Moonlight Masquerade Read online

“That makes one of us,” Reede murmured as he collapsed onto his desk chair.

  Twenty-one

  “What are you doing for Christmas?” Henry asked Sophie.

  They were in his big garage working on a three-foot-wide sculpture of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The two of them had found a way to work that consisted of Henry trying to form the clay to look like some photo he’d found on the Internet, then he’d step back and Sophie would redo it for him.

  In the last weeks she’d come to know Henry well. For all that he was a quiet man, he was a powerhouse. She could see how he’d been able to rule a couple of very big businesses.

  He surrendered only to his small, round wife.

  “Henry! If you don’t get that mess out of my garage you’re going to find yourself living alone,” she’d said one day.

  The next time Sophie went to their sprawling estate, construction on a huge studio had begun.

  “Now you’ll be able to do your own work,” Henry told Sophie happily. “Come and see what I did yesterday.”

  He’d made an ugly little man sitting on a horse that had one leg a half inch shorter than the other. Worse was that if the man stood up he’d be a foot taller than the horse. Henry’s ambition was much larger than his talent.

  Repressing a sigh, Sophie tore Henry’s work apart. She tried to be gentle, but her bad mood wouldn’t let her. She pushed and pulled at the clay, then picked up a stainless steel tool and started gouging.

  Henry, rather than being offended, laughed. He was a man who knew how to delegate. “So what about Christmas?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know. Reede and I put up a tree and we went shopping and bought his family and friends gifts. It was fun.”

  “What are you getting him?”

  “He showed me some pictures of his travels and I’m going to make a sculpture of one of them. I’m hoping to have it cast in bronze, but it won’t be ready before Christmas.”

  Henry was watching her as she rearranged the clay man he’d made. He could always see when his sculptures were wrong. He just couldn’t figure out how to make them right. “You’re upset about something.”

  “No, I’m . . . ”

  “I have three daughters, remember? I know when things aren’t right.”

  Sophie wiped her hands on a cloth. “Yesterday a man came into the restaurant. Seems he’d been sent there by Reede’s nosy threesome.”

  “The women who work for him?” Henry was careful to keep his opinions to himself. If he’d learned nothing else from raising daughters it was that if he spoke against someone, they would take the opposite side. His middle daughter had almost married a kid with a record for armed robbery because Henry had talked to her “for her own good.”

  So Henry stood in silence and waited for Sophie to tell him whatever she wanted to. His personal opinion was that Reede Aldredge was suppressing Sophie’s magnificent talent. That she was wasting her time in that dreary little sandwich shop bothered him. His plan was that for Christmas he was going to offer her a full-time job. She’d have a good salary, benefits, and a great place to work. No more spending her days making tuna salad sandwiches.

  “His name is Dr. Tyler Becks and he wants to take over Reede’s practice,” Sophie said.

  Henry had heard a bit of the gossip around town, how Reede had given up his flamboyant, daredevil career to return to Edilean to help his friend. But then, Reede had been trapped here. “What did Reede say?”

  “Nothing,” Sophie said and there was frustration in her voice. “He didn’t even tell me about this doctor. Roan did. But then, I never know what Reede is thinking. We practically live together but I don’t know any more about him today than I did months ago.”

  “Everybody in town says he’s mad about you,” Henry said softly.

  “I guess.” Sophie looked away for a moment. In the distance she could hear the thump of a nail gun as the men framed Henry’s new studio. She had an idea that he was going to offer her a job in it, and she didn’t know what she was going to say.

  The truth was that she had no idea where her life was going. Roan teased her about leaving on the fifteenth of January as she’d said she was going to do. But where could she go? Lisa was quite happy at college now and was even planning to spend Christmas with friends. She no longer needed her big sister. Sophie knew she couldn’t go back to her hometown. To what? The only person she really cared about there was Carter, and he was here in Edilean.

  Sophie knew Reede was deeply jealous of Carter and there was a part of her that liked that he was.

  “Does any of this have to do with young Treeborne?” Henry asked.

  “No, Carter’s fine. I think he’s falling in love with Kelli.”

  “The baker? The one with the . . . ” Henry motioned around his eyes.

  “That’s her. She’s a really good pastry chef, and what I like is that she doesn’t take anything off Carter. I used to be so aware that he was a Treeborne that I treated him like a prince. I was in awe of him.”

  “But Kelli isn’t?”

  “Not by a long shot. She acts like his being a Tree-borne is something he needs to overcome.”

  Henry smiled. “That sounds good for him.”

  “It is. It’s how I should have treated him.”

  “What’s really bothering you?” Henry asked.

  “This man, Dr. Becks . . . The three women sent him to me. Not pointedly, they just strongly suggested that he get a sandwich at the Phoenix shop and ask for Sophie.”

  “Have they done that before?”

  “No, so I knew it was important, and I sat down with him to talk. Poor man. He’s a mess. His wife has been having an affair with the other doctor in his practice and she wants a divorce.”

  “And he wants to come here to little Edilean to heal his wounds?”

  “Yes. And I think it’ll be good for him. The locals will match him up with somebody, and by the time Tris returns he’ll be in recovery.” She stepped forward to make some more changes to the ill-proportioned sculpture Henry had made.

  “It all sounds like a good thing,” Henry said. “But you don’t seem to agree.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Sophie said. “I know this is what Reede wants. He wants to return to his charity work. That’s where his heart is. At least I think so. It’s not as though he’s ever actually told me so. A few weeks ago there was a piece on the news about a doctor who owned a big boat that was set up as a hospital ship. He went around the world to places where people had never seen a doctor in their lives. You should have seen Reede’s face! It lit up like a light had been turned on.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “That’s it!” Sophie said. “Reede didn’t say a word. He just got up and went to the kitchen to get a beer. I went after him and asked him if he’d like to do something like that. You know what he did? He laughed. He said, ‘Do you know how much something like that would cost?! I’d never get funding for something as big as that.’ I tried to get him to talk about it, but he wouldn’t say another word.”

  “Funding, huh?” Henry said. “If he did get the money for such a project, then what? Would you go with him?”

  “What could I do? I’m not a nurse or know anything about health care. I’d just be in the way. Reede climbs down cables on helicopters. I’m terrified of walking across a roof beam.”

  Henry couldn’t help smiling. “So am I, but I don’t think that means I’m useless. Sophie, you have a wonderful talent. I’d think you’d want to use it.”

  “I do,” she said. “I mean, I think I do. But sometimes, I . . . I don’t know. All I know is that Reede didn’t tell me about the doctor who wants to take over his practice. I dropped about a thousand hints, but Reede didn’t take them. He was quiet all night. I’m afraid . . . ”

  “Of what, Sophie?” Henry asked.

  “That he’ll stay here because of me and give up his dream. Or maybe he’ll take this doctor up on his offer and I’ll be left behind. Either wa