Moonlight in the Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  A high school boy put a couple of steps at the end of the stage, and he held his hand out to help Jecca up the stairs.

  Jecca, embarrassed buembouple oft pleased, looked at Tris, who was smiling at her. She turned to look back at Lucy. She should be onstage too, but Lucy’s chair was empty. Lucy had run away from the spotlight.

  Young Davie stood up and looked back at the curtain. The music changed again, and from the back came all of the girls, the first ones who’d worn the manufactured clothes, then Nell’s friends—the members of the Achievers’ Club—and they were all wearing Jecca’s clothes.

  She had only seen the outfits all together in Lucy’s workroom, and she had to admit that they looked good on the girls.

  Beside Jecca, Davie went back down to one knee, and the girls moved to the edges of the runway. The curtains parted, and six big, muscular high school boys, wearing athletic uniforms, were carrying Rebecca on a chair.

  Beside her, Nell put her hand in Jecca’s. Between the music, the laughter, and the applause of what had to be four hundred people, they couldn’t hear each other. Jecca mouthed to Nell, “Did you do this?”

  Nell shrugged in a way that said she had.

  Jecca squeezed Nell’s hand and let her eyes say how proud she was of her. In the end, Nell had come up with a scene-stealing show that made Rebecca the star. Nell had put herself above past transgressions.

  The boys set Rebecca down center stage, and Savannah came from the back carrying a pink and lavender birthday cake with nine candles on it. Rebecca blew them out in the showiest display ever seen.

  With her arms raised, Rebecca walked forward to the end of the runway and stood there in front of Davie. All the girls turned on their heels in a well-rehearsed move and marched toward the back.

  Jecca wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, but she followed Nell to the back, where she paused just behind the curtain. She wanted to see what happened next.

  Davie took Rebecca’s arm in his and led her back to the curtain where, to thunderous applause from the audience that was now on its feet, the two kids took a bow. Davie slipped behind the curtain, Rebecca took another bow, then she too went to the back.

  Jecca stayed by the curtain. It was chaos inside, with a dozen girls giggling and talking at once. She was pleased to see that none of them seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the clothes that Jecca had designed.

  “You did it,” Tris said as he put his arm around Jecca’s shoulders and kissed her temple.

  “I had nothing to do with the show. I just drew some pictures. Everyone else did all the work.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “But thank you for finding out about Nell and fixing the problem. Uh oh. Here comes Savannah. She’ll have a dozen things for me to do.”

  But Savannah wasn’t looking at Tristan. Her eyes were only on Jecca, and she was holding out her hands to her.

  “Thank you,” Savannah said as she clasped Jecca’s hands. “I hoped it was going to be a good show but . . .” She waved her hand. “This . . . I don’t even know how to describe it. I fired that little man I hired to plan the party. Next year, will you cor, e sme up with another show? Something different?”

  “I didn’t—” Jecca began.

  “Savannah,” Tris said, “Jecca designed the clothes. If you want a party planner, get Roan.” He looked at Jecca. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  Nineteen

  I am sublimely happy, Jecca thought as she woke up next to Tristan. That’s what she was—and that made her worry.

  As always, she and Tristan were wrapped around each other until it was difficult to tell where one person began and the other ended. His arm was across her neck, and kissing it, she moved it down a bit. Tristan responded in his sleep by tightening his leg over hers.

  It had been two weeks since the fashion show and she’d at last had time to finish the paintings for Kim. Last night she’d had dinner at Kim’s house, and Jecca had presented them to her.

  The first six, the ones that went with the jewelry Kim had sent her photos of, were of Tris’s species orchids. Jecca had arranged the composition so Kim’s jewelry would stand out against the creamy colors of the exotic blossoms.

  As subtly as she could, Jecca had put either Tris or Nell in the background of the pictures. She showed them more as shadows than as flesh-and-blood people, just a hint of a person in the distance.

  The second six paintings were reversed. Either Tris or Nell were in the foreground, the orchids shadowy in the back.

  Jecca had watched Kim’s face intently as she looked at the second set of pictures. They were to inspire Kim to design jewelry to match the pictures. But what could she do with a man or a girl? Make some of those big, ugly pinky rings that the kind of men most women didn’t like wore?

  Kim carefully didn’t show any expression as she looked at the paintings—and Jecca’s heart sank.

  Kim got up from the table, picked up a leather portfolio, and handed it to Jecca. “Go on,” she said, “look inside.”

  Slowly, Jecca untied the strings. She was almost afraid of what she’d see. Had Kim grown tired of waiting for Jecca to finish the paintings and hired someone else to do them? If she had, Jecca could understand it.

  She withdrew a sketch. Kim had never been interested in the two-dimensional classes she’d had to take at school to fulfill the requirements for a degree. Like Sophie, Kim was interested in three-dimensional art, specifically jewelry. The drawing was a rough sketch, but Jecca recognized it for what it was: a charm bracelet.

  What was unusual about it was that the charms had to do with Edilean, eighteenth-century history, and even Nell’s Closet.

  “What . . . ?” Jecca asked, her eyes wide. “How did you . . . ?” She started going through the other drawings. There were more charms, and they could be put onto necklaces, bracelets, anklets, hair barrettes.

  “Your fashion show inspired me,” Kim said.

  “I didn’t even ask if you saw it,” Jecca said. “Oh Kim, I’m such a bad—”

  “Don’t say it!” Kim said. “Your creativity, your enthusiasm, your everything has lit a fire under this whole town.”

  “I hardly think that,” Jecca said. “I just wanted to help Nell out.”

  “You stopped a tyrant,” Kim said.

  “You mean Savannah?” Jecca asked, smiling.

  “Oh yes. Her exclusive parties were the cause of a lot of tears here. You know what she’s doing now?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “She’s trying to get Rebecca into the Achievers’ Club.”

  Jecca’s eyes widened. “But Tristan made that up. Or Roan did. It didn’t exist before the show.”

  “I know,” Kim said, “but no one in town’s telling Savannah that. In fact, I heard that shy little Kaylin’s mother told Savannah that her daughter had been a member of the club for three years.”

  Jecca laughed. “So what’s Savannah doing to get her daughter into the club?”

  “Savannah has hired a career consultant.”

  “Rebecca is nine years old!” Jecca said.

  “And fighting her mother every inch of the way.”

  The two women laughed together. Kim poured them more wine while Jecca looked at the other drawings. Not only had Kim accurately guessed that Jecca’s paintings would deal with a child, but she’d also guessed about Tristan. Her last three designs were for some simple necklaces. What made them extraordinary were the colored stones of different sizes.

  “Think Tris’s face can sell those?” Kim asked.

  “He’s sold me on everything,” Jecca said. When Kim was silent, she looked at her. “All right,” she said, “let’s have it.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Kim said. “I’ve loved Tristan since the day I was born. He’s given me a thousand piggyback rides. I’ve covered him in flowers. Wherever in the world I go, I look for weird pickled vegetables to take home to Tristan. He’s a thoroughly great guy.” />
  “So what’s the problem?”

  “What are you going to do now that these drawings are done?”

  Jecca knew where Kim was heading, but she didn’t want to admit it. “I’m going to do what I came to this town for. I will make some paintings that I hope to exhibit in New York and to sell. Like you sell your jewelry.”

  “All right,” Kim said, “if you want to ignore what’s going on between you and Tristan, that’s your right.”

  Jecca did want to ignore it. She didn’t want to think about how much she enjoyed being with him. The Monday after the fashion show, he’d gone back to work. He and Reede had made a schedule where Tris would take mornings and Reede would handle afternoon appointments. But the agreement hadn’t been reached easily. Reede pointed out that there was no real reason Tris shouldn’t take on the full load—except that he wanted to be with Jecca.

  When Tris returned from seeing Reede on Sunday night, it was the first time Jecca had seen him angry. His usual easygoing demeanor was gone, and he was glowering. She wanted him to talk to her, but just as she’d suspected he would, he said everything was fine and refused to discuss the matter.

  At first she was quiet, acting as though he was actually all right, but his anger only seemed to deepen. She knew he needed to let it out—but she didn’t know how to trigger the release valve.

  After an hour and a half of watching him sink deeper into himself, she decided to take a chance. She took Reede’s side. Oh so casually, Jecca said that Reede was right, that Edilean wasn’t his concern and that Tristan had pulled him off his very important world jobs to write prescriptions for sleeping pills.

  Tristan looked at her in shock. “If that’s how you see it,” he said.

  “How else could anyone see it?” Jecca asked with as much innocence as she could fake.

  Tristan didn’t say anything, just got up and went to the bedroom.

  Jecca sighed. It looked like her experiment had failed. Now how did she get Tristan to talk to her?

  In the next second he came back to the living room and his glower had been replaced by a face full of anger. “Why are the illnesses of people in other countries more important than Mrs. Norton’s husband’s cancer? They’ve been married for sixty years. How’s she going to function without him? Mrs. Norton is Reede’s great-aunt, and back in 1953, she jumped into a frozen pond and pulled a six-year-old Arnold Aldredge—Reede’s father—out from under the ice. If she hadn’t had the courage to do that, Reede wouldn’t have been borne. What’s wrong with our precious Reede staying in Edilean for the rest of the summer to help some people who love him?” Tristan was glaring at her.

  “I agree,” Jecca said softly.

  “But you just said . . .” He trailed off. As realization of what she’d done hit him, he sat down on the couch beside her and pulled her to rest her head on his shoulder.

  “I hate fights,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I guessed that. Tell me what happened.”

  It took Tristan a few moments to start telling about the argument he’d had with Reede. “The truth is—”

  “Let me guess,” Jecca said. “Laura Chawnley is at the base of it all.”

  “Right.” Tristan sighed. “Reede won’t admit his fear of seeing her again. He covers it up with talk of saving the world and that I got him here under false pretenses. Whatever he can think of to get out of helping at oIf st the office, he comes up with it. He wants to leave Edilean as soon as he can—before he accidentally runs into Laura on some street.”

  Jecca listened, and in the morning she called Kim. “We have to fix Reede,” she said.

  Kim immediately knew what she meant. “I couldn’t agree more,” she said, and they hatched a plot.

  That afternoon Jecca and Kim invited Reede to lunch at the little sandwich shop where Tris had slipped Jecca a book. The two young women teased and laughed with Reede, flattering him so much that he began to expound on what he had done in his life and what he wanted to do.

  At half past one, as she did every Tuesday, a woman came in with her three young children. It was the first time Jecca had seen the woman who had broken Reede’s heart seven years before. Laura was a pretty woman but not one you’d look at twice. In the last weeks, Jecca had begun to think that Laura probably knew Reede a lot better than he knew himself. It was quite possible that she’d done Reede a favor. From the way she patiently dealt with her rambunctious children, she seemed to be doing what she wanted to. Had she realized that Reede had a restless nature hidden inside his small-town exterior? Had she run away from him before his true nature came to the surface and he started trying to get her to go globe hopping with him?

  When she saw Reede, Laura had a baby on her hip, one holding onto her leg, and one trying to climb up the window. She halted, cup in hand, and stared at him.

  Reede, in the midst of recounting one of his adventures in the Amazon, glanced up at her but didn’t pause in his storytelling. “It was the worst thing I ever tasted in my life,” he was saying, “but I would have insulted the man if I hadn’t drunk it, so I held my breath and—” He broke off and looked up at Laura in recognition.

  Jecca and Kim watched Reede’s face to see how he’d react. Oddly, he seemed to be puzzled.

  “Reede,” Laura said, “how are you?”

  “All right,” he answered. “And you?”

  She smiled. “Worn out, but . . . happy. I hear you’re helping with Dr. Tris’s practice for the summer.”

  Jecca and Kim held their breaths as they waited for his answer. Just the night before he’d told Tristan he wasn’t staying in town, wasn’t going to help at the office.

  Reede leaned back in his chair, and he looked like a man who was deeply relieved. He gave Laura a smile that could melt a woman. “Part-time,” he said. “I lost Jecca here to ol’ Tris and he wants to spend time with her, so I’ll be covering for him. Why don’t you bring your kids in for a checkup? On the house. For old times’ sake.”

  “Yes,” Laura said, “I’ll do that. Will I see you in church Sunday?”

  “Third row, like always,” he said.

  Laura gave another smile, called her son to her, and they left the shop.

  Reede kept his eyes straight ahead as he finished his coffee. “Have you two busybodies done what you wanted to?” he asked without looking thoth="1em">Rat either of them.

  “I think we have,” Kim said happily. “What about you, Jecca?”

  “Exactly what I hoped.”

  She and Kim smiled proudly at each other.

  “Deliver me from small towns,” Reede muttered as he put cash on the table. “Are we done here?”

  Jecca looked at her watch. “Tris is expecting you to relieve him at one-thirty. He and I are going up to the Point.” When Reede gave her a sharp look, she blushed. “To paint,” she added.

  “And I believe that,” Reede said.

  The three of them got up and Reede put an arm around each woman’s shoulders. “You two interfered in something that was none of your business.” He paused. “But I thank you.” He kissed their cheeks, then dropped his arms. “Now go away and leave me alone. No more fixing my life.”

  “Until the next time it needs patching up,” Kim said as she hurried out the door behind Jecca.

  Since the fashion show, the two women had spent a lot of time with each other. Twice they’d had dinner together, and Jecca had told Kim the story behind the show, while Kim had talked of her hopes for her jewelry. Kim’s pleasure over the paintings had bonded them even more strongly—but her questions about Tristan had unsettled Jecca.

  Now, Jecca looked at Tristan. “What do I do?” she said out loud, and Tristan, his beautiful body wrapped around hers, rolled to the side.

  “Do about what?” he asked, his voice deepened by sleep. He pulled her to him and nuzzled her neck.

  “Last night Kim asked me what I was going to do now that the fashion show was done and the paintings for the ads are finished.”

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p; “We could go to Roan’s for a few days and—”

  “You have to work.” He was kissing her neck, his hand moving down her body. She could feel exactly what he wanted to do.

  “I don’t have to work today,” he said. “Reede’s taking over.”

  She pulled back to look at him. “Why?”

  “Because I have a surprise to show you, that’s why.”

  She was a bit leery of his surprise. They hadn’t spoken of her leaving or of her job in New York since the fashion show. “What kind of surprise?”

  He kissed her nose. “Nothing ominous, I can assure you.” He could see that she wasn’t in a frisky mood. He rolled onto his back. “What’s bothering you?”

  “The perfection that my life has become. It always makes me nervous. One Sunday afternoon at home I was thinking how perfect my life was, with Dad and my bulldog brother, and how I was going to study art in college and become a famous painter. It was all without flaw. The next weekend Joey introduced us to Sheila and told us he’d asked her to marry him. Dad and I hadn’t even heard her name before.”

  Tristan looked at her in disbelief. “And happiness always does this to you?”

  “This kind of happiness is scary.” She put her hand to the side of his face. “You and I need to have a serious talk about the future.”

  Tristan got out of bed. “Not today, and certainly not this morning. Maybe after you see what I have to show you . . .” He hesitated. “Maybe things will be different after today.” Bending, he kissed her quickly. “I’m going to take a shower. Put on some jeans and sturdy shoes.”

  She watched him go into the bathroom; his words had lessened her feeling of foreboding. If Tristan’s surprise required hiking boots, that meant it was some sort of Edilean thing. She let out her breath and realized she’d been a bit worried that he was going to offer her a ring.

  What would she do if he did? she wondered. In her life she’d never met a man she liked better or got along with more easily than Tristan. He even passed what Sophie used to call “the boringness test.” She said men were easy to like when everything was exciting. But when nothing was going on and it was just the two of you—that was the real test.