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  Once Patty has paid for both of them, she ushers them to a secluded spot in the cafeteria.

  They seat themselves.

  Patty says in a hushed tone, “Old Man Pullnam wandered out to the woods one year ago. They found his mutilated body two miles away from his house. They say an animal has gotten to it, it was so badly chewed.”

  Shannon remembers the wolf howl she has been hearing for many nights now, starting from the night with Lucien in the maze. A pang squeezes her chest when she thinks of Lucien, but she brushes him firmly out of her mind.

  “This happened a year ago?” she says carefully.

  “Yes.” Patty is clearly the town gossip and she delights in having someone new to tell her stories to. “There are wild animals in the woods. Wolves, coyotes and the like.”

  “I reckon.”

  “Old Man Pullnam would not be the first to go that way. Dolphin’s Bay has had a history of animal attacks going back as far as the 1930’s. The attacks are sporadic. No one ever sees the animals or lived to tell the tale. Troopers have gone into the woods to survey the area. They found wolves and coyotes and shot them. But the attacks still go on. That is why the police put out an advisory to those living near the forest. Has Deputy Janssen been to see you?”

  Shannon has been working all day. So if the good Deputy has dropped by, either Jared has received him and forgotten to mention it to her or no one was home.

  “No.”

  “He’s slipping. He usually makes a personal visit to newcomers in the area, especially when there’s a pretty girl around.” Patty smiles. “You are very pretty, you know.”

  Shannon blushes. “Thank you.”

  They continue to make small talk for a while. Then Shannon says, “Does Dr. Fitzpatrick do lunch?”

  “He doesn’t eat lunch.” Patty studies her. “You’re not having designs on him, are you?”

  “Huh? No, of course not!”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be the first to, believe me. Every girl comes in here and falls for him in one way or another, but he doesn’t date. Rumor is that he has a girlfriend back East. He trained in John Hopkins, you know, and word is that he’s pining for some colleague of his back there.”

  “You’re his clinic nurse and you don’t know?”

  “No one knows anything about him. He’s real close-mouthed. All work and no play, I suppose.” Patty sighs.

  “Maybe he’s gay.”

  “Gay? I don’t think so. He’s very male, although I suppose plenty of gay men are very masculine as well. Anyway, I thought I’d let you know the score with him so you don’t go around having your hopes dashed.”

  “Thank you for being so charitable.”

  Patty laughs. “Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there? You’ll do fine here. Some of the other guys are already talking about asking you out. You’re still single, right?”

  “Yes. Though I’m not technically looking to start a relationship.”

  “Been through a bad one?” Patty says sympathetically.

  Boy, is she nosy! Shannon thinks. Though she doesn’t sense anything but warm curiosity and kindness on Patty’s part.

  “Let’s just say I need to cool off a bit.”

  Patty winks. “I’ll let the word out to the guys. But anytime you change your mind . . . ”

  Shannon laughs. Despite everything, she likes Patty.

  * * * *

  After a grueling Friday, Shannon is looking towards a long, nice weekend just chilling out after her first week at work. She drives the Toyota to a local supermarket she has noted called ‘Safeway’s’. It is fairly large with a huge parking lot half-filled with cars.

  As she alights from her car, a familiar white Mercedes draws into the empty parking lot next to hers.

  Shannon looks up in surprise. Lucien Walker comes out of the driver’s seat and saunters over to her, smiling.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi.” She never expected to see him again, and so this is a major surprise.

  OK, if she is to be honest with herself, she did check her phone now and again to see if there were any text messages or missed calls from him. And whenever they were none, she quelled her disappointment and busied herself with work.

  “I saw your car out there and I decided to follow you.” As soon as he said this, he seems ill at ease, which has to be unusual for Lucien. “Um, I didn’t mean it in a stalker mentality sort of way. I just thought it would be nice to . . . you know, see how you’re getting along.”

  His hair is neatly combed back and his face is a paragon of Nordic male beauty, as always. She remembers her limbs being entwined with his glorious body, and a flush creeps into her cheeks.

  “Well, you could have called,” she says.

  And the moment she said this, she wishes she could take it back. The last thing she wants to do is to sound like a whiny girlfriend. They just had sex for one night, for goodness sakes! They are very far from actually dating.

  “I mean,” she adds hastily, “you are not obliged to call, of course. What we had was great . . . that was what it was.”

  Why does everything that is coming out of her mouth feel so lame? She half-wishes a great big hole would open up and let her dive into it. Lucien’s presence is reducing her to her tongue-tied, trembling-kneed roots, and that is the farthest from what she wants to be in front of him.

  He doesn’t seem to be as composed as he usually is, either. But then, she doesn’t know him that well. She doesn’t know him at all. He gave off the veneer of a devil-may-care, sophisticated player at first meeting. It may not be who he truly is.

  “Well,” he says awkwardly, “you did leave the next morning. You didn’t even leave a note. I was going to take you to breakfast and ask if you wanted to stay longer at Pine’s Bluff. Until you can get your feet on the ground, of course.”

  “Oh. Thank you. That’s very nice of you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  A silence again. A very stretched, uncomfortable silence. Shannon senses that Lucien is not used to being silent on such subjects. Or maybe he is not used to having his lover leave him without a word or a note in the morning. She reckons that it is him who usually does the leaving.

  Of course, that is probably unfair. She doesn’t know what he does in situations like these.

  He looks up, seeming to recover his usual spirits.

  “You going shopping?” he says.

  “Just picking up some groceries.”

  “Well, I need to pick some up myself. Do you want to go in?”

  “I didn’t know you picked up your own groceries,” she teases. The awkwardness appears to have lifted some.

  “Oh, but I do.” He smiles. “I pick out my own wines and cheeses. I’m quite a connoisseur.”

  “I believe you.”

  Together, they walk into Safeway’s. There is no hand-holding, just a comfortable companionship – as if they have both made a mutual decision not to push anything but just let things go at their own pace, if there’s even anything there at all.

  She is flattered that he has actually tailed her car and come to this place with her. She is flattered that he is going grocery shopping with her. She is flattered that this extremely handsome, sophisticated scion of a multi-million dollar real estate empire is even with her at all.

  They make small talk as she pushes a trolley down the aisles. He goes to the cheese section and gives her rundown on the different cheeses from different places.

  “Do you like Brie?” he says.

  “I have never tried it before.”

  “It’s French. A little crumbly if you like that kind of texture.”

  “I prefer Italian cheeses in my pasta. This is what I mix when I make a cheese sauce.”

  “I like fruits like apricots and raspberries mixed up in my cheeses,” he says. “I usually eat them with water crackers.”

  She finds herself warming up to him again in that easy camaraderie they seem to share. Almost as if they are boyfriend and girlfr
iend.

  When they pass a door with the sign ‘STAFF ONLY’ somewhere between the dairy and frozen sections, he suddenly grabs her hand and pulls her through it.

  “But what about my cart – ?” she begins, but the rest of what she was about to say is lost when he presses her back against the tiled wall and kisses her ferociously.

  Ohhh!

  His mouth devours hers with insatiable hunger. It is as though he is so penned up with physical need for her that he cannot contain himself. His kisses are hard on her mouth, and she cannot help but respond to them. Her loins are turning into mush.

  Someone will see us, she thinks in a haze. But he doesn’t seem to care.

  “God, I need you now,” he murmurs against her mouth.

  He fumbles with her skirt. She is fully dressed. Her jacket is in the push trolley together with the rest of their groceries just outside this door. He hikes her skirt up and gropes for her panties. She is already very wet, and her juices have soaked through the thin strip of material which forms her crotch.

  “Lucien, someone will see us.”

  No one in the little storeroom, which is white-tiled. The air smells of refrigeration and the room is filled with racks laden with goods and deep freezers. A passage leads to somewhere else, and Shannon can hear voices in the next room.

  “I don’t care. I need you too much,” he says heavily.

  He unzips his jeans. Out springs his enormous erect cock. He takes out a condom in a foil wrapper and quickly snaps it onto his hot flesh. Her arms are around his shoulders as he lifts her up and sandwiches her against the wall. The entire act is rough and urgent, and it is also thrilling and filled with the danger of public discovery.

  She realizes how much she has missed his touch.

  He doesn’t take her panties off, but instead, pushes it to one side so that her pussy is revealed. Then he penetrates her with one swift stroke and seals his mouth on hers before she can cry out. This time, the pleasure is instantaneous. I must be getting used to his girth, she thinks. Their coupling is frantic and graceless. Her ears have too much of a blood rush in them for her to hear what the supermarket workers in the next room are saying, but it sounds as though they may come in here anytime soon.

  But she is too lost in her own pleasure to do anything but let him pound into her. There are no niceties this time – just a good, hard fuck where both of them will derive the maximal amount of pleasure in the shortest period of time. The smell of sex from their joined organs mingles with the air of the stockroom.

  “Need two cartons of Stella Artois over at Aisle 7!” says someone who is striding through the passage. His shadow is thrown against the wall.

  The urgency to finish sends her over the edge. She tips herself over to orgasm as she clutches as his neck and shoulders tightly.

  “Ohhhh!”

  Her cry explodes something inside Lucien as well, and he climaxes as a stock boy carrying a box comes into the room.

  “Oh!” he says in surprise.

  Lucien uncouples from her and smoothens down her skirt. Her panties are still askew and she is flushed and bothered and very embarrassed.

  The boy backs away as quickly as he came.

  “Sorry,” he calls out, although they should be the ones who are supposed to apologize for being in a place they shouldn’t.

  “No problem,” Lucien calls back. He chortles as he rips off the condom, drops it into a trash receptacle by a shelf and tucks his penis back into his pants. “You decent?”

  Her cheeks are burning hot. She checks herself. She left her purse out there in the trolley, and she hopes no one has made off with it. But this town is known for a very low theft rate. Unsolved killings, yes, but a very low theft rate.

  “I think so.”

  “Great. Then let’s go before we get into trouble.” He grins.

  They check themselves out of the stock room. The trolley is still there with her purse and groceries. A woman with a funny straw hat more suited for a vacation in the Bahamas gives them a funny look as she selects a carton of milk. But other than that, no one seems to be perturbed.

  The excitement of unrestrained and unexpected sex stays with her through the rest of their shopping journey. Lucien is still on a high, and his hands run down her back often, craving the contact with her.

  When they reach the checkout counter, Lucien takes out his wallet.

  “No, Lucien. This is mine.” She withdraws her wallet from her purse.

  The girl at the checkout counter does a double take at the sight of Lucien. No doubt someone who looks the way he does doesn’t line up at her aisle often.

  “I have my cheese somewhere in there,” he says.

  “It’s only one packet of cheese. I have a whole load of groceries.” She says firmly. She doesn’t want theirs to be that kind of relationship.

  Would what they are doing constitute a relationship? So far, it has only been incredibly hot sex.

  They are holding up the line, and so he finally concedes. “OK, but let me take you out to dinner.”

  He helps her push the trolley out to the parking lot.

  “I can’t tonight. Jared is expecting me.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “For more sex?” she teases.

  He has the grace to look abashed. “Look, Shannon, I know we’ve had hot sex twice already, but that’s not the reason I want to see you again. OK, maybe partially the reason.”

  They are treading on careful ground here, she knows. They are dancing around each other.

  “Then what’s the main reason?” she asks.

  They have reached her car, and he appears nonplussed and at a loss for words. She waits for him to speak.

  He laughs and runs a hand through his blond hair. “I don’t know it myself,” he confesses, and she senses honesty in his words. “It’s just that I like talking to you and being with you, even when we are not having sex.” He shrugs. “Is it so wrong to want to see more of you?”

  He is right. She is not pressing him for a commitment or anything. They are just two young people who happen to like each other’s company. No point in making elaborate plans for a future which might never materialize.

  “I can do dinner tomorrow,” she says. She has to admit she wants to see him too. A whole lot more of him.

  The nagging image of the handsome doctor treads on her mind.

  Stop it!

  “Great,” he says. “Can I see you safely home? I can drive behind you to make sure you are OK until you get home. Where is your home anyway? We have so much to catch up on.”

  She tells him.

  He raises his eyebrows. “The old Pullnam house? Is it safe? I don’t know if I should tell you this, but it fringes a part of the woods where people have known to disappear.”

  “I know. I was given a bit of its colorful local history. As long as I don’t wander into the woods alone, I think I’ll be all right.”

  “Yes. Please don’t go in there by yourself. Or with anyone.” He hesitates, as though he has something important to tell her. Then he decides against it. “Are you working now? Did you manage to find a job?”

  “Yes. I’m working at the Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Center as a physiotherapist.”

  At this, Lucien’s face changes.

  “Under Kirk Fitzpatrick?”

  “He is the head, yes, though I work under the Physiotherapy unit. Why? Is there anything the matter?” She catches the undertones and wonders if there is rivalry between the two men. After all, they are both young, single, probably the most attractive catches in the entire Dolphin’s Bay community.

  A tic makes his right cheek flinch.

  “No,” he says, “nothing is the matter. Just that you should be careful around him, that’s all. He is not everything he appears to be.”

  “But neither are you,” she counters.

  “That’s true. So I’ll pick you up tomorrow? At seven thirty?”

  “OK.”

  It’s a date. Her second with h
im in a span of a week. Her entire being is lifted up with joy as much as she doesn’t like to admit it.

  As she waves him off and gets into the Toyota, her mind is filled with what Ellie said about his family of burned witches.

  EATING CHINESE

  The date with Lucien ends up with sex again at his Chatterly suite. They can’t seem to get enough of each other in bed and out of it. He talks to her about things in Dolphin’s Bay, but she notices that he steers clear of most topics of conversation regarding his family.

  She doesn’t ask him about the witches, and he doesn’t ask her about Jared. That is their tacit agreement.

  On Sunday, he asks to see her again.

  “Going out with him again?” Jared says jealously.

  She checks her look in her mirror. Her complexion is in high color, and her eyes sparkle. It must be all that sex, she decides. And she’s also happy. Deliriously happy.

  I am not in love with Lucien Walker. I am just enjoying his company.

  “Yes,” she replies.

  “Didn’t you go home with him yesterday? And last week?”

  She doesn’t mention Friday, of course.

  “What’s it to you?”

  He has been out pretty much too in a different capacity. And she knows exactly what he has been doing.

  “You know the saying. Don’t get too close to a witch or you’ll get burned.”

  “There’s no such saying. Besides, Lucien is not a witch. Just because he comes from a family of ancient witches doesn’t mean he’s a witch himself.”

  “You never know, Shannon. You never know. You got your gifts from your mother’s side of the family.”

  “My mother never had them.”

  “She probably had them, but she was too stoned most of the time to ever get them to work.”

  Shannon grins. That much is true.

  Work is particularly busy for the next week, and she hardly sees Kirk because he is even busier than most people at the center, if possible. Anyway, they run in different divisions. Lucien is involved in the family business and he has to be out of town for most of the week, and so she won’t get to see him until he returns from Portland on Saturday. But he calls her every day to hear her voice and to have phone sex.