Wild in the Moonlight

Outside, evening was coming on. The crickets hadn’t started up yet, but the birds had already quieted, the last of the day’s sultry wind died down. It was that pre-dusk time when a soft, intimate yellow haze settled a gentle blanket on everything.

He’d leveled one plate, filled another. She had no choice about piling on more food. God knew how the man stayed so lean, but it was obvious he’d been starved. He even ate her asparagus soup with gusto, and that took guts for a guy.

“I didn’t see that much, driving up—but it looks like you’ve got a beautiful piece of land here,” he remarked.

“It is. Been in my family since the 1700s. My dad’s side was from Scotland. Lots of people with that background here. Maybe they felt at home with the rocky land and the slopes and the stern winters.” She asked, “Sometimes I catch a little French accent when you talk…which I guess is obvious if you work at Jeunnesse. But it’s not there all the time. Do you actually live in France?”

“Yes and no. I’ve worked for Jeunnesse for better than fifteen years now. I like them, like the work. But basically what I’ve always loved is traveling around the globe. So I’ve got a small apartment in Provence, but I’ve kept my American citizenship, have a cottage in upstate New York. Both are only places I hang my hat. I live for months at a time wherever Jeunnesse sends me.”

“So there’s no place you really call home?”

“Nope. I think I was just born rootless.” He said it as if wanting to make sure she really heard him. “You’re the opposite, aren’t you? Everything in your family’s land is about people who value roots.”

“Yes.” She suspected women had chased him, hoping they’d be the one who could turn him around. It was so ironic. She was as root bound as a woman could be. All she’d ever wanted in life was a man to love and a house full of kids. Still, discovering they were such opposites reassured her totally that nothing personal was likely to happen between them. “You’ve never had a hunger for kids?” she asked him.

“I’ve got kids. Two daughters, Miranda and Kate.” He leaned over and filled her glass. She wasn’t sure whether she’d finished two or he just kept topping off her first one. Either way she knew she wouldn’t normally be prying into a stranger’s life without the help of some Long Island iced tea. “My ex-wife still lives in upstate New York—which is why I’ve kept a cottage up there—so that I can easily come back a few times a year to see the girls. Although, often enough as they’ve gotten older, they’ve come to see me. They didn’t mind having a dad spring for tickets to Paris or Buenos Aires.”

“But didn’t you mind missing a lot of their growing-up years?”

He got up and served the grape sorbet—once he’d determined that was the one course he hadn’t tried yet. “Yeah. I missed it. But I tried the suit-and-tie kind of life when I was married. Almost went out of my mind. She kicked me out, told me I was the most irresponsible son of a gun she’d ever laid eyes on. But I wasn’t.”

“No?”

“No. I never missed a day’s work, never failed to bring home a paycheck. It was sitting still I couldn’t handle. Everyone can’t like the same music, you know?”

She knew, but she also suspected there had to be some kind of story in those lake-blue eyes. Maybe he was a vagabond, one of those guys who couldn’t stand to be tied down. But maybe something had made him that way.

She stood up and hefted their plates. His life wasn’t her business, of course, or ever likely to be. “I’ll pop the dishes in the dishwasher, and then we can talk outside.”

“Nope.” He stood up, too. “I’ll pop the dishes in the dishwasher, and you can put your foot up outside.”

She let him.

Once he called out, “Is it okay if I put the cats in the dishwasher, too?”

And she yelled back, “Why, sure. If you don’t want to live until morning.”

He banged around in there, whistling something that sounded like “Hard-Hearted Woman,” occasionally scolding the cats, but eventually he finished up and pushed through the back screen door, carrying another pitcher, sweating cold and jammed with ice cubes.

She’d already settled on the old slatted swing, with her sore foot perched on the swing arm and her good foot braced against the porch rail to keep the swing moving at a lullaby speed. He took the white wicker rocker and poured two glasses. “Two iced teas. No alcohol involved.”

“Good.” It was time they talked seriously. She knew it as well as he did, but the screen door suddenly opened as if by a ghost hand, startling them both…only to see a flat-faced golden Persian nuzzle her way outside. As soon as Cameron settled back in the rocker, the thug-size cat leaped on his lap.

“Could you tell your damn cat it’s hotter than blazes, and I need a fur coat on my lap like I need poison ivy?”

“It’s hard to hear over her purring, but honestly, if she’s in your way, just put her down.”

“Get down,” he told the cat, in a lover’s croon. But that wasn’t the voice he used with her. Maybe he was stroking the cat, but the eyes that met hers had turned cool and careful. “You think we’ve spent enough time getting comfortable with each other?”

“Enough to talk,” she agreed, and settled one thing right off the bat. “You’ve spent hours traveling and it’s too late now to find a place in White Hills. You can stay here tonight, no matter how we work out everything else.”

“I’ll camp outside,” he said.

“Fine.” She wasn’t making a big deal out of where he hung his hat. He’d won some trust from her. Not a ton. But if she didn’t feel precisely safe around him, it wasn’t because she feared he was a serial killer or criminal. The man had more character in his jaw bone than most men did in their whole bodies. “But it’s your plan for my lavender that I want to hear about.”

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