Moonlight in the Morning (32 page)

Epilogue

It was 9
A.M.,
light was peeping through the hotel curtains, and Jecca was snuggled against Tristan. When she saw the clock she jumped. She had to get to work! But then she relaxed and smiled. It was the morning after their wedding, and this afternoon they were getting on a plane to fly to beautiful, luscious New Zealand for their honeymoon.

She couldn’t help but think how good it was that she didn’t have to get up early to run downtown to some dirty warehouse to go through hundreds of bolts of fabric. Tris said she tried to make her job sound onerous, but the truth was she was enjoying every minute of it.

She’d laughed because he was right. She genuinely loved her new job. It was especially nice that her background in the tool business had put her a step ahead of the other young people trying to learn the trade. Jecca could not only use any machine put in front of her, but she could also fix it when it broke. She’d become the darling of the men and women who were far down the ladder from the lofty designers. Because she was so popular, she got all her questions answered about things like how to best insert a piping around the armscy so the raw edge was hidden. She’d soon learned to show a design to the workers first and was told what was too time-consuming and therefore too expensive to produce. As a result, the designs she presented to e iv>ains, Mr. Chambers were always cost-effective.

For all that Jecca loved what she was doing, she knew that Tris hadn’t been happy with his new practice in New York. He never complained, but she found out that he’d spent a lot of time on the phone with Reede consulting about patients in Edilean. And when he went “home”—Jecca thought of the place that way too—he spent most of his time making house calls.

The first couple of times they went back, Jecca felt the people of Edilean—his relatives, that is—watching her. It was a bit creepy until Nell told her what was going on.

“They say that you met Uncle Tris when his arm was broken so you’ll expect him to spend all his time helping you put on fashion shows.”

That was such an absurd idea that Jecca didn’t at first understand it. “They think I’ll leave when I see that he’s a conscientious, hardworking doctor who cares deeply about the people under his care?”

Nell grinned. “Yes.”

“Nell,” Jecca said, smiling, “they’re going to see that I have too much work of my own to do to begrudge Tristan whatever time he needs for his work. Now, what do you think of this sketch?”

The truth was that Jecca was willing to make any compromise, any sacrifice, for a man who’d done what Tris did for her. A college friend of his had been begging him for years to move to New York and go into practice with him. Tris had never considered the idea, but after Jecca walked out on him—and after Joe had told him a few hard truths—he’d called his friend and said he’d be there.

The only person Tris told about what he was doing was Reede, and Tris had sworn him to secrecy.

Sometimes Jecca marveled at the enormity of what Tristan had done. For her. For no other reason than that he loved her more than anyone or anything else in the world. When he’d left his beloved practice he hadn’t known anything about Jecca’s offer of a job that would take just three years of training. Tris thought he was leaving Edilean—his roots, his home, his family—forever.

When Jecca told him about Mr. Chambers and that in three years she would be able to move back to Edilean and still keep working, there had been tears in Tristan’s beautiful eyes. He’d tried to hide them, but they were there. Jecca wanted to hold him but she also wanted to save his pride.

“But I will
not
have my office in that room off my father’s new store. That’s where I draw the line. He’ll have me waiting on customers—”

She didn’t finish because Tristan leaped on her, started kissing her face, and telling her he loved her. He made love to her with such passion, such all-out abandon, that for two days afterward, she lived in a daze.

After that, Tris’s mood changed completely. She often heard him on the phone with Reede telling him to buck up, that he’d be there “soon” to take back his job.

Every day Tris ran off patient records from his e-mail files, and he often called people in Edilean. Jecca got to hear his “doctor voice” as he soothed and calmed people. Sometimes she heard him explain the same thing three timesng he often to a person. Tris never lost patience with them, never seemed to be in a hurry. No wonder they love him so much, she thought.

They visited Edilean as often as possible. Jecca never minded that Tris was gone most of the time visiting his former patients. To them,
he
was their doctor, not Reede with his curt bedside manner.

As for Jecca, she had made a lot of friends in Edilean. Whenever she was visiting, she never missed a 3
P.M.
workout with Lucy and Mrs. Wingate, and she loved catching up on all the news and gossip.

It was on their third weekend home that Mrs. Wingate asked when she and Tris were going to get married.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Jecca said. “We’ve been so busy that . . .”

They were having tea at the Wingate house, Jecca was still glowing—Mrs. Wingate frowned on saying they were “dripping with sweat”—from the kickboxing workout they’d just done. Lucy looked up from the teapot and Joe put down the invoice he’d been reading. He was now living at Mrs. Wingate’s house, ostensibly in his own apartment, but he spent all the time he could with Lucy. Nell was also there, and she looked at Jecca with her young-old eyes.

Jecca knew she was outnumbered. “I saw some winter white charmeuse that would make a great wedding dress.”

They didn’t quit staring at her. “All right! I’ll set a date. I just have to talk to Tristan first.”

That wasn’t enough for any of them, but they knew it was all they were going to get. Jecca settled back with her tea and for a moment thought of the apartment building in New York. She used to love that people didn’t know where she was going or when she would return, but Edilean had changed her. Now she liked that so many people cared about her.

“Let’s see,” Jecca said solemnly. “Dad to walk me down the aisle, two honorary mothers of the bride to sit in the front row, Kim as my maid of honor, and . . .” She looked at Nell. She was too tall and too old to be a flower girl. “And Nell as a second maid of honor. You wouldn’t mind holding my bouquet while Tris and I exchange rings, would you?”

With a shout of delight, Nell leaped onto Jecca. They both would have gone over backward if Joe hadn’t caught the arm of the chair and held it.

That had been weeks ago, and last night had been the most beautiful wedding Edilean had ever seen—or at least that’s what everyone told Jecca and Tris.

Whether that was true or not, to Jecca it
was
beautiful. There was a huge tent set up on the lawn at Tristan’s house, and it seemed that everyone in Edilean had shown up. She hardly knew any of them, but Tris knew everyone. Kim and Nell had been dressed identically in grown-up dresses of a pretty bluey-purple that complimented both of them. Jecca’s gown—designed by her and made by Lucy—had been extraordinarily beautiful. Mrs. Wingate had spent days and nights hand embroidering crystal beads on the bodice.

The ceremony had been sweet and reverent. When the pastor—Laura Chawnley’s husband—spoke to them, it was as though Jecca and Tris were alone in the world. She smiled at him when he lifted her veil and he leaned forward ean,Rto kiss her cheek. The pastor said, “Not yet,” and the guests had quietly laughed.

Tris slipped a ring on her finger that had been created by Kim, and Jecca gave him one made from the same nugget of gold. It seemed right that the gold had been together for centuries and that it should unite her and Tris forever.

After the ceremony there’d been dancing and wonderful food. It was late when she and Tris left. They’d had to hug Nell a lot to reassure her that they were going to return.

“You’ll come back even if you passionately love New Zealand with all your soul?” she’d asked seriously.

Tris knelt down to her. He knew what she was really asking. “I promise I won’t leave you again. I shouldn’t have run off the other time and not told you where I was.” He’d told her this many times before, but she still needed reassurance.

“And I’ll see if they have any interesting stuffed animals in New Zealand,” Jecca said.

Nell nodded solemnly and let her mother pull her away so Tris and Jecca could leave.

Now, lying in bed beside her husband—Jecca would need a while to get used to that idea—she thought how she’d told Tris that she was sublimely happy. And she was. She’d realized that she’d been afraid of happiness because her world had been so small. She’d had her father and Joey and that was all. But now her life had expanded to include most of an entire town.

“Are you laughing?” Tris asked from beside her as he slipped his leg over her bare one. After their enthusiastic lovemaking of last night, neither of them had bothered to put on clothes.

“In joy,” she said.

He moved closer to her, Jecca opened her arms—and her cell phone buzzed.

“Forget it,” Tris murmured as he nuzzled her neck.

“It might be Dad or someone in Edilean might be sick,” she said as she reached for her phone.

At the last, Tris lifted his hand.

Jecca picked up the phone. It was an e-mail from Kim. R
EMEMBER HOW YOU AND
S
OPHIE TRIED TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE MAN
I
USED TO SEARCH FOR
? H
E SHOWED UP LAST NIGHT AND HE’S STAYING WITH ME
. I’
VE BEEN IN LOVE WITH HIM SINCE
I
WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD. HAVE A NICE HONEYMOON AND BRING ME BACK A FRIAND MOULD. TRAVIS LIKES TO EAT
.

Jecca read it twice, the second time aloud to Tris. “Do you know anything about this man?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll call Lucy and find out what’s going on.”

Tris took the phone from her hands and put it on the bedside table. “Where’s my New York girl who doesn’t like people to know her business?”

“She—” He kissed her.

“She lear#82

“She likes—” He kissed her even deeper.

“I’ll hear all about it when we get back,” Jecca said as she pushed Tristan onto his back.

“I agree,” he said and kissed her deeper still.

Turn the page for a preview of
Jude’s newest novel,

Stranger in the Moonlight

From Pocket Books

Prologue

Edilean, Virginia

1993

In all of her eight years, Kim had never been so bored. She didn’t even know such boredom could exist. Her mother told her to go outside into the big garden around the old house, Edilean Manor, and play, but what was she to do by herself?

Two weeks ago her father had taken her brother off to some faraway state to go fishing. “Male bonding,” her mother called it, then said she was
not
going to stay in their big house alone for four whole weeks. That night Kim had been awakened by the sound of her parents arguing. They didn’t usually fight—not that she knew about—and the word “divorce” came to her mind. She was terrified of being without her parents.

But the next morning they were kissing and everything seemed to be fine. Her father kept talking about making up being the best, but her mother shushed him.

It was that afternoon that her mother told her that while her father and brother were away they were going to stay in an apartment at Edilean Manor. Kim didn’t like that because she hated the old house. It was too big and it echoed with every footstep. Besides, every time she visited the place there was less furniture, and the emptiness made it seem even creepier.

Her father said that Mr. Bertrand, the old man who lived in the house, had sold the family furniture rather than get a job to support himself. “He’d sell the house if Miss Edi would let him.”

Miss Edi was Mr. Bertrand’s sister. She was even older than he was and even though she didn’t live there, she owned the house. Kim had heard people say that she disliked her brother so much that she refused to live in Edilean.

Kim couldn’t imagine hating Edilean since every person she knew in the world lived there. Her dad was an Aldredge, from one of the seven families that founded the town. Kim knew that was something to be proud of. All she thought was that she was glad she wasn’t from the family that had to live in big, scary Edilean Manor.

So now she and her mother had been living in the apartment for two whole weeks and she was horribly bored. She wanted to go back to her own house and her own room. When they were packing to go, her mother said, “We’re just going away for a little while and it’s just arou#82

But in the end, Kim had grabbed the bicycle she’d received for her birthday and clamped her hands around the grips. She looked at her mother with her jaw set.

Her dad laughed. “Ellen,” he said to his wife, “I’ve seen that look on your face a thousand times and I can assure you that your daughter will
not
back down. I know from experience that you can yell, threaten, sweet talk, plead, beg, cry, but she won’t give in.”

Her mother’s eyes were narrowed as she looked at her laughing husband.

He quit smiling. “Reede, how about you and I go . . . ?”

“Go where, Dad?” Reede asked. At seventeen, he was overwhelmed with importance at being allowed to go away with his dad. No women. Just the two of them.

“Wherever we can find to go,” his dad mumbled.

Kim got to take her bike to Edilean Manor and for three days she rode it nonstop, but now she wanted to do something else. Her cousin Sara came over one day but all she wanted to do was explore the ratty old house. Sara loved old buildings!

Mr. Bertrand had pulled a copy of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
out of a pile of books on the floor. Her mom said he’d sold the bookcase to Colonial Williamsburg. “Original eighteenth century and it had been in the family for over two hundred years,” she’d muttered. “What a shame. Poor Miss Edi.”

Kim spent days reading about Alice and her journey down the rabbit hole. She’d loved the book so much that she told her mother she wanted blonde hair and a blue dress with a white apron. Her mother said that if her father ever again went off for four weeks her next child just might be blonde. Mr. Bertrand said he’d like a hookah and to sit on a mushroom all day and say wise things.

The two adults had started laughing—they seemed to find each other very funny. In disgust Kim went outside to sit in the fork of her favorite old pear tree and read more about Alice. She reread her favorite passages, then her mother called her in for what Mr. Bertrand called “afternoon tea.” He was an odd old man, very soft-looking, and her father said that Mr. Bertrand could hatch an egg on the couch. “He never gets up.”

Kim had seen that few of the men in town liked Mr. Bertrand, but all the women seemed to adore him. On some days as many as six women showed up with bottles of wine and casseroles and cakes, and they’d all laugh hilariously. When they saw Kim they’d say, “I should have brought—” They’d name their children. But then another woman would say how good it was to have some peace and quiet for a few hours.

The next time the women came they’d again “forget” to bring their children.

As Kim stood in the garden and heard the women howling with laughter, she didn’t think they sounded very peaceful or quiet.

It was after she and her mother had been there for two long weeks that early one morning her mother seemed excited about somethi abhe book sng, but Kim wasn’t sure what it was. Something had happened during the night, some adult thing. All Kim was concerned with was that she couldn’t find the copy of
Alice’s Adventures in a Wonderland
that Mr. Bertrand had lent her. She had
one
book and now it was gone. She asked her mother what happened to it as she knew she’d left it on the coffee table.

“Last night I took it to—” The sentence wasn’t finished because the old phone on the wall rang and her mother ran to answer it, then immediately started laughing.

Annoyed, Kim went outside. It seemed that her life was getting worse.

She kicked at rocks, frowned at the empty flower beds, and headed toward her tree. She planned to climb it, sit on her branch, and figure out what to do for the long, boring weeks until her dad came home and life could start again.

When she got close to her tree, what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. There was a boy, younger than her brother but older than she was. He was wearing a clean shirt with a collar and dark trousers; he looked like he was about to go to Sunday School. Worse was that he was sitting in
her
tree reading
her
book.

He had dark hair that fell forward and he was so engrossed in her book that he didn’t even look up when Kim kicked at a clod of dirt.

Who was he? she thought. And what right did he think he had to be in
her
tree?

She didn’t know who or what, but she did know that she wanted this stranger to go away.

She picked up a clod and threw it at him as hard as she could. She was aiming for the top of his head, but hit his shoulder. The lump crumbled into dirt and fell down onto her book.

He looked up at her, a bit startled at first, but then his face settled down and he stared at her in silence. He was a pretty boy, she thought. Not like her cousin Tristan, but this boy looked like a doll she’d seen in a catalogue, with pink skin and very dark eyes.

“That’s
my
book,” she yelled at him. “And it’s
my
tree. You have no right to them.” She grabbed another clod and threw it at him. It would have hit him in the face but he moved sideways and it missed.

Kim had had a lot of experience with older boys and she knew that they got you back. It didn’t take much to set them off; then you were in for it. They’d chase you, catch you, and pin your arm behind your back or pull your hair until you begged for mercy.

When she saw the boy make a move as though he meant to get down, Kim took off running as fast as she could. Maybe there’d be enough time that she could reach what she knew was a great hiding place. She wedged her small body in between two piles of old bricks, crouched down, and waited for the boy to come after her.

After what seemed like an hour of waiting, he didn’t show up, and her legs began to ache. Cautiously and quietly, she got out from between the bricks and looked around. She fully expected him to leap out from behind a tree yelling “I got you!” and then bombard her with dirt.

But nothing happened. The big garden was as still and quiet as always, and there was no sign of the boy.

She ran behin>Shm>myd a tree, waited and listened, but she heard and saw nothing. She ran to another tree and waited. Nothing. When she got back to her pear tree what she saw astonished her.

Standing on the ground, just under her branch, was the boy. He was holding the book under his arm and seemed to be waiting.

Was this some new boy trap that she’d never seen before? she wondered. Is this what foreign boys—meaning ones not from Edilean—did to girls who threw dirt at them? If she walked up to him, would he clobber her?

As she watched him, she must have made a sound because he turned and looked at her.

Kim jumped behind a tree, ready to protect herself from whatever came flying, but nothing did. After a few moments she decided to stop being a scaredy cat and stepped out into the open.

Slowly, the boy started walking toward her and Kim got ready to run. She knew not to let boys who she’d thrown things at get too close. They prided themselves on their throwing arms.

She held her breath when he got close enough that she knew she wouldn’t be able to get away.

“I’m sorry I took your book,” he said softly. “Mr. Bertrand lent it to me so I didn’t know it belonged to anyone else. And I didn’t know about the tree being yours, either. I apologize.”

She was so astonished she couldn’t speak. Her mother said that males didn’t know the meaning of the word “sorry.” But this one did. She took the book he was holding out to her and watched as he turned away and started back toward the house.

He was halfway there before she could move. “Wait!” she called out and was shocked when he stopped walking. None of her boy cousins
ever
obeyed her.

She walked up to him, the book firmly clutched against her chest. “Who are you?” she asked. If he’d said he was a visitor from another planet, she wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Travis . . . Merritt,” he said. “My mother and I arrived late last night. Who are you?”

“Kimberly Aldredge. My mother and I are staying in there”—she pointed—“while my father and brother go fishing in Montana.”

He gave a nod as though what she’d said was very important. “My mother and I are staying there.” He pointed to the apartment on the other side of the big house. “My father is in Tokyo.”

Kim had never heard of the place. “Do you live near here?”

“Not in this state, no.”

She was staring at him and thinking that he was very much like a doll, as he didn’t smile or even move very much.

“I like the book,” he said. “I’ve never read anything like it before.”

In her experience she didn’t know boys read anything they didn’t have to. Except her cousin Tris, but then he only read about sick people, so that didn’t count. “What do you read?” she asked.

“Textbooks.”

he are you

She waited for him to add to that list but he just stood there in silence. “What do you read for fun?”

He gave a slight frown. “I rather like the science textbooks.”

“Oh,” she said.

He seemed to realize that he needed to say more. “My father says that my education is very important, and my tutor—”

“What’s that?”

“The man who teaches me.”

“Oh,” she said again, but had no idea what he was taking about.

“I am home schooled,” he said. “I go to school inside my father’s house.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Kim said.

For the first time, he gave a bit of a smile. “I can attest that it is no fun whatever.”

Kim didn’t know what “attest” meant but she could guess. “I’m good at having fun,” she said in her most adult voice. “Would you like me to show you how?”

“I’d like that very much,” he said. “Where do we begin?”

She thought for a moment. “There’s a big pile of dirt in the back. I’ll show you how to ride my bike up it then race down. You can stick your hands and feet straight out. Come on!” she yelled and started running.

But a moment later she looked back and he wasn’t there. She backtracked and he was standing just where she’d left him. “Are you afraid?” she asked tauntingly.

“I don’t think so, but I’ve never ridden a bicycle before, and I think you’re too young to teach me.”

She didn’t like being told she was “too young” to do anything. Now he
was
sounding like a boy. “Nobody teaches you how to ride a bike,” she said, knowing she was lying. Her dad had spent days holding her bike while she learned to balance.

“All right,” he said solemnly. “I’ll try it.”

The bike was too short for him and the first time he got on it, he fell off and landed on his face. He got up, spitting dirt out of his mouth, and Kim watched him. Was he one of those boys who’d go crying to his mother?

Instead, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then gave a grin that nearly split his face in half. “Huzzah!” he said and got back on the bike.

By lunchtime he was riding down the hill faster than Kim had ever dared, and he jerked the front wheel upward as though he were going over a jump.