A Knight in Shining Armor Read online

  “That sounds very bad.” Mrs. Aldredge sat down on the couch, then jumped up. “Heavens! Kim is going to be heartbroken. I dread telling her. She’ll be devastated. She adores that boy.”

  “He was a sweet one,” Bertrand agreed. “Skin like porcelain. I do hope he keeps it, and doesn’t let the sun ruin it. I think my good complexion comes from a lifelong belief in staying out of the sun.”

  Mrs. Aldredge was frowning as she went to Kim to tell her that her friend was gone and it was likely that she’d never see him again.

  Kim took it better than her mother thought she would. There were no tantrums and no tears—at least not that anyone saw. But it was weeks before Kim was herself again.

  Her mother took her into Williamsburg to purchase an expensive frame for the only photo she had of Travis. Kim and he were standing by their bikes, both of them dirty and smiling hugely. Just before Mrs. Aldredge clicked the shutter, Travis put his arm around Kim’s shoulders and she clasped his waist. It was a sweet portrait of childhood and it looked good in the frame Kim chose. She put it on the table by her bed so she could see it just before she fell asleep and when she awoke every morning.

  It was a month after Travis and his mother left that Kim brought down the house. The family was just sitting down to dinner when Reede, her older brother, asked what she was going to do with the bike Travis had left behind.

  “Nothing,” Kim said. “I can’t do anything because of Travis’s bastard father.”

  Everyone came to a halt.

  “What did you say?” Mrs. Aldredge asked in a whisper of disbelief.

  “His bas—”

  “I heard you,” her mother said. “I will not have an eight year old using that kind of language in my house. Go to your room this instant!”

  “But, Mom,” Kim said, bewildered and already close to tears, “that’s what you always call him.”

  Her mother didn’t say a word, just pointed and Kim left the table. She barely had the door to her room closed before she heard her parents burst into laughter.

  Kim picked up Travis’s picture and looked at it. “If you were here now I’d teach you a dirty word.”

  Sighing, she stretched out on her bed and waited for her dad to be sent to “talk” to her—and to slip her some food. He was the sweet one while her mother did the discipline. Kim thought it was very unfair that she was being punished for repeating something she’d heard her mother say several times.

  “Bastard parents!” Kim muttered and held Travis’s picture close to her chest. She would never forget him and she would never stop looking for him.

  Books by Jude Deveraux

  The Velvet Promise

  Highland Velvet

  Velvet Song

  Velvet Angel

  Sweetbriar

  Counterfeit Lady

  Lost Lady

  Twin of Ice

  Twin of Fire

  River Lady

  Twin of Fire

  Twin of Ice

  The Temptress

  The Raider

  The Princess

  The Awakening

  The Maiden

  The Taming

  The Conquest

  Holly

  Wishes

  Wishes

  The Mountain Laurel

  The Duchess

  Eternity

  Sweet Liar

  The Invitation

  Remembrance

  The Heiress

  Legend

  An Angel for Emily

  The Blessing

  High Tide

  Temptation

  The Summerhouse

  The Mulberry Tree

  Forever . . .

  Forever and Always

  Always

  Wild Orchids

  First Impressions

  Carolina Isle

  Someone to Love

  Secrets

  Return to Summerhouse

  Lavender Morning

  Days of Gold

  Scarlet Nights

  Scent of Jasmine

  Heartwishes

  Moonlight in the Morning

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  This Pocket Books trade paperback edition March 2012

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  ISBN 978-0-7434-3972-5

  ISBN 978-1-4516-6563-5 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-0-7434-5944-0 (eBook)