Moonlight Man by Judy Griffith Gill

music, which I’ve always treasured, lived on, and eventually gave me some comfort …”
    Her eyes opened wide. “You lost your family? Oh, Marc, I am so sorry.”
    He flicked at one of the tears that spilled from the corner of her eye. “Don’t cry for me. It’s all in the past. I want to look to the future. And last night gave me hope that maybe I can have the future I want.”
    “Last night was …” Her voice trailed away.
    “Was what?” he asked softly, lifting her face up, cupping his hands around it. “As magical for you as it was for me?”
    His hands, hard and callused, which had felt erotic the previous night, felt different somehow, reminding her of the wide variety of tasks they had performed, and she knew he was still being evasive. He was no manual laborer, this man. Not with his understated elegance, his educated manner of speaking, his knowledge and savoir faire. He was a chameleon who was, in spite of his attraction to her, still avoiding telling her the truth about himself.
    She would never let another dishonest man into her life!
    “Don’t touch me!” she said, jerking away from him.
    The violence of her reaction, as well as the sudden flare of anger mixed with fear in her eyes, shook him as she tore herself free, wrapping her arms around herself. “Go home, Marc. Please, just go home now.”
    He picked up his guitar and his jacket and nodded. To the bowed back of her head, he said quietly, “All right, Sharon. We’ll leave it for now. But I intend to know what happened to you. And I mean to make whatever went wrong, right.”
    She lifted her head, turned and looked at him, and the tragedy he read in her face made him want to weep for her as she had for him. “Nobody can, Marc. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. It can never be right again, so there’s no point in my wanting a man like you—a man who would want too much.”
    He shook his head. “I’d never ask for more than you could give me.”
    “You would!” she protested, her mouth twisting. “You’d want everything.”
    “Yes,” he agreed softly. “Of course I would. But why not? You have everything to give.”
    He slipped out the door then, leaving her standing at the archway to the entrance. After a moment, she locked the door behind her and went quietly up to bed.
    She lay for a long time thinking about him, and soon it was morning and the whole house was stirring. She got out of bed quickly. There was no time for brooding. She had guests and children to feed, which was just as well. She’d never had much time for brooders. Action was what she preferred, and action was what she would take.

Chapter Four
    “IT’S BEEN A WONDERFUL TIME , Sharon.” Zinnie hugged her tightly as she and her family prepared to leave. “You gave your sister and our son a beautiful wedding and all of us a delightful Christmas. It was more fun than we’ve had for a long time. You and your kids are a real bonus to us. What are you going to do with the rest of the holiday?”
    “Today, we’re going skiing, and we may go up again tomorrow, but the day after that, I’m afraid the library’s open again, and I’ll be working.”
    “Where do you ski?”
    “Up Island. Mount Washington. It’s the only one within reach for us, unless we want to stay over. Taking the ferry across to the mainland and back just eats up too much skiing time.”
    “You mean you’ll drive up there today and back again tonight?” Harry asked, frowning. “Surely that eats up a lot of skiing time too.”
    “Well, yes, but it’s what we have, so we make the best of it. Besides, the drive’s no problem, since I don’t have to travel in snow. I don’t actually go up the mountain as a rule. They insist on chains, and I hate putting them on as much as I hate driving on snowy roads. There’s a shuttle bus from the main parking lot. We use that.”
    “I know about the bus. We ski on Mount Washington, too, but listen, we have a chalet up there. Why