Moonlight Masquerade (Edilean 8)

“As soon as I get paid I’ll give you the deposit,” Sophie said.

“There is no deposit. The owner is so glad to have someone take this place he’s waiving that. Rent is due the last day of each month. Send a check to my office or leave it at the diner.”

Sophie signed the lease, the Realtor handed her the keys, said congratulations, and left.

For a moment, Sophie just stood where she was. Everything was happening so very fast. Carter, then Reede, then . . . The truth was that she didn’t know where things were going. Her mind was still full of the attempted robbery, the masked party, and, well, spending the night with a man whose face she had never seen.

She looked around the little kitchen. It was nice, not large, but it had a big walk-in pantry that made it usable. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of the meals she and Reede would cook together in the little kitchen. Would they keep the house even if they traveled a lot?

Sophie shook her head at that thought. One night with a man and she was planning their life together.

But as she picked up her purse, her smile wouldn’t go away. Sometimes good things did happen to people. They didn’t seem to happen to her, but maybe her luck was changing.

She went out to the driveway to the rental car and drove back into Edilean. It was just a couple of miles and she thought that it would be good exercise to walk. But not today. Right now all she wanted was to see Reede. That thought made her smile even broader. Actually see him. For a moment she had a vision of the two of them laughingly telling people that they were . . . what? In deep like? . . . before she even saw his face. What a truly romantic story it would make.

She parked in the back of Reede’s office. This morning she’d been disappointed to awaken to find an empty bed, but she understood. Maybe he’d been called out on a medical emergency. Maybe right now he was saving a life or delivering a baby.

Even though it was Sunday, the back door to the office was unlocked, which Sophie took to mean that someone was there. As she stepped inside, she heard the quiet sounds of someone on a keyboard. It must be one of the women who worked for Reede, part of his adoring entourage.

Quietly, Sophie walked down the hallway and up the stairs to his apartment. Her idea was to make him lunch and have it ready when he returned from wherever he was. The apartment door was unlocked, and she turned the handle silently so as not to warn whoever was downstairs. The women were always so very helpful to Sophie. Anything she needed, they eagerly got for her. But sometimes she felt they were, well, almost invasive. It was as though they were afraid she was going to do something they couldn’t control. Such as what? she wondered, but had no real answer. Maybe they just wanted to make sure no one hurt their beloved Dr. Reede.

The door was silent as she opened it, and she tiptoed inside the apartment. To her delight, the first thing she saw was Reede. He was stretched out on the couch, sound asleep, his arm thrown over his face. She smiled down at him and couldn’t resist touching his hand. She wanted to cu

rl up beside him.

He had on a T-shirt and jeans and she couldn’t help remembering their night together and how well she’d come to know his body. She remembered her hands on his chest, running down his arms and feeling the muscles there. She thought of his mouth on her body and the pleasure he’d given her. Reede was a thousand times a better lover than Carter ever thought of being. Last night she’d felt as though she and Reede were, well, almost as though they were in love.

When Reede moved, he lowered his arm.

It was as though time stood still. Sophie didn’t move as she stared at his face. He was quite a handsome man. She knew the lower half of his face well, and if it were dark, she could have identified him by touch.

But it wasn’t dark, and the man asleep on the couch was the one who had been driving the car that had nearly run over her. He was the man she’d poured beer over.

They all know, was her foremost thought. All of them know. Russell, the Baptist minister, had driven her to Kim’s house, and she’d told him she had a job with Dr. Reede. He’d known that Sophie had just poured beer over her boss.

The women who worked for Reede knew. No wonder they’d kept her locked away upstairs and were so willing to get things for her. They didn’t want her to go into town, where she might find out the truth.

But why? she wondered. Why had they all worked to keep the secret?

She didn’t know the answer to that question and right now she was feeling too humiliated to care.

She gave one last glance at Reede, still asleep on the couch, and left the apartment. Whoever was in the office was still there, but Sophie didn’t want to see her. Right now all she wanted in the world was to get out of Edilean and never look back.

When she reached the parking lot, she got into the rental car, and for a moment she put her head against the steering wheel. But she looked up again. If she let herself think too hard she’d start crying and never stop. First, she had to go to Kim’s house and get her clothes. At the thought of her “friend” she felt a surge of anger rise in her. Kim must have known about her and Reede, but Kim hadn’t said a word. But then Reede was her brother while Sophie was just a college roommate who’d disappeared for years.

She was shaking as she turned onto the road to Kim’s house, but then she stopped. The rented house! Just a couple of hours ago she’d signed a year-long lease for a house, a place she’d thought she might share with a man who was a liar of the highest caliber.

Sophie turned left and went to Al’s Diner instead. Al’s wife had said Sophie could leave the rent checks at the restaurant. Would the woman sue when Sophie tried to get out of the contract? If so, she’d have to get in line behind the Treeborne frozen foods empire.

When Al saw the pretty young woman enter his diner he instantly knew she’d found out. Last night he and his wife had had an argument, something that was unusual for them.

“I think it’s disgusting!” she’d half yelled at him. “This entire town is keeping Dr. Reede’s identity a secret from that girl.” His wife wasn’t from Edilean, hadn’t grown up there. Al joked that she was too new to even be called a Newcomer, but she didn’t find that funny. As a Realtor, she hated not telling people of the two societies in the town, one of them so exclusive that only birth got you included.

She’d been especially angry about Sophie. Like everyone else in town, his wife had been on the receiving end of Dr. Reede’s bad temper. And she’d cheered when she heard of a pretty young woman pouring beer over his head. What had made her angry was when her husband told her Sophie had a job working for Dr. Reede, but she didn’t know he was the jerk who’d nearly killed her.

“So how’s he planning to keep that a secret?” she’d asked her husband, her eyes boring into his.

Al mumbled something about Halloween and masks. He’d told it like it was meant to make her laugh, but she didn’t so much as crack a smile. “This town has gone too far,” she said.