Dream Lover

by Cassie Walder

  “Don’t be sorry. I know that you can’t tolerate UV. This was really short notice. On longer notice, maybe we can arrange dinner for the family one night.”

  “Yes. I would love to host your family for dinner. I’m sorry that you are in a bind with your grandmother, today.”

  “I can handle Grandmother. Her bark is much worse than her bite. She does mean well. She’s just of the school that believes that the way a woman can be happy is if she’s married and has a dozen children.”

  “Did she have a dozen children?”

  “As a matter of fact, she did.”

  “You like children?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you should have several.”

  “I’m starting way too late to have a large family. I might manage two or three children, if I find the right man.”

  “You have found the only man for you, Edwina,” Klaus said firmly. “Accept this, and stop wasting time. I am the only man for you.”

  “Time will tell about that, Klaus.”

  “You were an only child,” he offered.

  “Yes. But, I had lots of cousins, so it wasn’t so bad.”

  “But you want children, not just one child?”

  She closed her eyes and pictured the children she and Klaus would have together, at least as her dreams depicted them. “Yes. I want children. I want your children.”

  He drew a sharp breath. “Edwina, I hate to do this especially as this conversation is just becoming truly interesting. I have a business conference call scheduled right now with several members of my board of directors. The call is coming in right now. It’s been on the schedule for three weeks. We’ll have to continue this interesting discussion later.”

  “Then, I’ll let you go. Sorry to bother you this morning.”

  “You’re never a bother. Call me anytime.”

  Edwina hung up the phone and then went into her little kitchen. She brewed a small pot of very strong coffee and downed three aspirin before she took a steaming shower. That helped to relieve the headache somewhat. After she finished, she both put up her hair into the customary knot at that nape of her neck and did her make up in the usual understated style—a touch of foundation, a little lip-gloss.

  Grandmother was a stickler for hats and gloves on ladies. Heaven forbid that any of the female grandchildren should ever wear slacks in Grandmother’s presence.

  She had gone through five changes of clothes before she settled on a navy blue silk suit, with a white silk scarf draped on the inside to simulate a shawl-collared blouse. She wore her mother’s pearls. It was proper, but it was also a little on the daring side. Of course, with the hat, the matching purse and shoes, and the obligatory white gloves, she looked as though she had stepped out of a fashion magazine in the 1950s or before. With her dark blue cashmere coat, Edwina knew that she would be warm enough.

  Edwina had no sooner finished dressing than the phone rang. It was Jim, her paint store tenant.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m alive.”

  “How’s the head?”

  “Hard. I’ve got a little concussion from where I was hit. But it will heal. I want to talk to you about my lease.”

  “I don’t normally do business on Sundays. Talk to me tomorrow,” she said quietly.

  “You and your religious quackery,” he said harshly. Then he slammed the phone down sharply.

  “And you have a pleasant day, too, Jim.”

  Twenty minutes later, as she passed the paint store, Jim Douglass, her tenant came out. “Edwina!” he called after her, his voice insistent.

  “I’m on my way to Church, Jim. Can it wait?”

  “No, it damn well can’t wait. I’ve had it. These poltergeists are destroying my business. You saw what they did last night. You need to do something about this.”

  “If you really believe that you have evil spirits in your shop, Jim, then I suggest you find a priest and have the space blessed or exorcised. I’ll underwrite the cost of the stipend and supplies,” she offered quietly. “That has been my offer to you all along.”

  “That’s so much superstitious Catholic mumbo-jumbo. It won’t work. Nothing about Catholicism is true. It’s all so much superstitious pap designed to keep people from the truth.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You are entitled to your opinion, Jim, erroneous though it may be.”

  “What, beside your superstitious nonsense, do you propose to do about this plague of poltergeists in my store?” he demanded harshly.

  “Superstition is hardly a word I’d associate with the Holy Faith,” she replied. “It is however a word I would associate with a man who truly believes he is being plagued by noisy ghosts who attacked him and set a fire.”

  “You are a royal bitch, you know that?” Jim said angrily.

  “No, that is one thing I most definitely am not,” Edwina told the tenant. “Goodbye Jim.”

  “Just wait a damned minute,” Jim screamed as he grabbed her arm with bruising force.

  Edwina cast a disdainful glare at his hand as it held her arm. “Remove that hand from me if you want to keep your hand attached to your arm,” she said coldly. “You have until I count to three. One … two…”

  He released her and stepped back. “I am not happy.”

  “That much has been painfully obvious from the first moment that I met you. What would it take to make you happy?” she asked.

  “You will let me out of my lease and pay to relocate my store. Move me into one of the major malls. Pay my rent for three months and all my moving expenses.”

  “Why would I do that? You were here well before I bought the building. I had nothing to do with the conditions you claim are intolerable.”

  “You either get rid of the ghosts, or we’ll all launch a rent strike. None of us are happy about this haunting situation.”

  “I’ve offered to take action to rid you of the spirits you say you have,” she said quietly. “I’ve made you that offer in writing. My attorney has a copy of the letter in his files. If the rents are not paid promptly, you will go into default on your lease. If you do so, I shall not hesitate to have you evicted and then to rent your shop to someone else. Think about the consequences of your actions. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m in danger of being late for Church.”

  “You’re going to be in grave danger,” Jim growled as he approached her waving his fist. “I’m sick of this. Sick of you with your sanctimonious ways. You think you are so much better than the rest of us poor mortals.” Then he started to take a swing at her.

  A man came up from nowhere and caught Jim’s fist. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the second man growled.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jim demanded.

  “Someone you don’t want to antagonize,” he said lowly. Then he turned to Edwina and spoke in rapid German, “Fraulein Doctor Johnson, please be on your way, I will deal with this person.”

  “This isn’t any of your concern,” Edwina said.

  “On the contrary, this is what I’m paid to do. Herr Baron von Bruner would have my head on a platter if I let anything bad happen to you,” the big man said firmly, retaining the German.

  “I see. I shall be speaking to Herr von Bruner on this matter.”

  “I shall tell him to expect your call.”

  “You will not have the chance. Good day.”

  Edwina dug out her cell phone from her purse and punched in Klaus’s number from memory. She walked on, quickly. The same very formal sounding male voice answered the phone.

  “This is Edwina Johnson, again. Let me speak with Klaus, please, or if he’s still on his conference call, leave him a message to return my call on my mobile number, as soon as possible.”

  “The first conference call scheduled for today ended two minutes ago. I shall connect you immediately,” the man said.

  “Edwina?” Klaus asked a long moment later.

  “Just what do you think you are doing, Klaus?”

&nbs
p; “In what regard?” he asked carefully.

  “In what regard?” she echoed back incredulously, her voice rising half an octave. “In regard to the bodyguard you’ve put on me.”

  “Are you uninjured?” Klaus asked in concern. “Edwina, are you injured?”

  Edwina kept walking. “Am I uninjured? Yes. I am relatively unharmed, apart from a bruise or two. But I’m angrier with you than I believe I’ve ever been at anyone else in my entire life. How dare you presume to place bodyguards in my service without telling me?”

  “You would never have discovered Hans if you had not needed his intervention. He is better than that,” he said quietly. “What happened, Edwina?”

  “Ask your guard dog, or is he a watch dog? Is he here to guard me or to spy on me?”

  “He is there for your safety and protection alone. Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m sure that your employee will give you a full report in vivid detail. Call him off, Klaus. I don’t like bodyguards under the best of conditions.”

  “On the contrary, I believe that I shall redouble the protection on you. If Hans has to make his presence known, then you need someone else with you to keep you safe.”

  “You are an absolutely impossible man,” she said in frustration.

  “I take care of the people who belong to me. I believe I have told you that before.”

  “I don’t belong to you,” she denied hotly.

  “Don’t you?” he demanded. “Edwina, don’t you belong to me, just as I belong to you?”

  Without answering him, she disconnected the telephone call and shut off her cell phone. Then she dropped the phone back into her handbag.

  The utter gall of the man!

  She kept walking.

  His. Did she want to be his? What did he want, beside the obvious?

  Edwina felt her face grow warm with the remembrance of the dream. He’d confirmed that the details of the setting were accurate. No one could have that large of an imagination that she should get that many details right. So this had been another foretelling dream. It sent shivers down her spine.

  There had been talk of eternity, of decisions, of a price to be paid for an eternity. Somehow, she didn’t believe that to be hyperbole. She had no idea what it all meant. But it troubled her. She recalled his tone of voice in an earlier conversation when he spoke to her about the price of immortality. What was the price of immortality? How and why was this in his power to grant?

  She tried to put all this out of her mind as she walked into the Church. But she couldn’t get her mind off it. Neither the words of the liturgy nor the music made any impression on her mind. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts, with thinking about the dream and Klaus. So when everyone else was going forward to receive Communion Edwina ducked out the back. She walked to the parking garage where she kept her car.

  It was obvious to Edwina that she was being followed and not just by a single man. She didn’t like it but she knew that she wasn’t going to do anything about it. Until Klaus called them off they were quite likely to stay with her.

  She didn’t want to go out to Grandmother’s house. The family always gathered there on Sundays for lunch. Any family member who was in the area and didn’t come to Grandmother’s for lunch was bound to hear about it from several fronts. Given the surprise party for her Grandmother scheduled for Monday night, this gathering was likely to be mostly the aunts and uncles. Having most of the cousins suddenly blow into town would give away the surprise. Edwina was tempted to give this luncheon a miss. Skipping the inquisition wasn’t worth the trouble that would come her way in terms of her aunts and uncles interfering in her life. Yet, she was tempted not to go, anyway.

  “Yeah, EE, that’s your problem. You have never given into temptation until recently,” she muttered to herself as she started her car. “But, maybe, it’s time you began to do that more often.”

  Chapter Six

  Louella, the housekeeper, met Edwina at the door to Grandmother’s house and took her coat. “She ain’t going to like your coming without your gentleman friend,” Louella warned.

  “Then, she won’t like it. It’s beyond my power to change,” Edwina dismissed. “How is she, really, Louella?”

  “Same way she always is. The arthritis in her left hip bothers her something terrible. She doesn’t complain but she doesn’t move too good when it’s acting up. And that’s most of the time these days. She doesn’t climb stairs anymore and she doesn’t walk any further than she has to.”

  “Is she taking her anti-inflammatory and pain medication?”

  “Under protest.”

  “As long as she takes the pills.”

  When Edwina walked into drawing room, she saw that all of her mother’s brothers and sisters were present, but only two of her cousins Emily and Marie. Still, that didn’t surprise her. If everyone who was in town had come, their grandmother would have more than a hint about her surprise birthday party on Monday.

  “You’ve come alone, child,” Grandmother observed in disappointment.

  Edwina nodded. “I have indeed, Grandmother.”

  “Where’s your gentleman friend, Herr Baron von Bruner?” Grandmother demanded.

  “He had previous commitments as I believe I told you on the telephone this morning dear. We do not live in one another’s pockets Klaus and I. He does have a life of his own as I do.”

  Grandmother wasn’t pleased. Edwina could see that on the older woman’s face. “We shall attempt to have Sunday lunch with him at some future date then.”

  “I do think you might want to wait on that to see if this relationship becomes serious, first, Grandmother.”

  The old woman laughed softly. “In other words, child, you don’t want your battle-axe of a grandmother to scare him off?”

  Edwina smiled as she sat down in a chair across the room from her grandmother. “It would take a great deal more than a few nosy relatives to scare Klaus away. He’s entirely too strong willed to let a little opposition get in the way of anything he wants.”

  Grandmother chuckled. “Then, the two of you should be quite well matched, indeed, Granddaughter. You’ve never been scared of anything.”

  “Oh I wouldn’t say that,” Edwina replied lowly. “There is an old woman of my near acquaintance who has always inspired at least awe, if not fear, in me.”

  The old woman smiled as the clock chimed off half past the hour. “Falderal. It is time for luncheon. Shall we go in?”

  Over the soup, Edwina’s aunts and uncles began the inquisition she had known would be forthcoming. Edwina answered their questions over the soup and half way through the main course. Then she reached the end of her patience.

  “I am thirty-five years old, Uncle. I have learned to recognize fortune hunters by now,” Edwina said quietly, “As have the rest of my cousins. None of us need any of you to continue to interfere in our private lives. We are all in our late twenties to mid thirties, far older than any of you were when you wed. None of us are children. We are all responsible, productive, adults—the lot of us. Get used to that fact. And stop treating us as a pack of unruly children. It is really quite unnerving.”

  “Here, here,” Cousin Emily, who at thirty-one was the headmistress of a private school, said meaningfully.

  Cousin Marie added with a small laugh, “They’re simply giving you the same attention that they’ve always given us when we’ve engaged in our first affairs de cor. No man, or woman, is good enough in their minds for the members of our generation of the family. Forget love. The union must be ‘suitable’.”

  Cousin Emily cleared her throat. “Well, you have to admit Marie, you’ve gone a good job of proving men ‘unsuitable’ for your cousins over the years by stealing them away.”

  “Any man who can be stolen isn’t worth having,” Marie replied thoughtfully.

  “I’ll agree with that,” Emily answered, with an edge of old pain to her voice.

  Edwina still hurt for her cousin Emily. Marie had �
��stolen” away three of Emily’s beaux, two of whom had been engaged to Emily. And then Marie had summarily and rather publicly dumped them. However, Emily’s Jeff hadn’t given Marie more than a cursory glance. Personally, Edwina thought that Emily and Jeff should have married some time ago. They were perfect for one another.

  “So, shall I go after your gentleman friend, Winnie?” Marie offered.

  “Marie, I’m not worried about Klaus,” Edwina said.

  “Not even the slightest bit?” her cousin asked.

  “Only in that Klaus has assigned bodyguards to me.”

  “You picked a good family with whom to make an alliance, Edwina. I wholeheartedly approve,” Grandmother said. “I am satisfied with this alliance. It is suitable. There is no need for anyone to put the man to the test.”

  “Why would he put bodyguards on you?” Marie asked in puzzlement.

  Edwina shook her head negatively. “He obviously doesn’t believe that I can take care of myself.”

  “He doesn’t know you very well, Winnie,” Marie replied mischievously.

  “Or he doesn’t trust you and the bodyguards are spies reporting your comings and goings,” Uncle Lawrence, the attorney in the family, offered, “I don’t like this at all Edwina.”

  “I’ve had that thought Uncle,” Edwina admitted. “I don’t find the possibility pleasant either.”

  “Not a good way to start a relationship my dear,” Uncle Lawrence replied, “It’s a sign of a controlling, possibly abusive, person.”

  “Or a mark of prudence. He’s a wealthy man with enemies. It’s not outside of the scope of possibility that someone could want to get to him through me,” Edwina allowed. “If I accept his proposal I’ll have to get used to bodyguards. This is just the way that it is. He lives with high security surrounding him.”

  “Were the bodyguards that obvious that you have noticed them?” Emily asked in concern.

  “No. I didn’t notice them at all until one of the guards intervened this morning as one of my tenants got physical with me.”

  “How physical?” Uncle Richard demanded.

  “My arm is still sore from where Jim grabbed me. It’s bruised. But it’s nothing serious enough to require medical attention. Don’t concern yourself with it, Uncle.”