Sand Witches in the Hamptons (9781101597385) (25 page)

“I'll say a prayer of thanks for you and the library lady. And Dr. Matt, for sure.”

Me, too, when he came out and kissed me and said the poodle was his last patient of the day.

In an hour I was home. Not the pawky little house, not my mother's, but home in Matt's arms. My rock, my island, my lover.

And my listener. He told me about his busy day, no sad stories, thank goodness, and I told him about mine, just like an old married couple. Except my day involved my psychic half sister's breakdown, my appointment as Sand Reclamation Officer, the witches' retreat, my father's prognostications, my mother's disbelief, and my dread of disappointing everyone.

He was certain someone could help Carinne lift her heavy burden, and that I'd get the sand back. I should thank my grandmother for the invitation, he'd be happy to see the town come together, and he'd love to meet my father some day. And the Willingham family is looking for a Maltese to play with the one they already have.

That's what I loved about Matt, one of the things, anyway, besides his smile, his dedication, his strong, gentle hands, his flat stomach, his . . .

I could go on forever, it seemed. Mostly he had such strength, such confidence, that I had to believe anything was possible.

But not in the cold October drizzle. I couldn't drag Jimmie to the beach in this. So I made some phone calls—one to the pizza place for delivery—and we kicked around more ideas of what we could do for the Andanstans to repay their kindness.

We could gather as many Matchbox dump trucks as possible, line them up, and see if the guys could drive them. Or we could make small drag nets out of pantyhose. They might appreciate thoughtful gifts that helped move the sand better.

“Great, unless trucks and nets let them steal it faster.”

“Or bring it back faster.”

“Maybe they'd like pizza crusts.” The dogs sure did.

“So what do you think?”

“Try them all. And beg the parrot to help.”

That was my plan, but the storm got worse. And the weather station said it could continue until tomorrow.

So we ate the ice pops Matt kept for Marta's children and made love all night.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO

I
had triplets?!!

Holy shit, triplets. That's what my father's six
AM
phone call told me anyway.

Louisa's baby was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen, and I'd kind of gotten used to cute little Elladaire, the fire-throwing toddler I'd foster-mommed in the summer. I was especially fond of that mental picture Carinne drew of me reading a picture book to a little kid. But three babies, all my own, all at once? “Triplets? Say it ain't so, Dad!”

“That's what I got when I thought about you. Usually I don't have to try, the ideas just come. Dreams, inspirations, who knows? But I did what I said, stayed home all night, no TV, no book, no phone sex. Kidding there, baby girl. But I kept staring at that picture of you I have, from when you came to visit last time. The one with your nose all sunburned. You sounded so worried. And I wanted to give you as much warning as I could so you'd be prepared.”

There was no way in hell to prepare for triplets, unless you were a cocker spaniel looking for a closet and some old blankets. “Triplets?” I know I was repeating myself, but panic clogged my mind. “Never do that again, staying in and staring at an ugly photo. Go out, have fun, I don't care if you go to singles bars or strip joints. Spend your pension on phone sex, it's okay. Watch out for chest pains, is all. But do not dream of triplets!

“And you,” I yelled at Matt as soon as I ended the call. “We are never having sex again!”

“Good,” he said. “This is killing me.”

“Hah! Whose idea was it to go another round?”

“Just living up to Walter's expectations with all those condoms.”

“On your rowing machine?”

He groaned, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

I didn't. I couldn't get the T word out of my mind. Triplets. How do you hold three babies at once? How do you carry them for nine months? How soon could I join a nunnery?

Matt's alarm went off in an hour. I pretended to be sleeping so he didn't get any ideas about morning sex, which I could tell he had by peeking between my eyelashes to see his salute.

I was not interested.

He showered, shaved, walked and fed the dogs, then brought me coffee and toast with jam. He sat at the end of the big bed, all fresh and clean, his brown hair curling from the shower or the rain I could hear against the windows. The aroma did interest me, and the coffee smelled good, too. “Is this a bribe?”

“No, this is pure love. I have to be at the clinic in ten minutes. I suppose I could . . .”

“No way, José.”

“Okay, but I've been thinking.”

“You can still think?” My brain had been turned to mashed bananas.

“Yes, and you were right.”

“We're never having sex again?”

“Hell, no. About this house being too small.”

“No house is big enough for triplets!”

“Forget about the triplets.”

Easy for him to say. He didn't have to juggle a career and the three Mousketeers. I ate the toast, all of it. If I had to eat for four, I better start now.

“I looked around, and the house really isn't suitable for us anymore. You need a studio and I need an exercise room for when I don't have time to go to the gym. And the view does stink, especially when there's such great scenery around us.”

He tossed me the real estate brochure Mrs. Terwilliger thought I needed. “We could look at what's available.”

Buy a house? Fill it with miniature Matts? I choked on a crumb. “I'm not ready.”

“Well, I am.” He reminded me how the practice was growing so fast he needed a partner. He had one in mind, a friend from vet school who liked the idea of being near the beach, the Hamptons, and horses, which Matt did not generally accept as patients because of the time involved in stable calls. His friend sounded eager to leave his current job at a conglomerate veterinary clinic in Jersey for a practice of his own, especially since he'd heard world-famous Ty Farraday was opening a horse ranch here.

“And, yes, I warned him the new ranch might have its own, um, holistic practitioners, but he was fine with that, the newest thing in vet med. He'd be happy at the chance to work with Farraday and his shamans or whatever.”

“Ty will be thrilled. I'm sure they can't afford a full-time vet there, or the price for a horse doctor to come so far out. Want me to call him?”

A shadow passed over Matt's face. I guess I shouldn't have reminded him that Ty and I had a personal history. “Or you can. I have his cell number.”

He relaxed and leaned over to lick a drop of jelly off my chin. “Not yet. Tarbell and I haven't worked out all the details. The problem is, he can afford a down payment on what a partnership here is worth, but not to buy a house at the same time. And you know what the prices are like out here. So I thought I could rent him this one, at reduced rates since he'll be handling the night duties, and we could find a nicer place of our own.”

“I can't afford to buy a house. I'm finally making my city rent and expenses, with something left over for my IRA.”

He froze up again. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the apartment, either.

“I'm not asking you to buy a house or give up your apartment. With the partnership money and rent from here, I can swing a mortgage without going too far into debt.”

So then we got into a discussion of chauvinism and male dominance and unequal partners. I did, at least. Matt paced the bedroom and mussed his hair again.

“So we'll put it in my name and you can pay goddamn rent. Your mother should be paying the city rent anyway, if she's going to be using the apartment. And we can sign a prenup, if that makes you happy.”

“We're not even engaged! And if you think I'm going to start cooking and cleaning out of guilt that you're paying for the house, or thinking I owe it to you for my share, you're barking up the wrong weeping willow tree, buddy. And I am definitely not going to be your sex slave in return for a scenic view and a writing studio.” I wasn't sure about that last, but I put a lot of conviction in my speech.

“Damn, I was counting on starting a harem.” Now he smiled, which almost made me rethink the no-sex option. “All I expect is to make you happy. Happy and mine.”

“Yours? Like Moses is yours?”

“Wrong word. Mine as in sharing my life. Becoming my wife. Now that I found you, and found how good we are together, I don't see any reason to wait.”

Too much, too soon. I loved Matt, I thought. I wanted to be with him, I believed. But a house and babies and forever? Before eight in the morning?

I smiled back, ripped up the real estate brochure and told him, “Okay. I want a lighthouse.”

* * *

After Matt left, I looked outside, saw the rain, and went back to sleep. Just like a kept woman.

A hot dream got interrupted by my cell ringing. I couldn't find it at first, then remembered tossing it across the room after my father's call. The caller ID came up as my editor, Don Carr.

I started to ask about the weather where he was, but he didn't want to chat.

“There's three dead mice in a takeout container on my desk. They came in a manuscript box, inside a padded manila envelope, left outside the office door with a note that said you told this wacko to send it here.”

“I didn't tell him that! But it's good.”

“Not for me and my ulcers, the intern who opened the box, or the mice. They have no heads.”

“Yeah, that's Deni's style, all right. But it's good he's still in the city. That means he's not here, so I'm okay for another day. You call the police. I'll notify the agents in the Harbor and the man monitoring my apartment.”

“Agents? You've got the FBI working on a prank caller?”

“Um, it's a different agency. I can't keep all those initials straight, you know how it is, and they don't think it's a prank. More like malicious intent, maybe connected to some kind of terrorism. Or a serial pervert.”

“Hell, you mean the bag might contain poison? It could have blown up or be radioactive? I guess that's why everyone only accepts electronic submissions. The days of finding a great story over the transom are long gone. Some houses won't look at a book unless an agent vets it first. They say it's quality control. I guess it's so if the agent doesn't drop dead, it must be safe to read.”

“Unless the agent is the perp. It could be, from some of the stories I hear. Not this time, though. It's a kid, a wannabe writer. Call the police. They're looking for him. And don't tell anyone where I am.”

I gave Don Van's number at the police station, even if the publisher's office was in a different precinct. “He'll know who to call. I'm sure someone will be there to examine the package soon.”

I called Lou the Lout, who might or might not be bonking Cousin Lily, from her happy laughter in the background, and ruined his day. Good. Then I called Harris at my mother's house, who might or might not be bonking my cousin, from Susan's happy laughter in the background. I bet she was cooking for him, besides. So I ruined his day, too. Headless mice could do that. I did
not
call Grandma Eve and Doc Lassiter at the farmhouse.

My agent was out of town, thank goodness. I'd dedicated one of my books to her, and she'd be easy to find through her website or literary agency listings. I left a message telling her not to accept any packages from unknown authors. Stick to electronic submissions but call the cops if anything looked suspicious.

Since Deni had delivered the latest package before Don Carr Publishing opened in the morning, I knew Lou would have someone show my sketch of him to the super there, the cleaning staff, people in the other offices. But no one would have paid any attention to a grim-faced, long-haired young man delivering a manuscript to a science fiction/fantasy publisher. So I doubted that anyone could identify him or say which direction he'd come from or left to, if he'd taken a cab or walked, what he was wearing.

I knew it was him. I'd try to find him the Paumanok Harbor way.

* * *

I left Harris on the phone and the computer and took the Subaru, with its GPS Lou insisted on, so someone always knew where I was. I was in town, going door to door.

Joe the plumber couldn't help locate Deni. He stared at the sketch, but all he saw in the toilet bowl—where the shithead belonged—was a lot of traffic, no street signs, no address.

Margaret the weaver could not make a finding bracelet for me, because I really didn't want to find the bastard. I wanted him found, but by someone else. Someone with handcuffs and a stun gun.

The Merriwethers had no numbers that might have helped, a Manhattan cross street maybe. They did come up with a three, as in triplets, which I did not want to hear.

Kelvin at the garage listened to me say the stalker was still in the city. He didn't scratch his big toe, which meant I spoke the truth. Which pinned Deni down to one of umpteen millions. A few less if he lived on Third Avenue or in apartment 3 somewhere. No help at all.

Big Eddie at the police station with his K-9 dog and his nose couldn't help me, although he did wink. I guess the scent of Matt and sex lingered.

I didn't bother with the weather mavens, the aura-detectors, the marksmen, or the fish-finders. Telekineticists couldn't help, neither could the smoke disperser. I waved at Micky the gay senser, bypassed the miracle-grow gardeners, the jeweler whose stones talked to him, two best-style experts, a human compass, Mrs. Terwilliger at the library, the eidetic at the bank, and Aunt Jasmine, expert child wrangler at the school.

Mrs. Grissom's dead husband had nothing to report.

That left the House on Shearwater Street. I brought it a music CD I'd burned in the city and a pot of mums for the front porch.

I felt like Mrs. Grissom, talking to empty air. Luckily, no one came to look at the houses at either side. I guess the House's reputation still scared them off.

No one answered my knock; no one sang to me; no one gave hints about finding the stalker. On the other hand, no one heaved the flowerpot off the porch or tossed the CD back at me when I shoved it through the mail slot.

Discouraged, and having taken enough time from my first priority, getting rid of the sand thieves, I went to fetch Jimmie. I still hoped he could go off in one of his trances and see what the little monsters were up to. And I wanted Carinne to come with us. If we went straight to the beach, we wouldn't encounter any children. School was in session and the day was too overcast and drizzly for anyone to bring younger kids to the beach. Maybe she could communicate with the Andanstans through the voices in her head.

* * *

Carinne and Monteith and Lily and Lou were at the kitchen table playing board games.

Here I was, worrying and working my ass off trying to find Deni, trying to reclaim the beach, and trying to solve Carinne's issues, while they might as well be watching Monte do yo-yo tricks. Then I saw they had a Ouija board.

“Hey, does that really work?”

Lou looked disgusted. “No. All we get is the number three.”

There was a lot of that going around, damn it. “Where's Jimmie?”

“He's upstairs, fighting that chest congestion again.”

Rats. Or mice. “I was counting on him going to the beach with me.”

Lou put the Ouija game away. “I think he's hiding. Sounds like he's afraid he won't be any help. That or he's afraid the blasted parrot won't come home with him.”

“Oey'll come back when Oey's ready, I hope. Will you come with me, Carinne?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no. I can't. You saw what happened at the council meeting.”

I tried to explain how no one would be on the beach, but she wasn't budging.

I thought about her fears and the professor's fears, and how they were choking on them. I might be afraid of a million things—snakes and subways and one-eyed cab drivers and failure and commitment—but at least I lived my life, more or less.