EIGHTEEN
“Hope we're not too early, Doc,” Red said the minute he walked in the door. His gaze flickered over me so quickly I almost thought I'd imagined it: down to green-sweatered breasts, back to eyes. I'd left my hair loose down my back and worn mascara. I could tell he approved.
“No, you're right on time.” He kept his eyes on mine while I spoke, but it looked like he was making an effort. He was wearing an old sheepskin jacket that still had a lot of sheep left in it.
“Wanted to get going before the sun was down so I could walk you around the boundaries in a bit of light.” As Red spoke, he kept glancing away, and I realized with some surprise that I could see a bright splotchy flush like a crude handprint on his cheek.
I'd made him blush.
“That sounds great. How are you, Jackie?” Red was helping his girlfriend out of her hideous horse-printed jacket. They had brought the cool fall air in with them, along with a strong smell of cigarettes.
“Doing fine. Here—for house warming.” She handed me a small package of guest soaps shaped like little lambs.
“Oh, thank you so much for thinking of that. Here, I'll take your coat.” The cigarette smell had soaked into the wool; I moved it as far from my face as possible.
“Wow.” Jackie looked around at the dark Victorian foyer with its green-and-yellow stained-glass window and whistled. “Always wondered what it looked like in here. Used to know Harvey, the old caretaker.”
“So you were aware that this place is a mausoleum. Red? Can I take your coat?” He was sniffing the air distractedly. I wondered if something had gone wrong with the chili.
“Oh. Sure. I was just—do you have a dog?”
“No. Why do you ask?” I hung Jackie's coat up in the hall closet, wondering if he was going to tell me I needed one for protection.
“Because some people keep their animals penned up, you know, when guests come, but Jackie and I are really dog people, so there's no problem with us.” Red removed his coat, revealing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over the bulge of his small, hard biceps. I could see only half of his coyote tattoo.
“Nope, no dog here,” I said, hanging his coat on a hanger. “I haven't really had time to take care of one. Until now, of course. In fact, I've been thinking about getting one.” I turned to Jackie. “You never brought Pia over,” I said. “Is she getting better about not scratching?”
Jackie shook her head. “No, she's still itchy. And she can't seem to settle down at night. I thought about bringing her along today, but she gets so weird about new places and people, I figured I'd better leave her at home.”
“Would you like me to come over and check her out?”
Jackie smiled, revealing a smear of lipstick on her front tooth. “I'd really appreciate it.”
“Well, my veterinary skills are a bit more advanced than my cooking. I hope you guys like chili.”
“Oh, no, it smells great. Just great. You know us Texans, we like our chili.”
“I'm sorry if it's not quite right. I'm not used to cooking with meat. There's also one without.”
“Oh, meat for me.” Jackie smiled even more broadly, and there were deep lines in the leathery skin of her face. I found that I liked Red all the better for not caring that his girlfriend was not perfect or young.
“Another carnivore,” I said. “Hunter will be thrilled. I'll go upstairs and tell him you're here.”
“Anything else I can do while you're up there, Doc? Chili need stirring?”
“No, thanks, Red. Everything's taken care of.”
Jackie pulled a pack of Marlboros out of her pocket-book. “Jeez, I can't quite recall the last time you offered to help me in the kitchen.”
Red looked at the cigarette Jackie was lighting. “Maybe we should go on outside a moment with that, Jackie.”
Jackie lifted her eyebrows. “All right, mind telling me what's got you turning into Mr. Manners?”
“Oh, listen,” I said, “it's getting cold out: If you want to smoke in here, that's okay.”
Red was looking at Jackie. “We don't want to impose.”
“No, it's no—”
But Jackie wasn't looking at me, either. “No, no, I wouldn't dream of insulting our hosts.” She slammed out the door. Red looked at me for a moment in silent apology before following her.
Well, this was going to be an interesting evening.
I hurried upstairs with the lamb-shaped soaps. I'd left Hunter in the clawfoot bathtub, but when I looked, he was gone, and a damp towel was flung over the toilet seat.
“Hunter? Hunter, they're here.” He'd been so surly about having Red and Jackie over that I half-wondered if he'd gone back up to the attic to write. If so, I wasn't going to argue with him. But when I came downstairs, ready to make an excuse, Hunter was already out on the porch, smoking a cigarette with Jackie. He was standing with one hand braced against a support beam, looking muscular as he loomed over both our guests. He must have gone down the back stairs. He waved when he saw me, and I realized he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
“Hi, I was just checking to see where you—aren't you freezing in that?”
Hunter laughed, and I realized that Red had taken off his flannel shirt and was wearing short sleeves, too. Maybe it was a macho thing. “Tell you what, Abs,” he said, taking another drag on the cigarette. “What we need is a drink to warm us up.”
“Of course. Um, Jackie, what would you like? We have vodka, gin, um, I think there's some beer, red wine …”
“A Bloody Mary would be great.”
I said I'd check if we had tomato juice. I started walking back into the kitchen.
“Abra.”
I turned back to Hunter, who was smiling as if he'd just won a bet.
“Yes?”
“You forgot to ask Red what he wanted. And I'll have a gin and tonic.”
“I'm sorry, Red. What can I get you?”
“Any old beer you have is fine for me, Doc. Can I help you bring stuff out?”
“If you like.” I went into the kitchen feeling somehow diminished, as if I were a little girl pretending to be a hostess and I'd just been found out.
Red stood with a kind of muscular stillness and watched while I found the gin and vodka. “Can I help get the glasses?”
“Over there.” I pointed and he opened a cabinet door, revealing nothing but plates. “I'm sorry. Maybe there. I'm still getting used to it here.”
“Shh.” He came up next to me, as if he were going to take me in his arms. I could feel the deep frown between my eyebrows turning into a headache.
“I'm just—it's all a little overwhelming. Moving. Don't worry, I'm not going to cry.”
“All right.”
I took a deep, sharp breath and Red moved and then checked himself. I could feel his yearning toward me like a magnetic field drawing me in. So this is what it's like, I thought, to see yourself larger than life in somebody else's eyes. What my mother had always known. What Hunter knew. I took another breath. “I'm okay.”
A muscle flexed high in his jaw. “I can't. Touch you. He'll know.”
“What do you—”
“I'd like to help you.”
“I'm fine now,” I said, turning my back to him. “I think the drinks stuff is over here …”
“Don't pretend. It's dangerous to pretend.” Then he did touch me, taking my shoulders in his hands and gently turning me to face him. We stood there in silence. His hands were warm, almost hot. I felt a reluctance to move away, which was odd, because in general I'm not a touchy-feely sort of person. But he had a reassuring air of quiet calm: Despite the heat of him, I felt as if I could just sink into him, like a lake. I cleared my throat.
“I think you're imagining something that isn't—I'm not pretending anything.”
“Aren't you? Things are exactly how they've always been between you and your—Hunter.”
“That isn't really any of your business.” The worst possible response: I might as well have said, Well, actually he's beating me and shackling me in the basement at night. “Look, I didn't mean that to sound the way it probably did. Hunter and I are fine.”
“Good.” His hazel eyes were set deep and almost triangular in their sockets, so that he looked pained even when he was smiling. “Glad to hear it. And you're right—it's none of my business. But you helped me. Back in the city.”
“I didn't do much of anything.”
“Still, I'm beholden to you. Pia is a very special animal.” His hands were still on my shoulders. “And I think you're in a bit of trouble yourself, now.”
“Look, we've just made a major life change and maybe I seem a little tense because of it. I'm sorry if my husband seemed a little edgy the other night, but he's probably feeling the tension, too.” As I said this, something inside my temples pulled taut and began to throb.
“You think maybe I'm not seeing things as they are?” Red's fingers slid down my arms, and he shook his head. “Maybe.”
“It's not that you're not an attractive man, Red, it's just that—well, you know. I'm married, and you're—you have Jackie.” This was purely to spare his feelings: It seemed unfair not to make some noise about him being appealing on some level, after he'd made his own feelings for me so painfully apparent.
“Jackie's not my girlfriend. Hasn't been for a while.”
I wonder if she knows that, I thought. “Oh. Well, good. So you're friends. Which is what I hope we can be—friends.”
Red's chin snapped up. “You think I'm trying to say I've got some kind of crush on you?”
Now I could feel myself blushing, a burning on the back of my neck, my cheeks. “I'm sorry, I thought …”
Red laughed. “Hey, don't go all schoolgirl on me, Doc. I'm not saying I'm not attracted to you. ‘Course I am. Just like you're attracted to me. But that's not what I've been trying to get at here …”
“I am not attracted to you!”
He raised one eyebrow.
“I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but I am not attracted to you.”
Red stepped in, dipped his head, and breathed in once, hard. “Yep,” he said. “You are.”
The mounting tension in my head made it hard to concentrate. “Listen, I don't know what has given you the impression that I like you in that way, but I don't. You're a nice man, but—”
“Your head hurt?” Before I could move away, his hands had slipped up into my hair. The touch of his fingers against my scalp was perfect and precise as he located what must have been acupressure points. Suddenly I felt a burst of heat at the crown of my head, and then the pain was gone, and the flush swept down from my temples to my breasts, to my belly and groin. Without thinking, I leaned against him. His voice was no more than a whisper beside my ear.
“We have to stop this. Before he smells us.”
What was he saying? It made no sense. But I no longer wanted to stop. It was as if Red were two steps ahead of me, knowing my reactions before I was aware of them myself. Was I attracted to him? I couldn't bring myself to pull away. I felt the fine tremble of his fingers. “Smells us?”
His fingers contracted in my hair.
“Are you expecting your period?”
“What? No!” I stepped away from him abruptly.
“You get these headaches often?”
What was he now, a doctor? “Not usually, no.”
“Your husband getting headaches, too?”
“I don't think so. No.” But would I know if he were? “Listen, thank you for the, ah, head rub, but I don't really need medical advice. If I do, I'll go to a doctor.”
“If you've got what I think you've got, I don't think the doctor's gonna be much help to you.”
I put my hands on my hips, suddenly angry. “And what do you think I have?”
“Well, for starters, an unfaithful husband.”
My heart gave an uncomfortable little flip. There was no way he could know that. “He was just flirting with that barmaid.” I turned away from him, opened the cabinet, and took down four glasses. “That doesn't mean anything.”
“Okay, fine, have it your way,” Red said. “But in about two weeks, you'll be calling me in for help.”
I took the unopened bottle of tomato juice and a bottle of tonic out of the cupboard. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Only thing is, by then it won't be so easy to deal with.”
I fixed Red with a look that would have stopped even my mother. “What won't be?”
“Your little wildlife removal problem.”
It took me a moment to make the connection. Then I remembered that I had planned on asking Red what could be done about the visits from the local fox or what ever it was that was leaving little gifts of viscera on my doorstep. “How did you know I have a problem?”
Red looked at me carefully. “What's it been? Small stuff? Mice? Voles?”
“Yesterday there was a baby rabbit.”
“Anything inside the house?” His voice was sharp, almost angry.
“No, but I wanted to ask you if there was anything I could do. Short of laying traps. I don't want to kill anything.”
Red rubbed his jaw. “Christ.” He sounded frustrated.
“Well, I'm sorry, but I don't.”
“Look, if you want my help, you can't set conditions. You have to let me decide what has to be done.”
“Then forget it,” I said, pouring a measure of gin into a glass. I wasn't giving up any more control. “It's no big deal, anyway.”
“Maybe.” Red moved so that his arms were braced on the wall, trapping me between them. “And maybe it's bigger than you think, Doc. Sometimes small prey are just the beginning. Like if it's a—a young bobcat or coyote, just learning how to hunt.” Held captive, I stared up into Red's face and felt an unfamiliar sense of power. I could let him kiss me, I thought. I could let him touch me, press himself against me, I could let him do anything and everything and I would still remain the one in control.
Acting on impulse, I bent and took a nip of his hard bicep. He sucked in a sharp breath. “I don't like traps and poison, Red.” I ducked under his left arm and reached for the red wine. “If we have a predator around, I'll get a dog.” I struggled with the cork and it got stuck with the corkscrew halfway in. So much for my woman-of-the-world act. But my hands were still shaking. I couldn't believe that I'd just bitten the man.
“Here, let me do that.” Red took the bottle and uncorked it with three twists of his wrist. He poured it for me as well, with a waiter's precision. I wondered if he'd worked tables at some point in his life. “Listen, Doc, don't think adopting some cute little puppy is going to solve anything. One morning you'll wake up and instead of dead squirrels and mice, you'll find Fido belly up and missing a few organs.”
For a moment, as I sliced a lemon for the Bloody Mary, I thought of telling Red about Hunter's condition. But even if, theoretically, some people infected with the lycanthropy virus could change into wolf form—something I found hard to swallow—and even if my husband proved to be one of the rare cases, he was still my husband. I'd known Hunter since we were just on the cusp of adulthood. I'd known him drunk and sober, elated and morose, at his best and at his worst. I knew that no matter how disinhibited by alcohol or illness, he wouldn't do anything to hurt me.
Keeping my voice very even, I said, “And why are you so sure that it's not just a fox or some neighbor's cat?” I added a dash of Tabasco to Jackie's drink.
“Because it doesn't smell like fox or cat, that's why.”
Jesus, him and the smells again. I'm not a great nose, myself. To me, the wine in my glass smelled of fruit and old socks, as all wine does to me, no matter what they say about a faint aroma of plums and wood smoke and an aftertang of vanilla.
“So I won't get a dog,” I said, stirring Hunter's gin and tonic. “And if the baby rabbits start turning into lambs and fawns, I'll call you.”
Red shook his head, opened his mouth, then closed it. “Fine. Have it your way. But do me a favor: Contact me before the bodies start piling up.”
I took a sharp breath, then, because it seemed to me that Red knew exactly what he was talking about. Or rather, whom he was talking about. “Until then, it's not your problem, okay?”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but things are about to change.” I emptied a jar of nuts into a bowl and handed Red a bottle of beer from the fridge, along with Jackie's Bloody Mary. He walked out of the kitchen, so skinny in his stiff new jeans that I felt a moment's distaste: What had I been thinking, and why had I bitten him like that?
It wasn't until I followed him out onto the porch that I recognized the tune he was whistling under his breath: Peter and the Wolf.