by Lexi Post
There was no way he would explain he had sex nightmares about Kat every night at midnight. He wasn’t going to tell him about the sleeping pill that didn’t work, or the fine cognac that couldn’t keep him asleep or even his new penchant for single malt scotch, which unfortunately didn’t work either.
“Okay. I’ll go see him.”
“Tomorrow.”
He waved his hand. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
Stephen grabbed his wrist, his wiry strength a surprise. “I mean it, Braeden.”
He nodded. He’d go. He’d confess and lose another important person in his life. “And you will play the Headless Horseman next year.”
“Agreed.” They shook hands and Braeden rose to leave.
“Do you want to say hi to the kids?”
Braeden shook his head. “No. They’re having fun. No reason to interrupt that.”
Stephen smiled. “We used to do that. Do you remember?”
“Yeah, I do, but that was before life got complicated.”
* * * * *
Reed looked good, like his old self. His streaked blond hair had grown to his normal length, past the collar, and his physique had filled out. He wasn’t so thin and willowy anymore. If it wasn’t for the pauses as he searched for the right word, or the stiffness in his left arm, the average person wouldn’t have a clue he’d almost lived his life out as an invalid, incapable of caring for himself or thinking for himself.
Braeden met his friend’s gaze. “This is a great place. You deserve it.”
Reed handed him an iced tea and sat across from him on the matching couch. “I do deserve it. I worked very hard to get where I am. At first, I didn’t…think it would happen.”
Braeden swallowed. The fact Reed had to do any work to have his own apartment hurt. He deserved so much more.
“But then my new…physical therapist wouldn’t accept it when I said ‘I can’t’ and a lot changed.”
“I need to thank him, then.”
“Her. And no need. As she says, it’s just her job.”
“She sounds more like a miracle worker to me.”
“Yeah, there is that.” Reed smiled, just like he had before the accident.
Braeden relaxed. “So what are your plans now?”
“I’m going to go to college. You made such a…success of yourself, I’ve decided I should give it a try.”
Shit, Reed had changed a lot in the last year. “That’s great. Just let me know where and I’ll send the tuition check immediately. When are you going?”
Reed took a swallow and avoided Braeden’s gaze. When he put the glass down, he stroked the moisture from it as if it were the focus of his attention. “About that. I’d prefer you didn’t pay for it. I want to do this on my own.”
A tightness settled around Braeden’s chest. “But why?”
Reed finally looked at him. “Because you’ve done enough for me. Far more than any friend would do. I don’t even know why you kept our…friendship going when it was two years before I remembered who you were and another before I could recall most of our time together.”
Sweat formed at the base of Braeden’s spine. He couldn’t lose Reed again. He gave a choked chuckle. “Hey, we were best buds. You’re still the only guy I’d dare tell anything to. Look at those emails I send you. Do you think I’d tell that stuff to just anyone?”
“So you’d tell me anything?”
Braeden took a swallow of the ice tea, his throat suddenly dry. “Sure.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“What happened where? You mean at Sleepy Hollow? I think I filled you in on most of that.”
Reed sat back and folded his arms. “No. I want you to tell me how I got…hurt.”
“I told you. It was an accident.” His whole body felt warm and he wished he’d worn a t-shirt instead of a sport shirt.
“Yes, you did. But how did it happen? How did I hit my head on the concrete bench in the park?”
Braeden couldn’t look at Reed. The flush of fear that overtook his body at the memory of that day took his breath from him. His heart raced as the image of Reed, lying on the grass, blood oozing from his head became clear in his mind. He had to get help. He stood as air rushed back into his lungs and glanced at Reed, then strode to the window, feeling eighteen all over again.
He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. It was time to confess. Time to confront his own past. He turned to Reed. “We argued. When you tried to leave, I freaked. I thought you were done with me. You were the only person who knew me and liked me for who I was. When you started to walk away, I panicked.”
He looked past Reed, at the doorway to the kitchen, anywhere but at his friend. “I tried to stop you from leaving. I was strong even then. I didn’t realize my own strength. I yanked you back. You fell and hit your head. There was so much blood. I thought you were dead.”
He turned away, the memory of the day still as sharp as a diamond’s edge. “I called 9-1-1 and tried to get you to wake up.” He gripped the windowsill. “I thought if I could get you to wake up, you would be okay. But you wouldn’t open your eyes. I begged and yelled, but you were out. When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs scowled at me as if I’d killed you. They wouldn’t let me in the ambulance. That’s when I called your parents.”
He still remembered the look on Reed’s parents’ faces when he walked into the hospital with Reed’s blood on his clothing. They railed at him, but he’d been too scared Reed would die to notice.
“Braeden.” Reed’s calm voice forced him to look at him. “What did we argue about?”
Shit. He stared at the ceiling as if he could get help to stop the torture that was long overdue. He deserved this. These years helping Reed get better were borrowed time. Time to hold on to a friend he loved who, in the end, had wanted to walk away. It looked like the time had come. He might as well face it like a man.
He met Reed’s intense look with his own. “It was over a woman.”
“What about her?” Reed continued to stare.
“You had been dating her for three months but wouldn’t introduce us. You really liked her. Until then, we had thought it a blast to go to bars, pick out a couple of the ladies for the night and take them home, but we didn’t always go out together.”
He ran a hand through his hair again and came back to sit on the couch opposite his once best friend. He stared at his drink. “That day you finally told me her name. You were confident in how she felt about you and were going to introduce us. The problem was, I had slept with her two nights earlier. I didn’t know. She didn’t act like she was in love with someone else. I didn’t want to tell you but I had to. When I did, you were hurt and angry, rightfully so, but then you said you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.” He lifted his gaze to meet Reed’s. “You said I was a freak. For the record, I still am.”
Reed sat still as stone. Braeden braced himself for what would be the end of his last relationship outside his family, if hiding behind the computer could be called a relationship.
“I know.” Reed’s soft voice caught his attention.
“You know I’m a freak. Yeah, so do I.”
Reed shook his head. “No. I know what happened. I remembered it almost a year ago.”
“What?” Braeden frowned. “You remembered before I visited you last Christmas and didn’t say anything?”
Read gazed thoughtfully at him. “Yes. At first, my anger…fueled my need to get better. I wanted to kick your ass, and I saw how much larger you had become. So I had to work hard.”
“You’re welcome to take a swing at me now. You look a lot stronger and honestly I’m not sorry you are.”
“Neither am I. But then I was talking to my physical therapist about the…event and I couldn’t remember her name.”
“Your therapist?”
“No.” Reed rolled his eyes. “The woman I’d been so in love with.”
“Rhonda.”
“Ah. Yes.” Reed took a sip and
contemplated his beer. “I don’t remember what she looked like or the feelings I had for her.”
Braden sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “Maybe that’s because of your injury. Maybe I stole that from you too.”
Reed shook his head. “No. I remember some of the other women we took to bed.” He smirked, looking just like he used to back in high school. “But she is…vague. I’ve come to terms with it, and I think she means so little to me now because you mean more.”
Huh? Braeden stared at Reed as if he’d gone off the deep end. “I think you may have had a few too many drugs. I slept with the woman you loved. I didn’t know it, but I did and I hurt you.”
Reed crossed his hands behind his head. “I think that says a lot more about her than it does you. She knew.” He winked. “Still, I’m not going to bring any woman I’m in love with anywhere near you until I marry her. Nothing personal.”
This couldn’t be happening. Braeden’s heart lightened but his brain refused to accept what Reed said. “But I physically hurt you. You have been in medical treatment for almost a decade.”
“Yeah. Medical treatment you paid for. And like you said, it was an accident. Actually, I need to…apologize.”
“What?” Braeden swallowed the lump in his throat as all his worst fears started to dissipate.
Reed lowered his arms and turned serious. “I’m sorry I called you a…freak. I remembered that too.”
“Ah shit.” Braden stood and grabbed Reed up into a bear hug, still careful not to let his excitement cause him to squeeze too tight.
When he let go, he noticed the water in Reed’s eyes matched his own and he stepped away, but he couldn’t get the shit-eating grin off his face.
Reed smiled too. “So what’s this I hear about you not leaving your penthouse for weeks, and only…visiting family twice a year?”
Braeden’s face fell and he exhaled. “Stephen.”
“Yup. You said you’d tell me anything.”
“Not without a beer.”
Reed grinned as he walked toward the kitchen. “I can make those arrangements.”
* * * * *
Oldtime—Thursday
Kat set the burlap bag on the ground beside the church. It seemed the appropriate place to say goodbye. Sitting on the front steps in her wedding dress, knowing Brom was gone, was burned into her memory as clear as any wood carving. She needed to burn that wood.
She looked around. The spot was perfect. She could see the church steps, the cemetery and the bridge just to the right of the church. Brom had proposed to her on the bridge. It was one of the few romantic things he’d done. The softness in her heart dissipated as resentment flared. Had he been more romantic for his next betrothed when he proposed to her? Had he settled down, become quieter, or had he been a loud old man, happy with his wife and children? Her gut told her he’d been the latter.
She lifted the bottom of the bag and dumped the contents on the ground, then sat on the bag. The morning had been chilly and the dead grass was not much of a buffer between the bag and the earth. She arranged all the articles into a pile. At the bottom was Brom’s frock. She laid the vine ring on top and then a dried flower from their first walk alone. She added the book she’d given him for Christmas that he never took with him, always claiming he preferred to read at the inn, but as she’d come to know him, it was clear he wasn’t a reader.
A twig snapped in the woods and she halted her movements. Looking over her shoulder past the graveyard, she saw a deer standing among the trees. She watched it blink and sniff the air. Not happy with the scent, it bounded away. She sighed. She loved the deer that visited the forest. Brom had focused on hunting them, unable to see their beauty beyond meat. She added a ripped waistcoat he planned to throw away, but she’d asked to use the material and then held on to it. Other mementos followed, including the poem she’d written him. She’d been surprised at how much she’d kept. Lastly, she reverently covered the pile with the wedding gown she wore to wait for him to be her husband. She could never bring herself to cut into it. This was better.
She reached into her pocket and dug out the little packet Max had given her. She discovered she wasn’t the only one holding on to items of value, except while hers were from the past, Max’s were from the present. She rose and stepped back. He’d shown her how to make the matches light on the small strip, having her try a couple.
“Goodbye, Brom. I loved you, but I need to live my own life now. In the present, or as present as I can get. There’s more to life than your memory.”
With practiced precision, she lit the match and threw it on the gown. It caught immediately. Tiny flames spread along the white cotton and in minutes, a small fire warmed the air. She reached her hands toward it. Small black ashes floated above the fire in the heat before gently falling to the ground. It was hard to watch the beautiful gown she’d spent so many nights sewing go up in flames, but the reason for its existence was no longer relevant.
Mesmerized by the flames, she felt nothing except the light breeze that rustled the dead leaves along the forest floor. The sound of the church door closing broke her reverie. “Hello?”
“Katrina?” Nora’s red head peeked around the wall of the church.
“I’m just saying goodbye.”
“What are you burning?” Nora approached cautiously.
“Memories.”
Nora gave her a quizzical look before turning her attention back to the fire. She held her hands over it. “Oh, this feels good. It’s so cold in the church.”
“Why were you in the church?”
“Just getting it ready for the weekend.” Nora kept her attention on the fire. “People are talking about how we are back in Oldtime. We assume you and Braeden didn’t, um, decided not to…
“We had a fight.”
“Oh. Do you think Braeden will return to play the Headless Horseman?”
Kat crossed her arms over her stomach, the pain in her heart too harsh to bear. “No, I don’t.”
“I’m sorry. You seemed so happy.” Nora put her hand on Kat’s arm.
Kat’s throat closed and she nodded before returning her gaze to the dying flames. She should have done this long ago, but she’d never been like Brom, taking life by the tail and swinging it around. She was slow, methodical, taking each step carefully, at least until Braeden.
“I’d best get back and see how the girls are doing with the bread. Do you want to walk with me?”
Kat watched the smoke reach for the sky. “No, I’m going to stay until the fire is out.” She glanced at Nora. “I don’t want to take a chance it will run across the churchyard and into the trees.”
“Very well. Don’t stay too late.” Nora lifted her skirts and started down the path toward the village.
Kat stared at the flames, holding back the tears at the reminder that she would never see Braeden again. She sat back down on the burlap bag and poked at the fire with a stick. Would Braeden quickly find someone else now that he’d given up on her, like Brom had? How could she erase her feelings for him? They were so new, too strong.
She had to live in the present. If her terrible mistake with Braeden taught her anything, it was she had to live now, and the first order of business was to lift the curse and help the people of Sleepy Hollow acclimate to Newtime.
She poked at the dying fire again, causing ashes to rise from the now-glowing red coals.
“I found you.” Jurgen’s voice as he walked across the bridge surprised her.
Lovely. He was probably searching for her so he could gloat. She ignored his approach and set about covering the smoldering ashes with dirt she dug with her stick.
He came to a stop on the other side of her little pile of ash, his tone kindness itself. “I’ve been looking for you. Your mom’s table is complete. Would you like to deliver it with me?”
She didn’t glance up. “No.”
“But I’m sure she would like to see you.”
She raised her gaze to his. “We spe
nt all day together yesterday. Is that enough?” She threw down her stick and stood, irritated with Jurgen always needing to tell her what she should do. How did he know he had all the right answers?
He took a step back and put his hands out in front of him as if to ward her off. “Oh, I didn’t know. I just thought if you wanted a ride, but if you just had a nice visit…”
He too held on to the past too tightly. He kept thinking he could have her when she didn’t want him. She fisted her palms as her anger simmered. He wanted to keep them all here in Oldtime, especially her. “You need to understand something. Just because Braeden is gone doesn’t mean I’ll turn to you. In fact,” she pointed at him, her finger shaking, “I am going to make every effort to discover how to lift this curse so we can live in Newtime with the rest of the world, because that is where we should be. This village should have disappeared long ago. It should have changed, the people should have had generations of family, and life should have continued.”
“Now, Kat. You don’t mean that.” His voice was placating, irritating her even more. “You’re just upset, but you’ll come to see—”
“No. You’re wrong.” She advanced on him and he stepped back. “We are under a curse. That means being in Oldtime is a punishment for something. It is payment for something we did or someone did. It means—wait. That’s it. We have to determine what we did and somehow undo it.”
She grabbed the empty burlap bag from the ground and strode toward the path, leaving him behind. “Dame Vandend said it had to do with me. I need to figure this out.”
* * * * *
Newtime—October
Braeden sat in the back with the kids, their excitement for trick-or-treating catching.
“Uncle Braeden, why don’t you come with us on Saturday?”
He chuckled and it felt good. “Because I don’t have a costume.”
“You can be Darth Vader.”
Michael covered his mouth with his hand. “Yeah. Luke, I am your father.”
The boys laughed at his imitation of James Earl Jones’ voice.
Stephen turned in the front passenger seat of the van. “Or he could be the Headless Horseman.”
