Raintree Read online

  Gideon pointed to the fertility charm Hope had put around her neck once again, after he’d refused to take it from her palm. It had been meant for Dante, a brotherly joke, a push to get the Dranir busy reproducing, but it would be just as effective on Hope.

  “That talisman you lifted from the dresser last night,” he said, as he continued to point a censuring finger, “is a fertility charm.”

  “A what?” Hope took a step away from him and yanked the thing from around her neck as if it might burn her. “What kind of sick person would make a fertility charm and leave it lying around!”

  Gideon raised his empty hand. “This sick person. It was meant for my brother, not you.”

  Hope flung the charm at him, putting all her muscle behind it. “You really are sick,” she said sharply as he caught the charm in midair. “What did your brother ever do to you to deserve that?” She looked around her immediate vicinity for something else to throw, found nothing handy and finally sat down at the kitchen table. “It didn’t work,” she said sensibly. “I’m sure it didn’t work. That charm wasn’t made for me, and we were careful. We were always careful. It’s not like you have some kind of super sperm.”

  “Yeah,” Gideon agreed, hoping she was right. If fertility charms worked without fail, Dante would have populated his own village by now. “I even moved you out of the moonlight.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she snapped.

  He figured he might as well tell her everything. “For the past three months I’ve been dreaming about this little girl. Thanks to Dante,” he added. “So don’t feel too sorry for him just because I occasionally send him something he doesn’t want.”

  “He sent you some kind of dream?”

  “There have been a couple of times when I’ve seen Emma outside a dream. She was the one who told me to get down when Tabby took a shot at us.”

  “What does that have to do with moonlight, Raintree?” Hope was frustrated and irritated and maybe even a little scared. She tried to smooth her hair with agitated fingers.

  “Emma told me that she’s coming to me in a moonbeam.”

  Hope went pale. Deathly, scarily, white. As white as the milk she’d taken from the fridge. “You should have told me that before now.” She grabbed the saltshaker off the table and threw it at him, but there wasn’t as much anger in the motion as before, and he caught it easily. Some of the salt escaped and fell to the floor. Out of habit, he picked up a pinch and tossed it over his left shoulder.

  “Why?” Gideon asked as he set the saltshaker aside. “I didn’t believe her. We make our own choices in life, and I choose not to have kids. Besides, it’s just some kind of poetic nonsense. And we weren’t in a moonbeam last—”

  “Shut up, Raintree.” Hope stood and looked longingly at the pepper shaker, but she walked away without throwing it at him. “You were in a moonbeam last night,” she said without turning to look at him. “You were most definitely in a moonbeam.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She lifted a hand. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

  A few seconds later Hope was in the kitchen again, purse in hand, face no less pale. She sat at the table, took a slim black wallet from her purse, slid her driver’s license from its designated slot and tossed it to Gideon. It sailed between them like a Frisbee, hit him in the chest and landed on the floor by his feet. “Read it and weep,” she said weakly.

  Gideon scooped the driver’s license from the floor. The picture was less than flattering, like all such photos, and still…not too bad. It was the name on the license that caught and held his attention. He gripped the license tightly and said a word not fit for little Emma’s ears as he read the name again and again.

  Moonbeam Hope Malory.

  TWELVE

  She’d thought about having her name legally changed a thousand times, but every time she so much as mentioned it to her mother there was hell to pay. Sunshine Faith and Moonbeam Hope, those were Rainbow’s daughters. They had been Sunny and Moonie for years, until Hope had grown old enough to insist that she be called by her middle name.

  Gideon drove too fast, but Hope didn’t say a word about him speeding. Since he’d put the top of the convertible up, she was able to leaf through the case files. That way they didn’t have to talk. Or look at each other.

  Several of the files were from unsolved murders that probably weren’t connected to the latest killings. Most were grisly but without the connection of the missing body parts. Gathering this much information hadn’t been easy. There were a number of different jurisdictions and investigators involved. Still, she saw enough similarities in a number of cases to make her uneasy.

  If Tabby was a serial killer, and that was definitely possible, then why had she targeted Gideon? Why had she tried to kill him on the riverfront? It didn’t fit in several ways. Unlike her other crimes, it had been attempted in a public place, and Gideon was unlike her other victims. Wasn’t he? He had been alone before taking up with her. Was he still a loner, emotionally? Of course he was. What they had was just sex, which didn’t exactly qualify them to be a happy couple—this morning’s odd developments aside.

  Hope did her best not to think about those developments. Studying the disturbing cases before her was much easier on her heart, horrifying as they were.

  The file on the victim in Hale County was thin but far from shoddy. It wasn’t a lack of concern that caused the file to be thin. According to Gideon, the sheriff was anxious to talk to anyone who might be able to shed light on the schoolteacher’s murder, and had seemed relieved that someone had taken an interest in the case.

  “Why this one?” she asked when they’d been on the road more than an hour. “There are others that fit the profile, and at least one that’s closer.”

  “It’s less than three hours away, and more important, the crime scene is intact,” Gideon answered in a businesslike voice.

  “How could it be intact after four months?”

  “It’s been cleaned,” he explained, “but no one’s moved into the house. My best shot of speaking to the victim and maybe even spotting a real clue is with this case.”

  He hadn’t wanted her to come along today, but he hadn’t argued long when she’d insisted. Was that why he was so unhappy, or was he wound tightly for more personal reasons? He sure as hell didn’t want her to be pregnant. She’d never seen a man react so strongly to the very prospect. Not that she had exactly embraced the idea of parenthood with a surge of joy and giggles.

  He seemed so sure that Emma was a done deal. Hope wasn’t, though all his talk of moonbeams and that damned fertility charm had given her more than a moment’s pause. Gideon made her look at the impossible in a whole new way. He made her want to open her eyes and her heart in a way she had refused to do in the past. But really, a fertility charm?

  She stared out the passenger window and watched the leafy green landscape blur. It wasn’t like her to meet a man on Monday and end up in his bed on Wednesday. She’d obviously hit an invisible and unexpected sexual peak of some kind, because where Gideon was concerned, she hadn’t been able to control herself. That was also very much not like her. Control was her middle name. Of course, Hope Control Malory was preferable to Moonbeam Hope Malory any day.

  Could’ve been worse. Her mother could have named her Moonbeam Chastity. Then where would she be?

  They were another hour down the road, perhaps half an hour from their destination, when Gideon said, “I’m sorry if I overreacted.”

  “A grown man tearing out his hair, cursing and screaming at my stomach, you call that overreacting?” she asked without emotion.

  Gideon shifted his broad shoulders, fidgeting as if the car had suddenly become too small to contain him. “At least I didn’t throw anything at you.”

  “I’m not the one who made a fertility charm and left it lying around in the bedroom for anyone to pick up.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  She really didn�