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receded.
    Watching them at their endless game, he smiled. “We have you guys at home, too,” he softly informed them, “out on Coast Guard
     Beach.” Stretching out on the warm sand, he closed his eyes and imagined himself watching sandpipers on Cape Cod.
    All at once he was aware that someone had come up behind him.
    “Do you talk to the trees, too?”
    He froze. He knew that voice, that gently teasing Irish lilt. Getting to his feet, he slowly turned. It was Laurel.
    “What—are you doing here?” he stammered.
    “Taking care of business,” she said with a half smile. “Unfinished business.”
    “But you can’t be here! It’s—impossible!”
    She chuckled. “Never underestimate the power of a determined woman.”
    She looked around. “We’re even on a beach. How appropriate.”
    “We settled this,” he managed, his voice shaking. “Four years ago.”
    “Did we?” she said, gazing at him through lowered lashes. “I don’t feel very settled about it now. Do you?”
    He shut his eyes, as he had that time before.
    She reached out to him, as she had before.
    But this time, instead of stopping short, she touched him. And let the back of her hand caress his cheek.
    “Don’t,” he said, starting to tremble.
    “Look at me, Andrew, and tell me you don’t want me.”
    He opened his eyes and met hers. “I can’t do this.”
    “Yes, you can,” she whispered, taking his hand and placing it over her heart.
    With a groan he gathered her in his arms and pressed her to him.

    When he awoke, he was still trembling. And drenched in sweat. And guilt.
    “Oh, God, what have I done? That was
over
! What—is
happening
to me?”
    On the half-hour bus ride into Hamilton, sitting next to Father Francis, he could not bring himself to tell himabout his all too vivid dream and the sleepless night that followed it. So they made small talk.
    The old priest greeted several people as they got on the bus.
    “You seem to know everyone,” Bartholomew observed.
    Father Francis smiled. “I’ve been taking the Sunday 8:47 for many years.”
    Gradually the bus filled to capacity. Bermudians were a polite people, however, so it was possible to carry on a very private
     conversation in their midst. Finally Bartholomew could no longer contain what was troubling him, and their two-seat pew on
     the bus became his confessional.
    When he’d finished relating the dream, to his surprise Father Francis laughed.
    “Welcome to Bermuda,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There’s great light here, but there’s great darkness, too. Voodoo,
     witchcraft—not for nothing was it called Devil’s Island before it got renamed.” He smiled at Bartholomew’s surprise. “The
     dark side knows you’re here, and that dream was their little welcoming present.”
    The monk stared at him.
    “People from home have the wildest dreams, really frightening, when they first get here,” the priest went on, unperturbed
     by the younger man’s reaction. “Then they learn to get serious about their prayer life.”
    Bartholomew could not restrain his incredulity. “You mean, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’—that sort of thing?”
    “I wouldn’t take that attitude, if I were you. That little nursery prayer has kept an awful lot of people in sweet dreams.”
     He paused. “I’ll tell you something: Before Isleep, I request a guard of warrior angels around the property’s perimeter.”
    “Father! You’ve got to be kidding, I mean, you’re beginning to sound medieval!”
    The old priest looked at him and sighed. “You haven’t been praying, have you.” It was a statement, not a question.
    The monk made no reply.
    “Well, you’d better start, my son. Or you’re going to be in for some wild nights.”

7      busman’s holiday
    “I think you should go,” said Peg cheerily, putting dessert in front of him. “It’ll do you a world of good.”
    Dan Burke, Eastport’s Chief of Police, stared glumly at the grapefruit-and-rhubarb