Stranger in the Moonlight

by Jude Deveraux

  Kim saw the pain in his eyes. When Reede was in high school and through most of college, he’d been in love with a hometown girl. He never looked at anyone else. Then suddenly, she dumped him, said she was marrying someone else. It had taken Reede years to get over the pain. “I know,” she said softly. “I understand why you’re so upset, but Reede, I know what I’m doing. I know that Travis is a long way from being someone from Edilean. He’s not here to get married, move into some three/two house, and have kids.”

  “But that’s what you want,” Reede said. “I know it is. When Jecca and Tris got married you cried through the whole ceremony.”

  “Yes,” Kim said gently. “It is what I want. With all my soul. Do you think I bought this big house because of the damned garage? I . . .” She had to hold back tears as she said what she knew to be true; it was going to hurt to say it out loud. “Sometimes I think I bought it as bait, to lure some nice guy here, to make it easy for him to move in, to—”

  Reede put his arms around her, held her head to his chest, and stroked her hair. “Don’t say such things. Any man would be honored to have you. You’re smart and funny and caring and—”

  “So where is he?” Kim said as she hugged her brother. “Where is this man who is going to see my good qualities and overlook my bad ones? I’ve spent six whole months with Dave the Caterer and I’ve never complained about how boring he is.” She pulled away from him and wiped her eyes. “At least Travis made an effort.”

  “Yeah, but for what?” Reede asked as he handed Kim a tissue.

  She blew her nose loudly. “I hope it’s because he wants wild, all-night sex with me.”

  “Kim!” Reede said, sounding like a Victorian father.

  “Look, I know Travis is going to leave. Once he fully believes that Joe Layton is a great guy who is mad about Lucy, Travis will leave as abruptly as he arrived. It’ll be like when we were kids and one day he just wasn’t there. No note, nothing. And he came back just as abruptly, with no warning. I know that he appears and disappears according to his own whims, without regard to other people.”

  “I agree,” Reede said. “He’ll go back to his dad’s empire and . . . Someday, Kim, Travis Maxwell will be just like his father. You don’t want to be part of that, do you?”

  “No,” Kim said, then looked at her brother over the tissue. “But right now while he’s here, I’ll take all the passionate sex I can get. Days of it. Weeks if I can get it. Months would be divine.”

  “That’s—” Reede said sternly, then shook his head. “It’s difficult for me to think of my little sister doing—” He couldn’t seem to find words to express his feelings. Instead, he looked at his watch. “I have to go. I’m already late. I want you to promise me that you’ll do an Internet search on Travis Maxwell and see what you’re up against. He’s been dating some model named Leslie who is a truly beautiful woman.”

  “Not like me, huh?”

  Reede groaned as he knew he’d said that wrong. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I just don’t want you to be hurt. Is that bad of me?”

  “Of course not. You better go now. Your patients need you.”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, then kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ll walk you out,” she said and followed him outside.

  Even after the door closed, Travis stood where he was, unable to move, just stood there, staring at the doorway into the living room. He hadn’t liked what he’d heard about himself.

  “We’d better leave,” Russell said softly. “It wouldn’t be good for her to know that you heard that.”

  Travis’s mind seemed to race forward and to stand still at the same time. He couldn’t figure out what to do. Go to her? Run away? Stay and defend himself? Reassure her that he wasn’t what she’d been told?

  Russell put his hand on Travis’s arm and turned him toward the back door.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Travis said. “I want love and she wants sex.”

  Russell gave a bit of a laugh then pushed Travis to take a step toward the door. But they were too late.

  “Stop right there,” Kim said from behind them.

  Eleven

  Russell dropped his hand from Travis’s arm and stepped away.

  “When were you going to tell me?” Kim asked, her eyes on Travis. If she thought about what she’d just said to her brother and that Travis had heard every word of it, she knew she’d die of embarrassment.

  Travis took his time turning around, and when he did, he wished he’d made it outside without seeing her. He’d never seen any woman with such anger in her eyes. That’s the second person who has hated me, he thought. Russell this morning and now Kim looking at him like he was the devil’s spawn. “I came in here to tell you about me.”

  “How convenient,” Kim said. “But why didn’t you tell me before? You told me about your mother hiding from your father, about her wanting to marry Joe Layton, but you didn’t happen to mention that you’re a lawyer and your name is Maxwell. Did you think I’d turn greedy and go after your family’s wealth?”

  “Of course not,” Travis said. He didn’t know where to begin. “I just thought . . . I mean . . .”

  “Excuse me, but I’m a bit peckish,” Russell said. “Do you mind if I . . . ?” He gestured toward the refrigerator.

  “Help yourself,” Kim said, still looking at Travis.

  “Kim, honey,” Travis said. When Kim’s eyes looked like they were about to emit fire, he backtracked. “I didn’t mean—”

  “He was afraid you’d hate him because of the Maxwell reputation,” Russell said from behind the refrigerator door.

  “Yes,” Travis said. “The Maxwell name brings out the bad in a lot of people.”

  “Does in me,” Russell said. “Is there any mustard? Ah, here it is.”

  Kim turned to look at him. “You’re the man in the shop. The one who was after Carla.”

  “Russell Pendergast,” he said, smiling. “I’d shake your hand but . . .” He had his arms full of deli meat and bread. “Anyone else want a sandwich?”

  “No!” Travis and Kim said in unison.

  “He’s my secretary’s son,” Travis said. “I only met him this morning. I didn’t even know he existed until a couple of days ago when Penny said her son would help me. From the way she said it, she could have been talking about a six-year-old. But then she is his mother. You and I talked about how parents do that. Remember, Kim?”

  She was still glaring at him. “What did your secretary’s son help you with that involved my shop and my employee?”

  Travis drew in his breath. It looked like his attempt to distract her hadn’t worked.

  Russell didn’t help matters by chuckling.

  “You want to leave us alone?” Travis said to him, frowning.

  “Actually, no,” Russell said. “No Broadway show has ever been this good, but I’ll leave if Miss Aldredge wants me to.”

  “I never want to be alone with this man ever again. And please call me Kim.”

  “Gladly,” he said as he gave her a look of appreciation.

  “Russell!” Travis snapped. “So help me if you—”

  “If he what?!” Kim said loudly. “Travis, I am waiting for an answer.”

  Never in his life had Travis ever found himself in a situation that he couldn’t talk his way out of. But too much rested on this now for him to think coherently. “I . . .” He hesitated, not sure what to say, then he reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew the big sapphire ring that Borman had stolen.

  “I got this back for you,” he said, his voice hopeful.

  Kim didn’t take it, so he set it on the kitchen countertop. “I see. The missing ring.” She took a moment to think. “If you have the ring, that means that whatever you two have been up to involves my boyfriend, Dave. You must have met him.”

  Travis’s face grew serious. “Yes we did and, Kim, you don’t know him. He’s not what you think he is. The truth is that he’s after—”r />
  “He wants to take my jewelry business national and name it The Family Jewels. I treated it as the joke it was. Not the national part, but the name.”

  Both men were so shocked at her words that Russell stopped eating and Travis stared at her.

  Kim turned away. There was so much anger in her that she could hardly breathe. Her friend Gemma was a boxer. Right now, if Kim had the know-how, she’d hit Travis so hard his head would roll across the floor.

  She looked back at him. “Why did you assume that I didn’t know what Dave was after? Did he seem subtle to you? Secretive?”

  “No,” Travis said. “But if you knew the truth, why would you consider marrying him?”

  Kim was almost sure that if Dave had asked her she would have said no. Before Travis had shown up she might have said yes, but she blamed that on her friend Jecca’s recent wedding. Of course, when she came to her senses, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. But she was damned well not going to tell Travis that! “Is there a man on earth who doesn’t have his own agenda for marriage? At least Dave was honest with me. He let me know that he was very interested in my business, and he had some good ideas.”

  “But . . .” Travis said.

  “But what? I should wait for a man like you? Compared to the amount of lying and manipulation you have done, Dave is up for sainthood.”

  She wanted to get this back on track. This was about him, Travis, and what he had done, not David Borman. That was none of Travis’s business. “I want to see if I get your story straight. You’re a Maxwell, son of one of the richest men in the world.” When Travis just stood there, she looked at Russell and he nodded in verification.

  “You came to Edilean when you were twelve, spent two weeks with me, then left without so much as a note.”

  “Kim,” Travis said, “come on, I was twelve. I did what my mother told me to.”

  “You could write,” Russell said, his mouth full.

  Travis glared at him.

  “Do you know that for eighteen years I searched for you? I used to sneak into my brother’s room to use his unblocked Internet service to try to find you.”

  “But you couldn’t find him because you didn’t know his correct last name,” Russell said. “Mind if I get a beer?”

  “Please do,” Kim said. “Eighteen years and nothing. I was forgotten by you.”

  “That’s not really true. I always knew where—” Travis said, then shut his mouth.

  Kim looked at Russell in question.

  “Mom said that you were never out of his radar. She said he used to—”

  “I saw your shows,” Travis said quickly before Russell could say any more.

  Kim’s eyes widened. “You! It was you. Jecca saw you there. She used to call you the TDH Stranger. She even drew your portrait, but I had no idea who you were.”

  “TDH?” Travis asked.

  “Tall, dark, and handsome,” Russell said. “This beer is good. I’ve never had it before.” He looked at Travis. “Want one?”

  “Only if it doesn’t have hemlock in it,” Travis muttered as Russell, smiling, got a beer out, opened it, and handed it to him.

  Travis drank half of it in one gulp, then dropped down onto a stool. He looked back at Kim as though to say he was ready to receive more of her verbal lashes. “I thought I was watching over you,” he said.

  “Ah, right, how noble. ‘Watching over me.’ ‘Looking out for me.’ Is that right?”

  “I thought so,” Travis said and drank more beer.

  Russell started making a sandwich for Travis. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast.

  “So now,” Kim said, “you returned to Edilean not for me—oh no, not for me—but because your mother called you.”

  “Actually,” Russell said as he cut the bread, “she called my mother and told her.”

  “Even better,” Kim said. “Lucy Merritt or Cooper or Maxwell called . . . What is her name?” she asked Russell.

  “Cooper and Merritt are made up. Her name is Lucy Jane Travis Maxwell of the Boston Travises. She got the name and education but none of the family’s old money. My mother is Barbara Pendergast of no money and no name. Just hard work.”

  “Thank you,” Kim said. She looked back at Travis as he bit into the sandwich Russell had made for him. He looked like a man walking up the gallows steps. “Whatever the name, the point is that you didn’t come back for me, but for your mother.”

  Travis got up to get two more beers.

  “Because of Jecca’s wedding you happened to see me and . . . one thing led to another.”

  Russell looked at Travis in question.

  “She means inviting me to stay in her guesthouse,” Travis said.

  Russell nodded and looked back at Kim as though to say the floor was hers.

  “You moved into my guesthouse and talked to me so much about friendship that I was beginning to think you were gay. And you—”

  Russell gave a snort of laughter.

  “I never meant—” Travis began.

  “How’s Leslie?” Kim asked, letting every millimeter of her anger show.

  Travis looked down at his sandwich.

  She picked up the ring and looked at Russell. “When I said I had a boyfriend, he almost had a grand mal seizure of old-fashioned jealousy.”

  “I did not,” Travis said as he started to defend himself. But every word Kim was saying was true. “I was shocked, that’s all,” he mumbled.

  “Shocked that I had a boyfriend?” Kim said. “You are . . .” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’ve watched me—stalked me—enough that you knew when I had a boyfriend or not.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Travis wouldn’t have answered that if someone had set his feet on fire. That his mother had listened to Edilean gossip and told him about Kim on nearly every call was beside the point. It suddenly went through his mind to wonder if it was a coincidence that she called just when Kim was getting serious about some guy. And she called when there was going to be a wedding next door to her where Kim was a bridesmaid. His mother had called Penny—who she’d always disliked—and it was his secretary who got him to go to Edilean ASAP. Had it been up to Travis, he might have postponed going to Edilean, but Penny set everything up. Right now it seemed as though the two women had worked together to get Travis to Edilean at a time when he was sure to see Kim again. But that couldn’t be true. Surely, all of it was coincidence.

  Kim’s hands were in fists and she had to turn away for a moment to catch her breath. “You thought . . .” she said softly. “You thought that since you’re a big city lawyer and you were born into great wealth, that you know more about life than I do.”

  “Kim, I never thought that,” Travis said as he put down his sandwich. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “You assumed that I was a naive, simple, small town girl who was so desperate to get married that I couldn’t see the truth about some guy I was dating regularly.”

  “Kim, you’re not being fair,” Travis said as he came off the stool. “Borman was a real bastard. He conned Carla into giving him that ring, saying he was going to give it to you when he asked you to marry him. But then he pawned it. I—we—think that he was going to say he knew nothing about the ring and let Carla take the blame.”

  Kim didn’t allow the shock of that information to show on her face. “How did you get it?”

  Travis sat back down and looked at his plate.

  “He bought Borman Catering,” Russell said.

  Travis looked at him with murder in his eyes.

  “You did what?” Kim asked in disbelief.

  “He paid a hundred and seventy-five grand for the company,” Russell said. He’d finished his sandwich and was working on the second beer. “He was going to pay more, but I got Borman down to that. It’s still too much.”

  “Much too much,” Kim said. “Those vans of his are worn-out and Dave’s lost commissions because he doesn’t deliver what he promises.”

  �
�I thought it was too much too,” Russell said, “but we were up against a deadline.”

  Travis looked at Russell in disgust for ratting on him. “Kim, I think we’re losing sight of the main issue here. Borman was going to ask you to marry him and I was afraid you’d say yes.”

  “And when he proposed, he’d give me my ring back!” Kim said loudly. She threw up her hands. “Men! I’ve had all of you I can take this week. Today I had to threaten Carla with firing her because of what she’d done.”

  “You should fire her,” Travis said seriously. “What she did was a prosecutable offense.”

  “She was conned by a man! It’s a hazard of being female. And for your information, in Edilean we don’t discard someone for making a single mistake.”

  “As I did,” Travis said softly as he looked at her with eyes begging for forgiveness.

  “You have made a thousand mistakes. And stop looking at me like that! You already showed me that face, remember? You used it to get the pretty young wife of the old man to teach you how to cook—along with other things.”

  Russell laughed. “She’s got you figured out.”

  “Kim, I never meant—”

  “I know!” she said loudly. “I’m sure that from your view you came swooping in on your white horse and rescued me. But I didn’t need rescuing. I didn’t need someone to make me look like a fool, to make me feel that I’m an idiot who can’t run my own life. What I need is—” She couldn’t take any more. “Out! Both of you get out of my house and out of my life. I never want to see either of you again.”

  Both of the men got up and started for the door. When Travis passed her she said, “Did you ever think that it’s not the Maxwell name that brings out the bad in people? That it’s you?”

  Travis had no answer for her.

  Kim slammed the door behind them, locked it, then leaned back against it. “For your information, John Travis Maxwell, I want love too.”