Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“I’d trade places with her,” the girl said in a dreamy voice.

Kim looked at Travis, and they grimaced. The girl had said the wrong thing.

&n

bsp; “So now I’m not good enough for you?” the boy asked.

“I just meant . . .” the girl said. “Oh, never mind. Let’s get back to the tent. My mom will be looking for me.”

There was a loud turn of the door handle on the playhouse. “The damned thing is locked anyway,” the boy said.

“Good!” the girl said and footsteps ran down the leafy path.

When it was silent again, Kim let out her breath, looked at Travis, and they laughed. “Tomorrow the entire teenage population of Edilean will be wondering which couple got to the playhouse first.”

“But it was just us oldies,” Travis said.

“Speak for yourself. You’re the one about to turn thirty. I have years and years to go.” She moved to the right. “Come through here, but duck. The doorway is low.”

He followed her into a very small second room, with a short daybed built into the wall.

Kim motioned to the bed. “You are now looking at the love capital of Edilean. Well, the indoor one.”

“If you have two in a town this size that must make Edilean the romance capital of the world.”

“You have to have something interesting to do in a town that doesn’t have a Walmart.”

Travis laughed as Kim sat down at one end of the bed and motioned for him to take the other. He had trouble fitting his long legs into the small space.

“Here, stretch out. See how we fit?” she said. Their legs went to the sides of each other.

“You and I always have fit together rather well,” Travis said.

Kim was glad that the lack of light hid her expression. We’re friends, she reminded herself.

“So tell me about Joe Layton,” Travis said and his voice was serious.

“I don’t know him well, but he did boss Jecca around a lot while we were in school. But to be fair, all our parents did. My mother never let up on me. She wanted to know who I was dating, when I got in, and if I’d applied for a job yet.”

“Sounds like she cares about you. How is she now?”

“She demands to know who I’m dating, when I got in, and what the weekly gross for my shop is.”

Travis laughed. “And your dad?”

“My father is made of sugar. He truly is the sweetest man alive. My parents and my little sister, Anna, are on a long cruise right now. They won’t be back until the fall.”

“So you’re in town alone?”

“My brother, Reede, is here, and I do have a few relatives.” She thought he was being polite to ask so many questions about her when what he wanted to hear about was the man his mother wanted to marry. “I think Mr. Layton is a good man, but it depends on your mother, doesn’t it? From what you’ve said, she doesn’t seem to stand up for herself very well.”

He took his time answering. “When I was growing up, my mother was a very quiet woman. I think she’d learned that to stand up to my father just made him worse. If she stayed in the background, it gave him the illusion that everything was under his control, so he didn’t need to reassert his authority.”

“And what about you?” she asked. “What was your life like?”

Travis tried to move on the little bed, but there wasn’t room. “I’m about to fall off this thing. Your feet are . . . Do you mind?” he asked as he picked up her feet and put them on his thigh.

Kim would have died before she protested his movement.