The Frenchman's Slow Seduction (7 page)

I hadn’t expected Jean
Paul to offer to pick us up at the airport. Talk about hospitality.
His email reminds me of how lax I’ve been in making trip
arrangements. I have to contact Lou Ann and Joe: their country
practice is in Caldwell, Texas, just a half hour from College
Station, and there’s no way I’d miss seeing them. We haven’t seen
each other since graduation.

Lou Ann! Joe!

Trouble’s a brewing!
I’ll be in College Station for the vet conference from Sept. 8 to
12. Please tell me you’ll be around! I’m dying to see you both.
Lots of love, Rachel

Then I answer Jean
Paul’s email:

Dear Jean Paul,

Thanks for the kind
offer. We’re renting a car, so we can manage from the airport.
Perhaps we can meet at the conference hotel first thing Monday
morning, before the conference starts. How about 8:30? We could
make plans then. No, the fall foliage isn’t enough compensation for
a bitter Michigan winter, but a fondness for ice skating helps.
Yes, I did take the photograph. Rachel

An hour into my work, I
hear a cat going crazy out back and feel frightened. Frantic
meowing and hissing is coming from a treatment room where we have a
cat in isolation. I go to see what’s going on, but before I reach
the room the meowing stops. Checking the inside of the room, I find
nothing out of the ordinary, except an obviously upset cat. Albert
is quietly perched in his cage. Five minutes later, the same
scenario plays itself out: frantic cat sounds followed by silence
as I approach. The third time it happens, I quietly creep to the
room but stay in the hallway to listen to the hubbub. After a few
moments, I peek into the room. Albert is leaning down towards the
cat and growling; then he throws in a couple of muffled barks for
extra excitement. The cat goes wild. Suddenly, Albert catches a
glimpse of me.

“You naughty bird,” I
tell him. “What a bad bird.”

He sways back and forth
on his perch, upset to have his cover blown. I move him to the
storage room.

An hour and a half
later, when I get home, I leave a message on Mike’s answering
machine telling him that I won’t be over; then I call Bryan to tell
him that I want to go biking on Sunday.

“You’ll love it,” he
says.

“What are you doing
home on a Friday night?” I ask.

“Not much.”

“Do you want to come
over? I’m going for a walk.”

“See you in twenty
minutes.”

As we end our call, I
get thrown back to old times. Who says you can’t go back?

Twenty minutes later,
the doorbell rings. When I open my apartment door, Bryan holds out
a reggae CD and a six-pack of beer.

“My grandmother told me
to always bring a little something when I show up at a woman’s
door. Will this do?”

We decide to walk the
three-mile city trail that runs by my complex. The August night is
wonderfully warm. When we get back to my apartment, I heat up some
veggie rolls while Bryan goes into the living room to put his CD
into the player; he has brought the hot sultry reggae that I like.
Lounging on low-slung upholstered chairs, we drink, eat, and
transcend.

“We’re just missing a
sun lamp,” Bryan says.

I laugh. “I’ll work on
it.”

Michelle’s family is
amazing. I still remember my first introduction to them and how
amazed I was by the affection they showed one another and their
friends. They always give you a kiss when they meet you and when
they leave, and they’re always ready to give you a hug. After
spending my first weekend with them, I found it contagious.

Bryan stays until two.
We’ve made plans to meet at Lupe’s Mexican Restaurant at two
o’clock on Saturday.

Chapter 9

I was eleven when I
made the decision to work with animals. I reckoned they were more
civilized than humans, their behavior more honest. Sure, animals
have their peculiarities -- but they’re driven by survival
instincts, never maliciousness.

Exhausted when my alarm
goes off at seven, I drag myself to the Saturday farmers’ market.
When I get back to the apartment, I’m loaded with groceries.
Leaving the apartment door open, I go to the kitchen to drop off my
goodies. When I head back to the front door, I get a shock:
Reynaldo is in the entryway.

“Reynaldo,” I say, a
little breathless, “what are you doing here?”

“I brought you some
brownies that I made. I’m on my way to work. I wanted to say sorry
for the other night.” After closing the door, he walks over and
hands me a plate of brownies.

Unsure what to do, I
take the plate and head towards the kitchen. Reynaldo follows.

In the kitchen, I put
the brownies on the table and sit down.

“You look tired,
Rachel,” he says, and pushes the plate of brownies towards me. “Why
don’t you try one? Cooking’s the other thing I’m good at.”

Taking a taste, I would
have to agree: he’s a good cook.

Needing a moment to
think, I get up and walk to the kitchen sink to get a glass of
water. When I turn around, Reynaldo kisses me with such strength
that I find it difficult to pull away. With his mouth next to my
ear, he says, “You shouldn’t fight me, Rachel. We could have a
really good time.” Just as my mind is racing to think of a way to
get him to leave, he pulls away and says, “I’d better go or I’ll be
late for work.”

It takes me a full
minute before I can move. It never ceases to amaze me what turns
some men on. Rejection seems to throw Reynaldo into fits of
passion.

A half hour later, I
leave for the clinic. Walking in the door, I walk into another
life.

The morning turns out
to be crazy. There are lots of Saturday drop-ins. As I’m removing
the last stitch from a bull-mastiff named Lucky, recovering from
his second run-in with a car, Lucy walks up to me.

“Can you come out front
when you’re done, Rachel? Some people would like to see you.”

When I get to the front
room, I see a family of four holding onto a massive German shepherd
with a thick metal chain. As the exuberant dog drags them around
the waiting area, Lucy introduces us.

“This is the Chong
family and their dog, KoKo. They’ve just sold their restaurant and
are moving out of country. They wanted to know if we could find
KoKo a good home. They don’t want to bring him to the Humane
Society.”

It looks like the
Chongs have all been crying. It’s not Mike’s policy to rehome
animals, it would be impossible time-wise, but we all do it as much
as possible.

“Sure, we’ll find him a
good home,” I tell the Chongs.

Mrs Chong hands me the
chain; then, tapping her hand against her chest, she bows. KoKo
happily follows me out back.

Half an hour later,
Mike finds me in the X-ray room. “Rach, can you get a hold of
KoKo?” he says. “He’s gotten out of his kennel and he’s running
around the clinic. I’m with a client.”

The delinquent is
easily found; he’s in the waiting room sniffing a client’s cat.
With ease, I usher him into the kennel room, but fail to catch him
as he runs by me one way and then the other. When he backs himself
into a corner, I rush to grab him, but he surprises me by rearing
up on his hind legs; Tim shouts, “No, Rach, you’ll scare him,” but
it’s too late, KoKo is falling towards me, his mouth open. Closing
my eyes, I brace myself for the mother of all bites, but feel
nothing. When I open my eyes, I find KoKo’s face inches from mine,
his paws barely touching my shoulders.

“That’s some kind of
dog,” Tim says, truly awed.

“I’ve never seen any
dog like him,” I say.

Clinic finishes at one
thirty, an hour and a half past closing time. As I’m wiping down
counters, Mike slips his arms around me.

“Why don’t I come over
to your place after Vanessa and Gordon leave tonight?” he says,
nuzzling me.

“I’m going to work here
on the paper tonight,” I tell him. “Then I’ll probably go home.” He
turns me around and kisses me. As he starts to heat up, I pull
away. “I’m meeting a friend at two.”

“Rach, I need to spend
some time with you. I’m going nuts.”

Why do I find it so
hard to look at Mike now?

“Give me a call
tonight,” I tell him.

When I get to the
Mexican restaurant, Bryan is already there.

“Sorry I’m late,” I
tell him. “Things were crazy at the clinic.”

“Don’t worry about it.
I’m looking forward to this. I haven’t had Mexican food in
ages.”

A waiter shows us to a
table, and we order authentic tacos.

After an unusually
quiet meal, Bryan sits back in his chair and studies me. “What’s
up, Rach?”

I smile. “Is it that
obvious?”

“Maybe.”

It feels great to have
a friend to talk to. “I think I took a wrong turn somewhere,” I
tell him. “Things stopped being fun, and I’m not sure why.”

Bryan shrugs. “Then the
solution is easy: backtrack to when things were fun, and work it
out from there.”

“Well, I had a lot of
fun doing locum work when I got out of school. Then Mike offered me
a job at his clinic. I thought it’d be great, but it isn’t.”

“So go back to locum
work,” he says, with a simplicity born of good parenting. “I felt
the same way after I graduated from business school and went to
work for a bank: I hated every day of it. There was no way I was
going to spend the rest of my life hating what I did for a living,
so I took an objective look at myself and decided to get into
police work. I figured I liked keeping fit, working with people,
and working outdoors, so why not? Turned out to be one of the best
things I ever did. Just take a step back, Rach. Nothing’s lost.
You’ll just appreciate life more when you find what you really want
to do.”

As we leave the
restaurant, Bryan suggests a walk in a nearby woodlot, which I
happily agree to.

“You’re always ready
for a walk,” he says.

Deciding to take his
jeep, we leave my car at the restaurant.

After a long hike, we
return to the jeep feeling mellow. “I love this time of year,”
Bryan says. “The air gets so warm just before fall sets in.”

On the drive back to
the restaurant, large lazy flies, drunk from their afternoon in the
sun, buzz noisily against the jeep’s back window.

“I’ll pick you and your
bike up at eight tomorrow morning,” Bryan says, as he pulls into
the restaurant driveway.

Why is everything so
easy with Bryan?

Feeling blissfully
happy, I drive home. After a quiet dinner, I leave for the clinic
to work on visual aids; the conference is only two weeks away.
Checking the animals, I find KoKo restless and take him for a long
walk before settling down to work.

Around nine thirty, as
I’m sifting through X-rays, I hear KoKo violently barking in the
kennel room. It’s a loud, threatening bark that scares the hell out
of me, and I run out of the clinic, not bothering to lock up. When
I’ve driven a safe distance away, I phone Mike on my mobile.

“Mike, something’s up
at the clinic. KoKo’s barking like crazy and it has me scared.”

“Where are you?”

“At Dixie’s Hair Salon,
in the parking lot. Do you know it?”

“Yes, I know where it
is. Stay where you are. I’ll meet you there.”

Fifteen minutes later,
Mike shows up in his truck. I rush over to him. “I know someone was
there, Mike.”

He nods. “The dog’s
probably scared them. I’ll go check.”

“I want to go with
you.”

“Okay, but I want you
to stay in your car.”

Outside the clinic, I
get an awful feeling in my gut. Mike grabs a baseball bat from his
truck and goes into the clinic through the front door. Five minutes
later he comes out, pale and shaken.

“Don’t go in, Rach,” he
says. “It’s KoKo. He’s dead. He’s been hit over the head with
something. I’ve called the police.”

I race into the clinic.
A piece of plywood is wedged into KoKo’s cage, and KoKo is lying on
the floor, blood oozing from his nose and ears. There’s a gash on
his head.

I don’t notice the
police as they go about their business until one of them asks me
questions. There’s no forced entry.

“Let’s go,” Mike says,
when the police have gone.

“Give me a minute,” I
tell him. “I need to cover KoKo with a blanket.”

Outside, I tell Mike
that I want to go home alone. He tries to change my mind, but I
stay firm.

At seven the following
morning, I phone Bryan to tell him what’s happened and to cancel
biking plans. He offers to keep me company, but I don’t take up his
offer, feigning the need for sleep.

All day, there’s no
escaping the sadness, and I don’t even try.

Around dinner time,
Bryan drops by. I show him to the living room sofa.

“I was just talking to
a friend of mine, Andy McMahon,” he says. “He was my self-defence
instructor at the academy. He’s starting a new class Tuesday night.
It’s for women cadets, but he’s agreed to let you in.” His eyes
search mine. “I want you to go, Rachel. Will you go?”

He looks so concerned
that I find myself saying, “Sure. I’ve always wanted to take a
class.”

“It won’t be easy for
you,” he says. “And it won’t be easy for Mac either, dealing with a
civilian. He has a police academy mentality. He’s tough on the
cadets because he has to prepare them for the life-and-death
confrontations they’ll be faced with in their work. He can scare
the living shit out of you, but I’ve never met anyone who cares as
much about people as he does.”

I smile. “I won’t let
you down, Bryan.”

“It’s not about letting
me down, Rachel. You can stop whenever you like. It’s just that I
want you to know where Mac’s coming from, and I want you to know
that you can trust him. His daughter, Nicole, was killed during an
assault; that’s why he’s so dedicated. She was twenty-one when it
happened and it almost killed him. I’m not trying to scare you. The
cadets there will be nice.” He reaches into his shirt pocket and
pulls out a piece of paper. Handing it to me, he says, “You’ll have
to get a brown track suit. It’s part of the uniform and bonding
thing. I’ve written down the address of a place where you can pick
one up.”