Nights In White Satin

Carrie was right. Bridget would never allow that part of the relationship to progress. And the way he held on to the friendship made him look like a fool, not that he really cared what other people thought. Still, Carrie had underestimated his frustration. Bridget hadn’t been good for him. While most women treated him like a sexy male—Carrie was hardly the first he’d found naked—Bridget made him feel like a ghost, and while her clear blue eyes might haunt him, he wasn’t going to let her ruin any more of his chances.

Yeah, he was blowing out this torch. No matter what Bridget said or did, and no matter how much she tempted him, he wasn’t going to let her ignite any false hopes again. Yeah. Bridget Benning could rub her thin, sexy body all over him…she could even pull down his zipper, slip a warm hand inside and…

He sucked in a breath. Anyway, the point was, he wouldn’t give in to temptation. When they parted company a final time, he’d miss her like hell. He’d love her forever. But he had to move on. So, he was going to the Sunshine State, and by the time he returned, he and Bridget, just like the supposed ghosts of Hartley House, would be a closed chapter belonging to history.

2

Hartley House,

a dark and stormy night forty-eight hours later…

GETTING Dermott into bed wasn’t as easy as Bridget anticipated, but ever since she’d seen Carrie naked in his apartment, she’d decided she and her best buddy should at least try sex together. If they didn’t, they’d always wonder about it. Hadn’t they voiced attraction before, as Dermott had at the Christmas party? What if he got serious about Carrie, got married and never spent a night exploring the attraction forbidden in his friendship with Bridget?

Last night, when they’d stopped at a hotel in North Carolina, Bridget had planned to make her move, but Dermott had quickly retired to the private room he’d insisted on having to call Carrie. Not that it was necessary. Carrie called every five minutes. So had Bridget’s sisters. Edie was worried, since she was losing business at Big Apple Brides, and Marley kept teasing Bridget, asking if she’d resolved the curse yet, saying she didn’t want to lose the man she was dating, Cash Champagne. Other than that, Dermott had taped sounds at most of their stops, concentrating on those indigenous to the South. It was almost as if he was using work as an excuse not to talk.

“That’s weird,” Dermott said now, just as they turned off the main road onto the shell driveway leading to Hartley House. He’d hunched over the steering wheel to spin the radio dial. “All I’m getting is static.”

“Definitely an omen.” She peered into the darkness as the last finger of twilight glimmered, hardly caring about finding music on the radio since the house was bound to materialize soon. As she dug into a pocket for her glasses and put them on, Mug leaped from Dermott’s lap to hers. “Isn’t this exciting Muggy Puggy?” she cooed. “We’re almost at the haunted house. Do you think we’re going to see Dracula? Or Frankenstein? What do you think of this awful thunderstorm? Is it an omen?”

Wagging his tawny tail furiously, Mug spun in circles on her lap. Along with fishnet stockings and black, pointy-toed “witch shoes,” which she’d worn specifically for the occasion, she’d put on a sunny yellow jumper; because it was made of vinyl, she figured she could wash off Mug’s muddy paw prints once they got inside. “I’m beat,” she offered, rolling her head on her shoulders to work out the kinks.

Peering through the deluge battering the windshield, Dermott said, “Me, too.”

They’d gotten a start later than the appointed 7:00 a.m. time on the previous day, which left Bridget wondering just what Dermott and Carrie had been doing all that night, especially since Dermott had been driving like a bat out of hell—as if he couldn’t wait to get back to New York and Carrie. A couple of hours ago, when they’d finally hit the two-block town of Big Swamp, Florida, they’d picked up groceries and eaten at a greasy spoon diner next to a motel that looked eerily similar to Norman Bates’s place in the movie Psycho. Just thinking of the motel, Bridget felt a sudden chill, as if a cool draft had swept through the SUV’s interior.

“Everybody at Nancy’s Diner said Granny Ginny’s place is really haunted,” she found herself saying conversationally.

Dermott approximated a Transylvanian accent, announcing, “I’m going to suck your blood.”

She hummed sexily. “Sounds promising.”

He shot her a quick, startled glance, then stared through the windshield again, unwilling to acknowledge the flirtation. She sighed. Dermott had never been less fun, and she just didn’t understand it. It was as if he’d decided to put up some impenetrable guard, to protect himself from her, almost as if he’d guessed she had sex on her mind.

At least he’d been talking with a Transylvanian accent, which was amusing. In fact, he’d been doing so when they’d entered the restaurant in Big Swamp, so she’d barely noticed the stir they created. Only after they were seated had Bridget realized she was the only woman wearing a dress, much less a micromini with fishnets. Here, denim and flannel ruled. And when she and Dermott had asked Nancy, the owner, who also doubled as a waitress, to further describe grits and red gravy, everybody had doubled over laughing. At least until they’d realized where the fish-out-of-water couple was heading. Then they’d wheeled around on orange stools to stare, shaking their heads as if to say Bridget and Dermott were out of their freaking minds.

“You can’t spend the night!” Nancy warned, concern in her eyes. “Didn’t Ginny mention the place is haunted?”

During the meal, Dermott had tried to convince Bridget that the haunting was just a local legend which helped people, Granny Ginny included, to pass the time. Now she was beginning to hope so. It was spooky out here. Listening to the wipers move sludge and leaves across the windshield, she took off a black baseball cap, tossed it to the dashboard and tilted her head so that a ponytail fell over her shoulder and down her back. Mug turned and placed his paws on the dash, to get a better look through the rain-sluiced windows.

She still couldn’t see much, so she cast a glance toward Dermott again, wondering how tonight was going to play out. Would they have sex? And what had happened, anyway? One minute Dermott was her best bud, but on Valentine’s night, after she’d left his apartment, she’d dreamed the most down-and-dirty sex dream she’d ever had about a man. A paradigm shift, she thought. That’s what they called it. Suddenly, the world had spun on its axis—and now Dermott was the hottest thing she’d ever laid eyes on. Very definitely, strange mojo was at work.

In the dream, she’d seen Dermott open the door to his apartment again, and once more, she’d glimpsed the dark curling hairs trailing on the hard, bunched muscles of his thighs, and then she’d imagined he wasn’t pulling on the slacks, but taking them off instead—and not for Carrie, but for her. Not that she’d been able to prod Dermott into having a conversation about the other woman.

“Why do you care about whether it’s serious between me and Carrie?” he’d asked last night.

“I always tell you about my boyfriends,” she’d pointed out.

“Right,” he’d said. “But I don’t kiss and tell.”

Was that all he’d done with Carrie? “Oh, please. You say that as if you’re morally superior.”

He’d laughed. “Draw your own conclusions.”

Yes, his refusal to be forthcoming was a bad sign, she decided. She always told him about her boyfriends because they didn’t mean anything and, on the basis of that, she had to conclude that Carrie Masterson was important. She blew out a long sigh now, wondering if magical forces would really come into her life on this trip.

Of course, lust was a factor in how she felt. Dermott looked better than any man had a right to. His hair was mussed, his five-o’clock shadow had moved toward six or seven o’clock, becoming darker and more scraggly. Loose black jeans and a V-necked T-shirt she’d given him on his last birthday hugged his body, looking chic. Sucking in a breath, she wondered if she hoped she’d find the nerve to proposition him. She imagined herself asking him if he wanted to have sex with her. Then she imagined herself simply reaching down and cupping her hand over his jeans fly. Why not?

“See if you can find some music, Bridge.”

She imagined his unbuttoned shirt, the tufts of unruly dark hair calling for her fingers. Shifting Mug in her lap, she squinted through the darkened windshield and spun the radio dial. “Ghosts,” she explained when she found only static. “Don’t they interfere with radio signals?”

Dermott nodded. “Wait until we get indoors. Maybe the insides of the phone have been removed, too.”

She chuckled. “Like in a Twilight Zone episode, cutting us off from the outside world?”

“Exactly.”

Her laughter tempered when she thought about their experience at the diner again. In a long line of pickup trucks, Dermott’s SUV had stood out, and as soon as people had discovered they were visiting Hartley House and driving an SUV containing recording equipment, they’d decided she and Dermott had come for the sole purpose of taping ghosts. The people in the diner, of course, would never guess what was really on Bridget’s mind when she thought of spending the night with Dermott in a haunted house.

The closer they got, the more overgrown the driveway became, and as Dermott slowed, she became more conscious of the sound of shells crunching under the tires. Even though they were inside, she ducked instinctively as they traveled beneath a thick canopy of trees; Granny’s place had gone so long untended that branches were scraping the SUV’s roof. The lawn’s massive trees, far larger than any she’d seen in Central Park, had gnarled, twisted roots that would have done Wes Craven proud. Her eyes followed them as they advanced like marching spiders.

Her breath suddenly caught. “There it is!”

Mug went still in her lap, standing at attention, his paws resting on the dashboard as the house loomed out of the darkness like a giant, but possessing none of the usual features that made a house look scary, such as turrets or a widow’s walk or nearby waves that crashed against a rocky coastline. There was, however, a swamp that opened into tidewaters, and lightning that flashed between trees, illuminating a white-painted brick house that was very square and imposing; climbing ivy framed the windows and crawled into gutters, sending a promising quiver through her. The upstairs windows didn’t disappoint, either, gaping down like vacant, empty eyes. A columned veranda encircled the ground floor.

She inhaled sharply. “The door’s open, Dermott!”

Having seen the house now, he sounded uncharacteristically pensive. “Sure is.”

“Should I call the police?”

He paused. “It couldn’t hurt.”

Swallowing hard, barely able to believe how haunted the house really looked, Bridget punched in 911. The phone rang and rang. Finally a woman picked up and said, “What can I do you for, hon?”

Bridget shot Dermott a glance. “Uh…I’m in Big Swamp,” she began, “visiting a relative, Ginny Hartley. And, well, we got to the house and the door’s wide-open.” She paused. “Have I reached 911, or is this a wrong number?”

“Sure have, honey,” returned the woman. “Trouble is, the sheriff’s on his dinner break, and when he gets back, I already promised Mary Lou Bidden he’d come over and help shut her windows, to keep out the storm. Her house is over a century old and the wood sticks.”

“I see,” Bridget managed as Dermott brought the SUV to a halt under what was probably a willow tree; it was still raining hard and Bridget could scarcely see five feet in front of the vehicle now. Her heart hammering, she wondered if she was really about to see a replica of the ring she wore. Impossible. Dermott’s right. The old family legends are just stories spun for the amusement of country people on rainy days.

A beep had sounded on the line. The woman said, “I’ve got another call, but don’t worry, the sheriff will check your premises in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

As Bridget turned off the phone, Dermott switched off the ignition, and then they both peered at the house. “The cops are coming no time soon, huh?” asked Dermott.

“Guess not.” As she hugged Mug nearer, the enclosed space of the SUV felt claustrophobic. Suddenly, she was conscious of the silence left in the absence of the motor, and of Dermott’s good looks. Unbidden, she thought of the last time she’d visited the place where the Trade Centers had stood. Twining her fingers through the chain link fence, she’d stared at the workers and said a silent prayer for those who’d died, as she always did. And then she’d tried to remember exactly what the buildings had looked like, but no matter how hard she’d tried, she simply couldn’t. She’d felt just terrible.

Now a lump formed in her throat, and even though she knew she was being ridiculously maudlin, she wondered if she could ever forget Dermott. He, too, had been a daily part of her life for so long; what if he was gone and she couldn’t visualize his face?