go out there, be careful. The place is falling down. Take companions with you. Big, strong ones.”

  “All right, I will,” she said as he disappeared around a corner and out of sight.

  To the left, on the other side of the dense hedge, came Travis, frowning as he spoke on his cell phone. But when he saw Kim he smiled and said, “Forester, just do it!” and hung up.

  He held out his arm to Kim. “Ready for dinner?”

  “Yes,” she said as they walked toward the main building.

  Concealed in the bushes and watching them was the older man, Red. He was smiling.

  “Sir?” said a man in a suit.

  “What is it?” Red snapped.

  “You have a call from Hong Kong and Mr. Forester needs—”

  Red frowned. “My son took care of Forester. I need you to send someone to the state capital. I want to know everything about the Dr. Tristan Janes who died in 1893.”

  “In the morning I’ll—”

  Red gave the man a sharp look.

  “I’ll call the governor.”

  “You do that,” Red said as he walked away from the hotel.

  The man picked up the broom and followed Randall Maxwell to the waiting car.

  The sound of the shower running woke Kim, and as memories came to her, she stretched luxuriously. Last night had been wonderful. At dinner a table had been set up for them on a little glassed-in porch, and Travis had chosen the meal ahead of time. They’d had three different wines with their six-course dinner. Outside, the stars sparkled and the moonlight flowed over the soft glow from the candles. By the dessert course they were feeding each other—and it was all Kim could do not to jump on Travis and rip his clothes off.

  “Shall we retire to our rooms?” he asked before dessert was finished.

  “If you’re ready,” Kim said in her most demure voice.

  “I have been . . . ready for the last hour.” He sounded like a man in pain.

  Kim gave a very unadult giggle.

  They managed to bid their server—the same young woman who’d checked Kim in—good night and didn’t so much as touch each other on the long trip up the stairs. Travis opened the door and let Kim go in ahead of him. He closed the chain lock, and turned to look at her.

  There were no words needed. She made a leap and was in his arms. Clothes flew across the room and puddled on the floor. By the time they’d covered the few steps to the bed they were naked. They came together with all the passion they felt. And five minutes after their mutual climax, they began again, this time exploring each other’s bodies and finding what the other liked.

  “What about this?” Travis whispered, his hand between her legs.

  “Yes, very much.” Part of her still wished that they’d been together from the start of their adulthood. It would have been nice to learn about one another together. On the other hand, Travis knew some truly lovely things about a woman’s body. He knew just what to do to take her to new heights of ecstasy, and keep her there.

  As for Kim, she’d learned a thing or two also, and when she lowered her mouth onto the center of him, she was pleased by his gasp. Twenty minutes later she moved back up to his neck.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, his eyes full of wonder.

  “Late night TV,” she said without cracking a smile.

  Travis let her know he wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, but he liked thinking she’d learned from TV and not from another man.

  “You make me crazy, you know that?” he said as he rolled her to her back and began kissing her.

  They hadn’t gone to sleep until 3:00 A.M. They’d fallen across each other, naked, sweaty, and as limp as rag dolls. At some point Travis had awakened. He moved Kim from lying crosswise on the bed, positioned her head on his shoulder, pulled the covers over them, and immediately went back to sleep.

  It was morning now, and as Kim listened to the shower running, she kept smiling as she remembered last night.

  Travis entered the room