Page 18 of The Bane Witch

18

Coffee Date

I am playing a dangerous game, but I cannot stop myself. The shop is small, a handful of aluminum tables set too close. But the coffee is good—not over-roasted or chalky, like that silt that comes out of Myrtle’s pot—with a selection of flavored syrups and a milk frother, local art on the walls. The girl behind the counter wears her dreads in a floppy bun, the tattoo on the back of her hand spreading and retracting as she moves through a flurry of motions. Regis steers me toward a table in a back corner where the light from the front window doesn’t quite reach, retrieving our drinks once they’re ready.

I sit, back to the wall, and stare at my hands. My weeks-old manicure has not held up. The white has chipped away from nearly every tip, leaving glossy flesh-pink patches in the middle; my cuticles are fringed with hangnails. I add nail polish remover to my mental grocery list.

He takes his seat across from me, passing me a wide-mouth cup of cappuccino. For a moment, I lose myself in the steam, wafting on it like a current back to the red brick and fig ivy of my favorite coffee shop in Charleston, those little blue plates of scones. Before Henry, I used to sit in there on a spring afternoon, listening to the muted conversations around me, the gentle patter of raindrops on the glass, phone down on the table, pretending I was no one, sinking into the stripes on the walls, pooling like cream. It was blissful then, my life. I wanted someone to share that feeling with.

“Been a while?” he asks.

My eyes flutter open. I have a habit of revealing too much to this man, same as he does me. I wonder if he knows that. I think he must. It only makes him more dangerous for me. “Myrtle wouldn’t know a milk frother from a garlic press,” I joke.

He grins, then looks down at his own caffè americano, letting the smile drop. His face takes on a deadly serious grimace, as if his thoughts cause him pain.

“Do you have more questions for me?”

There’s a flash of hurt in his eyes, a quick tug of the brows. “This is off duty.”

I relax into my seat, letting the small of my back round against it.

“You knew that man at the café was a domestic abuser. And just now, at Beth Ann’s place, you said the killer was still circling. And then we heard—”

“It was a twig snap,” I tell him. “We don’t know what we heard.” Admitting anything more would only embroil us further, leaving us both vulnerable in the end. And I can’t be sure yet. I’m still learning, still adjusting to my senses.

He nods once and leans back, appraising me. “You don’t really believe that.”

I shrug, remembering Myrtle watching the black night outside her cabin with wild eyes before the deer stepped out. “There are a lot of things in these woods.” Including her. Including me.

But my heart jumps momentarily in my chest, that animal feeling returning. There is an awareness behind my breastbone that wasn’t there before. New life inside me. The stirrings of a primal intelligence. Causing me to flinch.

This inheritance—a curse, a power, magic, venom, whatever you call it—sits in me like a seed. A tiny sac of unknowns, dissolving. The witch unfurls. I worry she will squeeze me out.

“See, that right there.” He leans forward. “You were thinking something.”

“Was I?”

“It passed across your face.”

I take a breath, try to school my features. Behave.

He shifts back, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s gone now.”

I spin my cup on the table, take a sip, watch him over the rim. “Why are you so interested in me?”

His eyebrows lift, bottom lip jutting out. He glances over his shoulder and leans across the table. “Other than the obvious,” he says, gesturing to indicate an appearance I apparently take for granted, “I wish I knew.”

I set my cup down and level my gaze on him. “That’s not very flattering.”

His lips tug up. “I didn’t think flattery would work on you.”

He’s right. Henry has beaten the joy of male attention out of me, the silky weight of it. It’s excruciating now, like a deep tissue bruise.

He’s eyeing me. “There it is.”

“What?”

“The place you go when you’re not here.”

My knee begins to bounce under the table.

“Somewhere you left behind. Or someone. Who is he?”

I frown. “I’m not a turtle, Regis. I don’t carry the past with me. You’re making much more of this than there is.”

He grins briefly and looks away. “So, tell me about him.”

“Now who’s the psychic?” I joke, then shake my head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

He abruptly grabs my hand, but his fingers are soft on mine, coaxing. I should let go. “Then tell me about you.”

I almost laugh. “Not much to say on that subject either.”

His eyes narrow but he doesn’t pull away. “It’s funny because Myrtle never mentioned you. And then you just showed up like a new star in the sky. Appearing out of nowhere with no history to speak of. I’ve known Myrtle a long time, my whole life really. Can’t make heads or tails of it—why she kept you a secret all these years.”

Our hands are still entwined. It’s irrational, how our words and our bodies don’t match up when we’re together. I should pull away, stand up, leave. I’m not supposed to have men, touch men, kiss men. Especially this man. And why would I want to after all I’ve been through? I’m supposed to be getting him “off our scent.” If the venery saw me now, I’d be damned. But they’re sleeping off their hangovers, and all I seem to want to do since coming to Crow Lake is have, touch, kiss Regis. I stare at our fingers curling into each other and cough. “I thought this was off duty.”

He smiles, a chuckle escaping, and presses his gaze into me like I am a smear on his corneas he cannot blink away. “Who are you?” His eyes are gravity, gray and grounding, they pull me in. “I want to know you.”

“I’m Acacia,” I tell him, unable to give him what he’s asking for. “I’m no one.”

“I don’t believe that,” he says, assessing.

“I’m not a secret.” But the words come out hollow, little puffs of wind, idle. Put your back into it, Piers, I tell myself. I don’t like lying to him.

He cocks his head. “Then why did you come here?”

There’s an angle to his jaw, a flare of pulse underneath, that burns through me. Without trying, I see my lips there. Something warm gathers in my hips, at the base of my throat. I clear it away. “I told you; I want to study botany.”

“Texas doesn’t have plants?”

My lips press into a line. “Austin is…” I’ve been there a few times, weekend trips and once with a client. It’s a place to go in the South, a mecca for style. Of course, I went. “Ungrounded. Too gentrified for me. It’s lost something over the years, between all the yoga studios and vegan cafés and independent bookstores. A sense of itself, the roots. I felt adrift there.”

“That’s the most you’ve said about your past since I met you.” His lips relax, a flash of teeth signaling his appreciation.

I feel relieved. It surprises me. I didn’t know how much I wanted to please him until this moment. “My past…” I begin, looking at him. “It’s not really been a great life up to this point. My past isn’t something I like to talk about because it’s painful. I came here to study botany, but I also came here to start over, to leave my past behind. Crow Lake is my future, and that’s what I’m focused on.”

He nods. “Got it.”

“What about you? What’s your story?” I ask him.

“A common one. Boy grows up in the woods, falls in love with them, vows to do everything in his power to protect them. I switched from forestry to law enforcement because I realized it wasn’t only the trees I loved here, it’s the people. I wanted to do as much for the community as the land.” He’s almost sheepish as he talks—eyes cast down, fingers twitching. I haven’t seen him this way before. He hazards a peek at me.

“No vengeful exes or Bertha Rochesters I should know about? Jilted lovers stalking you?” I say it with humor, but it sounds more intimate than intended. I almost blush.

He bites his bottom lip. “I’m told I have commitment issues,” he says, finally pulling his hand away. “Repeatedly.”

He thinks this will bother me. He has no idea how wrong he is. It’s been years since I’ve been with a man and not a monster. I can barely recall what it feels like to open myself, back arched against the mattress, as someone pleases me. Sex with Henry became so traumatic, I didn’t even realize I missed it. Safety, I realize, is a prerequisite for pleasure. Here, shielded by a massif of mountains, as another woman sitting across from another man, I feel the first churnings of desire in two years, like pins and needles between my legs. “How close is your place to here?”

His face shifts, posture straightening, an illicit response in his gaze. “Close enough.”

I stand up and walk toward the door. When I turn, he’s still at the table, uncertain, afraid he’s misread the moment. Bless him. “You coming?”

He rises and follows me out to his car. As we get in, leaving the Subaru in the lot, he watches me from the driver’s seat, something eating at him. Without warning he leans over, taking my chin, about to put his mouth on mine.

I lift a finger to his lips and press him back. After Don, it’s not a move I can be comfortable with. After the venery, it’s not one I should be. “Promise me something.”

He swallows, eyes wide and hungry. “What?”

“Always ask permission first.”

T HE RIDE TO his cabin is short but blisteringly long. My fingers crawl over his thigh as he drives, and when we get there, I practically run inside. He closes the door behind me, and I jump. When I turn, he says, “We don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.” I set my jacket and bag on his table.

He undoes the buckle of his duty belt, laying it beside my things.

A couple of lamps burn in their respective corners, but the trees block the sun from the windows, leaving the inside dark and cozy. Henry always kept the can lights on, not just a lamp or a dimmer, as if I were being interrogated. He wanted to see every ounce of pain written across my face, wanted to watch the color drain from my skin, see it bruise beneath his fingers in real time. I look up and note that Regis doesn’t have a ceiling light in his living room, just a fan. I back into the room, waiting.

“The bedroom is this way.” He gestures to the left, where a darkened doorway yawns. I know this already, but we are suddenly bashful, awkward with each other.

I shake my head. “I like it here.”

Henry didn’t tolerate sex outside the bedroom. Everything had to be ordered, exact, in its place. The few times he broke that rule, it was not for pleasure but for power, to hurt me. I don’t ever want to share a bed again.

He lowers his eyes and steps into the room. “Okay.”

We stand there, neither knowing which move to make first. Until finally, I take a breath and step up to him, pulling apart the snaps of his shirt one by one. I can’t remember the last time I undressed a man. His body is tight beneath my fingers, a barely perceptible tremble running over him. I like that he lets me take my time without interfering. I slide his shirt off his shoulders and let the heavy fabric drop to the floor. Then I tug at his waistline, pulling up the dark undershirt, peeling it off him. He watches me as I trace circles across his chest, a thin map of hair over the lean muscles, trailing delicately down his abdomen. Our eyes meet and I lean forward, pressing my lips to one side and then another. He smells like soap and pine needles, fresh, an indefinable layer underneath, warm as baked earth. I run my hands over his shoulders and down his long arms, across the ridges of his stomach, and watch his flesh rise with goose bumps. By the time I unbutton his pants, his mouth is slack with need, his eyelids at half-mast, every contour of his body straining toward me. But still, he holds back, letting me explore.

As I unzip him, his blood rises, firm and ready, and when I slide my hand over his thighs, the bulge waiting there, he catches my wrist.

“Please,” he begs, voice thin.

I tilt my head up, inviting, and his lips burn against my own. He undresses me slowly, grazing my skin with his fingers, as if I might shatter under too much pressure. Everywhere he passes my body comes alive beneath his touch, returning to me—the round of my left breast, the cinch of my waist, the stretch of my neck. Pieces that were taken in the night are brought back, restored, made new, as if he is stitching me together. The feeling returning to limbs choked off by fear, bloodless and numb. I am waking from a nightmare to a dream. I rub my skin against his, wanting to feel him everywhere, to wear him like a coat. He throbs against me, the pulse I do not have.

We stumble hungrily to the couch where he lays me back, parting me down the middle like water, drinking me in. I evaporate in his mouth and reassemble, quivering like a fawn, a new woman.

When he finally slides into me, I have never wanted anything so much.