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 him 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.
She laughs a lot over the phone, as does he. When they are not heavy breathing, that is.
Friday comes with a patient load that would have stunned even general hospitals in Portland, with several walk-in cases appearing out of the blue. It is eight thirty in the evening when Shannon finally finishes.
She is walking out, getting ready to go home for a light dinner, when Kirk lopes up.
“Hey, Shannon. Wait up.”
Shannon turns. Her breath catches. The sight of Kirk always lifts her stomach a little higher, as if she’s floating on air – he is that beautiful. He has changed out of his usual green scrubs and his rich dark hair is free flowing around his shoulders. He wears a leather jacket over a T-shirt which says: ‘DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS’. Through Patty, Shannon has learned that he volunteered with that charitable outfit to be stationed in the Sudan, Africa for a year.
Kirk Fitzpatrick, in Patty’s parlance, seems destined for sainthood.
“Sorry I didn’t catch up with you all week. How has your first two weeks been?” he says.