Moonlight in the Morning Read online

  “Okay,” Tris said, “we’ve now told each other all the happy, sugary things, so what’s bad in your life?”

  “’Fraid I don’t know you well enough to tell you that,” Jecca said.

  “So what’s the good of this? Sitting here in utter blackness, two strangers who will never meet again, if we don’t talk of something besides superficialities?”

  “We will meet again,” Jecca said. “And again. I’m going to be living next door to you for three whole months.”

  “And what is that in the scope of life? Three months to actually talk to someone? It’s not much.”

  Underlying his jesting, Jecca could hear the seriousness in his voice, and she remembered Kim’s story of how her cousin’s arm came to be broken. “Hit over the head,” Kim had said. “Pushed down a hill.” And the robber had wanted “something” Tris had. These were traumatic events.

  When Tristan had fallen over the chaise she’d put in his path, she knew he’d been in pain, but he’d acted as though he wasn’t. If he concealed pain, did he also hide his true feelings from people here in Edilean? Jecca knew that she worked hard to keep all bad news from her father. There were times when she’d been so down she’d wanted to see no one, but she’d always done her best to put on a happy face around him.

  “It must be difficult to live in a town full of family,” she said softly. “When you have one of those life setbacks, who do you talk to?”

  He took so long to answer that she thought maybe he wasn’t going to. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “A few months ago, a young woman came to Edilean for a job. I came very close to falling in love with her, but she recently married my best friend.”

  “And this happened at the same time you broke your arm?”

  “Yes. It’s all related.” He took a breath. “She’s in her second trimester now.”

  “That was fast. Wait! If she’s that far along, maybe she only married him because she felt she had to.”

  “I wish that were true,” Tris said, “but it’s not. She never once looked at me as anything but her friend.”

  “That hurts,” Jecca said. She wasn’t going to say so, as Kim’s brother was his friend, but she’d felt that way when Reede ignored her. When she was silent, she heard him turn as though to look at her, but try as hard as she could, she couldn’t see him.

  “Speaking of being hurt, whatever happened to Laura Chawnley?” Jecca asked. “I’ve always meant to ask Kim but haven’t. Is Laura still around?”

  “Oh yes. She married the pastor, and they have strong, healthy kids. We thought the boy had a heart murmur but he’s okay.” C ok

  Jecca laughed. “You really are a doctor, aren’t you?”

  “Not now. While this damned arm heals I’m nothing.”

  “I know that feeling well!”

  “You? How could you know? Kim raves about you. When she was in college every e-mail she sent me was about you and the blue-bikini girl. What was her name?”

  “Sophie. I bet Kim sent you more photos than just the one of us in swimsuits.”

  “She sent hundreds, but for some reason, that’s the only one I remember. I stuck it on the mirror in my bedroom.”

  “With your other girly pictures?”

  “That was the only one.”

  “Sophie is beautiful.”

  “I bent her back.”

  “What?” Jecca asked.

  “I bent the photo so she’s not in it. She’s not my type.”

  “Oh,” Jecca said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s pinup before. I wish she’d sent me a picture of you.”

  “I break cameras.”

  “I seem to remember Kim saying that all her male cousins are drop-dead gorgeous. I know Reede is. Or was seven years ago. I haven’t seen him since then.”

  Tristan smiled. It looked like Kim had been wrong about Jecca and Reede being attached. “Now you’re making me jealous,” he said in a teasing way. “I guess you know that Reede is coming here quite soon.”

  “Kim may have mentioned it.”

  Tristan groaned. “Don’t tell me I’ve lost before I even have a chance.”

  “What a flirt you are! You almost sound serious.”

  “If I’m good at flirting I can assure you that it’s not from practice. I’m related to many of the people in this town, and I’m the doctor to nearly all of them. That narrows the field of eligibility down drastically.”

  “You know, I can’t see you, and I don’t remember much that Kim told me about you, but my instinct tells me that you don’t have trouble with women.”

  “A year ago I would have said you’re right, but I lost one I think could have made it all happen.”

  “And what do you want to happen?” she asked softly.

  He hesitated, as though considering his words carefully. “I’m old-fashioned. I want a wife and kids. I’m tired of giving shots to other people’s kids. I want to shoot my own children.”

  Jecca laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, C">&="0 I do,” she said and tried to repress a sigh. Under no circumstances on earth was she going to get involved with this man. To be caught in tiny Edilean, Virginia, with all possibility of having a career in art removed from her life was her worst nightmare.

  However, he wasn’t a man she could ignore. Today Kim had said that her cousin Tristan had a “presence,” and now that she was sitting near him in the darkness, she knew what Kim meant. She could almost feel him, like an electrical charge that went from him to her.

  If she were a different kind of woman and this were a different place, she could see herself slipping onto the chaise, stretching out full length beside his body. She could imagine removing clothes, kissing, even making love. It was a titillating thought to make love with a man she’d never seen.

  She came out of her dream when he put his hand out and touched her knee. She couldn’t help it as she picked up his hand in hers. “Tristan,” she said softly.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know you and can’t see what you look like, so I can’t use the usual ways of judging a person. But you sound to me like someone in physical and emotional turmoil.”

  “True,” he said, his deep voice barely a whisper.

  She released his hand. “But I want to tell you that I am not the woman you’re looking for. You want someone who’s ready to . . . to start nesting. I’m still looking for a career. At the end of three months I’ll leave here and I won’t look back. I have to find myself before I can take on another human being—or two or three.”

  She waited to see how he’d take this.

  “I am warned,” he said. “And I thank you for your honesty. But that’s all right. I don’t think I can handle any more of this love business right now.”

  “You need to let your arm heal and I think you should start that now. What time is it?”

  “Well after ten.”

  Jecca stood up. “I think you should go home and get some sleep.”

  “Mind helping me up?” he asked.

  Jecca knew he could get up by himself, but she still moved her arm about until she found his hand. By now the size and shape of it almost felt familiar.

  He stood up, placing his body close to hers. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I’ve not told anyone about . . . well, what happened.”

  She knew he meant about the woman he’d almost fallen in love with. His confession had consisted of a few sentences. Had it been her, she’d have talked to Kim for hours about it. But maybe all he’d needed was the relief of saying it out loud.

  He kept holding her hand, his fingers playing along her palm. “Would you tell no one what I told you? I don’t want it all over town, as it could cause my friend’s new wife embarrassment.”

  Jecca didn’t like promising to keep a secret from Kim, but then, this little encounter in the dark would be CarkCardifficult to explain. “I won’t tell,” she said. “I promise.”