14. Ian From Portland
Chapter fourteen
Ian From Portland
The meeting lets out slowly and not simply.
Mayor Ford thanks everyone twice, and not one person moves toward the doors. They stand and turn to the neighbors and start talking about what couldn’t be whispered.
Some drift toward the refreshment table for one more cookie and give one more theory as to what is best. Most of the people here came tonight with at least one question, and a polished speech about revitalizing the cannery didn't answer many of them.
For me, it just created new ones.
“Have a good night, Doc,” Rhea says as she lifts her coat off the chair. “You sure you don’t mind bringing Erin home?”
“It’s all good. It’ll give them a few more minutes together.”
“Thanks.”
Ellie, who has just returned from hitting the refreshment table one more time for cookies, has now appointed herself quality control on the lemonade. "It's watery," she reports.
"You’re going to complain about something made by volunteers?"
"Sorry."
Erin appears at her shoulder, and the two of them put their heads together over something on Erin’s phone.
I look around for Annie.
She's standing in the back, working the people around her the way she works a waiting room. A word for this one, a hand on that one's arm, each of them sent off a little calmer than they arrived. She's good at it.
Anyone not watching would think she’s fine.
But there’s something off about her today. All the cannery talk at the clinic today obviously got under her skin, and now being here tonight doesn’t look like anything has gotten better.
I’m not making any claims that I know her yet, but even a fool can see that what she heard tonight did not make her happy.
"El." She looks up. "Go on with Erin a minute. I want a word with Annie before we leave."
"Adult stuff?"
"Boring adult stuff."
"Say no more." She's already directing Erin toward the doors.
I make it two steps before Mr. Garcia snags my sleeve.
"Doc. You're new. No skin in this yet. What'd you make of all that?"
"What I make of all that is that I'm too new to have opinions yet."
He grunts, marginally satisfied with that, and lets me go.
Three more steps and Mrs. Hamilton steps into my path. "Dr. Bie, while I've got you. My ankle has been making a clicking noise."
"Call the clinic in the morning and we'll take a listen."
"It's more of an evening noise."
"Still, call in the morning and make an appointment for your evening noise."
She pats my arm and lets me by.
This is the big difference between hospital medicine and small town medicine. You can leave the hospital, eventually.
I get questions ranging from ingrown toenails to whether I think the dust from the construction on the cannery will affect asthmatics in the community. All the while, I’m just trying to make it back to Annie for a quick minute.
By the time I reach her, the cleaning crew has just arrived and is assessing folding chairs. The refreshment table is down to crumbs and oatmeal cookies.
Finally.
"Annie."
She turns. For one second there's no expression on her face, at all. That’s actually more disturbing than her temper would be.
"Doc."
I keep my voice low. "So, are you okay with what you heard tonight?"
"I'm always okay,” she says flat and cool.
"That's not what I asked you."
"There’s more to all of this than you can understand.
" There's a sharp edge in her voice that I haven't done anything to deserve. Sharp enough that a woman folding a chair behind us stops and turns her head.I bite back. “Let me guess, because I’m still an outsider. Couldn’t possibly understand what the town is going through.”
“No,” she says, leaning in closer to me. “There are actually things going on that you are not privy to. Thank you very fucking much.”
She glares at me. "It's late, Doc. Find Ellie and go home."
I could push.
Trust me, I want to push.
But whatever the hell is eating at her, pressing her on it at this hour is not in the best interest of my health.
"Fine," I say, and I step back as she turns and dismisses me.
I take a couple steps towards Ellie and pause. Something about all of this is not right. I turn to go back and I see that Ian Danvers has made his way to Annie.
They talk for a few moments and then head out into the hallway. She does not look happy about it.
He's a good-looking guy, and knows it. He has a playboy air about him. He leans in close to say something private to her.
Too close, in my opinion, than a developer should be standing next to Annie.
Can’t say I love it.
But she's a grown woman having a conversation with a man. I have no skin in the game. I’m just her boss.
So I let it be.
"Dad." Ellie's at my elbow, Erin in tow, both of them lit up about something. "Kapaws is still open."
"Is it?"
"And they do the thing where if you name all the flavors you get a free scoop, and I have an excellent memory."
"You forgot your own dentist appointment last week."
"Ice cream is more important than dental hygiene. That's just science."
I look back toward the side aisle. Annie and Ian Danvers are gone.
"One scoop," I tell Ellie.
She squeals and grabs Erin. “Let’s go.”
***
Kapaws is busy for a weeknight. Ellie names eleven flavors, misses two, charms the kid behind the counter into the free scoop anyway.
That’s my girl.
On the drive home, Ellie and Erin argue about whether milkshakes, with enough add-ins, could technically be counted as a balanced meal. I take the other side just for the fun of it. Erin declares it a tie. It can be both.
After we drop off Erin, she talks the whole way home, none of it about canneries or developers, all of it about school, new places she has heard about and wants to visit, and new friends.
I love it.
This is the version of my kid I moved across the country to get back.
By the time she has settled and made it to bed, I’m exhausted and try to do the same, but I can’t stop thinking about Annie.
The way Ian Danvers leaned into her, so close to her neck.
That neck that I wanted to be leaning into, my teeth grazing her skin not wanting to be gentle. I want to mark her. To possess her.
I can smell her, warm and intoxicating. It triggers a hunger. I grip her waist, my fingers gripping her hips, walking her backward until she hits the refreshment table.
I bend her back over it. A platter of cookies slides and crashes, scattering across the floor.
I could care less.
I want her.
I pull her jeans open, the fabric strains as I slide them down over her long legs, exposing her to me. Her thighs are already glistening and inviting.
She watches as I unzip my jeans, pulling them down enough to free my cock. I love the little gasp she gives as her eyes reacquaint with my size.
“Doc,” she breathes. “I want you.”
No hesitation. I step in, cock slipping between her folds and I drive myself inside her with one hard, singular thrust that bottoms out.
“Yes,” she cries out, pleading, “More.”
Her tight walls clamp around me and our bodies become electric. I claim her with a raw, rhythmic craving, the table rattling under the weight of our bodies.
Her back arches off the table, blue eyes blown wide, her breasts bouncing with every heavy slam of my hips. I drive into her as if I can merge my body with hers, pouring every ounce of suppressed frustration into the friction.
I can feel the pressure building in my balls, a tight, agonizing coil demanding release. I grip her thighs, pushing her legs wider to bury myself even deeper. The wet, slapping sound of our skin meeting with every stroke echoes in the hallway.
The tension snaps and she goes over the edge. Her muscles spasm and clench, milking me hard, and I let out a guttural growl as I climax. My body stiffens, and I feel the first violent pulse of cum erupting deep inside her.
I surge again and again, thick waves of seed flooding her pussy, filling her.
The feeling of my cock pulsing inside her fades into the sensation of my hand gripping and stroking my shaft. I open my eyes to the dark ceiling of my bedroom.
I am gasping, back arching off the mattress, as the last of my cum splashes hot across my stomach. I lie there in the silence, heart hammering against my ribs, haunted by the vivid, electric memory of her.
My thoughts are consumed by Annie, and I’m not pretending otherwise.
I'm fifty-one years old. I'm not going to lie here at one in the morning and feel guilty for wanting a woman.
I want her. That's the truth of it.
***
The dream rides right along beside coffee and charts this morning. Annie's still in my head a full hour before she walks through the door.
When she does, she's the woman who met me with a glare and a flat of crushed berries.
Great.
She dives into work and I try not to crowd her.
That's the one thing I'm sure I've gotten right. The harder I push Annie Lockhart, the harder she pushes back.
So I let the morning run its course. I take my patients, she takes hers, and we move around each other in a building that suddenly seems three sizes smaller.
Twice in the first hour, I catch a glimpse of her and the dream surfaces, uninvited, and I will myself to put it back where it belongs. Mostly.
Mid-morning Mr. Gillespie clumps in to get his ankle looked at. Annie has him laughing before he's all the way through the door, tells him the walking boot is the best dressed he's looked all year.
Then I ask her whether his earlier films are in the new system or still on paper, and her voice turns frigid and flat the second she turns to me.
"Paper. Top drawer. Labeled."
Four words and a full stop, handed over without a look.
And that's the thing I can't stop seeing all morning. With the patients, she's warm. With me, she's a freezer door.
The more space I give her, the more prickly she gets. Whatever crawled up her ass and is eating away at her is now affecting the clinic. I'd put money on that thing standing about six feet, in a suit that cost more than my first car.
By the time lunchtime rolls around, I’m done. The clinic cannot stay this dysfunctional and icy. I'm asking. Once. Carefully.
I find her at the front desk with a sandwich, entering yesterday's notes.
"Annie."
"Doc."
I lean a hip against the counter. "What the hell happened that required you to turn into an icy porcupine again?"
She jerks her head up to look at me. "Excuse me?"
"You heard what I said. An icy porcupine." I keep it level. "I thought we had finally slipped into a rhythm, and had a good working environment. Civil. Borderline pleasant.”
“Then yesterday, something crawled up your ass and now this morning every quill's back out and aimed right back at me. What the hell did I do?"
"I am not a porcupine."
I start laughing my ass off. "You were the day I met you. Covered in Mrs. Weaver's berries. Every time I got within three feet you put the spines up and dared me to come closer."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did.”
And then, the smallest crack in her armor appears. She starts to smile and fights it. She looks up and sees me watching her. I smirk and she loses. A short, surprised laugh tumbles out of her, half against her will, but real.
"A porcupine," she laughs.
"A good-looking one. I want that on the record."
She shakes her head, and the laugh takes the worst of her edge off. She sets the sandwich down and looks at me, actually at me, instead of past me.
"It's not the cannery," she says.
I don't reach for it. I've learned that much. When Annie decides to hand you something, the fastest way to lose it is to grab.
"Ian Danvers." She turns her cup a half turn on the counter and watches it instead of me. "The developer with promises and blueprints."
She pauses. "He's not only the developer who wants the cannery, Doc."
"No?"
"He's my ex from Portland." She lays it out flatly and without fanfare and sits in silence.
A thousand things swim through my thoughts at once. Her face at the community center, the bite in her voice when people brought up the cannery. He wasn't trying his luck with her last night. He’s already had it once.
I lean on the counter and look at her.
"All right," I say, even and controlled. "Okay."
"That's it? Okay?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing." It comes fast, with relief under it. "I want you to say nothing. You walked into a fight this morning that you didn't start. You deserve to know it wasn't about you."
"Is everything all right? Is there anything I can do?”
"I’ll handle it." Her tone isn’t bitter. It’s just a fact. "It’s my life. But thank you for asking."
"Annie, if that changes," I say genuinely, "you tell me. I want you to know I’m here to help, if you need it."
She studies me a second. "Noted.”
She picks the sandwich back up, and the desk between us is a desk again, and the door she cracked open shuts on her own terms.
As the clinic starts to come back online after lunch, the cannery and Ian Danvers are the topic of conversation.
“A flier is up at the market,” somebody says in the waiting room. “Glossy. Shows the cannery with new glass and string lights and people who look paid to be happy, RESTORATION is written big across the top.”
A woman tells me her nephew already asked Danvers about a construction job and that Danvers took his number. The patient after him thinks the jobs are the best thing to come to the waterfront in twenty years.
Both of them are certain. Neither of them has met the man twice or seen a written proposal.
Annie's in and out of the same exam rooms all afternoon, and I watch what the mention of his name does to her now that I know to look for it.
When the fisherman calls Danvers reasonable, her hands pause for a moment over the suture tray. When the next patient calls him a godsend, she sits up a little straighter, but says nothing at all, which from Annie is its own kind of answer.
I would have missed it before. I don't now.
I can't put a finger on a single thing wrong with the man. There's no crack to point at, no lie I can detect. A polished man saying positive things the whole town wants to hear.
All I have is the look on Annie's face.
I don't know who Ian Danvers is. I know he was hers, it ended, and I’m willing to bet it didn't end amicably.
My reaction to him isn’t about him. It’s about me.
A man leaned in too close to Annie in a public hallway, and I noticed it, felt it, and didn't like it. What keeps nagging at me is that I reacted at all. I haven't reacted to anything in that direction in four years.
I'm not stupid about what that means, and I'm not going to insult Beth by pretending it's simple.
I still reach for my wife in the places she used to be.
I still catch Ellie's laugh and hear an echo of her mother in it and have to breathe through the gap.
None of that has gone anywhere, and none of it is going to.
But somewhere in the last few weeks, Annie Lockhart stopped being the prickly PA who came with the building and became someone I care about.
And putting myself between the people I care about and whatever's coming for them is stitched into me too deep to stop.