could tell by the play of shadow and light across his jaw he clenched his teeth. After a drawn-out silence, he nodded curtly, broke eye contact and strode off along the stone path.
She watched his exodus until she realized what she was doing, then she turned away. After a few minutes, she managed to calm down. She lifted her gaze toward the vaulted window in the old, stone wall. The moon no longer hung dead center in the space, but was set off-kilter in a corner. She felt as askew as it looked.
Unbidden, her attention slid back to the inn. In the distance she could see the ghostly image of Roth Jerric disappearing around the corner toward the front porch. She closed her eyes. Struggling to compose herself she sucked in a breath of fresh, night air.
“Okay, Hannah,” she whispered. “For the sake of your healing, keep your distance from…” She faltered on the words, so she went on silently…from that smug, disturbing SOB, Roth Jerric.
Roth walked away from Hannah feeling like crap. Of course, he already felt that way when he began his walk, but his brief encounter with the woman on the bench left him not only annoyed but confused. He didn’t need a fortune teller to see that she hated him, but he couldn’t imagine why. He’d spoken to her at meetings on occasion, or nodded a casual hello in the elevator from time to time. But he’d never said anything to upset her, let alone cause her to resign.
And he certainly hadn’t been laughing at her out there. He’d simply been incredulous that she would quit her job over anything Milo had said. The man was a competent lawyer, but on a personal level Roth found him to be a blowhard and a braggart. Had Miss Hudson given him half a chance he would have said so. Clearly his opinion was as unwelcome as his presence.
“Let it go, Jerric,” he muttered. “You have problems of your own.” He bounded up the steps to the inn’s expansive front porch and walked across the wooden planking toward the screen door. It was a different screen door from the one he remembered from his youth, when this house had been his family home. But it had the same rusty screech when pulled open.
The scarred oak door was the same one from all those years ago. He recognized it, even painted white instead of the bright green he remembered. He paused, his hand on the brass doorknob, its oval shape familiar in his grasp. It seemed smaller than it had when he lived there. He supposed it should, since he was ten when his family moved from this house, originally the parsonage for the old church which had burned down in 1919.
The house was a century old, but well-built. It had gone through many incarnations since the demise of the countryside church. When Roth lived there the property was their chicken farm. After his father died, his mother moved him and his older sister, Grace, to Oklahoma’s state capital, where she worked as a secretary. He’d never returned to his childhood home until today, when he made the sudden decision to get away from the rat race, seek out his roots. He could no longer avoid dealing with an inner struggle growing inside him, gnawing, eating away at his soul.
He was disillusioned with the conflict between his aspirations and the reality of his life. However successful he appeared on the surface, he was not a happy man. The disillusionment began with his disappointing marriage and the death of his month-old son, Colin. Not long after the infant’s death, his teetering marriage collapsed. That was six years ago. Since then, he had closed off emotionally, throwing himself into work.
He supposed, to his colleagues, he seemed like a golden boy, enviable for his wealth and swank bachelor lifestyle. But in truth, he was in crisis. So, in a moment of nostalgic weakness, he’d sought out his family home, now the Blue Moon Inn. He hoped to recapture a time he remembered fondly, before life became a succession of tough negotiations, 24/7 business stress, bitter disillusionment and gut-wrenching loss.
He leaned against the door, tired all the way to his bones. As far back as he could remember, he got everything he went after. Yet whether his fault or not, he had lost what had been most dear to him—his wife and son. Everything else he had, money, power and success, seemed pale and flat by comparison.
He’d come to the Blue Moon Inn to get back his boyhood exuberance, and that’s what he planned to do. He straightened and sucked in a deep breath. Enough of this maudlin self-pity. He twisted the knob and strode inside.
The inn’s brightly lit foyer brought into sharp focus the worn wood floors and moldings, faded oriental rugs and dark oil paintings in need of cleaning. There were other art pieces tacked to walls. Newer works. Some exhibited talent. Others, in his opinion, ran more to smeared and spattered monstrosities.
The Blue Moon Inn wasn’t the sort of deluxe retreat he was accustomed to, but he hadn’t come for a luxurious vacation or a romantic getaway with a finicky girlfriend. This was the home of his heart, before it had been broken, then put to sleep as a safeguard against pain. He didn’t know if what he hoped for was possible, but he planned to spend these two weeks finding a way to repair his crumbling joie de vivre.
“Why, hello there, Mr., uh,” came a warbly female voice he recognized as that of his hostess.
He turned toward the sound of her shuffling approach. “Jerric,” he helped. “Roth Jerric.”
The pear-shaped, elderly woman crossed the parlor in his direction. Close behind her trailed a wire-haired, gray mongrel the size of a large cat. “Of course,” she said. “I thought you’d gone to bed.” The parlor from which his hostess exited was lit by one lamp, its shade yellowed with age. That lone lamp spilled jaundiced light across outdated, faded furnishings. Plainly the Blue Moon Inn had seen better days.
Out of years of habit, Roth pasted on a casual grin. “Hello, Mrs. Peterson.” He glanced at his wristwatch. Nearly midnight. “You’re up late.”
“Oh, there’s much to be done, Mr. Johnson.”
“Jerric,” he corrected.
“Yes, yes, certainly,” she said, sounding a bit preoccupied. Barely five feet tall, she wore a green shirtdress and crisp, white apron. She wasn’t smiling. “You were outside?”
He nodded. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Did you happen to see a woman out there? In the garden in the church ruins, perhaps?”
“Yes. Were you looking for her?” He felt something brush his leg and looked down to see the mutt, sniffing him. He shifted away. The dog seemed to get the hint, or lost interest, because it returned to stand beside the woman, its feet making light tapping sounds on the scarred oak.
“I sent her out there. I mean…” Mrs. Peterson’s worry-creased expression didn’t ease. “You didn’t go near her, did you?”
What an odd query. “Actually, yes. We spoke for a moment.”
“Oh, gracious!” The woman clasped both hands to her breast. “Are you saying you stood by that bench in the—the moonlight? With her?”
He nodded, bewildered by the alarm in the woman’s question.
“Oh, no!” she cried, startling the dog. It barked, the sound high-pitched and curiously reminiscent of its elderly owner. “Hush, Miss Mischief,” she admonished, not looking at the animal. She ran both hands through short-cropped, iron-colored hair. “All my work, my planning, ruined.”
He clenched his teeth. What in Hades was going on? He’d been at the inn for less than two hours, done nothing but unpack and take a blasted walk, and already two women were upset with him. “Your friend in the garden
