Moonlight in the Morning Read online

  Nell reached into the side of the cardboard box and withdrew the sales receipt. It was for over four hundred dollars.

  “Wow!” Jecca said as she removed the sets and put them on thputohn Loce dining table. “Why did he get these?”

  “I thought they were pretty,” Nell said.

  Jecca knew her annoyance was with Tris, not with the child. “And they are pretty.” She smiled at Nell. “But if we’re going to go hiking we can’t take them all, can we? I bet Uncle Roan has a plate we could use. Preferably white.”

  Roan was sitting at the counter, watching them. “The lower cabinet,” he said.

  Nell pulled an old white plate from a tall stack and took it to Jecca. She had removed a few tubes of basic colors from the art sets, some pencils, the spiral-bound pad of paper, and two brushes.

  “There,” Jecca said. “That’s all we need to create masterpieces. Didn’t I see that you have a backpack with you? Let’s put these things in it.”

  Nell ran into the bedroom just as Tris’s door flew open.

  “I can’t find my fishing gear,” he yelled from inside the room.

  “Look under the bed,” Jecca called back.

  “Thanks,” he answered.

  Jecca went back to the kitchen to get fruit and muffins out of the fridge and she began putting it all on the dining table.

  Roan was still sitting at the counter, watching Jecca as she lifted the chainsaw off and put it in the corner, out of the way. Within minutes the table was set.

  “Breakfast is ready,” she called, and Nell came out and took a seat. Tris was next, his hair uncombed and wearing the old, worn clothes he always put on at the cabin, his shirt misbuttoned.

  Jecca went to him, kissed him good morning, then said, “You spent too much on the art supplies. I sent you a list. Why didn’t you just get what I told you to?” She was rebuttoning his shirt.

  “You’re cute when you’re fussing,” he said as he kissed her again, then looked over her head. “Are those crepes? I love those things!”

  “Mrs. Wingate said you did and she made the batter.”

  “Great. She puts Grand Marnier in it.” He put his arm around her shoulders and they went to the table. Tris held Jecca’s chair out for her.

  “Come on, Roan,” Jecca said. “Have some breakfast.”

  He got off his stool and stood for a moment looking at the three of them. They were a perfect picture of domesticity—and he felt totally unneeded. “I think I’ll—That I’ll—See you guys later,” he said as he went out the front door.

  They watched as he got into his beat-up old pickup and drove away.

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” Jecca said. “I know he doesn’t like me and—”

  “Are you kidding?” Tris asked. “He woke up when I came in last night and saw that you’d put the chainsaw together. He kept me awake for an hour and a half talking about how great you are.”

  “Really?” Jecca said. “An hour and a half? Talking about me?”

  “Well maybe he did say he was having a bit of trouble with his book and wanted to talk about it.”

  Jecca looked down at her plate.

  Nell looked from one silent adult to the other. “Uncle Tris said Uncle Roan’s book is the most boring thing he’s ever heard in his life but I’m not to tell him that.”

  Jecca didn’t want Nell to know she thought the same thing, but then Tris said, “What was the quote from Heidegger that was so profound that the psychotic criminal gave himself up?”

  Jecca’s reserve broke and she started laughing. “Your poor cousin. No wonder he gets writer’s block. Doesn’t he know that the book-buying public isn’t interested in some guy who can outtalk the bad guys? People like action!”

  “None of us has the heart to tell him,” Tris said. “So who’s ready to go hiking?” He looked at Nell. “Shall we take Jecca up to Eagle Creek?”

  “Oh yes,” Nell said as they got up from the table and began clearing it. “But you’ll have to carry me for the last half.”

  “In that case, only one.”

  “Six,” she said.

  “Then you can walk the whole way.”

  “Okay, four,” Nell said in resignation.

  “What . . . ? Jecca asked, but then she knew. They were negotiating how many animals and dolls Nell could take with her. “I’ll carry a couple of Rileys,” she said, and Nell beamed at her. “But your uncle has to carry every one of those boxed sets of art supplies that he bought for you.”

  Tris quit smiling. “Those things weigh more than Nell.”

  Jecca shrugged. “That’s what you get for having a charge card bigger than your back muscles.”

  Nell looked at her uncle for the next volley.

  Tris shook his head. “I am outnumbered again!” He went to Jecca, bent over, put his shoulder into her stomach, and lifted her. He twirled her around while she was laughing. “Who has strong back muscles?” he asked.

  “You do!” Jecca said, laughing. “But you do need to be put on a budget.”

  He put her down so that she slid over the front of him. “I agree,” he said softly. “I think you should stay and put me on one.”

  “Not again!” Nell said. “No more kissing. Let’s go!”

  “Five,” Tris said, his face inches from Jecca’s, “but only if you disappear for ten whole minutes.”

  Nell ran into the bedroom and loudly shut the door.

  Tris’s mouth was instantly on Jecca’s, and she was as hungry for him as he was for he heshut the dr.

  “I wanted you with me all night,” Tris said as he kissed her neck.

  “I wanted to be with you.”

  “Stay with me,” he said. “As long as you’re here, live with me.”

  “Lucy and—”

  “Then I’ll move in with you,” Tris said, his lips on her throat. “I want to come home to you. I want—”

  “Time’s up,” Nell said.

  Jecca pushed away from Tris and he turned from his niece so she wouldn’t see his physical condition.

  “How do couples ever have the privacy to make a second child?” Jecca murmured.

  “They sneak,” Tris said. “One time I had to extract the sharp end of a coat hanger from a woman’s hip. They were—” He broke off because Nell was listening. “Who’s ready to go painting?”

  It was a two-mile hike up to where Tris and Nell wanted to go, and Jecca enjoyed every minute of it. They took their time. Jecca showed Nell how to use her little camera to make closeup photos, and Nell stopped often to snap pictures of whatever interested her.

  Jecca knew that if she and Tris had been alone they would have indulged in only the physical side, but with Nell there they had to behave themselves.

  “Where did you go to medical school?” Jecca asked Tris.

  “Uh oh,” he said. “It’s first-date time.”

  “A little late for that,” Jecca answered. “By now I should be asking you about your past girlfriends.”

  He groaned. “I’d rather anything than that, so school it is.”

  When Nell stopped to take pictures, Tris and Jecca continued their conversation from the car and asked each other questions about their childhoods, travel, friends, and finally, even past boyfriends and girlfriends.

  Tris insisted he was a virgin until he met Jecca.

  She looked at him.

  “That thing you did in the chair on the first night . . . That made me feel brand-new to the art of—”

  Jecca cut him off with a look at Nell.

  Tris chuckled. “What about your relatives? Cousins, aunts, uncles?”

  “None,” Jecca said, and told him that her mother had been an only child and her father’s older brother had been killed in Vietnam.

  “And all four of your grandparents have passed away?” Tris asked.

  “Yes. I think that’s part of why the Sheila War hurts my dad so much. He only has Joey and me.”

  “And his grandchildren.”

  Jecca sighed. �