Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

You really can’t control sexual attraction, she thought. You either felt it or you didn’t. She’d thought she felt it coming from Travis, but it looked like she was wrong. He’d been very clear that he wanted and needed friendship, so that’s what she was going to give him.

“How serious are you with this man?”

Think of him as a girlfriend, Kim thought. Don’t look at him, don’t get pulled in by the smoldering good looks of him. He’s a buddy, a friend, and nothing else.

“I think it may be permanent,” she said. “Carla giggles every time she mentions this weekend, and one of my best rings is missing from the case. A big sapphire. I can’t find the receipt and when I asked her about it she said . . . I don’t remember her excuse, but the register receipt isn’t there.”

“You don’t seem worried that this Carla could have stolen it. I guess that means you think this guy is going to give you one of your own rings. As an engagement ring?”

“Maybe,” Kim said.

“What was it about a B&B?”

“My cousin Luke’s wife, Jocelyn, has been doing the genealogy of the seven founding families of Edilean, but there’s a gap in the Aldredge family. A female ancestor of mine went to a place called Janes Creek, Maryland, in the 1890s and came back pregnant. Joce wants to try to find who the father was. But she has two little kids, so she asked me to go up there and see what I could find out.”

“And this man is going with you?”

“Yes,” Kim said. “Dave owns a catering company and weekends are his busiest time. He’s had to pay his employees a lot to cover for him this coming weekend.”

“That he’s taking off and that a ring and its sales receipt are missing is what makes you think he’s going to . . . What? Ask you to marry him?”

Kim could again feel anger rising in her, but she stamped it down. She pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine, and looked at him. “There is also the fact that Dave is mad about me. We spend every day he’s off work together. We call each other. We talk about our future together.”

“Future? What does that mean?”

“Travis, I really don’t like this inquisition. I agreed to help you with your mother and I will, but I’d just as soon keep my private life to myself.” She got out and went into the house.

Travis stayed in the car, too stunned to move. Kim was about to accept a marriage proposal from some man who ran a catering company! How could he have ever been so wrong about a person? He’d thought that she was, well, interested in him!

He flipped open his phone and punched the button to reach Penny. As soon as she answered he said, “I need to know about a man named Dave, don’t know his last name. Lives in a city around Edilean, owns a food catering company. He’s registered for this weekend at a B&B in Janes Creek, Maryland. I want to know everything about him, and I mean everything.”

“Should I cancel the B&B?” Penny asked.

“Yes! No. Book me a connecting room. And fill up all the other rooms. In fact, fill up all the rooms in the entire town.”

“Any choice of guests? Leslie has been calling.”

For a moment Travis thought of inviting her. He didn’t know whether he was angry at Kim or jealous or . . . well, hurt. Whatever he was feeling, he didn’t think Leslie’s presence would help.

“She’d probably love Miss Aldredge’s jewelry store,” Penny sa

id into the silence. When Travis didn’t reply, she said, “Life isn’t so easy without the Maxwell name, is it?”

Her words came too close to home for Travis’s comfort. “Just put some people in the rooms. Your relatives.” It occurred to him that he knew nothing about Penny’s personal life. “Do you . . . ?”

“Have relatives?” she filled in for him. “Yes I do. Rather a lot of them, actually. My son is your age. I’ll e-mail you what I have,” she added and for the first time ever, she hung up first.

Travis closed his phone and stared at it for a moment. This was a day for surprises! Kim was about to accept a marriage proposal and his faithful right-hand man, Penny, had a son Travis’s age.

At the moment he thought of returning to New York and going back to destroying people’s lives. It played less havoc with his emotions.

He got out of Kim’s car and wasn’t sure what to do. Go inside and talk to her? About what? Ask her to give up her boyfriend in case she and Travis felt something for each other and maybe someday he’d sort out his life and they might possibly get together? Not exactly something any female would accept. Certainly not one like Kim who’d known what she wanted since she was a kid. She was making jewelry at eight and at twenty-six she was still doing it.

“And I haven’t decided—” he said aloud, but he didn’t want to finish that statement. He saw that Kim had turned the lights on in her garage, which meant that she was working. He didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working, so maybe she didn’t either. Besides, he didn’t know what to say to her.

He walked around the house to get to the guesthouse and went to bed.

Seven