JACK CASUALLY held his arm around Astrid’s
shoulders as they walked towards the automatic door. Every single
head on the busy hospital’s main floor was now turned in their
direction—in a year or so nobody had ever seen Dr. Rosalie Duplant
with anybody else except Dr. Blake and his wife.
Astrid cast Jack a side glance as they walked
toward the parking lot.
“Now we are posing as boyfriend and
girlfriend, aren’t we? Well, thank you for the timely update...
Wow! What a car!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide open, as she took in
the smart, sleek silver Bentley coupe.
“Thanks,” Jack said, holding the passenger
door open for her. “Well, about playing couple, I got inspired when
I saw you coming down. I thought it would be a perfect explanation
for your sudden leave that will happen, I hope, in a few weeks: we
fell in love and decided to get married. It’s simple.” He turned to
her as he started the car. “Astrid, did you look the same last
night?”
She laughed. “Well, that’s the authority of a
doctor. Everybody submits to that.”
The tinkle of chimes in a gentle, spring
breeze
, crossed Jack’s mind,
that’s how her laugh sounds...
And now the damn bond is turning me into a poet. Great!
“Hey, you took a wrong turn!” Astrid said
when she saw him heading towards downtown.
“I’m taking you out to lunch. You don’t have
any decent food at home.”
“That’s why I took the afternoon off. I’m
planning to go to grocery shopping. I don’t want to starve
you.”
“We’ll do that later together,” Jack said,
and pulled into the parking lot of Palatine Hill, a small, cozy
Italian restaurant. “This will do just fine.”
IT WAS early afternoon and the restaurant was
almost empty. They were seated beside the window. Astrid
immediately buried her head in the menu, pretending to study it
carefully.
“May I order for you?” Jack said, just to see
her reaction.
She kept her eyes on the menu. ”You may
not.”
Fiercely independent
, Jack recollected
Tristan’s words. “Can I make a suggestion?”
She lifted her head. “You can if you explain
first why you think you’re qualified to make a recommendation in a
restaurant you’ve never been to before.”
“I wanted to see if you were going to let
me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. So what am I
eating?”
The waitress came to take the order. “We’ll
take Parma ham with melon, as an appetizer. Caprese salad—”
“No basil, please,” Astrid said.
“No basil, then. If you could sprinkle it
with parsley... Is parsley okay?”
Astrid nodded.
“Grilled scallops on a spinach bed—”
“No garlic, please.”
Assuming that the waitress acknowledged it,
Jack ignored Astrid’s last remark. “With scalloped potatoes .” He
looked at her. “No adjustments to that?”
“No, sounds good.”
“Are we related?” she said while they waited
for the food to be served. The question seemed to come out of the
blue. She’d been looking through the window for a while, deep in
her own thoughts, before she asked it. “I know that my uncle James
married your mother. Her name’s Elizabeth, right?”
“Yes, we call her Betty.”
“Which makes their children my cousins. But
what about you? Are you my cousin too, throughout a different
family branch?”
The waitress came back with the appetizer.
Jack waited until she withdrew. “We are step-cousins, but that
doesn’t count. We are also very distant blood kin. Several
generations in the past, we had had a common relative. Our people
aren’t numerous and most of us are loosely related. But for you and
me that won’t be a roadblock...”
Shit.
He couldn’t believe he’d actually said aloud
what was—he thought—only in his mind.
Astrid didn’t say anything and he hoped that
she’d overlooked his gaff. She absent-mindedly picked up a piece of
melon with her fork.
“A roadblock to what?” she said quietly and
lifted her head.
I didn’t expect you’d miss such a big
one.
“Never mind that now,” Jack said, annoyed with his lapse.
“Why didn’t you tell me that your changing is painful?”
“We didn’t come to that point last night. Can
you tell me why it’s painful?”
“No, not yet. I have to see it. I have to
know more. I hope we can change that, though.”
“Tristan says you’re not married.” Another
unexpected question. The same one Tristan had already answered.
Jack felt strangely happy he could confirm it.
“No, I’m not married.”
Not yet. I’ll be
soon, though. To you
.
“I apologize for the personal questions,”
Astrid said.
“I don’t mind them.” Jack quickly reassured
her. “I’m just wondering where my double negative answer puts me
then.”
“That’s a good question. Unless you can
explain why I have a funny feeling that everything’s different
since you’ve popped up, let’s say I was just curious.”
“May I be curious?”
Astrid smiled. “I’m not your close blood
relative and I’m not married,” she said and closed the subject.
THEIR FOOD arrived. Jack didn’t want to
pursue any further personal topics. Instead, he asked her about her
studies, her job, books she liked, her little pleasures. He could
feel how she relaxed and soon Jack fell under the spell of her
soft, velvety voice. She was smart and interesting, but he would
have been equally delighted had she read to him from the White
Pages. As long as she didn’t stop.
“Astrid, eat, please. Your food is getting
cold,” Jack reminded her gently, although his plate was also almost
full. It seemed they had both forgotten about the food.
To his surprise, she obeyed and quickly
finished her meal. “That was so good. Thank you. I’m not good at
reading menus. Except when I go to a steak house. I’m rather a
meat-and-potatoes girl.”
“Are you working tomorrow?”
“No. I need to be back on Friday night, and
after that I’ll have one more week before I flip-flop back and
forth. Then I’ll need a day or two to recover.”
“My God, Astrid, how long does it take before
you feel normal again?”
“About a week. What about you? Tell me how
you feel it. What do you do? What are you going through during the
change? I need to know.”
Her fingers touched Jack forearm and the
energy flew between them. She held her hand there for a moment,
then lifted it up, and placed it back. “I normally don’t touch
people if I’m not sure they want it, and I apologize. But you have
to tell me about this. I thought if we were relatives that would
explain it. But you said we aren’t. Is it a werewolf thing,
then?”
“I don’t mind if you touch me. How do you
feel it?” Jack said and took her hands between his. Her skin was
warm and smooth.
“Like a warm current that starts at the point
of contact and spreads into my… being. I want to say all over my
body, but it actually goes deeper than that. It’s gentle and
pleasant, but very potent.”
Silently, hoping that she wouldn’t hear it,
he let out a deep breath.
Into my being
. What a beautiful
way to describe it.
Into my soul
, that’s how he felt it.
“Is that the way we recognize each other? You
feel it too, do you? Is that because we’re werewolves?” she
repeated her question. She didn’t try to pull her hands away,
letting it rest peacefully in his—big, warm, slightly
calloused.
“You’re close.”
She didn’t remove her blue gaze from him,
expecting more answers. He took a deep breath. “Okay, this is a
simplified version: It is because you and I are who we are. And
yes, this is the way we know each other.” I didn’t lie, he thought.
“It’s a bit complex, and I’ll tell you more about it down the
road.”
“Oh, I can comprehend complex concepts. Try
me.”
“I know you can, Miss Spock, but this can
wait,” Jack said.
You’ll know as soon as you touch another wolf
and feel nothing. I’ll see your ability to accept new concepts
then.
“We have to leave it for another time. What you feel is
good, trust me. That’s all you need to know now. First we have to
find a way to help you with your
flip-flopping
.” He smiled
and gently stroked the hands he still held. “We can go hiking
tomorrow, if you like.”
She laughed. “Miss Spock? I like it. It suits
me, at least a good part of me. And yes, I’d love to go.”
For a moment her eyes rested on their hands
before she reluctantly pulled hers back and placed them in her
lap.
“Shall we go?” she whispered and busied
herself with her handbag. Jack paid the bill and helped her with
her coat. His hands briefly brushed her shoulders, triggering the
already familiar sensation.
The butterflies in his stomach were something
completely new.
“Jack,” she said as she buckled up the
seatbelt, “Tristan asked if we would like to visit them
tonight.”
“Sure. When?”
“Around six.”
“Let’s go buy some food first.” He started
the car. “Where is the nearest grocery store?”
“I’ll need to buy new hiking gear. Mine is in
Seattle. I didn’t bring it here.”
“Then let’s do that first. Any sports
equipment store around?”
“Yeah. Go to the next intersection and turn
right.”
LESS THAN five minutes later, Jack parked in
front of the store. Astrid looked a bit out of place in her blue
Kashmir dress, three-inch heeled shoes and beige camelhair
coat.
Jack talked to the salesperson, a young boy
in his late teens, and he came back with several boxes of hiking
shoes.
Astrid sat on the bench and took her right
shoe off.
The moment the boy opened the first box and
crouched down to help Astrid, Jack snatched it from his hands.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said in a voice polite yet firm.
The boy nodded and, looking down at his empty
hands, took a few steps back. “Of course, sir. Let me know if you
need my help,” he said and retreated behind the counter.
“That wasn’t necessary. You’ve scared him for
no reason,” Astrid said in a low voice. She wasn’t angry. It
usually took more than that to make her angry. Annoyed, perhaps, or
better, amused by Jack’s instinctive display of possessiveness.
“This is his job, Jack.”
“Well, then I’ve just made it easier for
him,” he said and crouched down in front of her on one knee. His
hand enclosed Astrid’s ankle as he guided her foot into the boot.
“Stand up, please. Is it okay?”
When Jack tried to pay the bill twenty
minutes later, Astrid stopped him. “I have no problem if you pay
for me in a restaurant, but you’re not paying for my hiking gear.
And now we’re going grocery shopping and I’m going to pay for the
food, okay?”
“No, it’s not. And don’t roll your eyes. How
can I let a woman feed me?”
Astrid rolled her eyes anyway.
WHO’S GOING to cook all that food?” Astrid
said, watching Jack expertly choosing meat cuts, fish, vegetables,
cans, bottles and all sorts of different packages.
“I will. You clean, I cook, everybody’s
happy. I don’t mind if you cheat with some of your witch
skills.”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
He shrugged. “Here and there.”
When Jack came to the cash register, Astrid
simply waited on the other side until Jack had paid for the
groceries, politely thanked the clerk for the offered help, and
pushed the trolley to the car.
“You prefer doing everything yourself?”
“Mostly.” He closed the trunk and opened the
door for her. “Like you.” He came around, got in and turned the
ignition on. “Tell me about the music.”
Astrid quickly glanced at his handsome
profile, clearly outlined in spite of the semidarkness in the car.
His eyes were fixed on the road. His left hand was on the steering
wheel, the right hand was down on the transmission. Beautiful, big,
strong hands. The urge to touch him, to press her hand against his,
just to feel the warm flood again was so powerful she had to clench
her hands into fists and place them on her lap.
“You all right?” Jack said, without moving
his eyes from the road.
Astrid turned her head, looking through the
side window. “I’ve always liked to sing,” she said quietly. “I have
an exceptional voice and perfect pitch. I wanted to be a
singer.”
“What sort of singer?”
She moved her eyes to Jack. “Opera singer. Or
a rock singer, doesn’t matter. I’m a soprano, although I can easily
sing mezzo-soprano parts, too. Wizards usually aren’t musical, this
is not our field. I’m different. I knew I couldn’t be a singer, but
took voice lessons for years nonetheless. My teachers never
understood why I didn’t want to be a professional singer. Well, we
couldn’t afford any potential publicity, that’s why. Ella always
said that I would’ve been the best singer the world ever had. She
was exaggerating a bit, of course.”
“What role would you love to sing the
most?”
“Oh, that’s an easy question,” Astrid said.
“The Queen of the Night, from Mozart’s
Die Zauberflöte
.”
“Makes sense. The Queen of the Night is one
of the most challenging soprano roles, therefore probably a perfect
match for your voice.” Jack’s fingers gently ran along her cheek.
“Where would you like to sing?”
“Teatro ala Scala in Milan.”
“Do you know that La Scala’s premiere
performance was Antonio Salieri’s
Europa riconosciuta
in
1778?”
Astrid smiled. “I didn’t know. And I’m
impressed.”
THEY ARRIVED at the front of Astrid’s house.
Jack parked the car, but when Astrid touched the lock to open the
door, he leaned toward her and stopped her hand.