Bloodlust

Chapter 14

Dylan left her office shortly after seven o’clock following her last patient’s session.

As she turned onto her street, she saw a black vehicle parked at the curb in front of her townhouse.

The darkly tinted windows, oversized tires, brush guard, light bar, and winch made it look more like a monster truck.

Incongruously, it had a child seat.

Mitch Haskell got out of it as she pulled into her driveway.

She slammed her car door and marched across her lawn to where he stood waiting. She wasted no time on niceties. “My office door was unlocked yesterday morning. Did you break in before I got there? Did you pick the lock again?”

“Guilty.”

She was astonished. “You admit it?”

“Why deny it?”

“How dare you? What were you doing inside my office?”

“Looking to see if you were there.”

“Did you try knocking?”

“Twice.”

“When I didn’t answer, didn’t that signify that I wasn’t there?”

“It signified that you could have been in your inner office, or in the waiting room, or using the ladies’. I poked my head in and called your name. About that time, I heard the elevator on its way up.”

His explanation had been so casually and guiltlessly given, it was either the truth or a facile lie. She suspected the latter. “I shouldn’t have let you get away with breaking in on Monday night. But don’t ever do it again. If you do, I’ll report it to John Bowie.”

“I didn’t see the harm, but I won’t do it again.”

She glanced beyond him toward his SUV. “How did you know where I live?”

“I’m a cop.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Fine. Full transparency. I followed you home Monday night.”

A second admission, no less surprising.

“In my defense,” he continued, “you shouldn’t have been leaving alone. Downtown is practically deserted at that time of night except for predators on the hunt for easy pickin’s like you. Were you armed?”

“You mean with a gun?”

“A gun, pepper spray, brass knuckles, slingshot, pea shooter, anything?”

“I wasn’t armed.”

“What I thought. Walking to your car in the dark like that—”

“There’s a light in the parking lot.”

“One. With a forty-watt bulb that flickers. It only makes it easier for a bad guy to spot you.”

“Or stalk me.”

That stopped his banter cold. He placed his hands on his hips, lowered his head, and stared down at the ground, then gave the street a slow visual sweep before coming back to her. “Pretty cul de sac.”

“Thank you. What are you doing on it?”

“I’m not being cute, Dylan,” he said with a sigh. “I need to talk to you. For real. No bullshit, no joking.”

He seemed serious. He looked downcast. For all her misgivings where he was concerned, she found herself believing him. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t make it. That’s why I’m here.”

“You could have called.”

“And gone through that endless menu I’ve memorized by now? It took less time to drive here.”

“How did you know that I would be at home?”

“I took a chance. It’s that important. Can we talk? You can add the time to John’s tab. Double your normal rate.” He flashed a half grin. Still, she hesitated, and he picked up on it. “Look, we don’t have to go inside. We can sit in my truck, or in your car.”

Those confines would feel even more intimate and inappropriate. She shook her head.

“Okay, what if we went someplace public?”

“You want to talk about something ‘that important’ with other people around?”

“I’d rather not, but if you make that a condition, I will.”

“Like where?”

“There’s that café at the highway turnoff. The one with the blue neon crawfish on the sign. Never have understood why it’s blue and not red, but how about there?”

To give herself time either to talk herself out of this or to rationalize agreeing to it, she looked at her wristwatch. But she already knew she was going to agree to it. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

“You promise? You’re not just saying that to get me to leave so you can lock yourself inside your house? I can pick locks, you know.”

Tightly, she repeated, “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

He gave her a thumbs-up, jogged back to his truck, and drove away.

Telling herself that she must be crazy, that she was the one in desperate need of therapy, she retrieved her briefcase from her car, let herself inside the house, and went straight upstairs to her bedroom.

She changed from work clothes and heels into a pair of jeans, a white tee, and a black linen jacket.

Black flats for shoes. All very tailored. Definitely not date clothes.

She brushed out her ponytail, but made a fresh one even tighter than the original. She applied lip gloss. Looking at herself in the mirror, she said, “That will do.” But on her way out, she changed her mind, and went back to whisk her cheeks with blush and her lashes with mascara.

When she got to the café, she pulled in beside Mitch where he’d parked at the side of the building. They didn’t verbally greet each other, although she was aware of him looking her over.

As they entered the café, a waitress trundled past them carrying a large tray loaded with platters of food. “What’ll y’all be wantin’ to drink?” They ordered iced teas. She nodded. “Sit wherever. I’ll find you.”

Mitch gestured toward an unoccupied booth in a less busy section. It was only large enough for a party of two. When they slid in across from each other, their knees bumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll go right, you go left.” She was aware of him stretching his legs out, taking up most of the empty space under the table.

When they were situated, he said, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a glass of wine? A beer?”

“No thank you. Would you rather?”

“God, yes,” he said with a groan. “But I’m abstaining. Have you been here before? Food’s good.”

“This isn’t a social occasion, Mitch.”

He bobbed his chin. “Right.”

The waitress delivered two tall glasses of iced tea and laid a pair of laminated menus on the table. “When y’all are ready.”

Once she was out of earshot, Dylan asked, “What’s keeping you from tomorrow’s appointment?”

“Straight to the point, then?”

“You’re on the clock.”

“Got it.” He sat back and drew a breath. “My mother-in law.” He took a sip of tea, then cupped his fingers around the glass and moved them up and down, collecting condensation.

Dylan had noticed his hands before. The backs of them were ropy with plump veins, his fingers slender and strong-looking. They were the hands of a soldier, but one who would admit to shedding tears while watching his son sleep.

She tried not to think about how much she liked that combination, and instead to concentrate on why he’d sought her out. If it was about his mother-in-law, it must relate to his son, which would qualify it as being “that important.”

“I’ve already told you that I don’t know what I would have done without my in-laws,” he said. “But Mary and I butt heads every now and then, and today was one of those times.”

He told her what Mary had done. “I’m all for Andrew going to preschool,” he said. “What pisses me off is that she took the liberty to get him enrolled before I even knew about it.”

“You have every right to be angry, Mitch. She assumed a parental privilege and authority, which rightfully belonged to you. Did you ever grant her permission to make decisions such as this before consulting you?”

“No.” He looked down at the menu and traced the outline of the blue crawfish with his fingertip. Then he said with chagrin, “Or maybe I did. Not outrightly, nothing said, nothing written down. But I might have conceded the right to her through neglect.”

“Neglect?” She frowned. “I very much doubt you’ve been neglectful of Andrew.”

“Not intentionally. But, to be perfectly square with you, I never thought about preschool. It never occurred to me.” He leaned forward and braced his forearms on the table. “It should have, though. Why didn’t it?”

“Not out of neglect.”

“What would you call it?”

She thought, then said, “Wiring.”

Taken aback, he said, “Of all the words I thought might come out of your mouth, that wasn’t one of them.”

She smiled. “Then allow me to elaborate. Based on what you’ve told me, you had a traditional marriage and a traditional family dynamic. Consequently, the division of labor would also have been traditional.”

“I changed plenty of diapers.”

“I’m sure you did. Willingly. But who put diapers on the grocery list?” She could tell by his expression that he got where she was going with this. “Checking into preschool enrollment wasn’t on your to-do list, any more than getting an oil change and tire rotation would have been on Angela’s.”

“She would have been on top of it, but I would definitely have been interested and involved.”

“I’m certain of that, Mitch. So let yourself off the hook for letting it slip your mind.”

“It didn’t slip my mind. It didn’t enter my mind. I’m as mad at myself for this oversight as I am at Mary for overstepping.”

“Well, to prevent something like this from happening again, I advise you to set boundaries with her.”

“Believe me, I did. I came down pretty hard on her, but I guess I should have been thanking her for seeing to it.” He frowned. “On the other hand…”

When he paused, she said, “Don’t stop there. On the other hand, what?”

“It was a rite of passage for Andrew. She denied me the experience. It wasn’t me holding his hand when he walked in. I didn’t get to see his first reaction to the bunny.”

He turned his head and gazed out the window. The sun had fully set, but there was still a rim of gold on the western horizon. That last sliver of sunlight picked up the lighter streaks in his brown hair, turning them to filaments of copper. It made his eyes so blue they appeared to be electric.

But there was no mischief in them now. His expression was introspective and forlorn. She didn’t interrupt whatever he was reflecting on. Finally he turned back to her and stated, “I don’t know how to be a mother.”

She wanted badly to reach across the table and place her hand over his, but feared that touching him, even in consolation, could be hazardous. To her, if not to him.

“You weren’t programmed to be,” she said softly.

“Not wired that way.”

“Precisely. How you are wired and what you are to Andrew is going to be sufficient.”

He looked at her as though he wanted desperately to believe that.

“I’m going to Lafayette tomorrow, tour the school, meet the teacher.

At ten a.m. I’m sorry to skip out on you, but I can’t reschedule because Mary already told Andrew that I’m coming.

He’s excited to show me the rabbit. I can’t disappoint him. ”

“See? You’re more than sufficient.”

Under the table, he restlessly drew his knees up, then stretched out again. “Well, Mary is questioning my sufficiency. This afternoon she called me an ‘absent parent’ and cited some negative effects my absenteeism could have on Andrew’s development.”

“Oh,” Dylan said with sudden insight. Sensing what was coming, she now understood his urgency to talk to her.

“Yeah. She delivered me a gut punch, because there was an underlying suggestion that it might be better for Andrew if the present living arrangement was made permanent.”

“That she and Hank get guardianship?”

“She didn’t come right out and say that, but I sensed it’s occurred to her to try.”

“Have either of them ever broached that with you?”

“Never. Which is why it jarred me. I may not be programmed to be a mother, but I’m Andrew’s father. I’d go to hell and back before giving him up.” He chuffed a bitter laugh. “I have gone to hell and back.”

He hunched his shoulders, propped his elbows on the table, and with praying hands rubbed the center of his forehead. In her peripheral vision Dylan saw the waitress approaching. She gave a small shake of her head. The waitress took in Mitch’s body language and retreated.

Half a minute lapsed before he lowered his hands. “I’m not very good company tonight. Not a single joke or wisecrack springs to mind. Sorry.”

“No apology necessary. I’m getting to see another side of you.”

“Is it an improvement over the other?”

She smiled, but didn’t respond to the question, afraid he would misinterpret if she told him she liked both sides of him. Instead, she asked, “When you said you’d been to hell and back, were you referring to your deployments?”

“They were hell, for sure. I was lucky to come through them with only a few dings.” Then he shot her one of his grins. “And a couple of tats, but you’ll never see them unless we get better acquainted. Much better acquainted.”

She felt her blush, and he must have noticed, because he gave a short laugh before becoming serious again. “No, the hell I was referring to was the aftermath of Angela’s death. You already know about that. At downward spirals, I’m an Olympian.”

“Do you want to talk more about it now? Here?”

“I never want to talk about it, even though you told me that sitting and saying nothing wouldn’t be very helpful.”

“I stand by that.” She didn’t want to prod him to the point that he would become sarcastic or shut down completely, but she felt she would be derelict not to prod a little.

“You should talk about it, Mitch, because I don’t think you’ll be the person, or the parent to Andrew, that you want to be until you unleash the anger you’re harboring. ”

“I couldn’t agree more, Dr. Reede. I’m on the brink of unleashing it. When I do, it’s liable to get bloody.”