Stranger in the Moonlight (Edilean 7)

“Please go back to what you were doing.” He nodded toward her sketch pad in a way that made her think he was curious.

“I like the way the light plays on those maple leaves,” she said.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” He put his hands on the top of the broom handle and stared at the leaves. “Are you one of the people staying here?”

“I am.”

“I don’t mean to be nosy, but is it a family reunion? We don’t usually have this many guests here.”

Kim suppressed a laugh as she thought of the truth of why so many people were there. Travis had planned to oversee her and Dave. Only Dave had been sent away. “No,” she said. “It’s just my . . .” She wasn’t sure what to call Travis. Her fiancé? But then he hadn’t officially asked her to marry him, not with a ring (what Kim told the young men who wandered into her store was necessary for a proposal), and she certainly hadn’t accepted.

“Your young man?” he asked.

It was an old-fashioned term that seemed to fit the situation. “Yes, my young man invited some people.”

They were silent for a moment, then the man glanced at her sketchbook. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing, but if you need any help with anything, let me know. Just ask for Red. That’s what my hair used to be.” He started to walk away.

“We have that in common. Actually,” Kim said, “maybe you can help us find someone.”

Halting, he looked back at her. There was something about him that she liked. He had a sweet smile. “I have trouble keeping all the newcomers straight, but if the person is over forty I can probably help.”

She smiled at his use of “newcomers.” It was the same term they used in Edilean. “How about if the person died in 1893?”

“Then I probably went to school with him.”

Kim laughed. “Dr. Tristan Janes. I assume the town was named after his family?”

“Yes it was,” the man said as he motioned toward one of the empty chairs across from her. He was asking her permission to sit there.

“Please,” she said.

As he took a seat, he said, “Will your young man mind that you’re having a tête-à-tête with another man?”

“I’m sure he’ll be wild with jealousy, but I’ll be able to calm his beastly spirit.”

Red chuckled. “Spoken like a woman in love.”

Kim couldn’t help blushing. “What about Dr. Janes?”

“There used to be a library here, but when the mill closed the town pretty much died with it. They moved all the books and papers to the state capital. If they hadn’t done that you could go to the library and read it all. I’m a poor second best. Anyway,” he said, “a Mr. Gustav Janes started the town back in 1857 when he opened a mill that ground the flour for everyone in a fifty-mile radius. His only child, Tristan, became a doctor. I read that ol’ Gustav, who couldn’t read or write, was deeply proud of his son.”

“As he should be,” Kim said. “Tristan died young, didn’t he?”

“He did. He was rescuing some miners and the walls collapsed on him. It took them a week to find his body. He was well loved and hundreds of people attended his funeral.”

“And I’m sure that number included an ancestor of mine,” Kim said. “It seems that she was carrying his child, who was my—let me get this straight—my great-granduncle.”

“I think that makes you an honorary native of Janes Creek.”

“Not a newcomer?”

“Far from it.” In the distance they heard voices coming toward them, and Red stood up. “I think your young man is returning and I should go.”

“The question everyone in my hometown wants to know is whether or not Dr. Janes was married.”

“Oh no. I read that he was the town catch, a beautiful young man, but he never married. I’m sure that if he’d lived he would have married your ancestor. Especially if she was half as pretty as you are.”

“Thank you,” Kim said as Red started to walk away. “Oh!” she called out. “Do you know where he’s buried?”