“Ready to go?”
Abby nodded and forced herself to stand. Definitely tired. But disappointed, too. She’d wanted a little more time with Katie.
“Later,” Katie said to the others as she and Abby went inside. Lu was in the kitchen, working on hot chocolate.
“Hey, Lu. We’re both really tired.” Katie put her beer bottle and Abby’s glass on the counter. “I’m going to take Abby back to Eleanor’s and I’ll probably see you Monday.”
“All right, sweetie.” Lu gave her a hug and a kiss. “When are you leaving on Tuesday?”
“In the morning.”
“Okay.” Lu looked at Abby. “I’ll see you on Monday. Come early.”
“I will. Thanks.” She waved at Lu before she joined Katie at the front door. Nobody was on the front porch, and as Katie closed the door behind them, Abby reveled in the fact that she was finally alone with her, as tired as she was. Not much light fell through the windows here, since the front rooms of the house were mostly dark, but some emanated from four jack o’ lanterns—two on the floor on each side of the doorway and two others on waist-high plant stands above them. Somebody must have put fresh candles in them, because lively flames still flickered through their eyes and mouths, and Abby caught the faint smell of charred pumpkin.
Katie made no move to leave the porch, so Abby stayed, watching her face in the glow from the jack o’ lanterns.
Katie cleared her throat. “So, um, even though things got a little out of hand out there, I had a really good time.”
“So did I. Thanks for taking me to the glen.”
“Oh, sure. Glad I was able to facilitate something so scary that we both almost lost our shit.”
Abby laughed. “Isn’t that what Halloween’s about? So this one is pretty memorable.” And not just because of the glen.
“Definitely.” Katie didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and silence gathered between them, the kind filled with anticipation.
Katie eventually slid her hands into her jacket pockets. “What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked, and she sounded so endearing. There was something really delicious about that.
“I don’t know. I haven’t made any plans.” Abby tried not to sound too hopeful.
“Um, so…would you like to get together?” Something in the tone of her voice released butterflies in Abby’s chest. Definitely not a friend zone tone.
“If it involves the glen, I’m taking a rain check.”
“Well, darn,” Katie teased. “Okay, how about lunch?”
“That would be great.”
“Good. That’s really good. Um, because I’d really like to spend more time with you.”
Abby’s heart pounded and sparks danced down her legs. “So can I presume that you’re officially asking me out?”
Katie half-laughed and it sounded nervous. “Yeah.”
“And can I also presume that unlike your ancestor, you don’t have any other people in the wings?”
Katie laughed. “Yes, you can presume that. I’m single and I’m not really the polyamorous type. If that was really what was going on with Katrina and company. We’ll have to theorize more on that.”
“I’d actually like to theorize on something else right now.”
“Oh?”
Abby cupped Katie’s cheeks with her hands, surprised at her own boldness, and leaned in. She barely touched her lips to Katie’s, but she let them linger, because she liked how it felt, to go slow and light at first. But Katie’s breath was hot and fast against her mouth and Abby felt Katie’s hands on her hips. So Abby kissed her a little harder, and Katie responded, and oh, God, her lips were amazing. Better than she’d fantasized. So much better. Abby wrapped her arms around Katie and pulled her close, and the feel of Katie against her like that and Katie’s mouth made Abby’s blood heat, made her want much more.
Abby pulled away before she indulged that desire, but kept her arms around Katie’s neck.
“Damn,” Katie said softly, hands still on Abby’s hips. “I’m going to hope that’s a yes to going out on an official date with me.”
“Definitely.” Abby stared into Katie’s eyes, reveling in what she saw within. She covered Katie’s hands with her own. “And as much as I’d like to continue this, it’s late, I’m tired, and we’re standing on your aunt’s porch.”
Katie grinned. “True.”
Abby took her hands off Katie’s. And Katie let go of Abby’s hips, though by the look in Katie’s eyes, it was clear she didn’t want to. She held Abby’s hand on the way to the bed and breakfast, a too-short, eight-block drive. And now here they were, standing on the walk that led to the front door.
“Noon tomorrow?” Katie asked.
“Perfect.”
“I’ll pick you up.” She took Abby’s hand again, and they walked together up the walkway and up the steps that led to the bed and breakfast’s wraparound porch. Katie waited while Abby got the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door.
“Good night,” Katie said. “In spite of all the crazy, I had a most excellent evening.”
Abby smiled. “Same here. See you soon.” She fought an urge to kiss her again, because she knew if she did, she’d bring Katie inside. And as much as she wanted to do that, she preferred waiting a little. And she definitely wanted to be rested. Those thoughts made her thighs tingle. “Good night,” she said, and she stepped inside and closed the door behind her before she could change her mind.
Katie waved at her through the door’s glass and blew her a goofy kiss. Abby laughed and watched her until she had pulled away from the curb. A most excellent evening indeed. She went upstairs to bed.
Hardly any light filtered to the forest floor from the waning moon and Abby struggled to make out the path underfoot, which was barely wider than her two feet. She picked her way, mindful of where she stepped.
“Elizabeth,” she heard a woman calling, her voice echoing through the otherwise silent forest.
Finally, she reached a clearing bathed in weak moonlight and there stood a figure in a black cloak.
“Elizabeth,” the figure said as she pushed her cloak’s hood back.
Katrina, Abby thought. Or did she say it aloud? She didn’t hear herself speak, but Katrina approached.
“They mustn’t see you like this, my love,” Katrina said. “The trousers will no longer do.”
My love? Abby looked down at her legs. She was wearing jeans. Katrina embraced her and Abby stiffened. I’m not Elizabeth, she tried to say, but the words never left her mouth. Why couldn’t she talk? And were they in the glen? Would the horseman come?
“We must get you out of these clothes,” Katrina said and suddenly she wasn’t Katrina, but rather Katie, who wrapped them both in the cloak and Abby felt Katie’s lips on her neck and then on her mouth and she was so safe and so warm and then Katie’s phone rang.
Phone?
Abby opened her eyes then shut them again because the morning light was bright enough to hurt. The phone rang again, but it wasn’t Katie’s. It was the land line downstairs, and it was a loud, old-fashioned ring. She heard somebody answer, and she stretched and smiled as memories of last night’s kiss replaced the dream and greeted her along with the sunlight. The bedside clock read a little after nine, and Abby groaned and covered her head with her pillow, thinking about the night before, remembering how Katie’s lips made her feel like fireworks on a roller coaster.
The clock read nearly ten when she looked at it again so she got out of bed. She was halfway to the bathroom when her phone rang with a specific tone. “Hey,” she answered, thinking that she finally understood what the term “swoon” meant.
“Hi,” Katie said. “Sorry to bother you, but I just—I really wanted to hear your voice.”
Abby smiled so wide it almost hurt. She sank back onto the bed. “And I’m so glad you did.”
“And as I suspected would be the case, it’s having an amazing effect on me.”
“Is that a scientific assessment?”
“Absolutely not. Some things are beyond the reach of science.”
Oh, God. Abby forced herself to breathe normally. How was this even happening? Things like this never happened to her. But here she was, in the middle of a crush gone live. “I agree. Some things are.”
“So. Um. I was wondering if maybe we could start lunch a little earlier.” Tentative. A little shy. Too cute.
“I can be ready in thirty minutes,” Abby said.
“Late breakfast okay? Unless you’re dying for more lunch-appropriate food.”
“Breakfast is good any time of the day.”
“I knew I liked you. Pancakes?”
“Love them.”
“Then I have just the place. Totally casual. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Abby rolled off the bed. “Yes, you will. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Abby tossed the phone on the chair and did a little hop and jump while she pumped her fists in the air. Date. Thirty minutes. She bounded into the bathroom, took a quick shower, then agonized for another ten minutes about which pair of jeans to wear. She opted for the older, with the faded knees and butt, and put them on along with an old gray T-shirt over which she put her favorite rugby shirt, thinking about how good Katie looked dressed as casually as this.
Did she really kiss her last night? Her lips tingled with the memory. Yes. She had. And it was even better than her imagination had promised.
She laced her hiking shoes, thinking. Sometimes dreams tried to tell you something, but only because they were tapping into things already in your head that you hadn’t yet accessed. So why would Katrina call her Elizabeth? And why would she tell her that the trousers would no longer do? She stood just as her cell phone dinged with a text message. Katie, letting her know she was outside. Abby grabbed her fleece, wallet, and room key and practically ran down the stairs and out the front door.
Katie’s SUV was parked right in front on the street and she was leaning against the passenger side. When she saw Abby, she smiled and took her sunglasses off.
How could anyone look so good in jeans and a sweatshirt, Abby wondered. She’d left her hair down and it hung around her shoulders in soft, dark waves. Now that was a sight.
“Hi,” she said as Abby approached, and she looked like she wasn’t sure how to greet her, like she was debating how much physical contact she should display.
“Morning,” Abby replied and solved Katie’s dilemma by leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. Her lips lingered just a little longer than a friendly peck.
Katie touched the spot where Abby’s lips had just been. The expression in her eyes was a mixture of pleasure, surprise, and relief.
“Pancake time,” Abby said as she opened the passenger door.
“So it is.” Katie went around to the driver’s side. “How was your night?” she asked as she pulled away from the curb.
“Before or after you drove me to the bed and breakfast?” She looked over at Katie and was rewarded with another smile.
“If your night was anything like mine before that, then it was incredible.” She kept her eyes on the road.
“So was mine.” Abby stared out the windshield, too, enjoying the charge in the air between them but feeling a little shy herself all of a sudden. Katie didn’t say anything for a while until they’d hit the outskirts of town, on a different road than the one to the glen.
“The restaurant is a few miles away, but it’s really worth it,” Katie said. “It might be a little crowded, since it’s Sunday, but maybe everybody slept in.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, and fidgeted as she drove.
“Sounds good.” Abby got a little more comfortable, giving Katie space to say whatever was on her mind, because she clearly needed it.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Katie said a few moments later. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since Thursday, when I met you officially at the historical society.”
The butterflies in Abby’s stomach increased by at least a few hundred. “I would’ve let you.” Which was crazy, but true.
“Yeah?” Katie looked at her.
“Road,” Abby said as the SUV drifted into the other lane.
Katie steered back. “Sorry. You have this...effect on me.” She smiled. “You would have?”
“Yes. I have no scientific explanation for it. And I’m not looking for one.”
Another silence fell between them, but it was a shared assessment, and Abby welcomed it.
“So, um, I’d like to get to know you better,” Katie said.
“I’d like that.” Abby studied her profile and thoroughly enjoyed the view.
“But I might be a little old fashioned in some respects.” Katie slowed down and turned left into the parking lot of a sprawling log structure that looked like it belonged on the label of a bottle of maple syrup. It had a fireplace or a stove because smoke curled from its chimney. Downright homey. And lucky for them, the lot was only half-full.
“Well, Gary did say you were picky,” Abby said.
Katie laughed. “Oh, he did?” She parked and turned off the engine. “And maybe I hoped he’d find out whether or not you were single.”
“He did find out. But you could’ve asked me,” Abby said with a little grin.
“I might not have wanted to know if you weren’t.”
“Clearly.” Abby opened her door.
“What do you mean?” Katie asked as she got out too, her tone light and teasing.
“From my observations Thursday in the glen, I’m pretty sure you would have been fine with it had something happened between us, regardless of my relationship status.” Abby shot her another grin and walked to the restaurant’s entrance.
“Guilty.” Katie grinned back. “But I had a feeling you weren’t involved.” She moved ahead of Abby and held the door open for her.
“That’s not very scientific of you.”
“Some things, Mistress Crane, are way beyond the reach of science.”
Abby laughed and went inside.
Two cups of coffee later, two huge plates of pancakes arrived. She was pretty sure this was the best date ever, sitting across from Katie in a booth in a funky log cabin diner-esque place that probably wasn’t on any maps.
“I had another dream last night,” Abby said after she took a bite. “And these pancakes must have some kind of addictive substance, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop eating them.”
“The secret’s in the batter. But I’m not sure what exactly they do to it.”
“Probably better not to know.”
“Probably. So what was in the dream?” Katie sipped her coffee.
Abby told her between bites of pancake, but she left off the part where Katie showed up and kissed her into next week.
“Katrina wanted you to get out of your clothes?” Katie raised her eyebrows and smirked behind her coffee cup.
“Well, when you put it like that—”
“Do you remember exactly what dreamy Katrina said?”
“Um, ‘We must get you out of these clothes.’”
“I see.” Katie stifled a laugh.
“Wait. Before that, she said something to the effect of they mustn’t see you in trousers.” Abby frowned, trying to remember. “She called me Elizabeth and said the trousers will no longer do.”
“So dreamy Katrina called you Ichabod in one of your dreams and in this most recent one she called you Elizabeth and said your trousers had to go.” Katie grinned. “Katrina was definitely hot n’ heavy.”
Abby laughed. “I probably dreamed it because we’d been talking about women dressing as men, and you suggested that Ichabod might be a woman—” she stopped, staring at Katie.
“Oh, my God.”
“What?” Katie put her coffee cup down.
“Katrina called me Elizabeth in the one dream, Ichabod in the other.”
“So?”
“And she wanted me to take my clothes off, but she was worried that someone would see me in my trousers. She wanted me to change my clothes. Not just take them off.”
“Change to what?”
“A dress, I’d guess.” It was right there. In the dream. And maybe sitting in one of the files in her brain, and she’d finally managed to access it.
“Why—” Katie stopped, then, and stared back at Abby. “No way.”
“Think about what Irving wrote, and what they found after Ichabod disappeared. A bundle of his clothes and a couple of other things. Ichabod was a woman.”
“And she was Elizabeth. What. The. Hell.” Katie shook her head slowly.
“That’s it. That’s the one explanation that fits the historical record as Katrina recorded it. Ichabod disappears and Elizabeth shows up after that. Katrina never mentions Ichabod again, but she’s all about Elizabeth. And Johanna knew. She knew everything.” Abby picked up her coffee cup, but she was in a trance of sorts. “Ichabod was Elizabeth.”
“It totally fits.”
“Circumstantially, at least. And I have no scientific explanation as to why I got these answers in dreams.”
“What else was in that dream last night? Maybe we can find out for sure about the asshole horseman.” Katie handed her plate to the server.
Abby handed her plate over, too, but didn’t answer until the server left. “The horseman wasn’t in my dream last night.” She thought about the dream’s end and felt heat on her neck and hoped Katie didn’t notice.
Katie laughed. “Hmm. From that blush, I’m guessing Katrina did get a little hot n’ heavy in dreamland.”
Damn. She’d seen it. Abby tried to be nonchalant. “You could say that.” Someone named Katrina had done that in her dream, after all.
“Lucky for her.” Katie poured more coffee from the pitcher they’d been sharing.
“The dream started with the historic Katrina, but ended with a different one. That was the one who might’ve gotten a little, um...” she cleared her throat.
The Secret of Sleepy Hollow Page 10