Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

Travis had done well in not hit

ting the man. He’d turned his car so hard that it had spun in a circle. It had been difficult to keep it under control and not turn over, but he’d done it.

Unfortunately, in the near crash, the boxes on the donkey had hit the ground. When Travis got his car heading back in the right direction, he saw that there was liquid seeping out of the boxes and the man was shaking his fist at them. His furious face was embedded in Travis’s memory.

As they drove away, he’d told his mechanic to call Penny to find out who the man was and to replace whatever had been lost. Days later she’d mentioned that the man was an American doctor and that she’d sent him replacement supplies. And she’d also made a donation to his clinic. She’d not told Travis the doctor’s name and he hadn’t asked for one.

That man, the doctor who’d yelled obscenities at him in Morocco, was now walking toward him.

“Can I tell him the truth about you?” Kim whispered.

For a moment he thought she meant about the race, but she was talking about their childhood. “Sure,” he said, “just don’t say that Lucy Cooper is my mother.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said under her breath as she smiled at her brother.

“Kimberly,” Reede said rather sternly. “I hear that you’ve been causing some commotion this morning.”

“Travis rescued a kid’s balloon,” she said as she looked up at him, but he had his hand up by his face. “This is—”

“Not the Travis,” Reede said. “Not the boy you’ve fantasized about since you were a kid?”

“Reede!” Kim said as she felt her face turning red. “I never did any such thing!”

“It’s good to meet you at last,” Reede said, extending his hand to shake.

Travis shook it, but he kept his left hand by his eyes.

“I’ve seen you somewhere,” Reede said. “I’ve done a lot of traveling. You weren’t ever a patient of mine, were you?”

“No,” Travis said as he turned his head away.

Kim looked from one man to the other. Reede was staring intently as he tried to remember where he’d last seen Travis. And Travis was acting like some trapped animal that desperately wanted to hide in its burrow. “We have to go,” she said. “Travis has to go see Mr. Layton about opening a sporting goods store.”

“This area needs one,” Reede said. “What do you plan to carry?”

“Things for sports,” Kim said quickly, wanting to get away from her brother as soon as possible. “Is that one of your nurses waving at you?”

“Yeah,” Reede said. “I left two exam rooms and the waiting room full. Let’s get together for dinner.” He started to walk away but turned back to Travis. “I look forward to hearing about what you’ve been doing since you were first in Edilean.”

As soon as she was alone with Travis she said, “What was that all about?”

“I, uh, I do believe I may have seen your brother somewhere.”

When it didn’t seem as though he was going to say anything else, she turned and started walking toward her shop.

Travis caught up with her. “What are you doing?”

“If you aren’t going to be honest with me I might as well go back to work. I have a new necklace I’m designing right now. I’d planned to use Australian opals in it, but maybe I should get more aquamarines since they go so well with brown eyes.”

“All right,” he said. “How about if we go somewhere and talk? Maybe you can help me figure out what to do about my mother.”

An hour later they were sitting at a picnic table in the preserve. They’d stopped at the grocery and bought sandwiches, salads, and drinks, but it was still too early to eat.

“This is beautiful,” Travis said as he looked out over the lake. “You live in a nice place.”

“I like it,” Kim said. It was so peaceful there that she could barely remember what had made her so angry. Something about Reede. But then lately everything about her brother seemed to make her angry. He didn’t want to be a doctor in his little hometown and he complained often—and she was tired of hearing about it.

“I’ve never actually met your brother before but I nearly killed him,” Travis said, then briefly told the story, including that he’d replenished Reede’s supplies.