Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 4) Page 2

  The evening of the date with Jed came. As Isabel finished work for the day, she thought about cancelling. Nine hours of almost uninterrupted concentration had left her drained and unprepared to meet him.

  It’s just a date. That means having fun, and no pressure!! Kara’s cell phone message encouraged. And if you’re serious about moving on here, you’ve got to make it happen, girl!

  Ok, I guess you’re right, she messaged back. She showered and washed the smell of varnish out of her hair, then picked out a knee-length black dress, with a nipped-in waist and swing skirt. The neckline finished just above her cleavage, and she set it off with an emerald-green statement necklace that she’d made herself at art school. She left her hair loose, and kept her make-up light. She smirked at her reflection in the mirror, thinking how much more conservatively she was dressed than for recent dates. And then she felt a wave of nausea. It was almost exactly three weeks since she’d last seen Peter – whoever, or whatever, he was. Closing her eyes, she forced memories of him out of her mind, and summoned up an image of Jed: tall, floppy blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, that nice, well-cared for, clean-laundry smell. There was a tingle between her thighs, and she laughed in relief. Good to know at least part of her was ready to see him!

  But what if she wasn’t mentally ready to see him yet, and this messed things up and ruined the possibility that things would work out in the long term? Kara doesn’t believe in that scenario, she told herself. Kara always said that if you meet the right person, things will ultimately work out for you, even if you’ve just had a really bad breakup with someone else. People who used bad timing as a justification were just using it to hide more fundamental problems. Kara should write self-help relationship guides, she thought with a groan.

  She glanced in the mirror, one final time.

  “Relax! It’s only a date,” she whispered. She slipped on a pair of high-heeled emerald green sandals and turned around to check her underwear wasn’t showing through her dress. She had chosen a conservative set – a black t-shirt bra, and black lycra panties. There was no way she and Jed would have sex tonight. Even if she hadn’t promised herself that there’d be no sex on a first date, she knew Jed would be too much of a gentleman to try. Happy enough with what she saw, she picked up her purse and strolled out of the house.

  They were meeting for a pre-dinner cocktail at a bar not far from the dance hall. It was a tiny, narrow place, all in white, with a cute terrace out the front. Jed was there already, sitting on the terrace. Isabel paused, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see her yet. He was wearing a white, button-down shirt that accentuated his natural, outdoorsy tan and the blueness of his eyes. His blond hair was falling onto his forehead, as usual. She drew in a long breath of anticipation. It was so nice going on a date with someone you knew well enough to know that you liked them, but they were still enough of an unknown quantity that there was lots to discover.

  As she walked up the steps to the terrace, Jed stood up to greet her. “Hey, Bella!” he said, grinning.

  “Hey yourself,” she breathed, and then she hesitated. They’d already kissed, so should she kiss him on the lips like a girlfriend? He took the decision out of her hands by lightly touching her shoulders and kissing her on both cheeks, French-style, his stubble brushing her face. She picked up the scent of a different aftershave from the one he usually wore. It was muskier, and kind of quirky. She adored unusual scents on men. She slipped into her seat and he passed her a menu. Her eye zeroed in on the margarita, as usual, and she frowned. She didn’t know if she’d be able to drink another one ever again. Instead, she ordered a martini with a twist, and Jed ordered a French martini. When the drinks arrived, he laughed in surprise at the pink concoction in front of him.

  “I wasn’t expecting that!” he said. Isabel laughed.

  “Didn’t you read the ingredients list?”

  “No. I’m not usually a cocktail guy, to be honest. I just picked it because we’re going to a French restaurant tonight!” Isabel laughed again. He was just too adorable.

  “We are? I love French!” she said.

  “Yeah, best place in town, apparently.” They lifted their glasses and gingerly touched them together.

  “Here’s to our first date,” he said. He took a cautious sip, and then a bigger one. “Not bad, actually.” He poked the tip of his tongue out and licked his lip. Isabel watched, mesmerized. “Hey, I’m in touch with my feminine side!” Isabel leaned back in her chair. Being with Jed really relaxed her; he was so easy and jokey that you couldn’t feel tense around him. His familiar way was also arousing. The first threads of desire awakened in her body, and mingled with the pure alcohol she was drinking, making her feel voracious.

  The twilight sky was a shade of green, a dreamy, otherworldly tinge.

  “I never thought sky could be this color,” Isabel said. “It’s like someone’s tipped the world upside down.”

  “You should see it during the full moon. There’s a moment – blink and you miss it – as the moon rises, and the whole sky glows green. You don’t need to go to Canada to see the Northern Lights, they’re right here in Silver City.”

  “When’s the next full moon coming?”

  “In about a week’s time,” he replied.

  “Comes around fast doesn’t it?” she said, thinking it seemed like only days ago that she’d been standing in her garden, staring at it. It’s because she’d been away. Being in different places always distorts the sense of time passing.

  “You’d better believe it,” Jed replied. He was smiling at her, and then his smile faded and was replaced by an intense expression.

  “Bella, I’ve been meaning to explain, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment.” He swallowed hard. “I’m really sorry you had to witness the fight between myself and that – that man, last time we saw each other. The whole time I was telling him to stop, but he just wouldn’t.”

  “It’s fine, really. I could see that he was the one who attacked you,” she said, shaking her head. She didn’t want to hear anything about Peter right now. Scratch that. She didn’t want to hear anything about Peter ever again. Jed took her hand across the table. “I promise that nothing like that will happen again.” Isabel met his gaze, her heart giving a jump at his allusion to the longer term.

  “So if some crazy man attacks you in future, you’re just going to let him get on with it?” Jed’s smile had a hint of self-consciousness.

  “No. I’ll just arrest him, like I should have at the dance. But I was off-duty, and in this town, it’s important that I separate my on-and off-duty personas, or people won’t trust me.”

  “And if you’re out, you’re out, right?”

  “Exactly. There’s a lot of good folks in Silver City, but it’s still a small town, with a very defined set of dynamics. It welcomes outsiders, but they’ve gotta behave, or life can get very difficult for them around here!” Isabel nodded, struck by Jed’s evident commitment to the town, and by the intelligence in his eyes.

  “Why did you become a cop?” she asked.

  “My father’s a cop, and so’s his father, and so on and so on. It’s in our blood. After college, I didn’t seriously think of doing anything else.”

  “That’s kind of nice,” Isabel said.

  “It’s safe,” he said. “And I love it. I get to speak to so many people every day, and spend a lot of my time outdoors. How about your family? You’re from Chicago, right?”

  “Uh huh,” Isabel said, and began to tell him all about her mom and dad and brother and sister, and her life before she moved down to Silver City. Jed listened attentively, prompting her with questions here and there. At last, he gestured to her empty glass. “Another drink, or would you like to go for dinner?”

  “Dinner, I think,” Isabel said. “I’m in the mood for red wine!”

  They moved on to Chez Ricard, three doors away. It had blue checkered tablecloths and little net curtains up at the windows.

  “This is lov
ely!” Isabel exclaimed. “It looks so authentic.”

  “It has a reallive French chef too,” Jed replied, and led her to the cozy corner table he’d reserved. They spent a long time looking at the menu, eventually deciding to share a portion of moules à la marinière.

  “I guess we should have white wine with this?” Isabel said.

  “I’m not a fan of rules when it comes to food,” Jed said. “I believe you were craving red?” He picked up the drinks menu and suggested a classic Beaujolais.

  “Perfect!” Isabel said, grinning. She’d been worried that Jed’s ‘safe’ job might mean that he was a fan of regulations in all areas of life.

  The waiter brought a carafe of the wine, followed by the aromatic, garlicky mussels. It was perfectly dark outside now, and candles illuminated the little room, making Jed’s features soften and his eyes sparkle. He was such an attractive man.

  “You look so beautiful,” he said, mirroring her own thoughts. Isabel’s heartbeat speeded up. Desire for him was mixed with a fuzzier, less defined feeling.

  She didn’t know what they talked about that night, sharing anecdotes and snippets of their lives, while she avoided mentioning either her ex-boyfriend or Peter. Jed alluded to a long-term ex, but said he’d been single for months now. They both had filet mignon for the entrée, Jed’s cooked blue, and hers medium rare. He ate with enthusiasm, and Isabel matched him, completely clearing her plate. For dessert, they shared a crème brulée, their spoons clinking together from time to time as they broke through the burnt sugar crust and dug into the creamy sweetness beneath.

  “Nightcap?” Jed asked, as they left the restaurant. The cocktail bar looked to be winding down, so they went to Buffalo Bar, slipping into a booth at the back, away from Dan and the other bartenders’ curious eyes.

  “Is this where you bring all the girls?” Isabel said, as they joked about the contrast it made with the elegant French restaurant.

  “Only the ones I’m trying to charm,” he replied. They ordered a bourbon on the rocks each, and Isabel ran over to the jukebox and put on three songs in a row from The National.

  “Hey, I’m getting my own back,” Jed said, as the second one started to play. He jumped up and selected several songs.

  “You don’t like my favorite band?” Isabel asked, pouting. Jed frowned.

  “They’re a bit depressing.”

  “I prefer to think of them as moody and soulful.”

  “They’ve got great lyrics though,” Jed said, deadpan, just as they sang something about eating brains. Isabel burst out laughing.

  “What did you pick?”

  “You’ll see!”

  “Aw!” Isabel said, and poked him in the ribs.

  A few minutes later, Nine Inch Nails was pounding from the speakers. Isabel started singing along to it.

  “No way! I would not have pegged you for a Nails fan!” Jed’s voice was full of admiration.

  “More from my semi-goth phase during my teens than nowadays, but, yeah, I’ve been to a few of their concerts. I’ve got pretty eclectic tastes, as it happens!”

  “Isabel Alexander, you never fail to impress me,” Jed said, but the end of his sentence was drowned out by the bartender almost doubling the volume of the music. He groaned. “This wasn’t exactly the end to the evening I was hoping for!” he yelled, shuffling closer to her in the booth to make himself heard. His breath smelled sweet, tinged with bourbon. She looked into his eyes, tingling with anticipation.

  “There’s only one thing to do at a time like this!” she yelled back. She touched his jaw, angling his face towards her, and pressed her lips against his. He responded immediately, returning her kiss, his arms going around her waist, pulling her body closer. His lips were soft, with an exciting hint of stubble beneath the lower one, and they parted on hers, allowing her to dart her tongue into his mouth. As it met his, she sighed, and her clit gave a little jolt. She gripped his muscular shoulders, and ran her hands down to the soft skin of his forearms. She longed to explore his body, to be naked with him in bed, taking her time. He began to kiss her more and more urgently, his hands stroking her back, pulling her hips towards him. The jolt in her clit became a throb, and then an ache, deep inside her.

  Abruptly, he broke away from her.

  “Wow,” he said, his eyes soft and unfocused. “We’d better stop before I get carried away again, and we create a second fountain of Silver City gossip!”

  “There was gossip before?”

  “Oh yes! It was like wildfire by the morning after the dance.” Isabel’s cheeks warmed, although she hadn’t really expected anything less.

  “Can I call you a taxi, Bella?”

  “Yes, please,” she replied, both relieved and disappointed that he wasn’t going to try to take her home with him. As she stood up to leave, he looped his arms around her waist and pulled her back down.

  “May I have another date? Perhaps I could cook dinner at my place?”

  “That would be lovely,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

  “On Friday?”

  “Perfect!” He caught her up in one more long, passionate kiss, which left her light-headed when she finally stood up.

  Back on the main street, Jed hailed a taxi and, since they were out in public view, planted a fleeting kiss on her lips.

  “Until Friday, Bella,” he said, leaning into the taxi. He blew her a kiss, and waved her goodbye as the taxi drove away.

  Isabel lolled back in the seat of the taxi, glowing with happiness. That had been the most romantic evening! She couldn’t wait for their next date. She liked Jed more than ever. Her senses were alive with the scent and the feel of him, and she longed for more, much more.

  But when she arrived home, her excitement flattened out. She wandered through her dark hallway, strangely deflated. It was as if good times with Jed reminded her of good times with Peter. And her house was full of him. She hadn’t been living there for long, and, in recent weeks, being there with him had made it a home. They’d done couply things together, like watching movies, and sharing a tub of ice cream on the sofa. They’d cooked together, and he’d given her amazing, skillful massages. And they’d had the most intense, satisfying sex. These memories were bittersweet though – good memories that she’d happily have excised from her head.

  She took her make-up off and cleaned her teeth quickly, and slipped into bed, and, before long, sleep obliterated all the conflict in her mind.

  Chapter Two

  Silver City was buzzing with gossip about the ‘giant wolf’. In the supermarket, in the shops on the main street, in the couple of cafes Isabel visited, speculation about what exactly had been glimpsed that night was everywhere, and she couldn’t escape it. Several people thought the person who’d seen it was crazy, or drunk. “Likes his beer, that one,” was repeated here and there in knowing tones. Some people thought it was a coyote; others explained its size with the suggestion that it was a black bear. Most people accepted it was a wolf, but a regular one, its size enhanced by the imagination. Isabel was the only one who knew the truth about the wolf, and every mention curdled inside her with a mixture of horror and self-recrimination.

  She had a coffee with Mariana and Bill, on edge the whole time, and dissolving in relief when they parted ways and hadn’t alluded to the wolf. Apart from that, she was happy to stay at home, working hard and watching box sets of comedy shows, waiting for the gossip to die down, so she could move on and not have to think about it anymore.

  Her upcoming date with Jed was a bright spark on her horizon, but it also made her uneasy, in a way she couldn’t identify. She and Kara had discussed it in detail, of course.

  “You do realize you’re going to have sex this time, right?”

  “On our second date? I don’t think so.”

  “Um, you’ve met several times already, so it’s really equivalent to a third or fourth date.”

  “I don’t know if Jed will see it that way.”

  “Of course he will! That’s w
hy he’s invited you over for dinner. Sex is what happens after a man cooks dinner for you!”

  “Ah. I guess I’m pretty inexperienced at these things.”

  “That’s why it’s a good job you’ve got me around to educate you!” Kara said, and pressed her face against her computer screen, her left eye becoming huge.

  “I’m just not sure if I’m ready to have sex with someone else.”

  “Girl, you were ready at the hoedown, and don’t deny it!”

  “But that was before I had the boyfriend experience with Peter.”

  “Peter was never going to be boyfriend material, let’s face it.” Isabel frowned.

  “I don’t know. For a moment there, I really thought he could be.”

  “Now, listen to me.” Kara tapped the screen like a bossy schoolteacher. “Peter was all about disappearing on mysterious absences and sleeping in the woods. That’s not boyfriend material. At best, that’s being a pain in the ass. And at worst, it’s – who the hell knows?” Isabel giggled.

  “It does sound a little funny when you put it like that.”

  “Don’t waste your chance with Jed. Life is short and all that.”

  “It is a pretty nice feeling to know you could be about to have sex with someone for the first time, isn’t it?”

  “The best!” Kara replied, her eyes gleaming. “Nerve wracking and exciting, all rolled into one!”

  *

  Isabel picked out sexier lingerie this time – a matching set in lilac satin, with an indigo lace trim. She chose black pants, as a low-key option. If she decided she wasn’t ready to have sex with him, she didn’t want to be taken for a tease. She teamed them with a v-neck fawn shirt with thin straps, a black rhinestone necklace, and black kitten-heeled pumps. She applied light make-up, with a sheer, rose-colored lip tint. Sexy, yet not trying too hard, the mirror told her.

  She’d been worried that Jed lived in Black Peak City. She wasn’t sure if she could do the drive up there again. But, luckily, he lived in the hills, not far from downtown. It was a pretty neighborhood, verdant, with cute adobe houses. She pulled into his driveway, behind a battered pick-up truck. He came to the door, his pleasure at seeing her evident in his eyes. Impulsively she’d picked up some flowers, orange roses.