Moonlight Masquerade

by Jude Deveraux

  Reede held her and he felt her fall asleep, but he was wide awake. His mind was too full of all that was going on in his life for him to be able to sleep soundly.

  Sophie had turned his world upside down. A week ago all he could think about was how many days before he could get out of Edilean forever. He complained about Betsy’s x’d calendar, how she counted the days until Tristan returned, but the truth was that Reede checked that calendar a dozen times a day. He too counted the days. How long was it before he could leave and go back . . . Back to what? To flying from one town to another, from one danger to the next?

  There were times when he’d been so lonely, when he’d missed home so much that he’d wanted to leave right then.

  He kissed Sophie’s forehead, and she snuggled closer to him. She made him feel needed. She made him feel as though he had a purpose in life, a place to go. She made him feel that he belonged.

  When Sophie turned over in his arms, he slipped out of bed, opened Kim’s bedside table drawer, and withdrew a flashlight. He hadn’t told Sophie it was there.

  Reede made his way into the living room and removed the torn envelope from the desk drawer. It didn’t take him long to dress and slip out the front door. He needed food and he needed someone to talk to.

  Twelve

  Reede raised his hand to tap on the window of the diner, but Al saw him and unlocked the door. Many times Reede had been out all night with a patient and had stopped at Al’s for breakfast. The diner wasn’t open yet, but Al would fry a couple of eggs and toast bread. Reede would sit at the bar and eat and they’d talk while Al made coleslaw for the day.

  “What are you lookin’ so glum about?” Al asked as he poured Reede’s coffee. “Everybody in town knows you spent the night with that little doll Sophie. After they turned out their lights, that is.”

  When Reede looked up with a doleful expression, Al chuckled. “Let me see if I get this right. You’re in love with her but she thinks you’re somebody else and when she finds out the truth that you, from what I heard, nearly killed her, she’s gonna hate you.”

  “I think ‘love’ is a little strong. I only met her a few days ago,” Reede said.

  “And you two haven’t been apart since she came to town. So what mask are you wearin’ today?”

  “I was thinking of a motorcycle helmet. I’d say the clasp was broken and that I can’t get it off.” Reede looked at Al as though asking his opinion.

  “Ever think of manning up and showing her your naked face and taking the consequences?”

  “No,” Reede said honestly.

  Al shook his head. “I’ll give it to you that you two have done a lot in the time you’ve had. Last night I heard that somebody tried to blow up the whole town. That true?”

  “More or less.”

  “And that your girlfriend stopped it?”

  “She was the one who identified the thief. Peter Osmond.”

  “That insurance guy?”

  “He’s an actuary, but yeah, that’s him. He’s in custody now.”

  Al put a plate of eggs, bacon, ham, and heavily buttered toast in front of Reede. It was all swimming in grease. Not good for you, but the taste was divine.

  “I hear you rode down the streets on one of the McTern horses. Had on those girly boots, like in that movie Pretty Woman.”

  “Not exactly, but close enough,” Reede said.

  “And you and that girl walked across the roof of the old Haynes house.”

  “It was inside and on a beam, not the roof, and who told you all this?”

  “Who hasn’t told me? Those three women you boss around come in here all the time and they don’t talk of anything but you. They say you’re not like—”

  “Don’t say it!” Reede half shouted. “I’m not Tristan. Model beautiful, loved by everyone, always patient Tristan. He’s so good I don’t know why he hasn’t been taken directly up to heaven.”

  Al was unperturbed by Reede’s anger. “Same reason the devil ain’t reachin’ up to grab you!”

  Reede filled his mouth and calmed down. “So what am I going to do about Sophie?”

  “Nothing,” Al said. “Nothing you can do. You nearly killed the poor girl. I heard she had to jump into some trees just to keep from being run down by you. You examine her bruised places?”

  “No, I didn’t examine—” Reede stopped because he knew Al was trying to make him angry. “I like her. I like her a lot. I’ve not liked a woman this much since—”

  “Don’t dive into that pool of self-pity again!” Al said as he put a couple of quarts of mayonnaise on the cabbage he’d chopped. That mayonnaise was one of the highest calorie foods known didn’t bother him at all—and he had the giant stomach to prove it. “That Chawnley girl did you a favor by dumping you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Reede said as he put even more butter on the already saturated toast. “If I’d married her and I met Sophie now, it would be even worse.”

  Al started to say that if Reede were happily married he might not be so interested in another woman, even one as pretty as Sophie. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he took pity on the young man. “How bad is it for you?”

  When Reede looked up at Al, all he felt was in his eyes.

  Al gave a low whistle. “All of you oldies seem to fall so hard for a woman that it eats you up. I’m glad my family is a Newcomer.” Al’s ancestors had settled in Edilean in the 1880s. “You need to make a plan. Hey! I know what you should do.”

  Reede looked up with eyes of hope.

  “Get a mask tattooed on your face. It’ll hide your identity forever.”

  At first Reede frowned, but then he gave a low laugh. “I guess I deserved that. I know I’m going to have to come clean eventually and take the consequences.”

  “That would have worked at first but now you’ve lied to her for days. My guess is that when she learns how you’ve humiliated her in front of the whole town she’s gonna be pretty damned mad. If she’s anything like my wife she’ll wait until night and set your bed on fire—with you in it.”

  “You are a real joy,” Reede said. “I’m so glad I came to you for advice.”

  “You came here for my gourmet cuisine,” Al said without so much as a hint of a smile. “The advice is free.”

  Reede had finished his food, but he still sat there on the stool. “You know of a house I can rent for Sophie?”

  “Don’t your rich relatives own most of this town?”

  “Yeah, but I’m looking for something special. It has to have a place where she can do her sculpture. She makes things in clay.”

  Al stood there blinking at Reede for a moment. “You mean like an art studio?”

  “Exactly like one.”

  “Old man Gains’s wife used to do crafts and he built her a little place out in back of their house. Between you and me I think she was more interested in getting away from him than in twisting all those weeds around wires. But then the tourists seemed to like them.”

  “Barry Gains? Isn’t he—?”

  “In a home in Richmond now. After his wife passed there was no one to take care of him and his Alzheimer’s was bad.”

  “So what happened to the house?”

  “It was rented out until six months ago, but that guy moved. It’s empty now, and the realty company is supposed to be looking after it but they don’t. You wanta get it for your Sophie? Like the pumpkin eater?”

  “What does that mean?” Reede asked.

  “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater, had a wife but couldn’t keep her; put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well,” Al quoted.

  “You know, don’t you,” Reede said, “that all those old rhymes are based on truth. Some man probably locked up his philandering wife and some smart-ass made a rhyme about it.”

  Al didn’t blink. “You want the house so your would-be wife doesn’t take to philandering? Keep her busy making mud pies?”

  Reede started to defend himself but changed his mind. “I want to keep
her from leaving town when she finds out the truth about me. And stop looking at me like that. Desperate men do desperate things. You have the number of the Realtor?”

  “On speed dial. My wife is handling the place—and if you’re helping on the rent I’m going to tell her to double it because she’s got a tenant who will pay anything for a pumpkin shell.”

  As he got up to leave, Reede didn’t protest because being overcharged on rent was the least of his worries.

  When he got to his car, he reached under the seat and withdrew the envelope containing the Treeborne cookbook. He’d told Sophie that he’d make sure it was sent to his friend in New Zealand, and he meant to. What he hadn’t promised her was that he wouldn’t look at it—or make a copy of it. Sophie seemed to think—hope—that the Treebornes wouldn’t press charges, that if they got their precious cookbook back they wouldn’t tear the world apart looking for her.

  But Reede wasn’t so sure. They might worry that a copy of the cookbook would be put on the Internet. If that happened the secrets of Treeborne Foods would be revealed. And even if all that was shown was how much oregano was used in the spaghetti sauce, it would kill an ad campaign that was over a hundred years old. They’d no longer be able to flaunt their “secret” recipes when the Internet was plastered with them.

  Maybe the Treebornes were trustworthy, but from what Reede had heard, they played dirty. Father and son together had used and discarded a sweet girl like Sophie without even a backward glance.

  He drove to his office, made a photocopy of the old cookbook, packaged it, addressed it to his friend, and put it in a drop-off box. Maybe he wouldn’t need the copy but it was better to be prepared.

  “It’s perfect,” Sophie said as she looked around the house. It wasn’t very big and it needed cleaning and repairs, but it was more than suitable. There were two bedrooms and two baths, a pretty living room with a sunporch to one side. She could see herself sitting in there on rainy days while Reede . . .

  She had to look away to clear her vision. It seemed that in just a few days she’d gone from one man to another. All summer her mind had been full of Carter and now there was only Reede.

  All the bad that had happened to her seemed to fade. Everything had been replaced by Reede, and it was like she’d known him all her life. What he wanted and needed were of great importance to her, but she couldn’t possibly move in with him. Could she? She’d just seen the little studio where she could work, even though she had no idea what she would do. Maybe it could be a shop where she could sell her work to tourists.

  She looked back at the sunroom. Who was she kidding? She wanted Reede to leave Edilean, and she wanted to go with him. She’d like to pack a bag and . . . Do what? Reede would need a woman who was a doctor or a nurse, not someone whose only talent was carving things. Of course she could cook and that might be useful.

  She knew she was being ridiculous. Reede was going to leave Edilean in two and a half years, and there was no way he’d want a woman with him. Kim had always complained that her brother was a loner, that he got restless after even four days at home with them.

  Sophie knew she needed to think about herself. To make plans for her own future. When Kim returned from her extended honeymoon she’d be living in Edilean, and when Jecca finished her training in New York, she too would be living there. It made sense for Sophie to stay in Virginia. She had nothing waiting for her back in her hometown. The Treeborne name was everywhere—and Sophie never wanted to see it again.

  And by the time Lisa graduated from college, her world would be different. Sophie very much doubted if Lisa would return to her hometown. So what was there for Sophie? Taking care of her odious stepfather? Watching Carter get married and have children? Would his family come into a restaurant where Sophie was working and she’d wait on them?

  The Realtor was looking at her and waiting for an answer. She was a small woman and thin to the point of emaciation. Sophie couldn’t imagine her as the wife of the man who owned the diner. His left leg weighed more than this woman did.

  “Okay,” Sophie said. “I’ll take it.”

  “I have the rental agreement here,” she said, “so if you’ll sign it I’ll give you the keys.”

  “I don’t have a local check,” Sophie said and knew that she couldn’t use the small amount she had in the bank back home anyway. The Treebornes owned the bank, and they’d see where she cashed it. “And I haven’t been paid yet so . . . ”

  “That’s all right. Dr. Reede is vouching for you, so that’s good enough for us.”

  Sophie turned away so her frown couldn’t be seen. She didn’t like being dependant on someone, especially not a man. To have slept with him one night and the next day to be renting a house with his help made her feel less than virtuous. If the Realtor had said Reede was paying for the place, Sophie would have walked out. But he was only verifying that she did have a job and that she wasn’t likely to run out on the lease. It would be the same if Kim were her reference.

  “As soon as I get paid I’ll give you the deposit,” Sophie said.

  “There is no deposit. The owner is so glad to have someone take this place he’s waiving that. Rent is due the last day of each month. Send a check to my office or leave it at the diner.”

  Sophie signed the lease, the Realtor handed her the keys, said congratulations, and left.

  For a moment, Sophie just stood where she was. Everything was happening so very fast. Carter, then Reede, then . . . The truth was that she didn’t know where things were going. Her mind was still full of the attempted robbery, the masked party, and, well, spending the night with a man whose face she had never seen.

  She looked around the little kitchen. It was nice, not large, but it had a big walk-in pantry that made it usable. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of the meals she and Reede would cook together in the little kitchen. Would they keep the house even if they traveled a lot?

  Sophie shook her head at that thought. One night with a man and she was planning their life together.

  But as she picked up her purse, her smile wouldn’t go away. Sometimes good things did happen to people. They didn’t seem to happen to her, but maybe her luck was changing.

  She went out to the driveway to the rental car and drove back into Edilean. It was just a couple of miles and she thought that it would be good exercise to walk. But not today. Right now all she wanted was to see Reede. That thought made her smile even broader. Actually see him. For a moment she had a vision of the two of them laughingly telling people that they were . . . what? In deep like? . . . before she even saw his face. What a truly romantic story it would make.

  She parked in the back of Reede’s office. This morning she’d been disappointed to awaken to find an empty bed, but she understood. Maybe he’d been called out on a medical emergency. Maybe right now he was saving a life or delivering a baby.

  Even though it was Sunday, the back door to the office was unlocked, which Sophie took to mean that someone was there. As she stepped inside, she heard the quiet sounds of someone on a keyboard. It must be one of the women who worked for Reede, part of his adoring entourage.

  Quietly, Sophie walked down the hallway and up the stairs to his apartment. Her idea was to make him lunch and have it ready when he returned from wherever he was. The apartment door was unlocked, and she turned the handle silently so as not to warn whoever was downstairs. The women were always so very helpful to Sophie. Anything she needed, they eagerly got for her. But sometimes she felt they were, well, almost invasive. It was as though they were afraid she was going to do something they couldn’t control. Such as what? she wondered, but had no real answer. Maybe they just wanted to make sure no one hurt their beloved Dr. Reede.

  The door was silent as she opened it, and she tiptoed inside the apartment. To her delight, the first thing she saw was Reede. He was stretched out on the couch, sound asleep, his arm thrown over his face. She smiled down at him and couldn’t resist touching his hand. She wanted to cu
rl up beside him.

  He had on a T-shirt and jeans and she couldn’t help remembering their night together and how well she’d come to know his body. She remembered her hands on his chest, running down his arms and feeling the muscles there. She thought of his mouth on her body and the pleasure he’d given her. Reede was a thousand times a better lover than Carter ever thought of being. Last night she’d felt as though she and Reede were, well, almost as though they were in love.

  When Reede moved, he lowered his arm.

  It was as though time stood still. Sophie didn’t move as she stared at his face. He was quite a handsome man. She knew the lower half of his face well, and if it were dark, she could have identified him by touch.

  But it wasn’t dark, and the man asleep on the couch was the one who had been driving the car that had nearly run over her. He was the man she’d poured beer over.

  They all know, was her foremost thought. All of them know. Russell, the Baptist minister, had driven her to Kim’s house, and she’d told him she had a job with Dr. Reede. He’d known that Sophie had just poured beer over her boss.

  The women who worked for Reede knew. No wonder they’d kept her locked away upstairs and were so willing to get things for her. They didn’t want her to go into town, where she might find out the truth.

  But why? she wondered. Why had they all worked to keep the secret?

  She didn’t know the answer to that question and right now she was feeling too humiliated to care.

  She gave one last glance at Reede, still asleep on the couch, and left the apartment. Whoever was in the office was still there, but Sophie didn’t want to see her. Right now all she wanted in the world was to get out of Edilean and never look back.

  When she reached the parking lot, she got into the rental car, and for a moment she put her head against the steering wheel. But she looked up again. If she let herself think too hard she’d start crying and never stop. First, she had to go to Kim’s house and get her clothes. At the thought of her “friend” she felt a surge of anger rise in her. Kim must have known about her and Reede, but Kim hadn’t said a word. But then Reede was her brother while Sophie was just a college roommate who’d disappeared for years.