Andrew had been true to his word and hadn’t drunk any more whisky. But he did have a couple of beers before calling it a night. He was snoring like a lumberjack with sleep apnea, his guttural wheezing loud enough to beat the band and their roadies.

Needless to say, Kate couldn’t sleep. She’d nodded off and slept through dinner, which from what she saw in the kitchen sink had been soup and a sandwich. The few hours of rest had taken the edge off her exhaustion. Now, between Andrew’s snoring and the pain in her shoulders, there was no way she was going to be able to close her eyes.

Sometime before morning, she’d be wiped out and would finally zone out, just in time for the day to start.

Maybe Andrew was right and she was a vampire.

As impossible as it seemed, she was getting less sleep in Maine than she had back home. At first she’d thought it was because she needed to get used to the new surroundings, but that wasn’t it. No, everything was off with her. That damn treatment was wreaking havoc with her system. If she wasn’t burning up, she was weaker than normal and feeling strange. Being in chronic pain had made her hyperaware of her body. She couldn’t describe the way she’d been feeling. It was if her body had been replaced by another damaged, worn-out model that was completely unfamiliar to her.

There was no way she was going to tell Andrew. What could he do about it anyway? She just had to hope it passed and she could get on with enjoying their magical summer.

She watched Cary Grant in Topper and sucked on some candy to help her nausea. When the pain got this bad, it always turned her stomach sour. Candy didn’t make it all better, but it helped, sometimes more than medication.

A chilly breeze floated through the open windows. Kate snuggled under the blankets. Buttons lay on his side by her feet, snoring as well.

When she was a kid, Kate had been terrified of the dark. To make matters worse, she’d been plagued by night terrors between the ages of five and seven. Not only were there boogeymen in her closet, child-munching beasts waiting for her foot to slip out of the tuck at the end of the bed, and red-eyed creatures floating outside her window, but even her dreams, her only means of escape, were to be feared. Telling her it was time to go to bed was like informing an inmate that old Sparky was waiting for him to take that long walk.