Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (5 page)

She studied herself in the mirror. You’re a bitch, O’Shay! A good-looking bitch, but a bitch, nonetheless. She blinked her yellow-brown eyes, picked up a hand mirror, turned around, and, holding it up so she could see her back in the vanity mirror behind her, studied the small butterfly-shaped birthmark on the back of her neck. Itchy, kinda red this morning. She turned around, stared at herself in the wall mirror. You treated him like crap, Allie. Wasn’t fair. All he did was ask you to live with him, and you acted like he wanted you to be his whore for life. But that’s the trouble with guys today. You sleep with them once and they want you to do it all the time, on demand . . .
no
, I was right. Maybe the delivery sucked, but I was right. When she’d slept with him, it had been a slow, sensuous, exhausting experience, but satisfying as it had been, she wasn’t going to let it become
an everyday occurrence. I really
do
want to be a halfway decent Catholic girl. But he really
is
a good guy, didn’t deserve that just for being normal. Maybe I should call him . . . no, better not. Then he’ll think I really love him and want to live with him. But I really
do
like him. Wonder what he’s thinking right now. Pissed, I’m sure . . . and rightfully so. Decent guys are hard to find, and he’s probably as decent as they get: good values, honest, genuine. You’re a dumbshit, O’Shay. Should call him . . . no, let it simmer. That’s what Dad always says. Never do anything immediately after a good fight, just let it sit, get rid of the emotion, think it through. That’s what I’ll do.

She turned on her electric toothbrush, started guiding it around its circuit. Jeez, this thing’s noisy. She stared at herself in the mirror. Strange dream. Strange people. Who were they? Scenes from the dream tumbled in her mind like a handful of marbles being shaken in quart jar. When the toothbrush quit, she realized she’d held it in the same spot for the entire cycle. Idiot! She looked at her watch. Whoa! Gotta get outa here. Burnin’ daylight! That was her Dad’s favorite saying. As she splashed water on her face, dried it off, she wondered what he was doing that morning. Probably moving cows around, she thought, given they had a thousand of them on the ranch and had to rotate pastures all summer to properly utilize the grass without overgrazing it.

She walked into the bedroom, pulled off the t-shirt and flannel pants she slept in, and exchanged them for a pair of shorts and a tank top. Her body was curved and nicely sized in all the right places, had an athlete’s lean tightness—like most small-town Montana girls, she’d played volleyball and basketball in high school. She’d excelled at both and kept her body in top shape; but at five-three and a hundred and ten pounds, she didn’t have the size for the college game in either sport. So she’d picked up soccer and quickly developed into a consistent scoring threat in the club league she played in. Now in grad school, she played with numerous ex-college players, all of whom said she could’ve been a standout on any team in the conference. As she slid her feet into a pair of sandals, her cell phone rang. She checked the caller ID. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“Hi, Toots. How’s it going?

“Keepin’ up. Been real busy, lots goin’ on. How about you guys?”

“We’re fine. Finishing up irrigating and fencing, moving cows around. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, I do. Miss it a lot.” Growing up on the ranch, Allie had done it all: fed, calved, branded, castrated, fenced, vaccinated, irrigated, moved cattle, sprayed weeds, hayed, fixed machinery, pregnancy tested, weaned, plus all the unexpected stuff that popped up every day and immediately moved to the top of the
do--now
list. Seemed like every day was two steps forward and three steps back, but you never had time to get bored with any single job because the next season was inevitably just around the corner. And with the exception of winter feeding, which seemed to never end, it was always new, always fresh and exhilarating being outdoors, even smack dab in the middle of some of Mother Nature’s worst tantrums. Pulling a breech calf at twenty-five below was not a job for sissies, nor was it particularly fun, but it
did
give you a feeling of accomplishment and pride because it saved a mother and a baby, and at the same time preserved the ranch’s bottom line. But most importantly, only a handful of people in the whole world could do it.

Yes, Allie missed it all. But with two older brothers, the oldest of which shared her passion for the ranch, the writing was on the wall. She couldn’t think of a daughter in their neck of the woods who had older brothers and was running a ranch, unless the brothers had no interest in ranching and the daughter was lucky enough to find a good, honest man willing to face the physical and mental challenges of ranching. So early on, Allie had resigned herself to the facts, made the decision to pursue higher education and a professional career. She had great relationships with both brothers and knew she’d always be welcome on the ranch if she wanted to be there, and this fact mitigated, to a tolerable degree, her disappointment at the inescapable realities of the O’Shay family ranch.

“I know you do, Allie. You know, Mike and Ellie are doing a really great job, I mean,
really
great; but Dad and I sure miss you being here, even after five years. I know you’re busy, but I hope you can make it back more this summer. Hey, how’s Erik? He’s a nice kid. We sure enjoyed the dinner with you guys last week.”

Allie saw Erik’s face, the fight, wished it hadn’t happened, and felt a bubble in her heart for the hurt she’d caused him.

“Are you there, Hon?”

“Oh . . . yeah, Mom, I’m here.” She took a deep breath. “Erik and I broke up last night. It was ugly.”

“Oh, no. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, not now. Hey, Mom, I’ve gotta git. Got a meeting with my dissertation adviser. I’ll tell you about Erik later, okay?”

“Okay . . . are you alright?”

“Yeah, Mom. I’m fine. Gotta go.”

“Everything else okay?”

“Yup . . . had a weird dream last night, but no big deal. Bye, Mom. Love you.”

After a silence long enough to make Allie wonder what she was thinking about, her mother said, “Bye, Allie Girl, love you too.”

Allie sat next to a stack of books in the university library. The meeting with her adviser had gone well—far better than expected, in fact. The adviser had approved her dissertation topic and approach, had even seemed genuinely interested in the subject. Apparently, she’d considered a closely related topic for her own dissertation, but in the end, had chosen an easier one. She’d always regretted her decision and had remained fascinated with the subject and its possibilities for taking clinical psychology to a new plateau. At one point in her career, she’d planned to take a sabbatical to delve into the topic, but the extended illness of one of her colleagues had precluded her being away, nipped her research aspirations in the bud. Thus, her genuine excitement over Allie’s choice showed in her delighted smile as she spewed out reference after reference that Allie might find useful in preparing for the challenge ahead.

Allie, on the other hand, was less keen on her topic and clinical psychology in general, and her adviser’s experience of not being able to escape her teaching obligations to pursue research was another nail in the
coffin of her growing distaste. In truth, she no longer had any interest in clinical psychology
or
teaching, so her dissertation topic was now irrelevant. Both fields were too repetitious, too mundane for Allie. No, what excited Allie was the prospect of investigating the mind itself and its limitless capabilities, every day, creating and congealing theories, confirming or disproving them, discovering what’s really there. Sadly, she’d just figured this out and had already completed the bulk of her course work, mostly on the clinical side. The seminal event in her change of heart had been a guest lecture on the unexplored powers of the mind. It had focused on dreams, their source and meaning, and how they happen. Her takeaway was that the experts know next to diddly-squat about what goes on in the mind, and the rest is either unproven theory or so up-in-the-ether it’s too abstract and tenuous to congeal into even rudimentary theory. How neat, she’d thought, that’s what I want to do. But it was too late. Yeah, she thought, the dream part was really stimulating, but I can’t remember who the lecturer was. Dreams . . . dreams. Hmm . . . neat stuff. Who were those people? That girl was sure pretty, and for some strange reason, I felt close to her.

Well, what the hell. Guess I better get on with this. She picked up the top book and opened it to the table of contents. This is gonna suck.

Allie’s finger shook as she dialed Erik’s cell. She pushed the
send
button and a second later, the
end
button. Do I really want to do this? She took a deep breath. Yes, I owe it to him. She hit
send
twice, held the phone to her ear.

After the fourth ring, Erik’s voice said, “Hi, this is Erik. Can’t talk right now, please leave a message.”

Allie waited five seconds, then pushed
end
.

Two hours later she tried the number again, heard the voicemail click on. Okay, what am I gonna say? “Hi, Erik, it’s Allie. Wish I wasn’t talking to your voicemail, but I guess you’re tied up . . . wanted to tell you I’ve felt really lousy all day . . . because of the way I treated you last
night . . . and . . . and I’m sorry, really sorry . . . give me a call when you can. I’d like to tell you in person . . . bye.” So there! Done!

An hour later, when Allie emerged from the shower, she heard her voicemail chime. She grabbed a towel, quickly dried herself, rushed naked into the bedroom, grabbed the phone, and speed-dialed voicemail.

The first message was from her mother. “Allie, been looking for your call. Want to visit some more. Call me when you can. Bye.”

The second message was from Erik. “Hi, Allie. I’m not in the mood to talk to you right now. You really pissed me off last night . . . came across like you don’t give a shit. I know it wasn’t
all
your fault. But you made it f’ing clear you don’t want anything to do with me. So I’m outa here. You can find someone else. Maybe we can talk again someday. The pits of it is, I really like you and—” The recorder clicked off.

She ended the call, sat on the bed, put the phone on the bedside table, then stared at the floor while tears slowly trickled over her lower eyelids, ran haltingly down her cheeks, and spilled onto the floor. Way to blow it, O’Shay . . . dingbat! He’s a good man, really like him . . . but he’s right . . . maybe with more time. She rolled under the comforter and onto her stomach, hugged the pillow, moaned. She felt mentally drained, numb, tired, ready to sleep. Wonder if I’ll . . .

Chapter 3

T
he pinnace had arrived shortly after first light, unloaded more people and baggage, then taken Governor White back to the ship to parley with Fernandez. Before leaving, the governor had instructed the colonists to collect the baggage then begin repairing damaged cottages and building new palisades in case his mission with Fernandez was unsuccessful. Emily, George, and twenty other colonists walked cautiously down the pathway to the shore to retrieve the baggage. Four soldiers with ready weapons escorted them, continuously scanned the forest in all directions. Emily studied the narrow strip of sky above the pathway, thought how the clouds looked like mounds of cotton floating on an inverted sea. All around her, thin rays of sunlight sliced through the tall canopy of trees, sparkled like gem stones on the dew that clung to every leaf. Not even the queen has so many diamonds, she thought. Would that
I
had a few. She stretched her arms out to the side, executed a slow, graceful pirouette, then another, and another. “George, it’s magnificent, so fresh, so free . . . so hot. Nothing like England.” She stopped. “George, you look as if you’re on your way to the gallows. What troubles you?”