Night Mares in the Hamptons Read Free Page B

field.”
    â€œNo, the horses. You can help them find a way back to their home world.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Willy. I just can’t get away now. You know I would if I could. I miss you.”
    â€œAnd I you.” I figured I’d sleep a lot better with some therapeutic sex, like Susan did.
    â€œDon’t worry. It’ll be over soon and things will be back to normal.”
    Or as normal as they got in Paumanok Harbor. “I hope so.”
    â€œAnd when everything is settled here too I’ll come visit, shall I? I need to confer again with Martha about Royce’s plans for purchasing the Rosehill property.”
    â€œThat would be wonderful.” So did not having to tell him by phone that the would-be engagement wouldn’t happen.
    â€œAnd when I leave, I’ll drag you back with me so Mother can introduce you around and you two can start planning the wedding.”
    Did suicide hurt?

CHAPTER 3

    D UMBASS CHICKENSHIT. THAT’S WHAT I called myself. Stupid, mean, and immoral, too. Not just because I hadn’t confessed to Grant that I was not going to marry him. I hadn’t lied. I did miss him. I did love him, sort of. I just couldn’t live my life living his life.
    That wasn’t the dumb part. What really pissed me off was expecting him to come rescue me and then being disappointed when he wouldn’t. What was I, some wimpy Wanda who needed a man to change the tires and carry out the garbage? A spineless Sadie whose security blanket had a hairy chest? A nervous Nelly who—
    I was not. I am not. I helped a troll. I saved a lost kid. Not by myself, of course, but I got it done. I am Willow Tate. Hear me roar.
    If the town thought I could handle the spectral horses and their side effects, and Susan and Grant thought so, too, then handle them I would. Especially now that I knew the whole mishmash would end soon.
    So I went into town and spread the word at Jane’s Beauty Salon, the post office, the deli, the garage, and the one-room police station at Town Hall. Which meant the entire village would hear the news within the hour. The horses were lost but on their way home, I told everyone. They were broadcasting their own emotional distress, that was all. Nothing to worry about, nothing to stay up nights over. We needed to take a few extra precautions for a couple of days; maybe some sleeping pills—but not too many!
    Some people looked relieved. Some appeared skeptical.
    â€œHow do you know, Willy?” Walter at the drugstore asked when I picked up The Times.
    Because I was smart and clever and the town’s resident rescuer? No, damn it. “Because Grant told me. They researched it at the Institute.”
    â€œOh, that’s okay, then.”
    By the time I picked up pizza for dinner, people were smiling again. I even saw a Mercedes yield to a pedestrian at an intersection.
    All was right with the world. I walked the dogs before sunset when we had the beach to ourselves as far as the eye could see: my favorite time, my favorite place. The old boys kind of ambled along while Red hopped around in circles until he exhausted himself and had to be carried home. On the way I stopped in at Grandma Eve’s like the perfect granddaughter I was, and because I knew she’d been making strawberry jam that afternoon.
    She handed me two jars and a jab. “What are you going to do about this horror?” Talk about sweet and sour.
    â€œI told you, Grant thinks the horses will disappear in a few days.”
    â€œOf course they will. And then we will all forget about them as if they never existed, until next time. I am referring to your cousin.”
    â€œSusan? What, did she steal some of your herbs for the restaurant’s special tonight?”
    â€œDo not be flippant, missy.”
    I didn’t have long enough hair to be flippant.
    Grandma Eve pursed her thin lips. You wouldn’t know her age so well without the lines around her mouth.