“Okay,” Tris said, “we’ve now told each other all the happy, sugary things, so what’s bad in your life?”
“’Fraid I don’t know you well enough to tell you that,” Jecca said.
“So what’s the good of this? Sitting here in utter blackness, two strangers who will never meet again, if we don’t talk of something besides superficialities?”
“We will meet again,” Jecca said. “And again. I’m going to be living next door to you for three whole months.”
“And what is that in the scope of life? Three months to actually talk to someone? It’s not much.”
Underlying his jesting, Jecca could hear the seriousness in his voice, and she remembered Kim’s story of how her cousin’s arm came to be broken. “Hit over the head,” Kim had said. “Pushed down a hill.” And the robber had wanted “something” Tris had. These were traumatic events.
When Tristan had fallen over the chaise she’d put in his path, she knew he’d been in pain, but he’d acted as though he wasn’t. If he concealed pain, did he also hide his true feelings from people here in Edilean? Jecca knew that she worked hard to keep all bad news from her father. There were times when she’d been so down she’d wanted to see no one, but she’d always done her best to put on a happy face around him.
“It must be difficult to live in a town full of family,” she said softly. “When you have one of those life setbacks, who do you talk to?”
He took so long to answer that she thought maybe he wasn’t going to. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “A few months ago, a young woman came to Edilean for a job. I came very close to falling in love with her, but she recently married my best friend.”
“And this happened at the same time you broke your arm?”
“Yes. It’s all related.” He took a breath. “She’s in her second trimester now.”
“That was fast. Wait! If she’s that far along, maybe she only married him because she felt she had to.”
“I wish that were true,” Tris said, “but it’s not. She never once looked at me as anything but her friend.”
“That hurts,” Jecca said. She wasn’t going to say so, as Kim’s brother was his friend, but she’d felt that way when Reede ignored her. When she was silent, she heard him turn as though to look at her, but try as hard as she could, she couldn’t see him.
“Speaking of being hurt, whatever happened to Laura Chawnley?” Jecca asked. “I’ve always meant to ask Kim but haven’t. Is Laura still around?”
“Oh yes. She married the pastor, and they have strong, healthy kids. We thought the boy had a heart murmur but he’s okay.” C ok
Jecca laughed. “You really are a doctor, aren’t you?”
“Not now. While this damned arm heals I’m nothing.”
“I know that feeling well!”
“You? How could you know? Kim raves about you. When she was in college every e-mail she sent me was about you and the blue-bikini girl. What was her name?”
“Sophie. I bet Kim sent you more photos than just the one of us in swimsuits.”
“She sent hundreds, but for some reason, that’s the only one I remember. I stuck it on the mirror in my bedroom.”
“With your other girly pictures?”
“That was the only one.”
“Sophie is beautiful.”
“I bent her back.”
“What?” Jecca asked.
“I bent the photo so she’s not in it. She’s not my type.”
“Oh,” Jecca said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s pinup before. I wish she’d sent me a picture of you.”
“I break cameras.”
“I seem to remember Kim saying that all her male cousins are drop-dead gorgeous. I know Reede is. Or was seven years ago. I haven’t seen him since then.”
Tristan smiled. It looked like Kim had been wrong about Jecca and Reede being attached. “Now you’re making me jealous,” he said in a teasing way. “I guess you know that Reede is coming here quite soon.”
“Kim may have mentioned it.”
Tristan groaned. “Don’t tell me I’ve lost before I even have a chance.”
“What a flirt you are! You almost sound serious.”
“If I’m good at flirting I can assure you that it’s not from practice. I’m related to many of the people in this town, and I’m the doctor to nearly all of them. That narrows the field of eligibility down drastically.”
“You know, I can’t see you, and I don’t remember much that Kim told me about you, but my instinct tells me that you don’t have trouble with women.”
“A year ago I would have said you’re right, but I lost one I think could have made it all happen.”
“And what do you want to happen?” she asked softly.
He hesitated, as though considering his words carefully. “I’m old-fashioned. I want a wife and kids. I’m tired of giving shots to other people’s kids. I want to shoot my own children.”
Jecca laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, C">&="0 I do,” she said and tried to repress a sigh. Under no circumstances on earth was she going to get involved with this man. To be caught in tiny Edilean, Virginia, with all possibility of having a career in art removed from her life was her worst nightmare.
However, he wasn’t a man she could ignore. Today Kim had said that her cousin Tristan had a “presence,” and now that she was sitting near him in the darkness, she knew what Kim meant. She could almost feel him, like an electrical charge that went from him to her.
If she were a different kind of woman and this were a different place, she could see herself slipping onto the chaise, stretching out full length beside his body. She could imagine removing clothes, kissing, even making love. It was a titillating thought to make love with a man she’d never seen.
She came out of her dream when he put his hand out and touched her knee. She couldn’t help it as she picked up his hand in hers. “Tristan,” she said softly.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know you and can’t see what you look like, so I can’t use the usual ways of judging a person. But you sound to me like someone in physical and emotional turmoil.”
“True,” he said, his deep voice barely a whisper.
She released his hand. “But I want to tell you that I am not the woman you’re looking for. You want someone who’s ready to . . . to start nesting. I’m still looking for a career. At the end of three months I’ll leave here and I won’t look back. I have to find myself before I can take on another human being—or two or three.”
She waited to see how he’d take this.
“I am warned,” he said. “And I thank you for your honesty. But that’s all right. I don’t think I can handle any more of this love business right now.”
“You need to let your arm heal and I think you should start that now. What time is it?”
“Well after ten.”
Jecca stood up. “I think you should go home and get some sleep.”
“Mind helping me up?” he asked.
Jecca knew he could get up by himself, but she still moved her arm about until she found his hand. By now the size and shape of it almost felt familiar.
He stood up, placing his body close to hers. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I’ve not told anyone about . . . well, what happened.”
She knew he meant about the woman he’d almost fallen in love with. His confession had consisted of a few sentences. Had it been her, she’d have talked to Kim for hours about it. But maybe all he’d needed was the relief of saying it out loud.
He kept holding her hand, his fingers playing along her palm. “Would you tell no one what I told you? I don’t want it all over town, as it could cause my friend’s new wife embarrassment.”
Jecca didn’t like promising to keep a secret from Kim, but then, this little encounter in the dark would be CarkCardifficult to explain. “I won’t tell,” she said. “I promise.”
“Shall we meet again?” he asked, his grip on her hand firm.
Jecca couldn’t help laughing. “Like Lady Chatterley’s lover?”
“That would make you the lady and me the baseborn gamekeeper. Is that what you want?”
He said it in a tone as though she were elevating herself to a class above him, and she laughed more. “I do like that idea.”
“I see it more as Cupid and Psyche, that couple who—”
She knew the story well and had always liked it. “Cupid was the Goddess of Love’s son, while Psyche was—”
“A very beautiful young woman. The instant he saw her, he fell in love with her,” Tris said.
“I think he hit himself with his own arrow, but wasn’t he also fairly pretty?”
“I do believe he was. Probably took after his mother,” Tris said as he pulled Jecca a step closer so he could hold her hand with both of his. “Too many women fell in love with his beauty and he wanted to be loved for himself. So he . . .”
“Married her but didn’t let her see him.”
“Then that night . . .” Tris said.
“He slipped into her bed and made divine love to her,” she said.
Tris stepped even closer. “And what kind of love would that be?” he whispered. “All night of hot and sweaty, or champagne and roses, or more caressing than actual sex?”
“Yes,” Jecca whispered. His face was inches from hers now and although she couldn’t see him, she could feel his breath on her cheek. And when he turned, his lips were very near hers. “Any of it,” she said. “I like all of it.”
He held her hand with the one that was in the sling and put his other hand up to her hair. “My two blind patients say their sense of touch tells them everything. May I?” His fingertips touched her neck.
Jecca nodded. She was glad for the darkness so he couldn’t see that she closed her eyes at his touch. She’d been so busy at work lately that she hadn’t been on a date in months, hadn’t been to bed with a man in more months.
She let him touch her neck, her ear, then move across her cheek.
“But Psyche had a mortal’s curiosity,” he said, “and she wanted to see her husband. She wanted to know if he was ugly.” His hand was on the side of her face, his fingers in her hair, his thumb at her chin.
“She took an oil lamp,” Jecca said softly, “and went to his bed. When she saw him . . .”
“She was so astonished at his beauty that a drop of oil fell onto his shoulder and burned him.”
Jecca knew she had to stop this or the man was going to have her naked in a matter of minutes. She stepped back out of his reach. “It Cch.ut hi was six drops, and that’s why we have six months of winter and six of summer.”
Tristan laughed, a pleasant sound. “I think that was pomegranate seeds and it’s another story. Psyche gave her name to nosy people like psychiatrists.”
“This from a very nosy man,” Jecca said.
“I recently had some lessons in curiosity and I’m finding them useful. Will you meet me here tomorrow night at nine? We’ll talk some more.”
Jecca couldn’t help the little thrill that went through her. The sexiness of this meeting appealed to her. Of talking to a man she didn’t know, of not seeing him, but able to feel his breath on her face, hear his voice, touch his hand. It all appealed to the artist in her.
On impulse, she stepped toward him and put both her hands out until they touched his neck. He was taller than she’d thought.
“Psyche must have tried to feel what her lover looked like. She—”
“Husband,” Tris said as Jecca’s hands moved up to his head. “They were married, remember?”
“Ah yes.” She put her hands on each side of his face. He had a lot of hair. “Dark or light?” she asked.
“Whichever you like better, that’s the color my hair is.”
His hair was thick, and she could feel a bit of wave to it. If she drew it, it would be dark. “Black as this night,” she said. He didn’t answer, but she felt his smile against her palms.
His ears were not too big, not too small, and quite flat against his head. “Good,” she murmured, sounding as though she were a scientist making a discovery. “No open cab doors here.”
She felt his smile broaden but he didn’t speak. She ran her fingers over his forehead. “No receding hairline, which means you’re younger than I thought.”
“Or it could be hereditary. My father—”
“Sssssh. I’m doing the exam now. You’re no longer the doctor.”
“In that case, I can cough.”
She didn’t know what he meant at first, then tried not to laugh. “I think I should have a nurse present to protect my chastity.”
“A threesome?”
“Ssssh,” she said again as she moved to his eyes. He didn’t close them until she touched his eyelids. “Brows not too bushy. Lashes rather too long.”
“A curse from my father’s family. My niece’s look like feathers.”
“How uncomfortable for her,” Jecca said as she ran her fingertips over his nose. Long and straight, no bumps, no distortions of any kind. “Nose seems to work well.”
“I can smell your perfume.”
“I never wear—” she began, then knew he was teasing her. “I find that Cadmium Yellow wo Ciumt srks best for me.”
“Myself, I like Cerulean Blue. Especially on nights like this.”
He stopped talking when her fingertips reached his lips. She could feel whiskers on his cheeks and chin, that ancient sign that signaled male. It had been a while since he’d shaved, so they were almost soft. She wanted to put her lips to them, feel them on the tip of her tongue.
“Jecca,” he whispered.
She straightened her spine. “None of that now, I’m Psyche, and I want to feel what you look like.” With her fingertips on his whiskery cheeks, she ran her thumbs over his lips. They were full and soft.
“Psyche wanted her husband to make love to her,” he whispered.
She could feel his breath on her skin, feel the way his lips moved under her thumbs.
He leaned toward her, and she knew he was going to kiss her—and she wanted him to.
But just then lights came on in the big house behind them and she turned to look at them.
Tris said, “Damnation!” then he was gone.
Jecca looked back at him but he wasn’t there. It was as if she’d made up the whole incident, dreamed it all.
But then Tris’s voice came to her from the woods. “Psyche!” he called to her.
She said, “Yes, Cupid?” and smiled at the joke.
“Tomorrow at nine,” he said.
“At nine,” she answered, then she heard his footsteps on the forest path.
With a sigh of regret for the sweet, dark encounter being over, Jecca turned toward the house.
On the way back to his house, Tristan couldn’t stop smiling. Tonight he had liked her as much as he had the first time. It had been great talking and flirting with her in the dark, teasing her. He’d liked that she hadn’t been coy, hadn’t giggled or been flustered. Since so many of the women in his life had seen him as an unmarried doctor and therefore marriage material, he’d tested Jecca. He told her right off that what he wanted was a wife and kids. Tris knew from experience that most women would have said that’s what she wanted too—even if she didn’t.
But not Jecca! She’d told him right away that she wasn’t staying in Edilean. Didn’t want to get married, and that she wanted a career in art more than she wanted any man.
He couldn’t help admiring her honesty as well as feeling, well, a bit challenged by it.
Tonight, he’d felt something stir inside him that he’d never felt before. He had liked Jecca. Old-fashioned liked her. Forget that the way she’d run her hands over his face had made him want to toss her to the ground and make love to her. He had very much enjoyed laughing with her and talking about a Greek fable in a sexy way.
Once he was inside, he str
etched out on his bed and began go C an"0em" widting over the whole evening in his mind, starting with the way she’d been calm and cool when he’d fallen on her. Most women would have been hysterical, but right away, Jecca had figured out who he was. And she even remembered that his father was acting as the town physician.
He still couldn’t believe he’d told her about Gemma. He’d told no one how he’d felt about the young woman who came to Edilean so recently. One time, in anger, he’d nearly told Colin, the man she married, the truth about what he felt for Gemma. But other than that, he’d never come close to telling anyone that he’d been near to falling in love. Gemma had fit in his house; she was easy to talk to. He’d found himself revealing things to her that he’d told no one else.
In the last weeks since she’d married his friend, Tristan had wondered what would have happened if he’d done as his sister advised and made an effort. Showed up at her house with a bottle of wine maybe? Or asked her out to dinner?
But he’d done none of those things.
He’d left the old photo of Jecca in his bedside table drawer, and he got it out to look at it. Each time he looked at it, she seemed to get prettier. Her nose sort of turned up on the end. And her eyes looked like they were two seconds away from laughing. But her mouth wasn’t cute. It was beautiful. Her lips looked like something off a lipstick ad, utterly perfect and oh so kissable.
“Come on, Aldredge,” he said aloud. He put the photo on his bedside table and rolled off the bed. It was late and he was hungry, and he was facing the onerous task of trying to get undressed and dressed with just one arm. He thought, If Jecca were here, she’d help me, then he groaned at the idea.
His refrigerator was well stocked, thanks to his housekeeper. She cooked things for him at her house and brought them to him. Four years ago, when he’d hired her, she’d looked at him with starry eyes, but now she was engaged to be married and was more likely to ask him to look at her sore throat.
Moonlight in the Morning Page 7