Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“It’s okay,” Kim said. “I’m sure Mom told you I’d blab, and I would have. I so much wanted to find Travis that I would have sold my own mother into white slavery.”

“From what I’ve heard she could have handled it,” Lucy said, and the two women laughed together.

“It’s all right between you and Travis now?” Lucy asked softly. Travis and Joe were a few feet away.

“Very, very all right. And what about you and Mr. Layton?”

Lucy gave a sigh that came from her heart. “It’s nice to be loved, isn’t it?”

“Yes, wonderful,” Kim said. “Would it be impolite of me to ask what’s happening with the divorce?”

Lucy gave a quick look at Joe and Travis, and leaned forward, her voice a whisper as she took Kim’s hand in her own. “Randall has agreed to a peaceful divorce. No fighting. A fair deal. I told him I don’t want Travis to have to so much as appear in court. I want you two to have all the time together that you deserve.”

Kim couldn’t help the tears of joy that came to her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Lucy smiled, and the two women’s hands just seemed to cling to one another.

“Hey, you two!” Travis called. “I’m hungry. Let’s see what Dad sent us to eat.”

Penny was still with the firefighters, and in spite of his professed hunger, Travis went to her.

Travis greeted the firefighters, told them that if they needed anything to let him know. They all wanted to shake the hand of the son of the man who’d just bought them a new engine.

It took Travis a while before he could make his way to Penny. “What’s Dad up to now?” he asked. “It’s nice he’s contributing to the Janes Creek Fire Department but what’s in it for him?”

“I did it,” Penny said. Her eyes were on the road, not on Travis.

“You bought a fire engine?”

“I ordered it. Your dad paid for it,” she said and stopped, as though that was all the information she was going to give.

“Penny?” he asked.

When they could hear a car coming down the road, she seemed to stop breathing. The car drove past and Penny let out her breath.

“What is going on?!” Travis demanded.

Penny, her eyes never leaving the road, handed him her cell phone. “Look at my text from Russell.”

“Oh,” Travis said as he read it. “He asked his girlfriend to marry him? Must be catching. I hope he used one of those rings I offered Kim. He—”

“Russell doesn’t have a steady girlfriend.”

“But he said he’s going to marry the mother of a kid who likes fire engines. Who is she?”

Penny turned to look at Travis in silence.

It took him a few moments to get what she wasn’t saying. “He just met this woman?”

“I think so,” Penny said as she rubbed her hands together in nervous agitation. “Oh, Russell,” she said under her breath, “what have you done?”

For the first time ever, Travis put his arm around Penny’s shoulders. She had always been the one who remained calm through everything. When Travis and his father were at each other’s throats, it was Penny’s sensible comments, her refusal to let any crisis perturb her, that quieted everyone.

But now she was the one who needed a calm presence.

“Your mother will hate me even more,” Penny said, her old self showing, but she leaned her head against Travis’s chest for a moment.

He glanced over her head to see Joe and Kim and his mother sitting on the checkered cloth. They’d opened the cooler and taken out lemonade and glasses, and lots of cheese and crackers. Maybe the waiters were missing, but the food looked to be top-notch.