Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“That’s Mr. Layton,” Kim said.

“A man that size with my little mother—” Shaking his head, he took a step forward, but he stopped and looked back at her. “Let’s go,” he said as he grabbed her hand and they ran out the back door.

“He’s not real,” Kim said aloud to herself as she wiped down the kitchen counter. “He’s not real and he won’t stay,” she added to make sure she heard herself.

A few hours before, she and Travis had run out the back of what was to become Layton Hardware and into the woods. “He’ll see your car,” Kim said, out of breath as she leaned against a tree and looked at him.

Travis was so big and so male. She still couldn’t believe that the boy she’d thought about for so many years had grown into this great, virile being. His shirt clung to his chest and she could see the muscles. What did he do to be built like that? she wondered. Spend six hours a day in a gym?

When he looked at her, she turned away. She didn’t want to see that look of his that said she was a little girl.

“Only if he goes out the back,” Travis said, smiling at her. “Wait!”

They listened and heard the sound of gravel crunching.

“He’s leaving,” Travis said. “Shall we return?”

Kim looked about the woods. What she wanted to do was walk with him deep, deep into the forest and—

“Kim?”

“I’m coming,” she said and followed him the few feet to the back of the

big brick building. Travis held the car door open for her, then got into the driver’s side.

“We go out the way we came in, right?” he said.

“But this time I get to drive.”

Travis laughed. “Maybe we’ll try the paved road.”

“Coward!” she said and laughed with him.

He’d driven her home, walked her to the door, unlocked it, but didn’t follow her inside. “I need to see my mother,” he said. “We have some things we have to talk about.”

“Of course,” she said as she went inside. She had no doubt that as soon as he returned he’d tell her he was leaving town, nice to have seen her again.

Her cell rang as soon as she closed the door.

“Miss me?” Dave asked.

So much had happened in the last day and a half that she hardly recognized his voice. “Of course I did,” she answered. “What about you?”

“I missed you a lot when you didn’t answer any of my messages.”

Kim pulled her phone from her ear and pushed a button. She had four voice mails. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been so busy that I didn’t check.”

“I know. The Johnson wedding, right?”

Oh no! Kim thought. The rings. Please, please let Carla have remembered her request to do them. She started toward the garage door. “Yes, the wedding,” she said. She flipped on the light. There on the workbench were two gold rings, their intricate surfaces perfectly polished. Thank you, she mouthed as she left her workroom. “What about you? Busy?”

“If you’d listened to my messages—not that I’m complaining, of course—you would know that I’m swamped. But I’m trying hard to get away this weekend.”

She turned off the light and shut the door. “Oh?”

“Kim!” Dave said. “You sound like you forgot. The weekend?”

“Oh, right,” she said. She had completely forgotten. But then, the trip hadn’t been her idea, but one concocted by her friends and relatives.