Night Mares in the Hamptons (2 page)

You get used to it.

You don't get used to the bad dreams.

My cousin Susan did not seem to be affected. “You're not grouchy because you're sleep deprived,” she announced over lunch of lobster-corn salad. “You're sex deprived, that's what you are. And you look like shit.”

Eight years younger than me, Susan was a pain in the ass as a kid and still had a bratty streak about her that everyone tolerated because she'd had cancer. She also had a promiscuous streak that her parents could not tolerate, so she spent a lot of time at my house. Not that she spent the time with me. She brought home a steady stream of surfer dudes and haul-seiners and laid-off stockbrokers when she got off work as the chef at Uncle Bernie's restaurant. I put up with it because she was my cousin. And her cooking was spectacular.

“I've been having nightmares, that's all. Some of us can go a month without a man, you know.” That's how long it had been, not that it was any of Susan's business. “You ought to try it.”

“Why? I'm having a hell of a lot more fun than you are.”

Judging from her radiant good looks, with a hint of freckles across her nose and not a shadow under her eyes, I couldn't disagree. I kept my mouth shut, except for another mouthful of the herb-seasoned salad.

Susan licked mayonnaise off her fingers and grinned. That was another thing about Susan: she never got fat, no matter what she ate. Sometimes I hated her. “Don't the bad dreams bother you?”

“After having cancer, surgery, chemo, and radiation, to say nothing of having my hair fall out, you think a little anxiety is going to keep me awake?”

“I guess not.”

“Damn right. Besides, I don't sleep much at night, you know.”

She got off work about eleven, then went drinking or dancing until the bars closed, and spent the rest of the night with whatever lucky guy she'd found. Sometimes the same one for a whole week. “I know. You make more noise than a rhinoceros stamping out a fire.”

She grinned again. “That's the loose headboard in the guest room. I've been meaning to tighten the screws before the whole thing collapses.”

I didn't want to think about Susan's guests or screws or how she was daring me to loosen up. I guess being so close to her own mortality gave her the right to be reckless. Kind of like self-affirmation. I had nothing to prove. And I wasn't her keeper, no matter how my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother always expected me to look after her just because I was older.

“Have you ever seen the horses?” By now, everyone agreed that three white horses, mares, someone said, had taken to flickering in and out of sight around Paumanok Harbor in the dark. The nightmares started at the same time.

“No, but a lot of the locals have seen them. None of the tourists or summer people do, which is even freakier.”

Not really, if you accept that anyone born in Paumanok Harbor, or related to someone who was, or who'd attended a certain college in England, had eccentricity in their genes. An odd kick to the gallop, in equine terms. Talented, sensitive, gifted with extrasensory perceptions in pseudo-scientific lingo. Nut jobs, in other words. I hadn't decided what I thought. Or where I fit in.

Susan had it all figured out. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Me?”

“Of course you, dummy. Who else can save the town?”

“Me?” I choked on a piece of celery in the salad. Susan hit me on the back, far harder than needed. “You've been watching too much TV,” I told her. “This isn't save the cheerleader, save the world crap. I'm no hero.”

Susan took away the plates and brought out a piece of the molten chocolate cake that was on every restaurant's menu these days. And on my hips, thighs, and butt. I groaned.

Susan mistook my whimper. “I didn't think so either, but you're all we have.”

“I can't even sleep at night. What do you think I can do about some phantom horses?”

She shrugged. “It's not me. The whole town thinks you'll fix things. They're just wishing you'd get on with it already.”

“Get on with what? I don't know anything about wild horses and mind games.”

“You got rid of the troll, didn't you? Of course you brought the troll here, so it was only right.”

“I didn't bring—”

“And you rescued the missing kid and got that bastard Borsack fried before he could hurt anyone else. That was cool. And brave.”

Someone with an eyebrow ring thought I was cool? I sat up straighter. But brave? “I was so scared I almost peed my pants. Just thinking about that night still gives me chills. We could all have been killed then. The storm, the lightning, the guns and bombs.”

I shook off the tremors before Susan ate the whole cake. I waved my fork at her before stabbing a big chunk. “You're as crazy as the rest of the kooks in this town. I'm not brave, and I can't do anything about some wild horses except pull the covers over my head.”

“Mm.” She licked her fork. “So why do you think you're here?”

I looked around my mother's kitchen, at the old dogs sprawled on the terra cotta tiles to keep cool, at Little Red back to sleep in my lap after I told him chocolate wasn't good for Pomeranians. Then I looked out the window to my grandmother's herb farm, where the old bat was watering some new sprouts in pots, likely with eye of newt and dragon's tears.

“I'm here to take care of the dogs and make sure Grandma Eve doesn't poison anyone.”

Susan took the last piece of cake before I could get my fork on it. “You're dumber than I thought if you believe that.”

“Yeah, I know Grandma Eve's a world renowned herbalist, but the woman still scares me.” A lot of things scared me, to be absolutely truthful. This whole conversation was turning my stomach.

“Not Grandma. The crap about staying here to watch the dogs. Do they look like they're going to run away or attack the mailman?”

They were snoring, all of them.

Susan went on: “Anyone could come in to feed them and put them out in their pens. I offered. So did my mother, now that school is out. Un-uh. It had to be you. You're here to save the town and the horses, Willy. And you need to start soon before more trouble breaks out. I hear Mrs. Terwilliger bought herself a pistol.”

“The librarian?”

“Don't be late bringing those books back.”

“But I don't—I can't—”

She got up and took the plate to the sink. “You will. You're the hero.”

Me?

I
AM NOT BRAVE. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. My mother thinks it's because my father spoiled me, not making me face my fears. My father thinks I can walk on water; my mother thinks I'll sink like a lead weight every time. I know I can swim. If the surf isn't too rough and there are no jellyfish in the water.

Snakes, thunder, dark alleys, driving in snow, Grandma Eve, taxi drivers with eye patches, choking on a chicken bone when no one is around, doing something stupid when everyone is around, loving the wrong man, not being loved by the right man, plane rides—I could go on and on, with what I'm afraid of. Most times I rise above it. I've been on planes, thanks to modern pharmaceuticals. I'm not afraid to leave my house, or my apartment, though I have to admit I'm happiest there. Spiders are okay as long as they are not big and hairy and in my bathtub. Superstitions, black cats, ladders, and stuff don't bother me at all. Not after spending most summers of my life in Paumanok Harbor. I might not be as comfortable among strangers or crowds as Susan—hell, she'd talk to anyone, then bring him home for drinks or more. I spoke in public at the last graphic books convention, even if I did puke afterward.

I do what I have to do, like it or not. Like now, I had to call Agent Thaddeus Grant of the Department of Unexplained Events, and I really, really did not want to.

Not that I had a choice. Save the town? How about if I spun straw into gold? But let people, my friends and neighbors and relatives, start using each other for target practice?

If they all believed I was what they needed, it sure as hell wasn't because of my books or because I had some magnificent talent for manipulating the forces of another dimension, the ether world, magic. Call it what you will, I didn't have it. What I had was connections. Important connections to the Royce-Harmon Institute for Psionic Research, the geniuses who understood paranormal woo-woo. Cripes, they might have invented it, they went so far back in time. DUE was their international investigation and action arm; Grant was one of their agents. Think 007 with ESP.

Grant was also my lover, my almost fiancé. He was a hero and a TD&H stud and a master of so many talents—normal and para—that he kept my head spinning. Even though he swore he wasn't a telepath, sometimes I thought he was in my mind, he was so good at knowing what I wanted and when. He was gorgeous and rich and smart and kind, and I was afraid to call him.

I wasn't afraid
of
him. Hell, no. He was kind and caring, a real gentleman. Little Red, who snarled at everyone, including me, liked him. So did Grandma Eve. I am positive Grant would never hurt anyone who didn't threaten the universe. I worried about that for a minute, but no, he was in England after all, far away. And he loved me. Even if I . . .

I wouldn't think about that.

I'd make the call. Right after I had a snack.

Little Red and I went into the kitchen and filled a dish with coffee ice cream. Red got to lick the spoon. I poured a tiny bit of Kahlua over the ice cream, just for the taste. And the courage.

I told myself I wasn't really afraid of Grant, except for the damage he could do to my heart and my head. I loved him, unless that was just infatuation because he was nearly a god and a great lover. That was over a month ago, and you know what they say about absence. It makes the heart grow fonder. They also say out of sight, out of mind.

Thaddeus Grant was out of sight, but he'd taken up permanent residence in my thoughts. My heart, though, shook in its boots. He'd kind of proposed, and I'd kind of accepted in the heat of the moment. Now I felt a definite cold shiver down my spine at the thought of marrying a man I'd known for less than a month. Especially a man already bigger than life.

We spoke less often than we did when he first left America, but now we email every day. Somehow the distance seemed longer, and he's more impatient for me to come to England, to meet his family, to see how he lives.

I kept putting it off. I was writing. My mother needed me here. I couldn't find anyone to leave Little Red with. I actually admitted how much I hated the idea of flying. Mostly, truthfully, I did not want to meet his parents. His father was a frigging earl! They knew the Queen! They lived in an ancient palace! Anyone who's ever read a Regency romance knows what that means. Pride and prejudice, pomp and privilege, along with vast fortunes, hordes of servants, and a hundred pieces of silverware on the table. Yeah, I'd fit right in.

Grant said we didn't have to spend all our time in England. They were setting up a branch of the Royce Institute here in Paumanok Harbor, so he could use Long Island as an alternate base. He flew all over the world and I could go with him, he promised. As if constant air trips were a selling point. Or as if I could write in a plane, a hotel, or a palace.

No matter what he did now, where he lived, how far he traveled, he'd be the Earl of Grantham some day. I'd be a countess, taking tea with royalty.

I could talk about my writing. What my own family called comic books. Or how I put myself through college working at my grandmother's farm stand. Maybe they needed tips on picking a melon. And I could wear my denim cutoffs and flip-flops under the ermine—or was that for dukes?—and tiara.

Grant said they'd love me, because he did. Besides, we were meant for each other. He was the only one who could translate the tender inscription on my pendant, wasn't he, the one made from my mother's heirloom wedding band? What he meant was that the matchmakers at Royce decided we were genetically compatible, which I resented. Oh, boy, did I resent that. No one was going to pick a husband for me, no matter how brilliant and talented our children might turn out. Look what such a preordained coupling did for my parents, not that I am complaining about being born, but they've been divorced for almost as long as they were married. Besides, what if he only loved me because someone said he should? How could I know?

It wasn't going to work, Grant and me. The distance, the life-styles, the way
I'd
be doing most of the compromising. I touched the pendant. I and thou, one forever. That's what it said in an ancient mind-speaking language I could not imagine or comprehend. Like I could never imagine a happily ever after for the two of us. I had a great imagination, but I'm only human. I wasn't sure about Grant.