Moonlight in the Morning (26 page)

“Whoa! Why do you want that old place?”

“Jecca’s dad’s thinking about opening a hardware store in Edilean.”

“Since when?” Roan asked.

“Since he sent me an e-mail about ten minutes ago.”

“Is Jecca going to stay in town and repair chainsaws?”

“I don’t know,” Tris said. “I’m just trying to make it easy for her to stay. Drop off the clothes at my house, then go to Rams and get the papers drawn up. Better yet, go to Rams first. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” Roan said. “And I sure do like being love’s go-between.”

“Gets you out of writing, so what are you complaining about?”

“Good point,” Roan said and hung up.

Tris went back into the store and took twelve pictures, with Lucy at the center of each one. He wanted to take more, but the women made him stop.

“Tonight,” Jecca whispered to him, “when we’re in bed, you’re going to tell me what you’re up to.”

Tristan just smiled at her, then snapped a picture of Lucy holding up some transparent pink fabric that had little rhinestones on it. He went outside to send the six best photos to Joe Layton.

I
OWN AN OLD BRICKYARD,
Tris wrote, fudging a bit on the truth. N
EEDS
R
EPAIR
. L
OTS OF PARKING
. J
UST OFF THE ROAD INTO WILLIAMSBURG
. I’
LL
PAY FOR REMODEL
.

Less than ten minutes later came the reply. S
END PARTICULARS AND MOREULAGets y PHOTOS OF
L
UCY
. O
NE OF BUILDING TOO
. Y
OU ONE OF JEC’S UGLY BOYFRIENDS
?

Tris went back into the store and asked Jecca to take a photo of him and Nell together.

“Tristan!” she said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t have time for this now. We need to—”

He kissed her neck in that way he knew she liked. “Please,” he whispered.

Jecca sighed.

“I’ll take one of the three of you,” Lucy said. “Stand over there.”

Tris picked up his niece, leaned toward Jecca, with Nell between them. Neither Jecca nor Nell was smiling. They wanted to get back to the fabrics. “Think of the faces of the McDowell girls when Nell walks onto that runway,” Tris said and they smiled warmly.

Tris took the camera from Lucy and hurried back outside. It was a good photo. But for the second time in his life, he was worried about his looks. Was he handsome enough to please Joe Layton? Too handsome? A guy who ran a hardware store might think Tris was too “pretty.” “Can’t help the way I look,” he said aloud, then started typing. W
ITH MY NIECE
. T
HE FAMILY I HOPE TO HAVE
.

He sent the photo.

This time it took about twelve minutes before Mr. Layton replied, and Tris was sure he held his breath the whole time. J
EC LOOKS HAPPY
. T
ELL HER NOTHING
. I’
LL BE THERE AFTER I CLEAR UP THIS END
. I’
LL DO REMODEL. SEND MORE OF LUCY
.

Tris leaned back against his car and let out his breath. Maybe, he thought, just maybe . . .

“Tristan!” Jecca called from the door of the store. “We need your help.”

When he got to her, she said, “Tonight, you are going to tell me what is going on with you.”

“Unless I can distract you,” Tris said so she couldn’t hear him.

Eighteen

They worked on the clothes for the fashion show every minute possible for the next week—and everyone who knew about the top-secret project helped. Kim wanted to help, but she had a new commission for an anniversary necklace and couldn’t. Tristan said he’d cleared everything with Savannah and he’d made Rebecca believe that this was going to be her best birthday party ever.

“And it will be,” Jecca said. No matter what had been done in the past, it wasn’t in her to ruin any child’s party.

Mrs. Wingate turned her store over to the young woman who’d been dying for the chance to manage it. Roan said he’d forgo writing for a week—and Tris limited himself to oULAGe="0em">

Lucy and Jecca ordered everyone around, and the favorite question soon became, “What do you want me to do now?”

Roan and Tris hauled a table down from the attic and put it in the hallway to use for cutting.

“Too bad my dad isn’t here,” Jecca said.

Tris nearly choked on his coffee. “Why?”

“That table is too low for cutting. It’ll hurt your back. If Dad were here he’d make a plywood box and raise the table to counter height.”

“I bet you miss your dad a lot,” Tris said as he put old phone books under the legs of the table.

Jecca gave him a sharp look. She knew he was doing something in secret, but try as she might, she couldn’t get him to tell her what it was. At night as they slipped into bed together—half the time in her bed, half in his—she tried to get him to answer her questions. But he’d start kissing her, his hands would be all over her body, and she’d forget what she was saying.

All she knew for sure was that Tris had suddenly become an avid photographer—mostly of Lucy—and his phone never stopped buzzing. He’d excuse himself often to take a call from his cousin Rams. Jecca had asked him about the man, but all Tris would say was, “It’s short for Ramsey,” then he’d get busy on some task.

Twice, a young man brought Tristan papers to sign, and when Jecca asked about them, he was evasive. “Tell you later,” he said then hurried off.

If Jecca hadn’t been so overwhelmed with work she would have pursued it, but she couldn’t. Everyone had questions for her, from which buttons to use, to how deep the hem was to be, to the color of the hat brim.

Tris and Roan were great at cutting out the patterns, and all handwork was done by Mrs. Wingate. Lucy did the bulk of the sewing with her marvelous machines, but by the fourth day, after late nights and early mornings, she was wearing out. She pulled out the chair in front of the serger.

“Tristan,” Lucy said sternly, “if you can stop taking pictures of me for a few minutes, I’m going to show you how to do a four-thread overedge.”

Tris hesitated for a moment and they all looked at him.

“Pretend it’s a ruptured aortic valve,” Nell said.

“Just what I was about to say,” Jecca said, and they all laughed. She couldn’t help wondering if Nell had been making medical comments all along but Jecca just hadn’t noticed.

The job Nell begged for was to change the colors of thread on the embroidery done on the big Bernina 830. Lucy taught her how to hold the thread in place with her right hand while feeding it through the channels with the left. Nell loved pushing the white button for the automatic needle threader, and she made a little sound of triumph when everything was ready and she could press the green Go button.

Roan often escaped to the kitchen, and they brok aneryte for lunch to whatever he’d cooked for them. He didn’t seem in any hurry to get back to the isolation of his cabin.

But no matter how busy they got, at 3
P.M.
sharp, the women stopped to work out.

On the first day, Tris gave a very nice speech about why he thought he and Roan should be allowed to participate, but the women just laughed at him. They hurried down the stairs to the basement, Nell with them, and an hour later they were back upstairs, lightly glowing with perspiration, ready for the afternoon tea that Roan had prepared.

“So what did you do today?” Tris asked as he ate a crab sandwich that Roan had made.

“The usual,” Lucy said.

“Nothing we haven’t done before,” Mrs. Wingate said.

“Mmmm,” Jecca said, her mouth full.

“Cuban dancing!” Nell said.

“Salsa?” Tris asked.

“You guys were doing salsa?” Roan asked. “Don’t you need a partner for that? I could show you a couple of moves that—”

“No,” Jecca said firmly. “No men allowed.”

The men sighed.

On Friday morning Nell’s mother, Addy, walked into Lucy’s studio. “Tristan!” she said loudly from the doorway, with more than a little anger in her voice. “Did it ever occur to you that I’d like to see my own daughter now and then?”

Tris was unperturbed and didn’t even look up from the Baby Lock serger. “Glad you’re here. Roan needs help cutting. It’s going to be a late night.”

“Mom!” Nell yelled as she extricated herself from Lucy, who was pinning a sleeve to her shoulder, and ran to hug her mother. “Come see what we’ve made.”

Addy looked over her daughter’s head at the busy room. It was a moment before she noticed two little girls near the far wall. The pretty young woman who she assumed was Jecca Layton was sitting on the floor pinning up a hem on one girl’s dress. Addy recognized the two girls as Nell’s friends. They were smart children, the kind who got straight As, but they weren’t pretty or fashionable enough to be included in Savannah McDowell’s circle. This year they’d been included in the fashion show, but it was going to be torment for them.

“Yes,” Addy said, “I’d like to see everything.”

Thirty minutes later, she had taken over Tris’s job at the serger, and he went back to cutting. In the afternoon, Nell’s dad, Jake, showed up. Jecca liked him instantly. He had a quiet, solid way about him that reminded her of her father and brother.

“What can I do?” he asked Jecca. He had a cane, and she could tell that even standing was difficult for him.

“Ever done any hand sewing?” she asked him.

“I’m a soldier. Who do you think repairs the tears?”

Jecca scooted one of the kids out of the only upholstered chair—there were now four girls plus Nell—and quickly showed him how to roll the strips of silk Lucy had gathered and make them into roses.

For a moment he looked at Jecca in disbelief. His eyes seemed to say, “A man just back from war making silk roses?” But he said nothing.

“If you can’t do it, let me know,” Jecca said.

“I think I can manage,” he answered.

As Jecca walked away, Tris smiled at her in amusement, and Addy looked at her in curiosity.

“It’s a scientific fact,” Lucy said, “that silk heals wounds,” and they all laughed.

Later Tris took photos of Jake, his cane propped against the side of the chair, and his lap filled with a sea of brightly colored silk roses. Jake’s handsome face showed intense concentration as he hand sewed together the edges of a fuchsia-colored, silk charmeuse blossom.

“I’m never going to live this down,” Jake mumbled, but he was smiling.

One by one, the parents came to pick up their daughters, and each mother was lavish in her thanks.

“Lisa gets invited to things, but she never fits in,” one mother said, and there were tears in her eyes. “That you’re making such an effort with her . . .” The woman broke off, and Jecca put her arm around her shoulders.

“Just be sure Lisa is there tomorrow by ten, and the hairdresser—”

“I know,” the woman said. “She already called me.” The woman held on to Jecca’s hand with both of hers. “I can never thank you enough for this.”

When she was gone, Jecca ran back upstairs. They still had six more outfits to finish. With more girls, and each one wearing two outfits, their workload had greatly expanded. Mrs. Wingate had made arrangements for the local hairdresser and her sister to be at their salon at 6
A.M.
on Saturday. Jecca had drawn pictures of how she wanted the girls’ hair styled, and in two cases, cut.

All of it was to be done with as much secrecy as possible.

“Edilean has had a lot of practice in keeping secrets,” Tris said, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

At midnight he made Lucy and Jecca turn off the lights, and he led Jecca across the hall to her bedroom. When he started to undress her, she said, “I’m too tired to—”

The look he gave her made her stop talking. There wasn’t sex in his eyes but tenderness and caring. She gave herself over to him.

He led her to a hot shower and undressed her. Through it all, he talked to her in a low, soothing voice. He told her what a good job she’d done all week, how well she’d managed the projects and the people.

She got in the shower, and his words, combined with the hot water, were beginning to revive her and she reached out to him.

But Tris stepped back. He picked up her bottle of shampoo, and whilepoosible.

He rinsed her hair, turned off the water, and wrapped her in a thick towel. By the time they got to the bedroom, she was yawning. He dressed her, not in one of the lacy things she usually wore around him, but in her favorite old T-shirt.

He pulled back the covers, and just as she’d seen him do with Nell, he gently put the cover over her and kissed her forehead.

She thought he meant to leave, so she caught his hand.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “you can’t get rid of me. Let me shower and I’ll be back to hold you all night long.”

Smiling, she fell asleep, and when he climbed in beside her, wearing only the bottoms to his pajamas, she snuggled against him, her lips on his bare, warm skin. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard herself say, “I love you.” She was even less sure when she thought she heard him say, “I know.”

On Friday at lunch—the day before the show—Roan said he’d had some experience in the acting world. Since no one could see how that related to anything, there were no comments. That Roan, with his big voice and larger-than-life personality, had once been an actor seemed a given.

“All right,” he said, “since no one seems able to take my hint, I’ll just tell you that I’m going to organize it all.”

“You mean the fashion show? For the kids?” Jecca asked. She was hand sewing the roses Jake had made onto the neckline of a dress.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Roan said. “Tris, you get lunch cleanup detail. I’ve got kids’ parents to call.”

When Jecca started to ask questions, Roan said she and Lucy weren’t allowed to see or hear about anything. They were to go back to sewing, but Addy was to help him.

“And give up bending over that machine?” Addy muttered. “How will I manage?”

While Lucy and Jecca went back upstairs to bury themselves in the final adjustments to the clothes for all the children, the others went in and out of the rooms downstairs as they participated in Roan’s top-secret plans.

Lucy didn’t ask questions, but Jecca did. Tris almost gave in and revealed everything a couple of times, but Nell kept him in line. “You’ll ruin it!” she warned her uncle. “We want Jecca to be surprised.” Tris refused to say anything about whatever Roan was doing.

Over the course of the afternoon, the children who were going to be in the show returned to Mrs. Wingate’s house with their mothers—and one divorced dad.

Jecca heard music, what sounded like stomping, and a couple of times, cheering. She wanted to know what was going on, but she had too much work to do to try to find out.

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, without a hint of a cloud in the sky.

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“How are you doing?” Tris asked Jecca as he pulled her into his arms. They were at his house, snuggled together in his bed.

“Fine,” Jecca said. “It’s just a little local kids’ show, that’s all. There’s no reason to be nervous.” She tossed the cover back, stepped out of the bed—and her legs collapsed.

Tris caught her before she hit the floor.

Jecca sat on the edge of the bed, Tris behind her, his long legs straddling hers as he pulled her back against him.

“It’ll be all right,” he said as he kissed her cheek. “You have a lot of help, and everyone knows what they’re to do.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just that . . .”

“That what?”