Animal Behavior (7 page)

Alex stopped just inside the tree line and took deep
breaths, willing his heart rate to slow.
What the hell?
An involuntary
howl erupted from him and he clutched the sides of his head, desperately trying
to keep the wolf inside. He concentrated on his breathing until the prickling
sensation subsided and he felt the fur retreat deep within his body. Feeling
suffocated by panic and confusion, Alex shook himself like a dog just out of
the lake and took off running again. For the first time in years, he regretted
becoming a werewolf.

Gwen lay on the couch in stunned silence for a moment before
propping herself up on her elbows and staring out the open front door.

What the hell?

When she tried to sit up, a wave of dizziness washed over
her and the room seemed to tilt. Flopping back on the cushions, she closed her
eyes and slung one arm across her face. Though the painkiller he’d given her at
the clinic, and the beer she’d had with dinner, had long since worn off, Gwen
still felt drugged. She tried to reason that it was a combination of fatigue,
adrenaline and arousal, but she knew the only thing she was high on was Alex.
From the moment he’d kissed her, she’d been hooked. Every place their skin
touched had vibrated with an exhilarating energy that still lingered.

He’d brought her to the brink before abruptly stopping and
bolting from the cabin and she was still hot and tingling from his touch.
Reaching between her legs, Gwen massaged the wet and throbbing mound, trying to
relieve the ache Alex had left behind.

The memory of his mouth, his hands—and that cock—flooded her
senses. She ran her fingertip over the slick divide then plunged between the
lips and rubbed her engorged clit.
Alex,
she whispered, imagining that
it was him teasing her toward orgasm. With her other hand, she kneaded her
breast and pinched her hardened nipple, trying to mimic his movements. She
spread her legs and fingered herself, wishing he was pushing inside her. Her
climax was building.
So close…

A long howl from the woods brought Gwen back to reality. She
shot upright, pulled the afghan from the back of the couch and wrapped it
around her naked body. When her dizziness passed, she used the fireplace poker
as a cane and hobbled across the room to shut and lock the door, and made her
way back to the sofa. As she untangled her wadded-up clothing then got dressed,
the reality of his hasty exit crashed over her and her longing was smothered by
rejection and embarrassment.

Her attraction to him had been so immediate and intense that
it frightened her. She thought he felt the same way until he bolted out the
door like the place was on fire. It was so humiliating that Gwen began to
wonder how long it would take to sell Chaney Acres. She hoped she would never
have to see Alex McKenzie again, but thought she might just die if she didn’t.

Three Years Ago

The last day Alex was fully human had been just as crappy as
the one before. The blender sprayed his breakfast smoothie all over his last
clean shirt and when he stooped to wipe up the floor, his thick eyeglasses slid
off his face and one of the stems snapped off. It had taken him twenty minutes
to fish it out from under the stove and find a paperclip to fashion into a
temporary hinge.

After digging a marginally clean polo from the hamper, he
stood in front of the bathroom mirror, smoothed his thinning hair into a
ponytail and reminded himself to stand up straight. People were always on him
about his posture and he was so skinny that a college professor once told him
that, in profile, he looked like a question mark.

He was late for his first appointment and plenty frazzled
when he glanced up from the chart. Alex knew that the shitzu’s owner had been
flirting with him. Miss Jenkins was pretty made up for a Saturday morning visit
to the veterinarian’s office. “Please, Doctor McKenzie, call me Tonya,” she’d
insisted.

Her bleached-blonde hair looked ready for a shampoo
commercial and her breasts were overflowing her tight, low-cut shirt. She’d
made a point of telling him that she thought that Mitzie’s recent behavior
problem—shredding the bed pillows—was because the little dog was upset that
Miss Jenkins—
Tonya
—had recently broken up with her boyfriend. She
punctuated the last little tidbit by dipping her head and looking up and
batting her eyelashes.

Alex was pretty sure that if he lifted Tonya Jenkins up on
the stainless steel exam table, she would have been more than willing to do
just about anything he could dream up. Instead, he prescribed a daily walk to
relieve Mitzie’s stress. “It’ll be good for her to burn off some energy and who
knows, maybe you’ll even find your next boyfriend at the park.”

Miss Jenkins scooped up Mitzie, coolly thanked Alex for the
advice and stormed out of the room. Alex leaned back against the table and
watched her go, admiring her long legs and swinging hips as she clicked down
the hall. He tossed the chart on the desk and let out a long, defeated sigh.

Alex wasn’t oblivious to the advances of beautiful women,
just terrified by them. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t want a relationship. He
just couldn’t seem to get out of the gate. In their presence, his heart raced,
his palms sweated, and his mouth would go so dry it was as if he’d been sucking
on a leaf blower.

This fear of the opposite sex had been with him since the
first hints of puberty. It seemed that one day Alex was playing kickball with
the neighborhood girls in blissful ignorance and the next day they had become
intimidating alien creatures. Except for Sam. She’d been his best friend since
Alex was old enough to know what a best friend was and, once the hormones
kicked in, she was the only girl Alex could be around without turning into a
blushing, stammering idiot.

They had been inseparable. Sam’s house was kitty-corner
through the back yards from Alex’s in an old south Minneapolis neighborhood
with oversized lots and turn-of-the-century houses. The two would spend summer
afternoons building forts and shooting Sam’s neglected dolls off the fence with
a slingshot.

He’d often wondered why all girls couldn’t be like Sam.
While she was content playing crazy eights, most of the other females he
encountered just wanted to play doctor—and the prospect terrified him. Maybe that
was why he’d channeled his interest in medicine into the care of animals rather
than humans.

The day Tonya Jenkins walked into his office on the make and
walked out all pissed off was just the latest in a long string of miscues. He
got it—nobody liked to be rejected. It hadn’t been the first time Alex had gone
down that road, but he was determined it would be the last. The decisions he
made in the next twenty-four hours would change his life forever—for better and
for worse.

* * * * *

Alex couldn’t get his run-in with Tonya Jenkins out of his
mind. He moped around his apartment all afternoon trying to distract himself
from yet another embarrassing failure with the opposite sex. He needed a change
of scenery. Grabbing his truck keys, he held open the front door. “C’mon, Bob,
let’s go for a ride.”

Sam and Diana had an open-door policy. Alex didn’t abuse the
privilege, but that night he found himself, unannounced, on the front porch of
their bungalow ringing the bell. Diana had him in a bear hug before Alex could
manage, “hello.”

“Alex! Baby doll! How have you been?” Diana didn’t given him
a chance to answer the question. She loosened her hug grabbed him by hand and
dragged him through the house. “C’mon, lovey, we’re in the back.”

Alex had followed Diana through the impeccably restored
house. It had taken the women nearly four years to bring the plaster walls,
hardwood floors and heavy wood moldings back to their 1920s glory. As they
headed toward the patio, Alex watched Diana’s round hips roll seductively under
her long, bohemian skirt. His gaze moved up to the wild salt-and-pepper curls
bouncing to her mid-back. An aromatic cloud of lavender and cedar trailed out
behind her. She was the real deal—a twenty-first-century hippie without a
pretentious bone in her curvy, Earth-mamma bod.

On the way through the kitchen, Diana snagged a wineglass
from the cupboard. She swung open the creaky screen door to the backyard and
announced, “Sammy, you’ll never guess!”

Sam looked around her partner and when she saw their guest
her face contorted into her famous, goofy, sideways grin. “Where’s Bob?” she
asked. Not, “Hi, Alex. How’s it going, Alex? What’s new, Alex?” No, she wanted
to know about the dog.

When Alex told her he was in the back of the truck where he’d
been told to stay, Diana placed one hand on her generous hip and with the other
pointed toward the gate in the privacy fence. Alex rolled his eyes, trudged to
the side of the house, opened the gate and called, “Okay, Bob. Come on!”

He was answered by a joyful bark, then a
HUMPH
as his
oversized black Lab jumped out of the pickup bed and bolted through the back
gate. By the time Alex made it back to the seating area, Diana had settled into
her favorite chair and Bob was sitting at her knee, his big noggin on her lap,
looking up at her lovingly. Alex sat down in the rattan loveseat opposite the
women and Bob, without moving his head, rolled one eye to look his way. Alex
supposed Bob was ticked that he’d been left in the truck when he knew Alex was
going to see two of his favorite people.

Diana plucked a cube of cheese from a tray on the low table
between them and held it inches from Bob’s quivering nose. “There you go,
Sugar.” Bob gingerly took the treat, swallowed it whole, then flopped down at
Diana’s feet. Alex watched him put his snout on his paws. He would always
remember wondering at that moment exactly what the dog must be thinking. Alex
was a student of animal behavior, but when all was said and done, he really
didn’t have clue what made them tick.

With her four-legged guest served, Diana poured Alex a glass
of wine. “So, lovey, what gives?” Sam lit a cigarette and narrowed her eyes at
him as she blew out the smoke. “Girl trouble,” Sam answered for him.

Diana pawed the air in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, how do you
know?”

Sam laughed, “Uh, because it’s Alex. It’s nine-thirty on a
Saturday night and he’s sitting on
our
patio.”

Diana returned the laugh. “Yeah, I see your point.”

“Spill,” Sam demanded.

Alex told them about the appointment with Tonya Jenkins.
They’d heard him tell similar tales before, but tonight it was different. It
was, Alex supposed, his rock bottom. He told them that he didn’t want to be
alone anymore and the minute he said that out loud he was embarrassed to feel
his throat tighten and his eyes burn.

Sam got up from her chair, ground out her cigarette and joined
him on the loveseat. She put her arm around his shoulders and kissed him hard
on the cheek. She gave him a squeeze.

“It’ll happen, Alex. When it’s time, it’ll happen.”

Alex just shook his head. “Yeah? When? I’m a grown man. By
most accounts I’m successful.”

“Very,” Diana interjected.

“I’m not bad looking.”

“Gorgeous,” Diana amended.

“I’m a decent guy.”

“The best, darling,” Diana murmured.

“It’s me. I have some sort of defect. What the hell is wrong
with me? I get around women and turn stupid. I can’t talk. I can’t think. And I
certainly can’t ask one out.”

“You go out,” Sam offered, her tone hinting that even she
knew she was stretching.

Alex smirked. “Let’s examine the last three dates, shall we?
There was the veterinary pharmaceutical rep. She cried the entire night about
her ex-boyfriend. There was the checkout girl from the grocery store who, when
I dropped her off at the end of the night, told me to be quiet so I wouldn’t
wake her folks,
then
got around to telling him she was only nineteen.
Then, there was the one from my health club—the nympho. First—and last—date she
attacked me. She wouldn’t let me out of her apartment for twelve hours.”

“
See
? You go out!” Sam said, and burst out laughing.

“Samantha,” Diana chastised.

“And you know what all those dates had in common—besides
being complete disasters?” Alex mused. “In every case, they asked me out. They
made the first move.”

There was a long silence. Sam studied her wineglass and
Diana stared at some unknown thing in the distance. These two women knew him
and his history. One had known him since childhood. They certainly knew that
everything Alex had said was true. They also knew that Alex had read every book
out there. The bookshelves in his downtown Minneapolis loft held two genres—veterinary
medicine and self-help. The latter category was dominated by books on how to
talk, flirt and generally interact with the opposite sex. Alex had bought most
of them on the internet and would have returned each one for a refund if he
hadn’t been so embarrassed to need them in the first place.

Diana was the first to break the silence. “You know, honey,
there are…
alternatives
.” Her voice was serious, her words heavy with
significance.

Sam and Alex both looked up. Diana was backlit by the glow
of the full moon and it made her wild head of curls stand out in silhouette
like a wispy halo. Sam rose, poured herself another glass of wine and settled
back into her own chair. She looked at him then Diana, lit another cigarette
and tucked her long, thin legs up under herself.

It seemed Alex was the only one without a clue about the “alternatives”.
“Well?” he finally asked.

Diana smiled and leaned forward, as if by asking her to
explain, he’d agreed to take action. Somewhere deep inside, he guessed he knew
that he had.

* * * * *

Tequila had never agreed with him—
never
. Alex didn’t
know what made him think that this time he’d get away unscathed. After they
finished off the wine, Diana pulled out the saltshakers and sliced limes. Alex
don’t remember how many shots he’d taken trying to keep up with those two, but
the next thing he knew he was waking up naked on the big bed in their guest
room. He vaguely recalled willingly handing over his clothes—all his clothes—after
a drunken attempt to operate the kitchen blender ended with him covered head to
toe with strawberry margaritas. Two blender blow-ups in one day was a record
even for him.

Alex found his freshly laundered clothes folded neatly on a
chair in the corner, along with fresh towels and a brand new toothbrush. Even
hung over, Diana was the consummate hostess.

The shower was as hot as he could stand it, and Alex brushed
his teeth twice, but when he wandered into the kitchen, he still had a fuzzy
tongue and a splitting headache. Diana fixed him up with some aspirin and a
strong cup of coffee. After a couple pieces of toast with peanut butter he
finally started to feel human again. Bob was finishing his own breakfast. Diana
and Sam kept a case of high-end canned dog food in the pantry just for canine
houseguests.

Sam stumbled into the kitchen. Her short brown hair was
sticking out in every direction, reminding him of a hedgehog. She kissed him on
the forehead and Diana on the lips, and groped for a mug. She flopped down on a
kitchen chair, took a slug of her coffee, then rested her forehead in her hand.

Diana quietly swept along behind her and gently placed Sam’s
cigarette case, an ashtray and two aspirins on the table within reach. Diana
squeezed Sam’s shoulder and Sam reached up to pat Diana’s hand. They caught him
watching the exchange. Sam winked at him and Diana smiled her serene,
Earth-mother smile. Alex envied these two. They had found each other and freed
up that part of the human endeavor that wasted energy searching for a mate.
Alex smiled back.

They didn’t talk about what had been discussed the night
before. But as Alex was getting ready to leave, Diana pressed a slip of paper
into his hand and kissed him on the cheek.

“Just try to keep an open mind, baby doll.”

* * * * *

The morning after their visit with Sam and Diana, Bob and
Alex spent a quiet afternoon lounging around the loft. Alex checked his
voicemail. It was empty. He sat down at the computer and checked his inbox.
There were two electronic newsletters and half dozen offers for penis
enlargement. His hangover had subsided to a dull headache and he was feeling
restless.

Alex took Bob for a run around the lake then came home and
ate a microwavable dinner in front of the TV. He had spent the better part of
the day pushing down the memory of Diana’s suggested alternative to his chronic
dating crisis.

Finally he sprang up from the couch and said, “What the
hell?” Digging through his pockets, he found the slip of paper Diana had given
him and grabbed his keys from the hook by the door. Bob’s ears perked up.