Moonlight Masquerade

by Jude Deveraux

  They’d spent the few minutes speculating on the cause of the misery, each person having a different opinion.

  “Bad sex,” Danni said. “If the sex isn’t good, no matter how much you love someone, it’s not worth it.”

  “I agree,” Kelli said.

  Carter and Roan looked at the two women with eyes full of concern.

  “Are we . . . ? I mean . . . ” Carter said to Kelli.

  “Baby, we’re great!”

  He sighed in relief and so did Roan when Danni kissed his cheek.

  “So what’s the problem between Sophie and Reede?” Danni asked. “What’s making them the two unhappiest people on earth?”

  Not one of them could come up with an answer, but now Dr. Reede’s three employees were asking Carter to help them.

  “You see,” Betsy said, “we sort of made a vow that we’d do whatever was necessary to make the doctor happy. We were the ones who kept the secret of who he was.”

  “And the corset was us,” Heather said.

  “But Sara helped with the horse,” Alice added.

  “And the doc’s costume, of course,” Heather said.

  “We had nothing to do with the robbers, but Mike took care of that. He’s been a real asset to this town,” Alice said.

  “So you see,” Betsy said, “how hard we’ve worked.”

  “And it’s paid off as Dr. Reede’s temper has greatly improved since Sophie came to town,” Alice said.

  “But now he’s so glum that—” Heather began.

  “That’s too mild a word,” Betsy said as she looked hard at Carter. “The truth is that Dr. Reede is so depressed that he’s barely functioning. And we think Sophie isn’t much better.”

  “They are very polite to each other,” Heather said. “The day I’m polite to my husband is the day I’ll ask him for a divorce.”

  The three women stopped talking and stared at Carter.

  “Ladies,” he said slowly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Not a word of it.”

  Betsy looked at the clock on the wall. “We have to get back to work or we’d stay and explain. But it all boils down to the fact that you have to talk to Sophie and find out what’s going on between her and Dr. Reede.”

  Immediately, Carter saw a thousand things wrong with that idea. Kelli, for all that she pretended not to be, was quite jealous of Sophie. “This past summer?” she’d asked. “Just a few months ago you were thinking of marrying Sophie and now you want me to believe that you’re completely over her?” Nothing he’d said had made her believe Sophie was in the past—the recent past.

  Besides that, Roan and Reede glared at him, and the giant who was the local sheriff stopped in often and looked at Carter as though he were a criminal he had to keep close watch over. Although, since Christmas, the sheriff had seemed to be looking at Sophie with less than affection.

  As for Sophie, she still moved away when Carter got too near.

  “Really and truly,” Carter said, “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Betsy stood up and the other women followed her lead. “That’s just the point. No one knows what’s going on but you are the one who has to find out.”

  With that, the three women left the restaurant. Carter locked the door behind them then flopped down onto a chair. At this moment the thought of returning to Texas and the little town that was virtually owned by his family appealed greatly to him.

  He looked around the empty restaurant. Everything was clean and no one was there. Kelli had gone to get supplies, and Roan and Danni were . . . Wherever lovers went in Edilean. Sophie was upstairs in her apartment, where she often went in the afternoons now. No more staying downstairs and helping clean. Since Christmas Sophie looked as though she would never smile again.

  Part of Carter wanted to flee, but the bigger part of him knew the women were correct. Right now, in this town, he was the closest thing Sophie had to a girlfriend.

  With a sigh, he started up the stairs. She probably won’t see me, he thought. She’ll probably—

  He knocked once and Sophie opened the door.

  “Oh. I thought you were Reede. Sometimes he gets off early.”

  Carter stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “We need to talk.”

  “Carter, if you and Kelli have had an argument and now you want me back, it’s not going to happen. I—”

  “No argument. I came here to find out what’s wrong with you.”

  “Nothing,” she said. “You need to leave. You saw what Reede did the last time he got jealous.”

  Carter’s eyes widened. “Sophie, is that what’s wrong with you? Is he horribly jealous? Does he . . . Has he hit you? I can get you some help. I can—”

  Sophie plopped down on the sofa. “Of course he hasn’t! Reede couldn’t be kinder. He’s very sweet to me. Very courteous.”

  Carter sat in a chair across from her. “Sophie, you’re driving us all crazy! You look miserable but no one can figure out why. What is wrong? You have a fabulous job coming up, some doctor is mad about you, you have friends, and—”

  “Reede won’t leave. I can’t get him to go.”

  “You want to break up with him?” he asked with sympathy.

  “Heavens no! Where did you get that idea? I want to marry him and get pregnant immediately. Don’t you think Reede was made to be a father?”

  Carter ran his hand over his face, then looked at her with eyes full of pleading. “Sophie, help me out here. I was told to talk to you and find out what’s wrong between you and Dr. Hit-First-Talk-Later but all I hear is good.”

  “I did tell you,” Sophie said. “What’s wrong is that Reede won’t leave.”

  “Last I heard, if the man leaves no babies are made.”

  Sophie looked at the windows to the outside. She desperately needed to talk to someone. The last two weeks had been hell. Reede had been so resolutely cheerful that she wanted to strangle him. Instead, she’d smiled back at him as sweetly as she could. But several times when he’d thought no one was looking, she’d seen the look of . . . well, fatalism on his face. She could see that the happiness he tried to show her was only skin deep.

  “Okay, Sophie,” Carter said, “I know I’m failing the girlfriend test but I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You want to marry him; you want him to leave. Make up your mind.”

  Sophie shook her head at him is disbelief. “You are failing as a girlfriend. Carter, I want Reede to leave and I want to go with him.”

  Carter still didn’t understand. “So go. Now, is the problem solved?”

  “No, Mr. Rich Boy, the problem is not solved. Reede can’t leave to go save the world because he has no money for funding. I can get the money but only if I stay here and work for Henry. But Reede won’t accept the gift and leave because I can’t leave.”

  Carter blinked at her for a moment. “ ‘The Gift of the Magi.’ ”

  “Right,” Sophie said. “ ‘The Gift of the Magi.’ ”

  They were referring to the O. Henry story where the very poor couple who were deeply in love wanted to buy each other gifts. He sold his gold watch to buy her combs for her glorious hair; she sold her hair to buy him a fob chain for his watch.

  Sophie looked up at him. “I’m considering telling Reede I’m actually in love with you so he’ll take Henry’s offer of funding and leave town. I want him to go do what he’s meant to.”

  Carter turned pale at that idea and involuntarily put his hand to his nose. “Please don’t do that. What about your sculpture? You’re so very talented.”

  Sophie stood up, walked to the windows, then turned back to look at him. “I think maybe everyone on earth is given a talent.”

  “Not like yours.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, frowning, “but to succeed I think a person also needs . . . I don’t know, drive. Ambition. Something to propel a person forward. I’ve heard people in churches sing better than people who sell millions of disks. So why aren’t the best sin
gers being given the money and applause?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Because it takes more than talent to succeed. Kim and Jecca were driven. All through school all the two of them did was create. Anything. They cut out paper stars at Christmas.”

  “What about you?” Carter asked. In all their months together he’d never seen a hint of this Sophie.

  “When I was given a choice between a job that could have put me on the ladder to success and going home to my little sister, I took family. And I cut off all contact with Kim and Jecca because I didn’t want them to find out that I wasn’t like them. I’d already lied to them about where I was from.”

  “Texas embarrassed you?” Carter was smiling.

  “No, Treeborne Foods embarrassed me. I’d learned that people thought it would be great to live in a town owned by one company. I didn’t want to explain that Treeborne is ruled by a man who doesn’t believe in hiring locals for management positions.”

  Again, Carter’s face drained of color. “I’ll change that,” he said softly.

  “I think you should.”

  “So you don’t want to be a sculptor?”

  “I don’t want to spend my life making twenty-foot bronzes for rich people to put in their fancy gardens. When I was in school some snooty kid in law school said I should build a cup holder into every one of my sculptures. He said that way they would be useful.”

  “Yeow!” Carter said. “Even I know that’s not good. So you want to go with Dr. Reede? Roan said something about Reede setting up a clinic on a boat. You want to raise children on a boat?”

  “Why not? Who said that a three-bedroom, two-bath home is what’s best for kids? Couldn’t they—?” She cut off as she sat back down on the couch. “It’s absurd to think about any of this. Reede would never agree to my going with him, even if he got the money from somewhere else. What could I do to help him?”

  “Shall we see?” Carter asked.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, my dear friend, that Treeborne Foods will fund it all. The trips, the clinics. Everything that Henry Belleck has offered, Treeborne Foods will match.”

  “Carter, you can’t do that. Your father will—”

  “Screw him! I’ve been scared of my father all my life. Terrified of him. But when Kelli and I had dinner with him two weeks ago, I realized that I’m all he has. If my father dies, what happens to his precious Tree-borne Foods, which he loves more than any human? It’ll fall apart without someone who cares about it to hold it together. Who will that be? His right-hand man? That guy would sell in a minute. Can my father disinherit me? How will that look in the ads that brag that we’re a family business?”

  Sophie was staring at him in silence.

  “Look, Sophie, since that horrible day when I pushed you out of my father’s cold, empty mansion because I was afraid of him, I’ve done nothing but think. I now know what I’m going to do. Kelli doesn’t know it yet—or maybe she does—but I’m going to marry her and we’re going to open a line of baked goods that will probably double the size of the company. And it’s all come about because of you, Sophie. If I hadn’t come after you—”

  “Because I stole your cookbook.”

  “Right.” He smiled at her. “If you hadn’t stolen the cookbook, I wouldn’t have met Kelli, wouldn’t have stood up to my father, and wouldn’t have known that I do like working with food. And I wouldn’t know how much I like living in a town where I’m the crown prince.”

  Sophie couldn’t help laughing at the last part.

  “Sorry, but that’s my ego. I’ll see to it that Tree-borne Foods funds whatever Dr. Reede wants to do. Besides, I can write off the expense and use the whole thing in publicity.”

  “You are a Treeborne.”

  “I had no idea I was, but I think maybe I am down to my very toes.” The two of them exchanged smiles and it was the first time he’d felt that maybe Sophie could possibly forgive him. When he’d first become involved with her he hadn’t done it with bad intentions. That things had turned out badly had been due to Carter’s fear of his father. “By the way, Sophie, about that cookbook . . . ”

  “I’m sorry about that. It’s just that I was so very angry at you, and—”

  “And you had a right to be. But I think I owe you the truth, after all I’ve put you through. The reason the cookbook is written in code and why it’s kept locked up is because great-granny put cocaine on everything.”

  “What?”

  “It was legal back then and it made you feel good. Coco-Cola was named for its secret ingredient.”

  Sophie was looking at him in shock.

  “You see now why I was so frantic when I saw that the cookbook was missing? I wasn’t afraid someone would publish our so-called secret recipes on the Internet. I was afraid that if we were found out we’d be laughed out of the industry. We have Granny’s photo on every package.”

  “And she doused the food with cocaine?”

  “She sprinkled it over everything. And just to let you know, if the code were broken and the recipes made without the coke, they’re awful. She used lard and pig jowls, whatever was cheap, then she dumped it all over hard little noodles. Without the coke on top nobody could even chew the stuff. My great-granny was a marvelous businesswoman, but a cook she was not.”

  It took Sophie a few minutes to absorb this information, then she began to laugh. And Carter joined her.

  “Your grandmother was—”

  “An addict,” Carter said.

  “Treeborne Foods, a family business.”

  “Right,” Carter said.

  “And the code?”

  “Based on an old book she had. It’s in the safe too.”

  Sophie was smiling, thinking about it all. The great family secret that she’d almost exposed.

  “So will you think about my offer?” he asked.

  “To fund Reede?”

  “No,” Carter said, “to fund both of you. And Sophie, as for what you can do to help, from what I’ve seen of you in Texas in managing your hellion of a sister, then coming here and charming an entire town—”

  “I didn’t do that. Reede—”

  Carter held up his hand. “This is my speech, so let me finish it. Sophie, you have changed people’s lives, and I think that is your real talent. Sculpting is just a sideline. And as much as I’m not a fan of your doctor friend, he sees the truth. Now that he’s met you he’d rather give up his dreams than lose you. And he’s smart to see that.”

  He put his hands out to her, and she took them. “I want you to go find him and talk to him. Really talk to him.”

  “Henry—”

  “I’ll take care of Henry,” Carter said. “He’ll understand and I’ll find him another teacher and someone else to fund. Now go! Right now, this minute, go find your doctor and tell him what you need to.”

  “Carter, I—” she began, sounding as though she was going to protest, but then she broke off. Instead, she kissed Carter’s cheek. “Thank you. I . . . ” She didn’t know what else to say as she ran out the door.

  Sophie ran down the stairs and out the front door without bothering to grab a coat. She ran the short distance to Reede’s office, and as soon as she stepped inside, she hesitated. The office was so full of waiting patients that she thought she should wait until later this evening to talk to Reede.

  But Betsy saw her, nudged Heather, who caught Alice’s arm, and in an instant all three women were surrounding Sophie. Heather slipped between Sophie and the door so she couldn’t leave.

  “Carter talked to you, didn’t he?” Betsy asked, her face serious.

  “He did and I have some things to talk to Reede about, but he’s busy. I’ll see him later.” She turned to the door, but Heather was blocking it.

  Betsy put her arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “Does anyone object to Sophie talking to Dr. Reede?” she asked the waiting patients.

  “I’ll wait!” said a woman with two children.

/>   “I can come back next week,” a man said eagerly.

  “I just have bronchitis,” a woman said as she repressed a cough. “Had it before, no big deal.”

  “My stitches can come out tomorrow,” said a young man.

  “See?” Betsy said, smiling, “no problem at all.” She took Sophie’s arm and half pulled her into the hall at the back of the office, Alice and Heather close behind.

  Betsy knocked, then opened a door. An older woman was sitting on the end of the paper-covered exam table, wearing a hospital gown. Reede was on a stool before her and he was examining her foot.

  “If you’d just stop cutting your nails this short you wouldn’t get ingrown toenails,” Reede was saying in a grumpy tone. “I told you this the last time you were—” He broke off when the door opened, then his eyes widened at the sight of Sophie, as she was practically encased by the three women.

  “I told them that this can wait for later,” Sophie said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  The older woman lithely jumped off the table. “It’s all my fault and you told me it was. See you later,” she said as she ran to the door.

  Seconds later, Sophie and Reede were alone in the room.

  “What in the world is going on?” he asked. “Sophie, are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Physically well, but I have something important to say to you.” She motioned for him to take a seat on the end of the exam table. “Remember when I made the potato animals for the children that day in the forest?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Those children were traumatized—and rightfully so. An arrow had come sailing over their heads and pinned a man to a tree. No one knew if it was an accident or a madman was after them. I can just imagine the way the woman had to have warned them. She must have been nearly hysterical. She had to hold the man up to keep his wound from tearing, and she was trying to protect the children as she was calling for help, all at the same time.”

  Reede had no idea where Sophie was going with all this, but from the look on her face it was very important to her. “But you calmed the children down,” he said, smiling. “When I saw you, you looked like some woodland goddess surrounded by children who were looking at you as though you were rescuing them from certain death.”