Moonlight in the Morning (Edilean 6)

“And the ones from the Eisenhower era?” She heard him chuckle.

“Cattleyas.”

“Why do you have orchids at Mrs. Wingate’s house?”

“From a fight with my dad.”

“You have to tell me this one! Maybe it will help me with my own father.”

“If you figure out how to deal with a father who believes he knows everything and that I’m still teething on a stethoscope, let me know. Please.”

“My father thinks I don’t know a claw hammer from a ball pein. Unless he sends me to get a tool. Then I’m supposed to know what he wants, even if he doesn’t tell me. I want to hear about you and your dad and the orchids.”

“Do you mind, but my leg has gone to sleep and my broken arm is aching. If you’ll move to the side, and I move here, then . . .”

He was a lot bigger than she was, and the bed in the playhouse was very small. Jecca wasn’t sure how it happened, but one minute she was leaning against the wall and the next her back was against his chest, his long legs on each side of hers. He lifted his injured arm and brought it down over her head to rest across her stomach. His sling seemed to have disappeared in the position change.

“Hey!” Jecca said. “This isn’t—”

“Don’t move or you’ll hurt my arm. Now where was I?”

“Making the smoothest move I’ve ever had played on me,” Jecca said. “I bet in high school when you took a girl to a movie you were a terror in putting your arm around her.”

“She never knew what hit her. You can’t believe how good I am at stealing kisses.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, now stop distracting me and let me tell you about my orchids.”

Jecca leaned her head back against him and couldn? Sd c my orchid7;t help marveling at how well they fit together. Her head set just into his shoulder, and when he spoke she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

His voice was soft and deep and so very masculine as he told about growing up in Aldredge House. There was a little conservatory on the end of the house, put there by the woman who’d built it in the 1840s.

“Did she live there alone?” Jecca asked.

“Winnie’s story is for another night. Is my arm too heavy on you? I can move it.”

“No!” Jecca said. Her arms were wrapped around his. “I mean, no, it’s fine.”

Tristan smoothed Jecca’s hair back with his free arm and kissed her temple. “Where was I?”

“I’m not sure,” Jecca said. His lips had made her want to kiss him. What would be so wrong with a single kiss?

“Orchids,” Tristan said and started talking again. It seemed that down through the generations whichever Aldredge owned the house took care of whatever he put in the little greenhouse. Tristan’s father liked bromeliads. “Know what they are?” he asked.

“I have no idea.” She was very aware of his body against hers.

“Not my favorite plants,” Tris said. “I was about nine when I was at some store with my mom and saw my first orchid. An oncidium. She bought it for me, and Dad let me put it in with his plants.”

“That was nice,” she said.

“It was until I had six orchids and that’s when he told me to stop buying them.”

“And I guess Mrs. Wingate and the big conservatory her husband built came to the rescue,” Jecca said.

“Yes,” Tris said.

“Was she a widow then?”