Chapter 4
Mitch was the only person in the waiting room except for the receptionist, who’d introduced herself as Ellie. She had a kindhearted, maternal aspect and was almost apologetic when she’d asked him to fill out the required forms, which were numerous and, to his way of thinking, irrelevant.
Ellie had informed him that Dr. Reede was still with another patient. She’d invited him to take a seat and told him that the doctor would be with him shortly.
But “shortly” wasn’t short enough. He’d arrived fifteen minutes early, but wished he’d breezed in at the last minute, indicating that they were lucky he’d managed to work Dr. Reede into his schedule because he had better and more important things to do.
From behind Ellie’s sliding glass partition, she smiled pleasantly at him, but he tried to avoid making eye contact, because, in the otherwise empty waiting area, he felt conspicuous, as though he were the one behind safety glass, a specimen so erratic that it required close and constant monitoring.
He’d been checking his wristwatch at brief intervals and saw now that he had several more crawling minutes to kill. Ten o’clock couldn’t get here fast enough. On the other hand, he dreaded it like hell.
He sat with his hands on his thighs, his fingers tapping out the rhythm of a classic country song that was playing inside his head.
But when Ellie caught him at the mindless drumming, he stopped.
She might report it to the shrink, who would attribute his restlessness to a psychic anomaly rather than to plain ol’ impatience.
So now he had nothing to do with his hands except to concentrate on keeping them still.
And why was it so freakin’ hot in here?
The magazines stacked neatly in a vertical rack attached to the wall didn’t interest him. A dish of individually wrapped hard candies was within reach, but what would he do with a piece of it if he were called up the moment he popped it into his mouth? Spit it out or swallow it whole?
Did this old office building even have AC?
Inside his shirt, his torso had turned clammy. He was thinking of removing his sport jacket when Ellie slid open the window. “The doctor is ready to see you now, Mr. Haskell. Right through there.” She indicated a closed door on the opposite side of the waiting room. “She’s waiting for you.”
He was arrested in the motion of standing up. “She?”
Just then the door was pushed open, and a woman emerged. She smiled and came toward him, right hand extended. “Mr. Haskell? Dylan Reede.”
Holy shit. He croaked, “Are you kidding?”
Maintaining her smile and keeping her hand outstretched, she replied, “Not about my name.”
He stared down at her hand as though uncertain what it was and what function it served, then gave it a quick shake and immediately let go.
“Come on back.” She turned away and started for the door she’d left standing open.
As though Ellie had used her sweet demeanor to deliberately deceive him, he shot her a dirty look over his shoulder. Her expression turned wary, although he couldn’t tell if her concern was for him or the psychologist… the one with the beguiling smoky gray eyes and prima ballerina legs.
Swearing inaudibly, he followed her into a room he wished were a lot bigger and a lot cooler. She shut the door and motioned him toward a sofa while she sat down on a matching one facing it.
He remained standing and took in his surroundings. The room was furnished like a parlor in one of the French Quarter’s antiquated townhouses. “No desk?” he asked. “Computer? File cabinet? Not even a telephone?”
She pointed out a closed door that fit into the paneling so well it was barely detectable. “All in there.”
“Huh.”
He continued his survey. The window blinds were half closed so there was little daylight to compromise the serenity of the setting.
In front of the window was a round table where a potted ivy thrived, and a fragrant candle flickered in an amber glass votive.
On the table at the end of the sofa was a low-wattage lamp with a linen shade, a box of tissues, and several unopened bottles of water.
The sofa itself was crowded with throw pillows of various sizes and shapes.
This wasn’t her workstation. This was a lair, made intentionally cozy and confidence-inspiring.
This was where she listened to people weeping over dashed dreams, where they exposed their heartaches, and whispered confessions of darkest sins.
Within these walls, Dr. Dylan Reede exorcised demons. Or endeavored to.
She’d find out soon enough that his demons stubbornly held their ground.
He looked down at her where she sat, seemingly calm, cool, and collected. He supposed that giving a new patient time to acclimate to the environment was part of the drill. “Is being made to wait the first step of the wear-him-down process?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What happened to the patient before me? Or was there even a patient before me?”
Understanding his point, she indicated another door he had assumed was a closet. “The exit. It opens into a hallway where there’s a back elevator to the ground floor.”
“Ah. An escape hatch so patients won’t be bumping into each other in the waiting room.”
“In order to protect the privacy of both.”
“Huh,” he said again. Let her make of that non-word what she would.
One thing he had already deduced: Ruffling this lady wasn’t going to be easy. She didn’t appear to mind that he had remained standing and had the advantage of staring down at her where she sat. She stared back without flinching as she calmly waited him out.
But she had no idea of who she was up against. He hadn’t been an undercover narc for nothing, you know.
He had a truckload of gambits he used to get people to crack.
He wondered what it would take to heat her up, get under her skin, ignite a spark in those smoky eyes.
In that moment, it became his life’s mission to do so.
“I figured Dylan for a man’s name.”
She gave a small smile. “My paternal grandfather’s name. It’s sometimes mistaken.”
“Did he know that you’re a woman?”
“He?”
“Bowie.”
“Yes. He vetted me,” she replied, using the same inflection he’d used on his voice mail message.
So: eyes, legs, and a backbone. “I looked you up on the internet. Thought it was strange that your website didn’t have a picture of you like most do. Now I know why yours doesn’t.”
“Why would that be?”
“You get people in here before they find out you’re not what they were expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
He pretended to conjure an image. “Older guy in baggy pants. Food stain on his tweed vest. Bald and paunchy. Maybe with a fuzzy beard and wild eyebrows.”
“And smelling of pipe tobacco?”
“For sure.”
She swallowed a small laugh. “The stereotype.”
“Yeah, but stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason. So you can imagine why I was taken aback when you walked through the door. You’re far off the mark of stereotypical, Dr. Reede. You should post a warning sign on Ellie’s desk.”
He had hoped to nettle her. She remained unruffled.
She even tried to conceal a smile. “In essence, I do give fair warning. The last thing I want is to take a potential patient unaware. So, whenever I get an inquiry about my practice, I set up a preliminary virtual meeting. Following it, if he or she doesn’t wish to proceed with me for whatever reason, I wish them well and, more often than not, recommend a colleague that I think would be a better fit. ”
“What happened to my preliminary virtual meeting?”
“I had it with Lieutenant Bowie.”
“Huh.” Again.
“He explained the circumstances and made—”
“Circumstances?” he said. “Those should have been interesting.”
She ignored his interruption. “He made clear that I wasn’t the only therapist he was interviewing. My understanding was that he was going to provide you with a list of qualified candidates and leave the decision up to you.”
“He did. But he could’ve given me a heads-up. Put an asterisk by your name or something.”
“To indicate what? My gender?”
“No, that doesn’t matter to me.”
“Then what?”
That you’re such a gorgeous representative of your gender, that’s what. Swearing softly, he lowered his head to rub the back of his neck while staring down at the patterned rug.
Not at her legs. At the rug. The rug.
She was waiting for him to say something. After a sigh, he said, “Look, Dr. Reede, my reluctance has nothing to do with you. I wouldn’t want to be here if you were the stereotypical fusty guy with the pipe and wild eyebrows.”
She tilted her head and observed him with new interest and a slight frown. He would have given a million bucks to know what she was thinking. She said, “Then it’s psychotherapy in general that you take exception to?”
He didn’t respond, but she must’ve read his disgruntlement. “You aren’t trapped in here, Mitch. If you choose to leave now, you can use the exit door. There’ll be no hard feelings, and I won’t charge for the session.”
He looked over at the exit, then chuffed.
“And have Bowie on my ass for not seeing this through? Un-huh. No way. But not telling me that Dr. Dylan Reede happens to be…” He stopped himself from saying “hot,” and said instead, “… younger than expected is the kind of practical joke he and I used to pull on each other.”
“I’d like to hear about some of those practical jokes.” She picked up a notebook that was lying on the sofa beside her, set it on her crossed knees, and uncapped a pen. She motioned again toward the sofa across from hers. “Please sit.”
He looked back at the sofa, looked again at her, then shrugged.
“Sure. Okay.” He removed his sport coat and tossed it over the arm of the sofa, pushed three of the blasted throw pillows out of the way, then shoved his hands into his pants pockets and dropped down onto the seat.
He worked his butt deeper into the cushion, stretched out his legs as far as they would go, and crossed his ankles, settling into a slouch.