Night Mares in the Hamptons

by Celia Jerome

  None of us should have worried. Doc came forward to lead us to the far corner of the restaurant. I guess he’d been warned, or he just always knew what was right, because he had his cane in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Doc wasn’t going to shake Connor’s hand, but he made sure to tell him how pleased he was to meet a man of his courage and caliber. Connor looked at Ty, as if Doc must be speaking of the head honcho, but no, Doc looked right at him and said the burden Connor carried would strangle a lesser man.

  Connor stood a little taller. I wanted to hug Doc, but Ty held me back, scowling at my obvious affection for the older man. I wondered if he was jealous, and smiled more warmly at Doc, just to see. Yup, the crease between Ty’s eyes deepened.

  We took our places at the big table in the corner, with Connor and me vying for the seat farthest from my grandmother.

  We weren’t a hard drinking party, it seemed, when a waiter came to take our bar order. Doc couldn’t have more than the one glass of wine; Grandma wouldn’t have any. Aunt Jas and Uncle Roger said they’d have wine with dinner, whatever the man recommended to go with whatever Susan was cooking. Connor ordered a sparkling water with lemon, so I did, too. I expected Ty to ask for a studly drink, Maker’s Mark or Dewars on the rocks, maybe. He settled on a draft beer from the microbrewery in Southampton, just because it was called Caballero.

  How good could a beer from Southampton with a Spanish cowboy name be? Not very. Ty drank half, in a toast we all shared to good company and better times ahead. Then he asked the waiter for whatever I was drinking.

  Both Ty and Connor looked around to see that other tables of diners were studying their menus. We didn’t get any.

  “Susan’s showing off for you and Doc tonight. But don’t worry, she’s really talented.” I didn’t have to explain that while she was a talented cook, some other skill was involved in how she almost always pleased her customers and made them feel happier for eating her food. Kind of like Doc and his natural, contagious good cheer. He was beaming now, telling everyone how glad he was to be back with old friends and making new ones.

  It worked . . . the food and the friendliness. Everyone chatted and I relaxed, until Ty put his hand on the back of my neck and whispered: “Did I tell you how good you look tonight, darlin’?” He inhaled deeply. “You smell good, too. Like summer in a field of flowers.”

  I didn’t know what to say other than that he didn’t smell of horse tonight, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to tell him that his spicy, musky scent reminded me of sex and sensuality and getting naked and—

  Thank goodness the wait staff placed a goat cheese salad in front of each of us. There were pecans, tiny oranges, and baby greens I knew came from Grandma’s Garland Farm. Connor looked dubiously at the greens, but after a forkful he held his glass up to me in a toast of acknowledgment. Susan could cook.

  The salad was just what I needed to get my mind away from Ty and his obvious efforts at seduction. It was all that I needed, I told myself, the way I’d been eating. But then huge platters of seafood bruschetta arrived on the table. Mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops, and chunks of lobster sat atop wedges of artisanal bread, all in garlic sauce. There was a large bowl of pasta, too, but I didn’t even look at the additional carbs. Or the vegetable gratin or the ham-wrapped asparagus spears or the six or seven other dishes the waiter kept bringing.

  While everyone else was talking about the news of the day, I was counting how many miles I’d have to jog to burn off this dinner. And that was without dessert. Thank goodness I had to put my fork down to give my news after Ty explained his intent to draw the mares to my yard. Connor then described what we’d seen at Bayview Ranch. He went back to figuring how to get a mussel out of its shell without dripping butter and garlic down his shirt.

  Ty put his hand on my thigh under the table, almost causing brain lock. Definitely causing the temperature in the restaurant to go up a few degrees.

  Grandma Eve had to repeat her question about the houses we’d visited before I remembered it was my turn to speak. The devil smiled and winked, but he didn’t remove his hand.

  I took a sip of my drink as if my throat were dry. It was. Then I recounted where we’d gone before visiting Snake. When I mentioned the Froeler girl, Doc offered to call the mother about getting Letty out of the house and into my course. They all laughed about K2 and his dripping nose, but Grandma Eve said the child wasn’t eating properly. She’d send some vegetables over to the auto body shop. The boy would eat them, or else.

  Connor choked. I just smiled and showed them Margaret’s bracelet.

  When Aunt Jasmine started a story about a baby blanket Margaret wove for Cousin Lily’s daughter, who hadn’t been able to get pregnant, Ty held a scallop up to my mouth.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, looking around to see if anyone noticed the intimacy.

  “Just trying to fatten you up. You’re too thin.”

  To hell with seduction. I think I could fall in love with this guy.

  CHAPTER 20

  PERMISSION TO EAT PROFITEROLES? Now that was a worthwhile whisper of sweet something in my ear.

  Ty grinned at me. “I like a woman with some meat on her bones. I don’t have to be afraid she’ll break when I love her.”

  That was moving way too fast, profiteroles or not. They were light pastry shells, split and filled with ice cream, then draped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and raspberry icing ribbons. They were a signature dish at the Breakaway, along with the freshest seafood you could find.

  Ty would be worse for me than a whole plate of the things. He was a high-calorie, high-fat, high-carb luxury of no nutritional value. He was instant gratification in one gorgeous cream puff, with nothing left but crumbs when he was gone. So I had to resist him and his smile and his smell and his sex appeal.

  With my nonexistent willpower? My “I’ll jog tomorrow” rationalizations? I didn’t dare start enjoying them, or I’d never stop. Pastries or playboys.

  I took a tiny bite of the dessert. That’s all I was going to allow myself of Ty Farraday, too. I swore it.

  Susan came out of the kitchen and was congratulated by everyone. Uncle Bernie, Uncle Roger’s brother and the owner of the restaurant, brought his second wife, Ginnie, over to have coffee with us. Ty needed both hands to stir his coffee, so I relaxed and listened to my family and friends. Connor was flirting in Spanish with the Dominican busgirl; Doc was nodding his approval at everyone; Aunt Jasmine was trying to convince Ty to come talk to the kids in the summer school program while Ginnie thought he ought to put on a show to benefit the food pantry, her pet charity; the uncles were planning a fishing trip; even Grandma seemed to be enjoying herself talking cooking with Susan and a couple she knew at the next table.

  I liked it. I felt at home, comfortable, confident. Hey, I hadn’t spilled anything on my silk shirt yet and the primo dude in the place was playing footsie under the table with me, except his were in black alligator boots. I kept the alligator in my mind, not the shivers running up my leg. And I congratulated myself on the self-discipline I showed in having a paltry two bites of the decadent dessert. So what if the waiters took the plate away before I lost self-control?

  Things were good . . . until I remembered the mares and the mayhem they could cause in Paumanok Harbor. And how people—the people I’d known my whole life—were depending on me to fix it. The colt was depending on me, too.

  I announced that I better get going. The dogs needed to go out, I had to check in with my parents, I’d had a long day. Everyone knew I’d have a long night, one way or another. I ignored the smirks from Susan. The exodus from the restaurant began.

  “I really like your family,” Ty said when we got into his car. “And you were right about your cousin’s cooking. Paloma Blanca’ll be complaining if I keep on eating like that. Watching you enjoy your meal was the best part.”

  The glow of good food and good feeling lasted until we drove out of the parking lot.

 
Ty thought he’d drop me off, go back to Rosehill to change his clothes, then come back and camp out in my yard, with me. I thought he ought to watch from inside, downstairs, listening for me while I slept upstairs, so he could help if I got caught in a nightmare.

  Once again, we argued over which was more important, finding the baby or comforting the mother.

  I stared at the passing scenery without noticing if we were going in the right direction. “You just want to see the mares.”

  “And you don’t. You’re afraid of them, afraid of the bad vibes they give off.”

  Shouldn’t everyone be? “I’m afraid something will happen to the colt while we’re sitting around in the damp air communing with nature.”

  “You have no way of knowing you’ll even dream about the colt.”

  “And you have no way of knowing if the mares will come, if they’ll understand you, if they will listen to whatever you want to say to them.”

  His fingers got tighter on the steering wheel. I could see a muscle moving in his cheek, too, as he clenched his teeth. “I want to tell them where we think they should look. I want them to tell me how they got here, and why the colt couldn’t follow them. They can get him out. Willow, they have magic. They can disappear and reappear. We cannot. But if we can’t reach the mares, they can destroy your town, your family. All those nice people in the restaurant.”

  “But if we find the colt, if we bring him out, back to his family, we’ll accomplish the same thing.”

  “How will we bring him to the mares if we don’t know where they are? For that matter, how do we know what will hold him? Rope, and he vanishes so no one, us or the mares, ever finds him again? Cold metal, and he’s stripped of his magic so he can’t return to wherever he belongs?”

  “He can tell me.” I know I sounded uncertain, but how else could I refute Ty’s logic?

  He wasn’t convinced, or finished. “What if we kill him trying to free him? Say we break the door down. Maybe he is some rare albino and we blind him or burn him with the sunlight. Worst case, what if he goes up in flames or a puff of smoke?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “We’ll bring blankets to wrap him in, and cover his eyes. We’ll hold umbrellas over him. Or we could go in the dark.” Visions of my long ago experience at Bayview at night made me shudder. “And avoid the snakes.”

  “The snakes are the least of our worries.”

  That was easy for him to say. “They are less active in the nighttime, aren’t they, especially when the nights are so cool?”

  “Forget about the frigging snakes already. We can’t go invade someone’s property in the middle of the night. Even if it was legal—and I’m not saying I wouldn’t take on that Snake person on principles alone—we could get shot. A moke like Sinese is bound to have a shotgun, and he’d be within his rights. Besides, we’d never have enough light to search everywhere on all those acres. I bet there are supply shacks and hay silos and a cabin for the stable master. We’ll go in the daylight tomorrow. With a real estate agent and a lawyer if we need to, and we’ll bring in some more help, to cover every inch of the place. Tomorrow, I promise.”

  “Very well. You try to get more information from the mares tonight. I’ll try to find more about the colt my own way, without your help. And I don’t care if I miss seeing the sight of the century. I’ve seen a troll and that was enough.”

  We’d arrived at my house before I could rant about how we were supposed to be partners, how he thought it took both of us working together. I got out of the car and slammed the door. “Be quiet when you come back. I’ll be asleep.”

  “I’ll come kiss you good night.”

  “Not if you don’t want your nose broken again.”

  My exit would have been more dignified and more impressive if I hadn’t stepped in dog poop I forgot to pick up.

  I understood what Ty was saying. I could see his logic. But I still felt the way I had when Grant was too busy to come help: deserted and betrayed.

  I was on my own again. I never counted on Ty. I barely knew him, hardly knew what he was capable of, and distrusted half of that. Yet I’d felt the connection, the same as he had. I thought he wanted to have a relationship, not just a quick tumble. I know it was on short acquaintance and too soon after splitting with Grant. But I thought—I felt—there was something special between us.

  I wasn’t planning any long-term line dancing with the cowboy. Hell, he was like a gypsy, traveling from show to show in a horse van. He was worse than Grant as a permanent fixture. He’d never settle in Paumanok Harbor. Or New York City, away from his beloved horses. Me in Texas? Now that was laughable.

  But there was definitely something between us. Maybe it was just sex that I’d been missing, but I didn’t think so. Whatever it was, I’d lost it.

  I didn’t need a man in my bed, although I thought Ty just might be another once-in-a-lifetime lover.

  I didn’t need a man to support me. I did fine on my own. Maybe not enough to purchase Bayview Ranch or million-dollar ponies, but I had everything I needed.

  I didn’t need a man to agree with me all the time. Where was the fun in that?

  What I needed, what I’d wanted, was for Ty to be my friend. I guess I was just disappointed. I’d expected too much, like finding a pretty feather and expecting the bluebird of happiness to sit on your shoulder. I wanted Ty to be there for me. He wasn’t.

  Doc wasn’t. Uncle Henry wasn’t. Even Susan wasn’t. Grandma Eve never was. So I called my father.

  And wished I’d eaten the whole profiterole.

  According to Dad, my mother and a friend were off driving a truckload of greyhounds to a foster facility in Georgia. He was celebrating having his condo back to himself by having some of the “boys” in for pinochle. He couldn’t talk long.

  “Okay, Dad, but I need to know if you’ve been feeling anything new. I’ve got the alligator thing covered, and I won’t be getting swallowed up anytime soon. I haven’t figured out the cave or the banker yet.”

  “You will, baby girl. I know you will. Should I serve beer or hard stuff?”

  “Ask the company what they want. And don’t let them drive home.”

  “They all live in the complex. No need to move the cars.”

  “Good. But Dad, are you sure you can’t give me any tips on finding the missing horse?”

  “I wish I could, Willy, but you know that’s not how it works. I only sense what can hurt you or people I care about.”

  “I’m not the one in danger.”

  “No, but now that you mention it, maybe you ought to worry about the snow man.”

  “A snowman in July?”

  “You know I can’t be more specific. I go with what I’ve got, vague as it is. Snow man.”

  “Maybe you mean show man. Ty does trick riding exhibits. I already mistrust him. I know he’s trying to snow me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, it’s definitely a snow man, baby. Gotta go.”

  Oh, God; it was the yeti! Dad’s premonition was not for me, it was for Grant, climbing mountains to find the Abominable Snowman. I bet there were caves there, too. I couldn’t figure where the banker came in, but Grant was definitely in danger.

  Then again, the man thrived on danger. Any agent worth his badge knew Things lurked in caves: bears, bats, and dragons. So what was I going to warn him about? My father’s foggy precognitions?

  I called anyway and left a message. And sent a text message and an email. Maybe they had satellite service for the net. They would if a banker was along.

  All I said in all of my messages was that my father saw danger in snow men and caves. Grant should be careful.

  I didn’t know how to sign off.

  Love, Willy? But not enough.

  Yours? Until this week.

  TTYL? That was cold and uncaring. And impossible if he didn’t have a cell connection.

  Wish you were here? No, I was going to do this myself. Grant would be like Ty, wanting to see the mares and tryi
ng to see if he could mindspeak with them.

  Wish I was there? Hell, no.

  I left no sig line. He’d know who I was.

  CHAPTER 21

  WHILE I WAS ON-LINE, I checked my email. And my website, and my Amazon ratings. I thought about a new blog, but I couldn’t talk about anything that was going on. I was too amped up for sleep. The sugar, the caffeine, the lust, the adrenaline, the fear, the lust. Life was complicated. I couldn’t write about that either.

  So I walked the dogs. I checked that Grandma Eve’s house and fields as far as I could see were lit brightly enough for Monday night football. Susan’s parents’ house was a berserker’s Christmas, with every color of the rainbow blinking, twinkling, and fluttering in the slight evening breeze. Only a faint glow reached my place, and the backyard was in near total darkness except for the lights I’d left on in the kitchen and my bedroom.

  I decided I could get some of my real work done before Ty returned and made me shut off even my bedside reading lamp.

  On paper, I reassured my book’s heroine that someone was paying the ransom and she’d be free soon. The kidnapper said so. Suddenly the markers in my hand had the villain wearing dirty overalls. He needed a name, but I couldn’t call him what I wanted to—that could be slander—so I paused to check the translator site on the Internet and looked up snow, for my father’s presentiment. Schnee in German, Neige in French, Nieve in Spanish. Scheve sounded right, even if I was the only one to get the reference. Okay, Scheve, you bastard, here’s a yellowish complexion and small, beady, slitted eyes.

  While I was there, I blacked out a tooth, no, two teeth.

  Uh-oh, that was a bad sign. Hetty could identify him. Now he’d have to kill her.