Moonlight in the Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  “I like that. But we can’t pull this off in secret. We’ll have to let Savannah know about it—and Rebecca. This won’t be easy to do.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Jecca said thoughtfully. “Tris is the MC so he can—”

  “Sweet-talk Savannah into anything on earth. He’ll get her to agree to anything we want. Oh yes! I love this. How long before you can get to the shop?”

  “Tris is with us, so we’ll need to drop him off, then—”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  “Sure?” Jecca asked. “A fabric store isn’t exactly a male place.”

  “I think I can go and still retain my masculinity,” Tris said.

  Jecca told Lucy and they hung up.

  For a moment, Jecca and Tris rode in silence. “How’s your arm?” she asked.

  “Aching but better. Jecca, about what I said earlier . . .”

  “When you thought I was going back to New York?”

  “Yes. I told you I was all grown up and could take the pain, but now I think I may not be as adult as I thought I was.”

  Jecca looked out the window. At the moment she couldn’t imagine not being with him. In a short time their lives had become completely involved with each other’s. But she reminded herself that now wasn’t her real life. Her family was elsewhere, and there was no way she could be true to her own nature, to who she really was, in the small town. She couldn’t live without something creative to do with her life.

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  “All right,” Tris said into the silence. “No more seriousness. Talk to me about your plans for Nell.”

  Jecca was glad for the reprieve. She didn’t want to think about sad things. “How well do you know this woman Savannah?” she began.

  By the time they got to the fabric store, Nell was awake and asking questions. Jecca told her of Lucy’s idea of putting on a show within a show.

  “For the Davies of the school,” Nell said, and Tris laughed.

  Jecca looked at them in question.

  “Remember the people whose interiors and exteriors don’t match?” Tris asked, then Nell started explaining.

  Jecca picked up her sketchbook off the car floor. “Think Davie could model a shirt and a pair of shorts that are perfect for an afternoon at the beach?”

  “Yes!” Nell said.

  It took hours at the fabric store to get all that they needed. Lucy and Jecca hovered over the pattern books to find ones that closest matched what Jecca had in mind, while Tris took Nell to the nearby deli and bookstore.

  Jecca texted Tris when they were ready to start choosing fabric, and he and Nell walked back to the store. There was a great deal of discussion among the three females as they planned dress after blouse after trousers.

  “And hats,” Nell said. “Hats to match everything.”

  “I think she’s going to be a fashion designer,” Jecca said to Tris.

  “No,” he said as he leaned over the cart they’d already filled with fabric, notions, and patterns. “Nell is going to be a doctor.”

  Jecca frowned at him. “Don’t you think she should choose her own career?”

  Tris shrugged. “Sometimes they choose us. In our family, medicine makes the choice. I got it; my sister didn’t; Nell did.”

  Jecca could only stare at him. She hadn’t seen the slightest evidence that Nell was interested in medicine. The child seemed to like art better than anything else.

  Tris was watching her and he smiled. “Nell, what’s this?” He put his finger on the base of the back of his neck.

  “The medulla oblongata,” she said with barely a glance up from the bolt of fabric Lucy was holding.

  “I didn’t teach her,” Tris said, “but now you see why my sister lets her spend so much time with me.”

  “You’re kindred souls,” Jecca said, knowing that she’d only recently said that about her and Nell.

  “Yes, but I want her to have more in life than just medicine. I don’t want her doing what I did—teething on a stethoscope and reading medical texts instead of kids’ books. I want—”

  Jecca put her hand over his and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I understand,” she whispered.

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  “No kissing!” Nell said, making Jecca and Tris laugh.

  Jecca gave her attention back to the fabric, matching white with pink and green trim.

  Tris, bored with his job of holding on to the carts, used his phone to take a photo of the three females bent over a pile of remnants.

  “I’m sending this to Grandma,” he told Nell. “Think she’ll believe that I’m in a fabric store?”

  “Tell her you’re practicing your sutures,” Lucy said.

  Smiling, Tris typed out a message to his mother.

  “Send a copy of that picture to my dad,” Jecca said and gave Tris the e-mail address.

  Tris wrote a little generic message to Jecca’s father, but then he erased it. What was the saying about a faint heart not winning fair maiden? He took a deep breath to give himself courage, then began to type: DEAR MR. LAYTON, MY NAME IS TRISTAN ALDREDGE. I’M THE ONLY DOCTOR IN THIS SMALL TOWN AND I’M IN LOVE WITH YOUR DAUGHTER AND WANT TO MARRY HER. BUT SHE SAYS SHE’S GOING BACK TO NEW YORK. HOW CAN I PERSUADE HER TO STAY?

  Before Tris lost his nerve, he sent the message.

  “Did you send it?” Jecca asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Tris said. “I did. I may have sent the message of my life. Forever.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Should I pay for these?”

  “Sure,” Jecca said, then Lucy asked her to look at some blue cotton.

  When Tris got to his car with the bags of purchases, his phone buzzed. It was an e-mail from Joe Layton, and Tris hesitated. The man would either bawl him out or—Actually, Tris couldn’t think of an alterative. He pushed the button and read: MY JEC NEEDS HER FAMILY AND AN ART JOB. I’M FED UP HERE. YOUR TWO-BIT TOWN NEED A HARDWARE STORE? SEND MORE PHOTOS OF LUCY.

  Tris read the message three times before it sank in, then he leaned back against the car and laughed. If Joe Layton wanted photos of Lucy he’d send all he could get, including her chest X-rays.

  Tris went back into the store. “Do you have your camera with you?” he asked Jecca. “And that cord that connects it to the phone?”

  “Yes.” She looked hard at him as she got her camera out of her bag. “Did something happen? You look awfully pleased with yourself.”

  “It’s just that Nell’s going to have a good time. I feel bad that I never realized how awful these parties have been for her. Add that to my neglhat">

  “Why are you talking so fast? And you don’t feel any guilt about the playhouse. You want me to spend a year here working on it. What’s going on?” Jecca asked.

  “I, uh . . . I . . . I need to call Roan.” Tris turned away so Jecca couldn’t see the smile that he couldn’t remove from his face. He stepped outside, and Roan answered on the first ring.

  “Miss me already?” Roan asked.

  “You know that place you own out on McTern Road?”

  “Which one?”

  “Used to be a brickyard,” Tris said.

  “Yeah, about a hundred years ago.”

  “Is it in good shape?” Tris asked.

  “Hell no! It’s falling down. If you want to buy it I’ll give it to you cheap.”

  “Get Rams to draw up the papers,” Tris said.

  “Whoa! Why do you want that old place?”

  “Jecca’s dad’s thinking about opening a hardware store in Edilean.”

  “Since when?” Roan asked.

  “Since he sent me an e-mail about ten minutes ago.”

  “Is Jecca going to stay in town and repair chainsaws?”

  “I don’t know,” Tris said. “I’m just trying to make it easy for her to stay. Drop off the clothes at my house, then go to Rams and get the papers drawn up. Better yet, go to Rams first. Got it?”

  “Yes sir!” Roan said. “And I
sure do like being love’s go-between.”

  “Gets you out of writing, so what are you complaining about?”

  “Good point,” Roan said and hung up.

  Tris went back into the store and took twelve pictures, with Lucy at the center of each one. He wanted to take more, but the women made him stop.

  “Tonight,” Jecca whispered to him, “when we’re in bed, you’re going to tell me what you’re up to.”

  Tristan just smiled at her, then snapped a picture of Lucy holding up some transparent pink fabric that had little rhinestones on it. He went outside to send the six best photos to Joe Layton.

  I OWN AN OLD BRICKYARD, Tris wrote, fudging a bit on the truth. NEEDS REPAIR. LOTS OF PARKING. JUST OFF THE ROAD INTO WILLIAMSBURG. I’LL PAY FOR REMODEL.

  Less than ten minutes later came the reply. SEND PARTICULARS AND MOREULAGets y PHOTOS OF LUCY. ONE OF BUILDING TOO. YOU ONE OF JEC’S UGLY BOYFRIENDS?

  Tris went back into the store and asked Jecca to take a photo of him and Nell together.

  “Tristan!” she said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t have time for this now. We need to—”

  He kissed her neck in that way he knew she liked. “Please,” he whispered.

  Jecca sighed.

  “I’ll take one of the three of you,” Lucy said. “Stand over there.”

  Tris picked up his niece, leaned toward Jecca, with Nell between them. Neither Jecca nor Nell was smiling. They wanted to get back to the fabrics. “Think of the faces of the McDowell girls when Nell walks onto that runway,” Tris said and they smiled warmly.

  Tris took the camera from Lucy and hurried back outside. It was a good photo. But for the second time in his life, he was worried about his looks. Was he handsome enough to please Joe Layton? Too handsome? A guy who ran a hardware store might think Tris was too “pretty.” “Can’t help the way I look,” he said aloud, then started typing. WITH MY NIECE. THE FAMILY I HOPE TO HAVE.

  He sent the photo.

  This time it took about twelve minutes before Mr. Layton replied, and Tris was sure he held his breath the whole time. JEC LOOKS HAPPY. TELL HER NOTHING. I’LL BE THERE AFTER I CLEAR UP THIS END. I’LL DO REMODEL. SEND MORE OF LUCY.

  Tris leaned back against his car and let out his breath. Maybe, he thought, just maybe . . .

  “Tristan!” Jecca called from the door of the store. “We need your help.”

  When he got to her, she said, “Tonight, you are going to tell me what is going on with you.”

  “Unless I can distract you,” Tris said so she couldn’t hear him.

  Eighteen

  They worked on the clothes for the fashion show every minute possible for the next week—and everyone who knew about the top-secret project helped. Kim wanted to help, but she had a new commission for an anniversary necklace and couldn’t. Tristan said he’d cleared everything with Savannah and he’d made Rebecca believe that this was going to be her best birthday party ever.

  “And it will be,” Jecca said. No matter what had been done in the past, it wasn’t in her to ruin any child’s party.

  Mrs. Wingate turned her store over to the young woman who’d been dying for the chance to manage it. Roan said he’d forgo writing for a week—and Tris limited himself to oULAGe="0em">

  Lucy and Jecca ordered everyone around, and the favorite question soon became, “What do you want me to do now?”

  Roan and Tris hauled a table down from the attic and put it in the hallway to use for cutting.

  “Too bad my dad isn’t here,” Jecca said.

  Tris nearly choked on his coffee. “Why?”

  “That table is too low for cutting. It’ll hurt your back. If Dad were here he’d make a plywood box and raise the table to counter height.”

  “I bet you miss your dad a lot,” Tris said as he put old phone books under the legs of the table.

  Jecca gave him a sharp look. She knew he was doing something in secret, but try as she might, she couldn’t get him to tell her what it was. At night as they slipped into bed together—half the time in her bed, half in his—she tried to get him to answer her questions. But he’d start kissing her, his hands would be all over her body, and she’d forget what she was saying.

  All she knew for sure was that Tris had suddenly become an avid photographer—mostly of Lucy—and his phone never stopped buzzing. He’d excuse himself often to take a call from his cousin Rams. Jecca had asked him about the man, but all Tris would say was, “It’s short for Ramsey,” then he’d get busy on some task.

  Twice, a young man brought Tristan papers to sign, and when Jecca asked about them, he was evasive. “Tell you later,” he said then hurried off.

  If Jecca hadn’t been so overwhelmed with work she would have pursued it, but she couldn’t. Everyone had questions for her, from which buttons to use, to how deep the hem was to be, to the color of the hat brim.

  Tris and Roan were great at cutting out the patterns, and all handwork was done by Mrs. Wingate. Lucy did the bulk of the sewing with her marvelous machines, but by the fourth day, after late nights and early mornings, she was wearing out. She pulled out the chair in front of the serger.

  “Tristan,” Lucy said sternly, “if you can stop taking pictures of me for a few minutes, I’m going to show you how to do a four-thread overedge.”

  Tris hesitated for a moment and they all looked at him.

  “Pretend it’s a ruptured aortic valve,” Nell said.

  “Just what I was about to say,” Jecca said, and they all laughed. She couldn’t help wondering if Nell had been making medical comments all along but Jecca just hadn’t noticed.

  The job Nell begged for was to change the colors of thread on the embroidery done on the big Bernina 830. Lucy taught her how to hold the thread in place with her right hand while feeding it through the channels with the left. Nell loved pushing the white button for the automatic needle threader, and she made a little sound of triumph when everything was ready and she could press the green Go button.

  Roan often escaped to the kitchen, and they brok aneryte for lunch to whatever he’d cooked for them. He didn’t seem in any hurry to get back to the isolation of his cabin.

  But no matter how busy they got, at 3 P.M. sharp, the women stopped to work out.

  On the first day, Tris gave a very nice speech about why he thought he and Roan should be allowed to participate, but the women just laughed at him. They hurried down the stairs to the basement, Nell with them, and an hour later they were back upstairs, lightly glowing with perspiration, ready for the afternoon tea that Roan had prepared.

  “So what did you do today?” Tris asked as he ate a crab sandwich that Roan had made.

  “The usual,” Lucy said.

  “Nothing we haven’t done before,” Mrs. Wingate said.

  “Mmmm,” Jecca said, her mouth full.

  “Cuban dancing!” Nell said.

  “Salsa?” Tris asked.

  “You guys were doing salsa?” Roan asked. “Don’t you need a partner for that? I could show you a couple of moves that—”

  “No,” Jecca said firmly. “No men allowed.”

  The men sighed.

  On Friday morning Nell’s mother, Addy, walked into Lucy’s studio. “Tristan!” she said loudly from the doorway, with more than a little anger in her voice. “Did it ever occur to you that I’d like to see my own daughter now and then?”

  Tris was unperturbed and didn’t even look up from the Baby Lock serger. “Glad you’re here. Roan needs help cutting. It’s going to be a late night.”

  “Mom!” Nell yelled as she extricated herself from Lucy, who was pinning a sleeve to her shoulder, and ran to hug her mother. “Come see what we’ve made.”

  Addy looked over her daughter’s head at the busy room. It was a moment before she noticed two little girls near the far wall. The pretty young woman who she assumed was Jecca Layton was sitting on the floor pinning up a hem on one girl’s dress. Addy recognized the two girls as Nell’s f
riends. They were smart children, the kind who got straight As, but they weren’t pretty or fashionable enough to be included in Savannah McDowell’s circle. This year they’d been included in the fashion show, but it was going to be torment for them.

  “Yes,” Addy said, “I’d like to see everything.”

  Thirty minutes later, she had taken over Tris’s job at the serger, and he went back to cutting. In the afternoon, Nell’s dad, Jake, showed up. Jecca liked him instantly. He had a quiet, solid way about him that reminded her of her father and brother.

  “What can I do?” he asked Jecca. He had a cane, and she could tell that even standing was difficult for him.

  “Ever done any hand sewing?” she asked him.

  “I’m a soldier. Who do you think repairs the tears?”

  Jecca scooted one of the kids out of the only upholstered chair—there were now four girls plus Nell—and quickly showed him how to roll the strips of silk Lucy had gathered and make them into roses.

  For a moment he looked at Jecca in disbelief. His eyes seemed to say, “A man just back from war making silk roses?” But he said nothing.

  “If you can’t do it, let me know,” Jecca said.

  “I think I can manage,” he answered.

  As Jecca walked away, Tris smiled at her in amusement, and Addy looked at her in curiosity.

  “It’s a scientific fact,” Lucy said, “that silk heals wounds,” and they all laughed.

  Later Tris took photos of Jake, his cane propped against the side of the chair, and his lap filled with a sea of brightly colored silk roses. Jake’s handsome face showed intense concentration as he hand sewed together the edges of a fuchsia-colored, silk charmeuse blossom.

  “I’m never going to live this down,” Jake mumbled, but he was smiling.

  One by one, the parents came to pick up their daughters, and each mother was lavish in her thanks.

  “Lisa gets invited to things, but she never fits in,” one mother said, and there were tears in her eyes. “That you’re making such an effort with her . . .” The woman broke off, and Jecca put her arm around her shoulders.

  “Just be sure Lisa is there tomorrow by ten, and the hairdresser—”