Moonlight in the Morning Read online

  Sophie used to say, “When it’s ultraboring. Not just a lull in the day, but so boring you want to shoot yourself in the foot just to liven things up.” Her Texas sense of humor always made them laugh, but what she was saying made sense. After that, with each new boyfriend, the girls would work to set up a day so they could try out the “boringness test.”

  Tristan always passed. If Jecca wanted to be quiet and sketch, Tris was happy to do so. In return, she liked to pull an old wicker chair into the little conservatory while Tris puttered about.

  “Now you see the real me,” he said as he held up one of his purple orchids. “No hot-air balloons, no six-course meals. Just me and a bunch of plants that need a lot of care.”

  “You deserve a break from saving lives all week.”

  “My job isn’t quite that dramatic. Today I had two sore throats, a—and I quote—‘a funny-looking mole,’ and two splinters. However, one was in a rather delicate area of a newlywed man. I suggested he either sand his dad’s workbench or use the bed. He and his new wife can’t afford a house, so they’re still living at home and sneaking around.”

  Jecca had laughed. There was nothing at all boring about Tristan Aldredge, nothing she didn’t like—except the town where he lived. But actually, that wasn’t true. A couple of times, Tris had said Jecca “fit in” with Edilean—and she had to admit that she did.

  Since the fashion show, Jecca had become part of the little town. She was now considered the champion of the girls who weren’t cheerleaders, girls who were shy or misfits in some way. She could hardly walk down the street without a mother stopping her and asking about the Achievers’ Club.

  One day when they were having lunch, Kim started laughing.

  “What’s that for?” Jecca asked.

  “Do you realize that you’ve drawn three outfits for girls while wegirn. I sug’ve been sitting here?”

  Jecca was startled. The girls had seen her through the window, come inside, and she knew what they wanted before they asked. She looked at each girl and instantly knew what she should wear. She also gave advice about hair. “Talk to the hairdresser about downlights and dye your eyebrows and eyelashes,” she told a fourteen-year-old girl with white-blonde hair.

  At Kim’s words, Jecca realized how she was being taken over by the needs of Edilean, and she frowned. The thought had made her concentrate on the paintings she needed to do for Kim.

  They were finished now and she knew it was time to talk to Tristan about some very serious matters. She wished he hadn’t come up with this surprise, but she couldn’t help that. She’d just have to wait until afterward to talk with him.

  He got out of the shower, then she took hers and got dressed. After a quick breakfast, they got in his car, and he drove them to the road leading into Williamsburg. He pulled into a parking lot that was weed infested. Jecca looked out the windshield at the big old brick building in front of them and had no idea what was going on.

  “What do you think?” he asked, his voice full of expectation.

  The place was little more than a shell, spreading out across the end of the parking lot. “Roof, wall, foundation,” she said. “Needs them all.” She was looking at him curiously. What was in his mind and what did this place have to do with her?

  She watched him get out of the car and come across to open her door.

  “I bought this place from Roan,” he said.

  “You’re expanding your practice? Opening a big clinic?”

  “Not quite,” he said, smiling as he extended his hand to help her out. “Come inside and look at it. Tell me what needs to be done to make it usable.”

  She followed him, but she was frowning. She had an ominous feeling that this building was important—and that it was going to change things.

  She followed him inside, holding his hand and stepping over rubble. He explained that many years before it had been a factory to make bricks, but the McTern family had dwindled in size, and the industry was taken over by big manufacturers. Little businesses like the McTern Brickworks went out of business. “So the building has sat empty for a long time,” Tristan concluded.

  He was looking at her as though he were presenting her with the greatest gift imaginable—except that she had no idea what it was.

  They passed through a big room with tall ceilings, then through a door to see a series of three smaller rooms.

  “I thought these could be offices,” he said.

  “If I ask ‘offices for what?’ will I get an answer?”

  Tristan just smiled as he tugged on her hand and led her back out to the front. There was a hallway with a couple of old doors barely hanging on by their hinges.

  “Restrooms,” he said, then quickened his step.

  They hurried through a long, narrow room that had only a partial roof. Birds flew about overhead. They passed through an open doorway and came out into a large, airy room. The old walls were tall and there were broken windows all along the back, with a door to the outside. Against the far wall was a long piece of canvas covering something.

  Jecca stopped in the middle of the room and looked at Tristan.

  “What do you think?” he asked again, his beautiful eyes alive with what could only be described as hope.

  “About what, Tristan?” she asked, her voice showing her frustration.

  “For an art studio,” he said. “I don’t know much about it, but those windows face north. That’s the best light for artists, isn’t it?”

  “You bought this building so I’d have a place to paint?” she asked softly.

  “Well,” he said, “actually, no.”

  Jecca breathed a sigh of relief.

  “When I sent your dad the floor plan, he suggested that this room be yours.”

  “My father?” Jecca said, and she had a truly horrible feeling that just maybe—possibly—she was beginning to understand. “You and my father worked together? Without my knowledge?”

  “Jecca,” Tris said, “you’re making it sound like I conspired with your father. It was just something that happened.”

  “Something that happened that planned my future? Where I am to paint?” she asked quietly.

  “No,” he said. “At least it wasn’t like that. Remember when we were in Williamsburg buying the material for Nell’s clothes?”

  She didn’t answer, just stood there looking at him.

  “You asked me to send a photo to your dad and I did, and I introduced myself to him.” Tris looked away. He thought it would be better if he didn’t reveal exactly what he’d written to Joe Layton, or his reply. He looked back at her. “Jecca, baby, it all just sort of happened, that’s all.”

  “What happened?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  “Buying the building and making plans with your father,” Tris said as he went to the big canvas. “I waited until this came before telling you about it. This is the surprise.” With a flourish, he pulled the canvas away.

  Leaning against the wall was a big sign of painted metal. It was dark green with yellow lettering, and it was a new version of the one Jecca had seen all her life. It said LAYTON HARDWARE in the same solid block letters that her great-grandfather had chosen back in 1918.

  Jecca kept her face straight as she looked at Tristan.

  “Your dad is going to turn the store in New Jersey over to his son and open a place in Edilean. He knows it won’t make the money the other store did, but he has a lot saved. Your dad is a good money manager. And besides, all he really wants to do is be near youis y. He th. He misses you a lot, Jec, and as you said, you’re all he really has. What’s that old saying? ‘A son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life.’ That doesn’t say much for us men, does it? Jecca, please say something.”

  She took a breath. “While I was making clothes for the show, you and my father did this, didn’t you? That’s what you were so secretive about, what you were doing with your cousin Rams, the lawyer. That’s short for Ramsey. Isn’t that what you