Free Moonlight in the Morning by Jude Deveraux Page B

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