Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“I’ll be right back. I have to get my medical bag.”

Russell’s face lit up. “You’re a Hanleigh.”

Pausing, she smiled. “I am. At least that’s my maiden name.”

Russell’s face fell, but then the light came back to it. “You’re the widow.”

This time she laughed. “I am Clarissa Hanleigh Wells, I own this pile of rocks, and yes I’m a widow. Anything else you need to know before I get my supplies?”

“You’re a Tristan,” he said.

She shook her head. “I have no idea what that means. Just sit there, don’t move, and I’ll be right back.” She disappeared around a wall.

Russell took his cell phone out of his pocket. He saw that he had six e-mails and three voice mails, but he ignored them. He was going to text Travis that he’d found Clarissa Hanleigh, but on second thought, he turned his phone off and put it back in his pocket. He’d see the lot of them at the picnic, so the news could wait until then.

He looked up as Clarissa was hurrying back to him. She lithely leaped over fallen stones and rotten timbers, a heavy-looking red leather bag in her hand, as she returned to him.

He just sat there smiling at her in what he knew was an idiotic way.

She stood before him, looked at him for a long moment, and said, “Take it off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh my!” she said. “Where did you go to school?”

“Stanford.”

“I could have guessed. Take your shirt off so I can see the damage.”

As he began unbuttoning his shirt, Clarissa moved around him, to see his back, and he heard her deep intake of breath. “Never mind. I have to cut this off, and if it’s too bad I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“No,” he said. “I’d rather you fixed it.” He heard her pull on sterile gloves, then felt her hand on his shoulder. He had to hold himself rigid as she began to pull the fabric from out of the scrapes on his skin.

“I think you should—”

“No,” he said firmly. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

She hesitated i

n the cutting. “I had planned to be.”

“Wanted to be one all your life? You seemed to have been born to be a doctor? That sort of thing?”

“Yes, exactly,” she said. “Is that what you call a Tristan? Named after my ancestor?”

“It’s what they call them in Edilean.”

“Never heard of the place.”

“It’s in Virginia, and you have relatives there.”

She stopped, with her hands on his skin. “Jamie and I have no relatives.”

“Jamie?”

“My son,” she said.

Russell drew in his breath as she used tweezers to pull a strip of cloth out of a cut. “Oh. A son. How old?”