Moonlight Masquerade (Edilean 8)

The next time Sophie went to their sprawling estate, construction on a huge studio had begun.

“Now you’ll be able to do your own work,” Henry told Sophie happily. “Come and see what I did yesterday.”

He’d made an ugly little man sitting on a horse that had one leg a half inch shorter than the other. Worse was that if the man stood up he’d be a foot taller than the horse. Henry’s ambition was much larger than his talent.

Repressing a sigh, Sophie tore Henry’s work apart. She tried to be gentle, but her bad mood wouldn’t let her. She pushed and pulled at the clay, then picked up a stainless steel tool and started gouging.

Henry, rather than being offended, laughed. He was a man who knew how to delegate. “So what about Christmas?” he asked again.

“I don’t know. Reede and I put up a tree and we went shopping and bought his family and friends gifts. It was fun.”

“What are you getting him?”

“He showed me some pictures of his travels and I’m going to make a sculpture of one of them. I’m hoping to have it cast in bronze, but it won’t be ready before Christmas.”

Henry was watching her as she rearranged the clay man he’d made. He could always see when his sculptures were wrong. He just couldn’t figure out how to make them right. “You’re upset about something.”

“No, I’m . . . ”

“I have three daughters, remember? I know when things aren’t right.”

Sophie wiped her hands on a cloth. “Yesterday a man came into the restaurant. Seems he’d been sent there by Reede’s nosy threesome.”

“The women who work for him?” Henry was careful to keep his opinions to himself. If he’d learned nothing else from raising daughters it was that if he spoke against someone, they would take the opposite side. His middle daughter had almost married a kid with a record for armed robbery because Henry had talked to her “for her own good.”

So Henry stood in silence and waited for Sophie to tell him whatever she wanted to. His personal opinion was that Reede Aldredge was suppressing Sophie’s magnificent talent. That she was wasting her time in that dreary little sandwich shop bothered him. His plan was that for Christmas he was going to offer her a full-time job. She’d have a good salary, benefits, and a great place to work. No more spending her days making tuna salad sandwiches.

“His name is Dr. Tyler Becks and he wants to take over Reede’s practice,” Sophie said.

Henry had heard a bit of the gossip around town, how Reede had given up his flamboyant, daredevil career to return to Edilean to help his friend. But then, Reede had been trapped here. “What did Reede say?”

“Nothing,” Sophie said and there was frustration in her voice. “He didn’t even tell me about this doctor. Roan did. But then, I never know what Reede is thinking. We practically live together but I don’t know any more about him today than I did months ago.”

“Everybody in town says he’s mad about you,” Henry said softly.

“I guess.” Sophie looked away for a moment. In the distance she could hear the thump of a nail gun as the men framed Henry’s new studio. She had an idea that he was going to offer her a job in it, and she didn’t know what she was going to say.

The truth was that she had no idea where her life was going. Roan teased her about leaving on the fifteenth of January as she’d said she was going to do. But where could she go? Lisa was quite happy at college now and was even planning to spend Christmas with friends. She no longer needed her big sister. Sophie knew she couldn’t go back to her hometown. To what? The only person she really cared about there was Carter, and he was here in Edilean.

Sophie knew Reede was deeply jealous of Carter and there was a part of her that liked that he was.

“Does any of this have to do with young Treeborne?” Henry asked.

“No, Carter’s fine. I think he’s falling in love with Kelli.”

“The baker? The one with the . . . ” Henry motioned around his eyes.

“That’s her. She’s a really good pastry chef, and what I like is that she doesn’t take anything off Carter. I used to be so aware that he was a Treeborne that I treated him like a prince. I was in awe of him.”

“But Kelli isn’t?”

“Not by a long shot. She acts like his being a Tree-borne is something he needs to overcome.”

Henry smiled. “That sounds good for him.”

“It is. It’s how I should have treated him.”

“What’s really bothering you?” Henry asked.