by Anise Eden
Sid walked around beside me, duffle bag slung over his shoulder, and addressed Pete directly. “Sorry I didn’t have her ready in time. I didn’t know to expect you.” He winked down at me.
Pete appeared unruffled. He hooked his thumbs into an enormous brass belt buckle featuring a bronco, then looked me over as though I were a rodeo bull and he was considering how difficult I would be in the ring. “No problem,” he said in a gravelly voice.
I felt my face start to redden. “Sid, isn’t it time for you to go?”
Sid nodded. “Right you are. See you soon. And don’t keep this gentleman waiting too long.” Pete stepped to one side. Sid paused on the stoop and said just loudly enough for me to hear, “Be careful, she’s a live one.”
Pete nodded, eyeing me as though he were expecting me to make a sudden move.
Sid headed down the walk, looking back to flash me a grin. “See you in twenty-one days, and not a day more!” Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the cowboy.
A ball of nervousness slammed into my stomach. I let my auto-manners take over. “Um, I’m sorry, Pete. As you can see, I’m not quite ready. Care to come in and have a seat?”
Pete followed me inside, his boots clomping on the hardwood. With relief, I noticed that the night before, Sid had picked my clothes up off of the living room floor. Pete leaned gingerly against the back of the armchair.
Well, fine, I thought. If he doesn’t want to make himself comfortable, there’s nothing I can do about it. I trundled upstairs and tried to mentally calculate which outfit I could put on the fastest. Sid had draped my jeans and slinky silk blouse from the night before across the arm of the chair. I made the blouse decent by throwing a tweed blazer on over it. Not knowing what to expect from the day, I opted for comfort over style and slipped on a pair of casual loafers, then threw my hair into my go-to braid.
Thankfully, I’d showered the night before. A brief onceover with my toothbrush and I was reasonably presentable. I swallowed three of Dr. Nelson’s little white pills and hoped they would kick in quickly. Sid and I were close enough that I never felt overwhelmed by his emotions, but God only knew how many new people I’d have to deal with over the course of the day—starting with Mr. Cowboy Congeniality. Grabbing my purse, I headed back down the stairs.
“Okay, ready,” I said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Pete was sitting on the couch, fingering the pack of cards that Sid had brought over. I noticed for the first time that the deck was decorated with nude pin-up girls from the 1950s. I felt myself blushing again.
“No problem.” It appeared that Pete had a limited vocabulary. He tossed the cards back onto the coffee table. As he did, I glimpsed a piece of folded-up, marbled blue stationery peeking out from between the cushions on my couch—a practice suicide note I’d missed while cleaning up the day before. Well, it wouldn’t do to have anyone find that lying around. When Pete’s back was turned, I pulled it out of the couch and slid it into the back pocket of my jeans.
He opened the front door for me. As usually happened when I tried to leave the house, my heart fluttered in an irregular beat, and I felt like an invisible hand was holding me back. This time, though, the weight of Pete’s presence beside me and a strong desire not to humiliate myself proved to be sufficient motivation to propel me forward.
Pete’s vehicle turned out to be a beat-up, white Ford pickup with actual steer horns mounted on top of the cab. We climbed in and he pulled away from the curb. My embarrassment over the fact that a perfect stranger had met my lover, seen me in my bathrobe, and discovered pictures of nude women on a deck of cards in my living room—all within the space of ten minutes—grew as we drove. I felt compelled to break the silence. “That was Sid. He’s—”
“None of my business,” Pete cut in, and his tone made it clear that he was truly uninterested in hearing another word about it.
Terrific, I thought. Next, I’m going to find out that this guy is my new therapist or something. “So,” I asked, “what’s your job at the program?”
“Whatever needs doing,” he said, staring straight ahead.
That was promising. “Whatever needs doing” sounded more like operations or administration than anything clinical. I probably wouldn’t be expected to confide in him.
The thought of having to confide in anyone reignited my irritation at having to attend the program in the first place. Since I didn’t like being rousted out of bed early on a Sunday morning, Pete would just have to work through his apparent dislike of talking to me. I became determined to wring a conversation out of him. “You’re not from here, are you?”
“Wyoming.”
“Let me guess,” I said, drawing on my memories of Gunsmoke. “Some kind of ranch?”
Pete nodded. “Cattle.”
I made an effort to sound annoyingly sunny. “So what brought you to Baltimore?”
He sighed a long drawn-out sigh, and I could tell that he was hoping I would stop talking and let him drive in peace. “Ben asked me to come out and help him after we got out of the Corps.”
“The Marine Corps?” I was so surprised that I didn’t even have time to hide the shock in my voice. Ben and the cowboy? Elite soldiers?
“That’s the one.” The corners of Pete’s mouth twitched upward.
I had no words. Ben was a Marine, and he had Ph.D. in psychology? As I tried to absorb that new information, Pete’s voice cut through the cab of the truck like an icy wind. “So with the two of us around, you better not try any funny stuff. We’ll take you down in a second.”
A chill went down my back. Funny stuff? Take me down? Who was this nut job? I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into, but whatever it was, I was getting right back out. “You stop and let me out of this truck right now!” Marine or no Marine, I wasn’t giving in without a fight.
Pete glanced over at me, and for a moment, I thought he might kill me right there. Then he let out an enormous whooping laugh. “I gotcha. I gotcha with that one! ‘We’ll take you down.’ Hah!”
I took a deep breath. “Very funny.”
“Yeah, yeah, it was. You should have seen the look on your face.” He imitated me in a high falsetto, “You stop this truck right now!” That started him laughing again.
I looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Very professional. I’m glad to see that I’m entering such a high-class treatment program.”
“Treatment program? Oh yeah, right. Man, but you remind me of my little sister, Lydia. She’ll believe anything, too.” His face settled into a permanent grin. “And she’s a pain in the butt.”
Impressed as I was by the sudden torrent of personal information coming from previously taciturn Pete, I was completely uninterested in having any further conversation with him. Apparently my mood showed on my face because Pete looked over at me again and chuckled. “All right, sulk if you want to. I was just playin’ with ya’.”
I was not sulking. “I am not sulking.”
He nodded. “Sure you’re not.”
Something about this Pete character was really getting under my skin. I glared at him. “If you really want to know, I want to get to the church and get started so I can get this so-called program over with as soon as possible and get back to work. Is that okay with you?”
He whistled appreciatively—at what, I wasn’t sure. “Okay with me, ma’am, but it’s not up to me.” We had arrived at the church. Ben was standing on the sidewalk pointing at his watch. “You’re going to have to talk to the boss about that.” Pete pulled up to the curb, reached over me, and opened my door from the inside. “Have a nice day.” He was grinning again.
“Thanks for the ride,” I shot back as I climbed out of the truck. I could hear Pete chuckling as he drove away. I turned to face Ben with the intention of telling him exactly what I thought of his assistant, but he beat me to the punch.
“You’re late again, and I know it’s not Pete’s fault.”
Ben looked at me the same way my middle-school gym teac
her had when he found out that I was ducking into the equipment shed every day instead of running laps. I could see the “military” in Ben; he seemed like he’d be very comfortable in the role of a drill instructor.
I decided to ignore his comment about my lateness. “You know, your assistant could use some training in how to deal with people.”
“You’ll get used to him.” He folded his arms across his chest. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re late.”
Good grief, he really was like a drill instructor. “My alarm didn’t go off,” I lied.
“You mean you either forgot to set it, or you hit ‘snooze’ one too many times. Don’t let it happen again.”
If Ben was expecting me to follow orders, I hoped he was accustomed to disappointment. “I can’t make any promises,” I said dryly.
His hardened expression eased into one of amusement. “Come on in,” he said. Resigned to my fate for the moment, I fell in behind him as we walked toward the front doors of the church.
Chapter Six
The chapel was impressive with its vaulted ceilings, marble columns lining the aisle, old wooden pews, and an intricately carved altar on a raised platform. As we walked, I was surprised to see rows of candles burning along the walls.
“Is this church in use?” I asked.
“No, it isn’t,” he said, “but we use this space for some of our activities.”
Another vague answer, I thought with a sigh. I followed Ben through an opening behind the altar and into a hallway with closed doors along both sides. We stepped through an archway into a lounge. Dark leather sofas and armchairs were arranged in a square, set off by coffee tables of different shapes and sizes. There were vending machines and a small table holding coffee and tea supplies.
A door led off the back of the lounge into Ben’s office, where a high-backed chair loomed behind a large mahogany desk. Several photos hung on the walls featuring either classic cars or men wearing camouflage.
Ben gestured toward two leather club chairs in front of his desk, then sat in the taller chair behind it. I got the impression that the furniture had been carefully arranged to give Ben a superior position. “Welcome,” he said with a tight-lipped smile. He folded his hands together on the desk and looked down at me. “I’m glad you’re here and I know you have a lot of questions. Unfortunately, since you were late, we’ll have to wait until after tai chi to begin orientation.”
“Tai chi?” I asked with mild alarm.
“Yes. We do it every morning.”
Ben and martial arts: that made sense. Whenever he moved, Ben appeared simultaneously relaxed and ready for action. However, as someone who had always been at war with her own sense of coordination, I had no confidence at all in my ability to pick up a new physical skill—especially while wearing such an unyielding outfit. I looked down at my blazer and jeans.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I can loan you some gear.” Ben fished around in a duffle bag next to the desk and handed me a pair of sweats. “Just laundered. You can change in the studio bathroom.”
I followed behind Ben, unable to shake the unsettling feeling that I was about to have my sense of balance thrown off again. I hoped it wasn’t going to be like that for the whole three weeks.
• • •
I examined myself in the bathroom mirror. Even after fixing my braid so that it was somewhat straight, I still had that “just rolled out of bed” look. Tired circles ringed my eyes, and the navy-blue sweats Ben had loaned me weren’t livening up my pale complexion.
The other problem was that the sweats didn’t fit. They stretched tightly across my chest and backside. Evidently what Sid referred to as my “bountiful figure” wasn’t meant to be squeezed into men’s sportswear. Also, the arms and legs were too long, so I’d had to roll up the wrists and ankles. To top it off, I didn’t have suitable footwear, so I had to go barefoot. I shook my head at my reflection.
I stepped out of the bathroom into an exercise studio located in the church’s basement. Multicolored Indian tapestries with elaborate geometric designs hung on the walls. There was no furniture in the room, and the floor was lined with large, gray gymnasium pads. Four new faces—two men and two women—had joined Ben in the small, windowless room. They, too, wore navy-blue sweats and all appeared to know one another. After a moment of brief panic at finding myself in a group of strangers, I noticed with relief that I wasn’t getting slammed by anyone’s feelings. None of them must be in emotional distress, I concluded.
Ben waved me over to a back corner of the room. He switched on a stereo that began to play ambient music. The others spaced themselves out and stood up straight, facing the front of the room with their hands at their sides. Ben said, “Watch me and do your best to follow along. I’ll come help if you’re getting into trouble.”
I leaned toward him and whispered, “Are these the other clients?”
Ben gave me a brief look of surprise. “No, we’re all staff members. You’re the only participant in our program right now.”
The only participant? I’d never heard of a treatment program that could survive on one client. While I tried to figure out what that might mean, I did my best to blend in. I stood up straight and faced the front of the room with the others. Ben went to the front and assumed the same position, standing with his back to the room. Then all at once, the group started to move in unison, slowly and gracefully, as though performing a carefully choreographed dance.
I did my best to follow along, managing a poor imitation of the others’ movements. After several minutes, though, my self-consciousness got the better of me. I gave up and slumped against the back wall.
Ben gestured to the others to continue as he came to the back of the room. “Don’t stop now,” he murmured. “You’re doing great. Come on.” Reluctantly, I followed him out onto the floor and held my arms up like the others were doing.
“Try dropping your shoulders,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?”
He positioned himself behind me and rested his hands on my shoulder blades, pressing gently downwards. As I allowed my shoulders to fall, a layer of tension I hadn’t known was there melted away.
“That’s it.” Ben reached out and supported my hands lightly with his. “Form is the most important thing. Relax for a minute and let me guide you. We’ll focus on the arms for now.”
I let my arms go limp. Ben stepped in closer. My breath quickened. Was I that out of shape?
Ben noticed as well. “There’s no need to be nervous. Just try to breathe normally.”
Where Ben’s hands touched mine, my skin tingled. Like a water faucet being turned on, a tickling warmth began to flow down my arms. What is this? I wondered. Some sort of tai chi thing?
As he guided my movements, his breath fell on the back of my neck and I shivered. The warmth from my arms spilled into my chest, and a heavy heat began to move through my body like a lava flow. Lulled by the sensation, my eyes closed and my head tipped backwards…
“Cate?” Ben asked. “Are you all right?”
“Oh! God.” I whirled around, snapping myself away from him.
Ben took a quick step back. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I looked everywhere but into his eyes. “I just—give me a second.” I rushed into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Leaning against the sink, I tried to catch my breath.
I looked at my flushed face in the mirror as I tried to process what had just happened. The tingling feeling, that heavy heat… It had taken a second for me to identify them, but I knew without a doubt what those sensations meant. The only other time I felt that way was when I was with Sid.
I leaned my cheek against the cool wall. “Not good,” I said into the mirror. I turned on the sink and splashed icy water on my face, then let it run over my hands until they ached with cold.
As I hurriedly tore off Ben’s sweats and put on my own clothes, I tried to tell myself that I had misinterpreted my body’s signals. I was just anx
ious about being in a new place and a strange situation. That was all there was to it. I wasn’t very convincing, however.
I heard a soft knock on the door, followed by Ben’s voice. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, fine.” I did my best to sound normal. “I’ll be out in a sec.”
I could sense him waiting on the other side of the door. I would have to pull myself together before I went out there. Closing my eyes, I visualized myself as a futuristic spacecraft putting up maximum shields. I concentrated until I could imagine an impenetrable barrier around myself. Once I felt ready, I grabbed Ben’s sweats and opened the door.
There was mild surprise on his face when he saw that I had changed clothes. The tai chi session had ended, and the others were stretching and drinking bottles of water. “Everyone,” Ben said to the group, “when you get yourselves together, let’s meet in the lounge so we can do introductions.”
Ben gestured for me to follow him. “I know this is more people than you’re used to being around lately,” he said as we climbed the stairs. “Just tell me if you start to feel uncomfortable.”
With his back to me, I rolled my eyes. Now he had to start being nice to me.
In the lounge, a generous spread of fruit, bread, and cheeses had been laid out on a coffee table, and I could smell hot tea brewing. I sat in an armchair in the corner. I felt more secure with my back to the wall, where nothing and no one could take me by surprise. After taking back the sweats he had loaned me, Ben sat on the end of the sofa nearest to me and gave me a searching look. “What happened back there?”
There was no way in hell I was going to tell him what happened back there. I racked my brain for a cover story. “I don’t know,” I lied. “I felt lightheaded all of a sudden.”
I immediately felt guilty as concern shot through his expression. “How are you feeling now? Have you eaten yet today?”
“No, actually I haven’t.” As though on cue, my stomach growled.
