“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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ISBN 978-0-7434-3972-5
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A Knight in Shining Armor Page 45
