When She Dreams (Burning Cove #6)(70)

“Wow. You went into hiding?”

“For several months,” Maggie said. “That’s how I ended up in Adelina Beach. Everyone assumed I would come home when I ran out of money, but I managed to survive writing for the confession magazines. Finally I landed the job as Lillian’s assistant. Somewhere along the line Brighton got engaged to someone else and my family concluded that if I was strong enough to get by in the world without their help or their money, then maybe my nerves were okay after all.”

“You have nerves of steel, lady. What went wrong at the last minute that made you call off the wedding?”

“Seventeen days before the last minute,” Maggie corrected.

“Right. Seventeen days before the big day.”

“I decided to surprise Brighton by showing up at his office for lunch. When I walked into the reception room, his secretary was away from her desk. There was a file open on the blotter and a sheet of paper in the typewriter. It looked like she was in the process of typing up some of Brighton’s notes.” Maggie paused. “I saw my name.”

“Were you still Forrester’s patient at the time?”

“I had never been his patient.”

“You consulted with him?”

“Yes. I ended the consultations before our first date. After that we became colleagues. At least that was how I viewed the relationship. But the notes in the file were recent and they indicated Brighton thought there was something very wrong with me.”

“You read them?”

“They were about me,” Maggie said. “Of course I read them.”

“And?”

“That’s when I discovered that I apparently suffered from female sexual dysfunction. I was frigid. But that was not the most infuriating thing in the file.”

“This story gets worse?”

“Oh, yes,” Maggie said. “Brighton speculated that my inability to achieve an orgasm with him might be linked to my failure to exercise proper control over my lucid dreams. I admit there was an unfortunate incident one afternoon when we went to the beach.”

“How unfortunate?”

“It was a lovely day. I dozed off while reading a book under the umbrella. Dreamed. Woke up in the middle of a terrible anxiety attack. Brighton was quite alarmed, to say the least. Between you and me, I think he had a panic attack himself.”

“What did you dream about?”

Maggie sighed. “Brighton. In my dream he was transformed into a vampire. I realized later it was my intuition warning me that he was not good husband material.”

“I’d say a dream like that warrants an anxiety attack.”

“Apparently it was too much for Brighton. His notes made it clear he was convinced that the combination of female sexual dysfunction and the stress of my extreme lucid dreaming was too much for my delicate nerves. It was obvious he was preparing a medical case history that would enable him to have me committed after we were married.”

“He wanted to marry you and then get you out of the way? Why?”

“The oldest reason in the world,” Maggie said. “Money. My family has a lot of it. Brighton’s family lost almost everything in the years right after the crash. He makes a very good living as a doctor, but he grew up in a family that once possessed a great fortune. He wanted to move back into that world.”

“So he planned to get rich the old-fashioned way—he was going to marry money.”

“Yes, but that wasn’t the reason I did what I did when I ended our engagement.”

“Are we getting to the psychic vampire part?” Sam said.

“I realized later he really was very attracted to me at the beginning. I hadn’t been completely fooled. But I failed to understand that the reason he wanted me was because I am a more powerful lucid dreamer than he is. He believed he could use me to learn how to control his own lucid dreaming talent. According to the notes, in the beginning he was convinced an intimate relationship with me was a way to open the door to his latent psychic abilities.”

“Well, damn. I get the vampire reference now,” Sam said. “He was not only an opportunist who was out to take advantage of you; he was delusional.”

“No, not in the least,” Maggie said. “A bit obsessive, perhaps, but not delusional.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Brighton really is quite sane and intelligent. His theories about a connection between sex, dreams, and the paranormal might be valid. Who knows? The problem as far as he was concerned was my failure to achieve orgasm. After all, if I was frigid, his approach to achieving a higher level of dreaming probably wouldn’t work. Not with me, at any rate.”

“But he didn’t want to give up the opportunity to marry into money,” Sam said.

“That was the plan, but things didn’t go well for him.”

Sam looked down at her for a long moment. Maggie was in a somber, serious mood. Obviously she had suffered a traumatic experience. He ought to respect that.

But he couldn’t help himself. He let the laughter roll through him.

Maggie watched him, curious but evidently not offended. She smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“You scared the living hell out of Dr. Brighton Forrester, didn’t you? That’s why he was plotting to have you put away right after the wedding.”