Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“I never want to be alone with this man ever again. And please call me Kim.”

“Gladly,” he said as he gave her a look of appreciation.

“Russell!” Travis snapped. “So help me if you—”

“If he what?!” Kim said loudly. “Travis, I am waiting for an answer.”

Never in his life had Travis ever found himself in a situation that he couldn’t talk his way out of. But too much rested on this now for him to think coherently. “I . . .” He hesitated, not sure what to say, then he reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew the big sapphire ring that Borman had stolen.

“I got this back for you,” he said, his voice hopeful.

Kim didn’t take it, so he set it on the kitchen countertop. “I see. The missing ring.” She took a moment to think. “If you have the ring, that means that whatever you two have been up to involves my boyfriend, Dave. You must have met him.”

Travis’s face grew serious. “Yes we did and, Kim, you don’t know him. He’s not what you think he is. The truth is that he’s after—”

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“He wants to take my jewelry business national and name it The Family Jewels. I treated it as the joke it was. Not the national part, but the name.”

Both men were so shocked at her words that Russell stopped eating and Travis stared at her.

Kim turned away. There was so much anger in her that she could hardly breathe. Her friend Gemma was a boxer. Right now, if Kim had the know-how, she’d hit Travis so hard his head would roll across the floor.

She looked back at him. “Why did you assume that I didn’t know what Dave was after? Did he seem subtle to you? Secretive?”

“No,” Travis said. “But if you knew the truth, why would you consider marrying him?”

Kim was almost sure that if Dave had asked her she would have said no. Before Travis had shown up she might have said yes, but she blamed that on her friend Jecca’s recent wedding. Of course, when she came to her senses, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. But she was damned well not going to tell Travis that! “Is there a man on earth who doesn’t have his own agenda for marriage? At least Dave was honest with me. He let me know that he was very interested in my business, and he had some good ideas.”

“But . . .” Travis said.

“But what? I should wait for a man like you? Compared to the amount of lying and manipulation you have done, Dave is up for sainthood.”

She wanted to get this back on track. This was about him, Travis, and what he had done, not David Borman. That was none of Travis’s business. “I want to see if I get your story straight. You’re a Maxwell, son of one of the richest men in the world.” When Travis just stood there, she looked at Russell and he nodded in verification.

“You came to Edilean when you were twelve, spent two weeks with me, then left without so much as a note.”

“Kim,” Travis said, “come on, I was twelve. I did what my mother told me to.”

“You could write,” Russell said, his mouth full.

Travis glared at him.

“Do you know that for eighteen years I searched for you? I used to sneak into my brother’s room to use his unblocked Internet service to try to find you.”

“But you couldn’t find him because you didn’t know his correct last name,” Russell said. “Mind if I get a beer?”

“Please do,” Kim said. “Eighteen years and nothing. I was forgotten by you.”

“That’s not really true. I always knew where—” Travis said, then shut his mouth.

Kim looked at Russell in question.

“Mom said that you were never out of his radar. She said he used to—”

“I saw your shows,” Travis said quickly before Russell could say any more.

Kim’s eyes widened. “You! It was you. Jecca saw you there. She used to call you the TDH Stranger. She even drew your portrait, but I had no idea who you were.”