Haunted Honeymoon (28 page)

Sam opened bottles of a California pinot noir that was as soft and fragrant as the night air. Oswald sat across the table, beside Lily, facing me, and he seemed in an especially lively mood.

Ilena sat beside Gabriel and sipped a glass of water.

“You’re a lucky woman, Ilena, to have such an incredible figure,” Oswald said. “My clients work so hard to get what’s natural to you.”

Lily’s smile seemed stiff. “Is it accurate to say that they work hard, Oswald, when you’re the one performing the surgery?”

He grinned. “They work hard to pay for the surgery.”

“Don’t you like lamb?” Gabriel asked her.

She made a
pfft
sound and waved her hand. “It is easier not to eat than to be the bulimic with the bad teeth, or to be the sweaty sports girl in the tracksuit.”

“Yes, Ilena,” Ian said, “but dining like this is one of life’s delights.”

He could have said anything, like “What a lovely bowl of bananas,” and I would have found it wildly erotic. Every now and then I caught him watching me, and my body went right into its flight-or-flirt response.

“Ian’s right,” Sam said. “Grandmama and Gabriel, it’s all delicious. So, Ilena, what have you been doing since we last saw you?”

Ilena brought up trips she had taken and said, “I went with Ian to Lviv, to shop for a chalet. Oswald, you must come for the
ski parties. So many potential clients are on holidays there, and I only want to see the pretty faces.”

I said, “Lviv is the new Warsaw.”

Ian tilted his head and stared at me. “What was that, Milagro?”

“What? I don’t know. I don’t even know where Lviv is.”

“It’s in the Carpathians,” Oswald said. “Thanks, Ilena. I don’t have much opportunity to get out of the country, though.”

AG filled Edna’s glass and said, “Would you like to go with me there sometime?”

“Do you travel now?” she asked. “You used to hate it.”

“Like Oswald, I was working and had a hard time getting away from my responsibilities.”

She said, “I know you were doing it all for us, but the children and I would have loved for you to be part of our vacations.”

“There are always the grandchildren and their children. Just Sam’s daughter for now, but there will be others soon, I hope.” AG smiled at me as if I was a prize heifer, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t like him at all.

As the evening wore on, the wine had its effect, and conversation grew more animated as my companions talked over one another and across the table. A bottle of port was brought out, and AG put his jacket over Edna’s shoulders.

I’d been happy before here, but now I felt such disquiet, as if something was terribly wrong, but I wouldn’t know it until it was too late, like driving on a mountain road and discovering my brakes didn’t work.
Espíritu
de Wyle E. Coyote. So when Sam said he’d like coffee, I stood up. “I’ll make it.”

As I went toward the house, the entrance gate opened and a red BMW turned into the property. I decided to see who it was, so I walked to the drive.

The car stopped in front of me. The door opened and a golden-skinned man wearing a black T-shirt and charcoal gray
slacks got out. His jet-black hair was cut short, showing off the dramatic angles of his face.

He took one look at me and tossed his keys. I grabbed them automatically as he said, “Park that for me, Milagro, and faking amnesia is no excuse to dress like a depressed slug.”

“You’re Thomas Cook!” I gasped, thinking that he looked even better than his photographs. He was tall and beautifully proportioned and as yummy as a freshly baked cookie.

“Where’s my lady?”

“Who?”

“You’re a terrible actress. You should stick to being an assistant, but you’re bad at that, too. But I’ll go along with your improv. Where’s Edna?”

“Around back on the patio.”

He strode off around the house.

I got in the warm leather driver’s seat of his car, thinking,
My bottom is sitting where Thomas Cook’s bottom sat!

After parking his car, I returned to the others. Edna was standing beside the gorgeous actor, who glared at AG and said, “When are you leaving?”

AG ignored the question and said to Edna, “You can’t be serious about this boy.”

“AG, behave yourself,” Edna said. “Thomas, I thought you were away for two more weeks.”

“I have to go back. I couldn’t stand being away from you when I knew
he
would be here.”

“How very chivalrous of you to save me from my children’s father, Thomas,” she said with a sly smile.

In a fabulously cheesetastic moment, the actor turned adoring eyes on Edna and said, “I’d cross the oceans for you, my queen. I’d slay dragons for you.”

AG shook his head in disgust, and Gabriel said loudly,
“Thomas, I’m sure Ilena and Milagro would love to hear about your experience as an underwear model. We
all
want to hear it again,” and everyone fell silent for a moment.

Thomas said, “If you insist.”

And Gabriel responded, “Oh, I do.”

AG said, “I don’t have to waste my time listening to this idiocy,” and went into the house.

Thomas led Edna to the table, pulled out her chair, and took the seat beside hers. He smiled his dazzling toothpaste commercial smile and said to her, “You are always sexier than I remember.”

Just as she had looked suddenly weary in the cottage earlier, now she looked vivacious. She narrowed her exotic green eyes and said, “Tell your story.”

Oswald handed Thomas a glass of wine and he took a sip, then said, “I had only been in Hollywood for a week when I heard about the audition …”

Although Thomas’s monologue was one of the most enthralling tales I’d ever heard, my ookiness level increased until I could barely listen to the conversation.

When everyone moved inside, I lagged behind and walked out into the inky night across the field. The grasses brushed against my legs and crickets chirped.

As I reached the boulder by Daisy’s grave, I was startled to see Ian right behind me. “I didn’t hear you,” I said, and sat down. “You’re too quiet.”

“Weren’t you enjoying the company?” He sat on the stone beside me.

“Something feels different tonight,” I said. “This is my dog’s grave. I planted it with rosemary, for remembrance, but I don’t remember her, just as I don’t remember Wilcox. Rosemary shouldn’t remind us to remember; it should represent how essential
the
act
of remembering is to our humanity. It’s an important distinction.”

We were only a few inches apart and now I looked into the night sky and pointed with my gloved hand. “Those stars are Pollux and Castor, the twins raised by wolves,” I said, but I didn’t know who had taught me that. “I wonder if anyone out there is looking at us here on Earth.”

“I should think so, when the view is so captivating.”

Ian was like me, reflexively flirtatious, but he had no idea how powerfully I was drawn to him. My strong reaction must be engagement jitters.

“Your girlfriend is stunning.”

“I think she’s the most dazzling creature in the world.” His dark eyes shone in the darker night. “I love her more than I thought possible.”

“She’s fortunate to have you.”

“Not in the least. I’ve only brought her pain and misery.”

“She seems happy enough.”

“Her happy nature is one of the countless reasons I love her,” he said. “I love her intelligence, the mad mischief in her eyes, the way she makes me laugh, and the way she challenges me. I love her tremendous joie de vivre, her passion, her deeply affectionate nature, her belief in goodness and kindness. When I’m with her, I feel so alive and the world seems full of wonder and possibility.”

I desperately wanted to be the woman he described. “Whatever you’ve done to hurt her, can’t you make it up to her? Won’t she forgive you?”

“I shall never forgive myself,” he said. “If I could do it yet again, I would have tried harder to let her go instead of allowing my desire to rule my actions.”

“She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions about her life. It’s rather patronizing of you to determine what’s best for her.”

“Perhaps it is.”

I wanted to do things to Ian Ducharme that made a lickathon look like a chaste date with your spinster aunt. I wanted to rip his clothes off and suck the very air out of his lungs like a succubus. I wanted to fall at his feet and submit entirely to his most perverse desires like a minion. I wanted to pin him down and tear into his flesh like a wolf. I wanted to drink his blood and possess him like a vampire.

However, a sincere and serious young amnesiac in therapy does not attack a stranger in a field, no matter how gorgeous and in need of comfort he is, especially when her fiancé and his most-beautiful-in-the-world girlfriend were nearby.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t listen to me,” I said. “I’m not qualified to give advice about your love life.”

“What disqualifies you?”

“The usual—a dead boyfriend and his misplaced corpse, amnesia, an engagement held together by duct tape, ghostly visions, a tendency to walk into crime scenes, and unknown enemies.”

Ian laughed and said, “Besides that,” making me laugh, too. “Tell me about your ghostly visions.”

“I think they’re over. I must be getting better, or worse. You can ask Lily for her opinion, although I’m sure it will be dire.”

“Milagro, do you want to stay here, to be with Oswald?”

“It’s very beautiful here and Oswald’s been wonderful. He took me back when I needed help. And I know he loves me, because he’s given me gifts that only someone who truly understood me could give me, like a first edition of
Jane Eyre.
”

“He gave you the ring around your neck,” Ian said.

“It’s more traditional than my usual style, but I think these earrings are from Oswald, too, because I kept them with my special things.” I turned my head from side to side to make the disco balls swing. “See how fun they are?”

“They’re tremendously fun. And do you love him?”

“I must, or why would I have come back? He’s serious and sincere and successful. He’s noble and he does good deeds.” I paused, wondering why I didn’t feel more enthusiastic. “I’m sure I’ll find that we’re perfectly compatible in every way.”

“You mean you haven’t—”

“That’s none of your business, and no doubt when we did before, it was amazing,” I said, but I thought uneasily of the silver penknife.

As if he could read my mind, Ian said, “Even though he’s a vampire and will want to drink your blood? You would let him cut you and taste you?”

“Oswald’s a good man, an admirable man, and I’ll do what’s necessary to make the relationship work,” I said. “I’ll do better this time. I won’t make the same mistakes. I won’t take risks and be silly and needy and let people interfere with my relationship.”

“Milagro, you need not explain.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” I said, and pivoted to face Ian. “Even though I can’t remember, I know my behavior has caused others to be hurt. To die. So I’ll marry Oswald and be happy here, instead of rushing into situations and getting diverted by parties, and by any random fabulous man who comes my way, a man who makes my pulse race and my temperature rise, a man like you …”

“Milagro,” Ian began, and I knew that if I stayed with him one more second, I would do something unforgivable. Then I heard Oswald’s voice calling across the field, “Milagro!”

I quickly stood. “I have to go.”

Ian put his hand on my arm and said, “Wait,” and I stopped to face him.

“We’re staying at the hotel in town and we’ll be leaving tomorrow morning,” he said. “I wanted to say good-bye. Good-
bye and I wish with all my heart that you’ll have the happiness you deserve.”

“Do you have a heart, Ian?”

“Yes, damaged and in anguish, but beating still.”

As I stared into Ian’s brown eyes, I panicked because I felt as if I was losing something essential and precious. Nameless feelings rose in me, like a drowning swimmer fighting toward light and the surface. “Won’t we meet again, Ian?”

“It’s best if we don’t. Good-bye, my own girl.”

My eyes welled and I swiped them away clumsily with my horrible gloves. “Good-bye, Ian,” I said, and then I ran across the field.

Oswald was in the lane and when I saw him, he came to me and said, “Where were you?”

I blinked away my tears. “Visiting Daisy’s grave. It made me sad. I’m going in now.”

“Sure, babe,” he said, and I hurried into the house and the maid’s room, feeling lost and stupid and confused and consumed with nameless grief.

I sat in the worn armchair in the dark, staring at nothing and trying to remember something,
anything
, even the ugly things that scared me.

Some time later, I heard cars leaving, and after that there was a knock on my door.

“Milagro, it’s Oswald. May I come in?”

I got up and opened the door, keeping the light off. “Sorry, I’m tired.”

He stood in the hallway and smiled a little drunkenly. “Sam’s gone home and goddamn Ian Ducharme’s finally left. Looks like we won’t have any trouble from the Council.”

“That’s good news. Can you come in for a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, and swayed forward.

I took him by the arm and brought him into the room, closing the door, and then I led him to the bed. “Sit with me.”

He sat and immediately pulled me to him. His kiss was like a stranger’s kiss: pleasing and interesting, but unfamiliar. His fingers went to the pulse point on my throat.

I pulled away from him. “Oswald, do you love me?”

He reached for the ring around my neck. “I wouldn’t have given you this if I didn’t. Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But what exactly do you love about me?”

“You’re sexy and pretty. You’re smart. You’re, uh, tasty. My family likes you.”

“When do I meet your parents again? Does your mother adore me?”

“You’ll meet them eventually. There’s no rush.” He removed one of my gloves and lifted my hand to his mouth. “I want to taste you again so bad. I know how to do it so there’s no pain.”

His kinky lust quelled any desires I had. “It’s late.”