Haunted Honeymoon (17 page)

A logging truck slowed traffic and it was agonizing minutes before the road straightened enough for me to fly past it. Pepper rode in my draft. I would see Oswald soon. I’d tell him everything and he’d take me in his arms and say that he was sorry for ever breaking up with me and that he still loved me.

Pepper and I made it over the mountain, through a stretch of pines, manzanitas, and red earth, then out to open country. I turned down the road that led to Oswald’s ranch. I stopped at the gate and waved good-bye to Pepper. He waved back and roared away.

I was here. I was home.

I punched in the code on the post and the big electronic gate slowly swung open. I drove down the lane shaded by English walnuts, verdant with new foliage. The two-story sandstone house was in front of me now.

Oswald’s four dogs bounded down the road, barking their welcome, making me miss Daisy, my first dog. I was too anxious to drive anymore and I stopped the truck by the small vineyard of cabernet grapes. I hopped out and the dogs leapt around me.

Together we ran the rest of the way, past a new parking circle, by the garden that I’d planted, to the back entrance that led into the house, to Oswald, who would have been my husband now if I hadn’t tried to please others instead of following my own wants and needs and instincts and heart.

I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

ten
Is That a Stake in Your Pocket, or
Are You Just Happy to See Me?

I called, “Oswald! Oswald!” as I went through the mudroom and into the bright, big kitchen.

Then I saw him.

Oswald was sitting at the long trestle table, holding open a copy of the
Journal of the American Medical Association
, with a coffee mug in front of him. It was Saturday and he was dressed in a T-shirt that said
You! Out of the Gene Pool
and old jeans.

He had been everything to me and seeing him here in this place broke my heart all over again. How could I have ever given him up?

He looked up at me with his clear eyes, as gray as river stones, and the color drained from his already pale face.

We stared at each other for long seconds. Finally he stood and said, “What are you doing here? You’ve got to leave.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sorry, but I can’t deal with your histrionics today. Or ever again.”

Oswald took my elbow and began leading me out of the kitchen. His herb-scented sunblock brought back so many memories of us together.

“Let me explain,” I said.

“I see that you’ve finally decided to slim down, but there are healthier ways to do it than starving yourself.”

“But everything’s gone horribly wrong.”

He grabbed a baseball hat as we went through the mudroom. “I can’t do this, Milagro. It’s too hard, and everyone knows you’re with goddamn Ian Ducharme now, so you can go to him for whatever you want—unless you’ve gotten bored with him, too, and moved on to ruin some other man’s life.”

“Yes,” I said, and that surprised Oswald. We stopped where we were, by my garden. “Yes, I destroyed a man’s life in the very worst way and people are after me, including the Council, I think.”

“Not likely. The Council has realized that you are their juggernaut.” He let go of my elbow and then said more quietly, “Do you have any idea how miserable it makes me when I see you watching me from that café?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why? Because it just rips open the wound again.”

“I miss you, Oswald.” I touched his cheek and felt the old pleasurable zizz from him. “We loved each other. We were happy. How can I pretend that never existed?”

“The same way you pretended when we were engaged and you cheated on me.”

Now I was stunned. “Who told you?”

“You did just now.” He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to look at me, and when he opened them, I saw his grief.

I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, but now I wished that the earth would open up and swallow me.

“Oswald, I needed to find out if I could let someone cut me
without reacting and hurting him, and then I would be able to let you do it because I wanted you to be happy.”

“
Someone?
You mean Ian. Before, during, and after me, it’s always been goddamn Ian Ducharme.”

“Please don’t hate me, Oswald. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me,” I said, tears blurring my vision of him. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I was wrong, so wrong, and if I could do it all over again …”

“But we can’t turn back the clock, Milagro.” He shook his head and said, “My parents told me that rumor about you and Ian and I said they were wrong, that you would never do that because you loved me, and I loved you. I want you to leave now.”

“Oswald, I care for you more than you can know, but I needed to come here because no matter what’s happened, I know that your goodness will always prevail.” I wiped at my tears. “I’ll show you why I had to come. Let me show you what they’ve done.” I ran around the house in my stupid pointy ankle boots, down the lane, to the truck.

He came slowly after me.

I reached over to unlatch the truck’s gate and that’s when I saw the bare space between the gardening tools. Wil’s body was gone.

“He was here. I swear, he was here!”

“What are you playing at, or have you finally found a drug that has an effect on you?”

“I’m not making this up.” I jumped into the bed of the truck and began flinging out the tools even though it was clear that the body was gone. As I turned around in confusion, I saw something off to the left.

There among the grapevines was Wil with the shroud over his head like an Old Testament prophet. He raised his arm and pointed at me and his mouth gaped open. Even though no sound
came out of the black hole in his green-tinged face, I knew he was saying,
“J’accuse!”

I took two steps backward in shock. The first step was onto the truck’s gate. The second step sent me off the edge.

My reactions were fast and I could have regained my balance if I had tried. But the enormity of all my guilty deeds consumed me: leading Wil to his death, killing Average Joe, cheating on Oswald, not doing anything to save the Poindexters, and cheating on Oswald with goddamn Ian Ducharme …

I hated who I was and what I’d done.

I thought,
If I only had another chance
, and then my head cracked against something hard, and when the darkness came, I welcomed it.

When I opened my eyes, an interesting man wearing a baseball cap was leaning over me and feeling the back of my head, and very interesting sensations were buzzing through me. The man was extremely cute, but I was feeling strangely woozy. “Excuse me,” I said, and tried to scoot away from him.

“You hit your head and blacked out.” His dark-lashed gray eyes peered into mine. “Your pupils look all right now.”

I felt as if I’d been suddenly awakened, and I couldn’t grasp exactly where I was and what I’d been doing. I looked up and saw trees and then turned my head and saw lush fields of grass and wildflowers, which was perplexing.

“Let’s get you up,” the man said, and took my arm.

The fun buzzy feeling returned at the contact, which made me wonder if I was high.

“Am I supposed to stand if I’ve had a concussion? What if all the blood rushes to my head and I die?”

“You haven’t yet and a bump to the head isn’t going to do it,” he said as he pulled me up.

Then I glanced down at myself and screamed. I jumped away from the man. “What kind of sick freak are you to dress me like this? Did you drop a roofie on me? Because I know people—”

“Milagro, calm down.”

He knew my name, but I stayed out of his reach. I glanced around at a vineyard with swaths of lupine, blue-eyed Susans, buttercups, and golden poppies growing between the rows of vines. There were California live oaks just beyond. I was in wine country.

Then I took another look at the man. He was just under six feet tall, lean and eminently boinkable, and so I tried to recall if I
had
boinked him. What
else
could I have done?

“It was a wild night, wasn’t it?” I said, trying not to sound as scared and bewildered as I felt. “Alas, a girl must get home to her very concerned and proactive friends. They’ve probably already filed a police report that I’m missing. Do you know where my purse is?”

“You didn’t bring one inside. Check your truck,” he said, pointing toward a humongous white vehicle.

“Ha, ha, and ha. I don’t have a truck and certainly not a gas-guzzler like this atrocity.” I put my hand in my pocket and felt a few bills.

“Milagro, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m well aware of its unfunnyness,” I said haughtily. “Very nice knowing you—not!—and I’ll, um, well, it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.”

I turned and walked quickly down the lane toward a street beyond the fence. When I reached the gate, it automatically swung open, and I tottled forward in too-big heeled boots onto the asphalt road.

I took the bills out of my pocket and counted eighty-nine dollars,
which was the most money I’d had in ages. It would have to go straight to my landlord.

I looked both ways, but couldn’t see anything but road and trees. There weren’t even any sidewalks.

The man was coming down the lane toward me. He stopped at the gate. “Milagro.”

“If you would just point the way to the nearest bus or train station, I’ll be on my way.”

“You’re disoriented. You hit your head.”

I
was
disoriented, but other than this ookiness, I felt fine. I reached up and touched my noggin. “I don’t have any bumps or soreness. Did I hit my head, or did
someone
hit me?”

“You fell off your truck and knocked your head against a rock,” he said.

“My
truck
again.” I laughed. “At least you committed to the joke.”

He put his hands on his hips, and they were nice hips indeed. “Milagro, as much as I’d like to see you leave, I think you better let me examine you further.”

“Nice try, but you had your thrills last night and I hope you don’t have any communicable diseases, because the last thing I need is to catch some incurable condition from a casual encounter.” I’d go to the free “Does It Itch?” clinic as soon as I got back to the City.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

The air here felt so light and warm, so clean, and the sky was the vivid blue of bachelor’s buttons.

“Okay, I’ll go along with this idiocy. I was going to a party for a very dear friend, Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon, the acclaimed novelist,” I said, although I hated Sebastian with the fire of a thousand suns. “I was dressed quite chicly. Obviously, I, um … perhaps I had too much to drink, and here I am. Where exactly
is
here?”

“The ranch.”

“Thank you for your total lack of specificity,” I snarked. “If you’re not going to be helpful, I can manage on my own.” I turned right and began walking.

He followed me, and I said, “Don’t try to stop me because I’ll scream.”

“I won’t try because you’ll throw me across the road.”

“You’re hilarious except for the being funny part of hilarity.” As I kept walking, I recalled leaving my crappy basement apartment to go to the party. I remembered waiting for the bus and worrying about seeing Sebastian, who had become successful while I was still patching together part-time jobs. What the hell had happened
after
that?

The hunky dude said, “Milagro, on the off chance that this is not a really desperate attempt to make me feel sorry for you, you need to come back with me. You can call Mercedes to come get you.”

I stopped. “You know Mercedes?”

“Yes, I know Mercedes. Come back to the house.”

“You won’t try anything?”

“You’re the one who always starts things, not me.”

“Prove that you know me. What’s my favorite color?”

“Trick question. Leopard print.”

“Lucky guess. What’s my favorite music?”

“Anything you can crank up too loud and play over and over. Your favorite clothes are too revealing. Your favorite drinks have paper parasols.”

“What’s my favorite book?”

“How should I know?” he said. “You quote Twain a lot.”

“So I
really
know you? I mean, before last night.”

“Yes, Milagro, we know each other.”

I was comforted by the annoyance and exasperation on his
face, expressions not uncommon with men who knew me, and I said, “Okay, but keep your distance.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” He led the way back down the lane, stopping to push a button that closed the electric gate.

Magnificent English walnut trees lined the way, and ahead I saw an impressive pale gold sandstone house. Across a field was a pretty little white cottage.

Straight ahead was a brown barn and there was a blocky building off to the side. Horses ambled in the fields that led to tree-covered hills.

We walked by the big white truck that was most definitely not my truck.

“This place is very beautiful,” I said.

He led me around the house toward the back entrance. Old roses, their perfume floating on the air, clambered on a fence that enclosed a marvelous garden.

I peered over the fence and saw a slate patio beneath an ancient oak, espaliered pear trees, and all sorts of deciduous shrubs in spectacular bloom. “Your roses are gorgeous, but they should have been pruned.”

“I can’t do everything.”

The man wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so I smiled and said, “It’s still a fabulous garden. You’ve got many of my favorite species of rose and your viburnum are just bursting, aren’t they?”

“Let’s go inside.”

“Okay. I’m embarrassed that I don’t even remember your name.”

“It’s Oswald.”

“I’ve never met anyone named Oswald before,” I said as we stepped into a mudroom with an extensive display of sunhats and baseball caps.

Oswald put his cap on a hook and led me through a spacious kitchen done up in Monet shades of bright blue and yellow with high-end appliances, through a dining room, past a Mission-style living room, and into a study.