Uncommon Passion

by Anne Calhoun

  She avoided apartment listings in Ben’s neighborhood.

  One of the baristas at Artistary asked her on a date, so she went. She found she liked him, and so was relieved when the budding romance faded into friendship. When it became clear that Rachel wouldn’t move on from Ben to Rob, Jess became much easier to live with.

  ���You don’t change men like Ben Harris,” Jess commented from across the root vegetable table as she unloaded another bushel of beets.

  Rachel considered this while she jostled new potatoes in their sloped container until they found a precarious synergy. Jess wasn’t jeering at Rachel for being naïve. If anything, she was commiserating. Except Rachel had known exactly what Ben was from the moment he strode into the auction tent.

  “I didn’t hope to change him,” she said finally. “He’s living on the fringes in so many ways. Always on the outside looking in.”

  “Housebreak him?”

  She shot Jess a glance over the carrots. “He’s not a dog.”

  “Tame him, then. He’s a wolf. A lone wolf.”

  “Where are you getting these comparisons?”

  “You lack an entire cultural framework,” Jess said. “Look, maybe he likes life on the edges. No responsibilities. No obligations.”

  Ben carried the weight of responsibilities so heavy they’d break a lesser man. “Maybe he does,” she said.

  She worked her way back into the Sunday morning cooking rotation, made more of an effort to hang out with whichever A&M boys were sharing the bunkhouse. When the next term began she enrolled in biology and chemistry classes at the community college. True to his word, Rob worked around her class schedule, but the long drive took a toll on her. With fall coming she stepped up the search for a roommate and a job in town. Positions at clinics were few and far between, but she circled them and applied online.

  One day she was in the goat pen helping the vet give the kids a round of vaccinations, when her cell phone rang. She lifted an eyebrow at the vet, in the process of laying out the drugs and syringes. He nodded and Rachel stepped into the tack room that now doubled as storage.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m calling for Rachel Hill.” The accent was brusque, flat, and grating. A Yankee, and she didn’t know any.

  “Speaking.”

  “Rachel, this is Dr. Carly Weisen. I own the Dog Days clinic in Galveston, and I’ve got an opening for a receptionist. I understand you’re looking for a position in a clinic.”

  Her heart stopped. She knew the names of all the clinics she’d applied to, and the Dog Days, one of Galveston’s biggest, wasn’t on the list. Had Rob called someone and not mentioned it to her? “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I am, but how did you know?”

  “I have the contract to care for the Galveston Police Department’s K-9 animals. Hera, the SWAT team’s dog was in for her annual checkup yesterday. One of the officers with her saw the sign on the front door and said I couldn’t hire a more committed, dedicated, hardworking individual.”

  Ben. Rachel sank down on a hay bale.

  “I’m from New York,” Dr. Weisen continued, “but I’ve learned that when a Texas man leans on a counter and plays up his drawl, he’s charming you into something.”

  Definitely Ben.

  “Or out of something, but in this case Officer Harris charmed me into giving you an interview. Tell me about your experience.”

  Apparently the interview was right now. Rachel ducked into the tack room and related her history and experiences with record keeping for Elysian Fields and Silent Circle Farm.

  “Any experience with AVImark?”

  AVImark was a common system to track appointments and patient records. She knew this from position descriptions but had never seen the software in use. “No, ma’am,” she said, “but I’m a fast learner.”

  Rachel heard keyboard keys tapping. “He must like you very much,” Dr. Weisen said absently.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. Was it true? Weeks and weeks of the summer gone without a word from Ben. No texts, no emails, no calls. Then this. Out of the blue. Totally unexpected.

  Just a chance at the most important thing in her life.

  “When can you come in so we can talk face-to-face, and you can take a look around the clinic?”

  • • •

  When Rachel arrived the clinic was quiet except for one little dog barking frantically in the kennels until Dr. Weisen took her out and held her. She showed Rachel the exam rooms, the lab in the back, the surgery, and the outdoor kennels. “We’re open late a couple of nights a week. Any scheduling concerns?” she asked as they made their way back to the receptionist area.

  “I’m applying to vet tech school. I was homeschooled so my science isn’t quite up to standards but I’m taking night classes in the fall,” she said steadily. “Once I get into school, I’ll be in class during the day.”

  She glanced at Rachel’s unpolished, blunt nails and tough hands. “I grew up on a working dairy farm in upstate New York. I’m the first person in my family to go to college. I know what it’s like to work your way through the world.” She gave Rachel a smile. “The job’s yours if you want it.”

  “I do,” Rachel said. “I really do. Thank you.”

  They settled on a start date. Outside the clinic Rachel pulled her phone from her purse. After a moment’s thought, she sent Ben a text.

  I got the job. Thank you.

  The answer arrived while she was waiting at the light at the corner.

  You’re welcome.

  That was it.

  Suddenly change was in the wind at Silent Circle Farm. The sweet baby goats weren’t so sweet anymore, instead capering around the pen and testing Rachel’s knots. After deciding that farming wasn’t for her, Jess took a position in the kitchen of an organic restaurant in Houston. The A&M boys all went back to school. Rachel found a roommate-wanted ad on Craigslist with the header NOPARTIES! NO DRINKING! NO DRUGS! She emailed the poster, had coffee with a no-nonsense nurse who worked nights, and rented her second bedroom.

  On moving day Rob followed her into town with his truck and helped her purchase and bring home a single bed, dresser, bookshelf, and a desk. When all the furniture was assembled and arranged, he packed up his toolbox and gave the room one last look. It was just a room, with beige carpet, cream walls, and cream vinyl blinds covering the window, but it was hers, paid for with money she earned at her job.

  “It’s not exactly my own apartment,” she said. “But I’ll get there.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”

  She knew he meant more than her work on the farm. “Me, too,” she said sincerely.

  “Friends?” he asked.

  She stepped into his embrace and gave him a long hug. “Always.”

  After Rob left she went to the Goodwill and bought scrubs decorated with puppies and kittens. Her first letter to her father from her new address and plans came back returned like all the rest. Alone in her bed, she dreamed about Ben, about his body, his hands, his scythe of a smile.

  Small pleasures almost made up for the longing. The open-mike nights took a hiatus until later in the fall, so she took to studying at Artistary after the clinic closed. One late afternoon in mid-September, a group of men wearing dark blue cargo pants, bulletproof vests, handcuff cases, and assorted weapons strapped to hip and thigh came into the shop. SWAT was printed above the badge symbols embroidered into the polos. Armed to the teeth, they stood by the counter, laughing and bantering with Ally, the barista who closed most nights.

  Ben was with them.

  First through the line, he placed his order, paid, and shifted to the end of the counter to accept two coffees, a big to-go cup of water, and two dog treats, which he carried back outside, all without noticing her at the table.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Rachel could see an alert pair of dark brown ears swiveling like radar dishes. He stooped to set the cup on the ground in front of the dog, then remained outside, talking idly with another officer before he caught her watching him.

  He blinked, and something seemed to ease inside him.

  His eyes asked a question she answered with a nod. After a couple of quiet words to the dog’s handler he straightened his shoulders, then walked back into the shop.

  “Hi,” she said. He remained standing, his eyes wary, as he returned the greeting.

  “Is that Hera out there?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Yeah. She’s still mad at me for stealing her takedown earlier in the spring. The water and biscuits are peace offerings.”

  Rachel smiled. “Can you sit down?” When he eased down on the empty chair opposite her, she asked, “How are you?”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m good. You?”

  “Good,” she said, then rushed on. “I’m so glad I saw you here. I can thank you in person for recommending me for the job. I love it. I don’t know what you said to Dr. Weisen to get her to call me, but . . . thank you.”

  “I told her the truth. You’re smart, work hard, are committed, with lots of experience and she wouldn’t find a better employee.”

  “She said you charmed her.”

  He flashed her The Grin along with a slightly lifted eyebrow. “Maybe a little. It was for a good cause.”

  That grin, that flashing, slashing grin curving his full mouth, cut her to the bone as she considered the possibility Ben had charmed Dr. Weisen right into bed. “How’s Sam?” she asked, remembering her manners.

  “Fully recovered. Still has Jonathan. DPFS is dragging their feet on the adoption proceedings, but he’s hopeful.”

  “So you’re spending time with them?”

  “Most Sundays,” he said.

  He looked different. The set of his jaw was softer, and he lacked the charming edge he’d held when they met. “That’s good,” she replied. “That’s really good.”

  He studied her face. “I’ve been making these guys come in here for coffee for weeks, hoping to run into you. You study here a lot?”

  “Most nights,” she said. “I moved into town a few weeks ago. I’ve got a roommate and an apartment a few blocks from here.”

  He looked around, his voice studiously casual. “How are you spending your Sundays?”

  She shrugged. “Doing this and that. Alone, usually.”

  “Let’s go, Harris,” one of the other guys called.

  Ben didn’t get up. He smiled, shades of the shark in the movement, his intense blue eyes studied Rachel’s. “Not with Rob?”

  Her breath caught, and for a moment she couldn’t speak because as she watched, the smile shifted, the muscles in his face easing ever so slightly, transforming the shark’s smile into something achingly vulnerable. He was afraid, afraid to ask the question, afraid of the answer. With a start, she realized why Ben looked different. He looked like a man who would care.

  “It’s none of my business,” he said, backpedaling.

  She overrode him hurriedly. “No. Not with Rob. Or anyone else.”

  His summer sky eyes cleared. “Okay. Good. I have to go. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

  “I’m here most afternoons,” she said. “Including Sundays.”

  She watched him blend into the group as they left. The walls were gone. He was still big and strong and tough, but the attitude he used to wear like a suit of armor had changed somehow. Pieces were missing. He was still utterly confident in himself, his body, what it could do, the pleasure it could bring, but the shield of world-weary jadedness was gone.

  After that, he stopped by Artistary two or three times a week. Rachel didn’t doubt he could buy sweet tea anywhere else, nor did she doubt he chose Artistary because she might be there. Sometimes he wore a uniform, sometimes he wore regular clothes. He was seeking her out. Engaging in casual conversation.

  Getting to know her. Letting her get to know him. He paid attention, not staying long if she left her textbook open and kept her pen in her hand, but staying for a couple of hours another time when she was reading a fantasy novel borrowed from the library at her roommate’s suggestion for the few spare minutes she had in a week. The conversations weren’t anything earth shattering. Family. Work. The weather.

  “I miss sunsets,” she said one day, watching the sky darken in hues of red and orange. “I’m in class, studying, or working late most days.”

  “That’s a shame. We’re having some pretty ones this fall.”

  “A year or two of missed sunsets is worth it.”

  That night during the break in class the next night she got an email from Ben.

  To: Rachel Hill

  From: Ben Harris

  Date: September 23

  Subject: so you don’t miss it

 

  She sent one in return:

  To: Ben Harris

  From: Rachel Hill

  Date: September 23

  Subject: so you don’t miss it

  Thank you . . .

  Another photo arrived the next night, and the next, and the next. When she saw him at the coffee shop, she said, “You don’t have to send one every night.”

  “Do you like getting them?”

  “I love them,” she said.

  “Then I’ll keep sending them. It reminds me to stop and look, too.”

  “Where are you when you take them?”

  “Out at the Bar H sometimes. Sam’s house. Wherever I’m working.”

  “I can see the emergency vehicle lights in some of them. What do the other cops think of you taking a picture of the sunset?”

  That new smile spread across his face, as slow and hot as a Texas sunset. “I don’t ask.”

  “Sometimes you’re at your dad’s?”

  “If there’s pasture and cattle in the shot, yes.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I missed one with you that night,” he said. “I’m trying not to miss more.”

  The next week Ben seemed restless the whole time they talked. She thought it was because she mentioned the open-mike nights starting up again, and kicked herself for bringing up something that probably still troubled him. When he stood to leave he reached into his back pocket. “I brought you something.”

  She accepted the paperback book with automatic thanks, then added, “Oh!” with genuine delight when she saw the title.

  “It’s the next book in the series you’re reading.”

  “I know. I just finished rereading the first,” she said, smoothing the cover. “Ben, thank you.”

  The tips of his ears reddened as he made a no big deal gesture with one hand. Awareness bloomed in Rachel’s brain. The open-mike nights didn’t make him uncomfortable. Ben “Because I Can” Harris was nervous because he was courting her in the most old-fashioned sense of the word. Bringing her offerings of the friendliest kind. Nothing expensive, nothing that would alter the balance of this burgeoning friendship, nor make her uncomfortable, but were sweetly meaningful. Using her responses to gauge whether or not she welcomed his attention. She got the sense the snail-slow pace stemmed not from his uncertainty about how he felt, but because he’d never done this before. He’d done everything else, but he’d never fallen in love.

  She let him court her, not because she loved him any less, or had ever stopped loving him, but because Ben needed the same space he’d given her all those months ago, the space to explore who he was, and who he could be. She neither muted nor exaggerated her reactions to him, but gave him the gift of her honest, unclouded response.

  Most nights she left the coffee shop feeling the adrenaline high of a woman
taming a wild animal, convincing a panther to pace closer, then eat from her hand.

  They kept the slow pace well into the fall, until one night when the temperature dropped rapidly after the sun went down. The shop’s owner opened the windows to the ocean breeze. Without a jacket or a sweater, Rachel shivered in her thin scrubs.

  “You want some hot tea?” Ben asked.

  They’d been talking for two hours, and Rachel’s fingernails were blue. Her choices were clear: drink hot tea or go home. “Yes, please,” she said. “Chai.”

  Ally knew what Rachel liked for milk and sweetener, so she sent Ben back with a wide-rimmed white mug with a spiced-tea bag steeping in water and a splash of soy milk, and two packets of honey on the saucer with the spoon. “Smells good,” he commented.

  “You can try some if you want to,” Rachel said in the act of squeezing the honey packets into the mug.

  Ben said nothing. She looked up to find him watching the sweet liquid flow into the tea, swirling in a thick stream to the bottom of the mug. His face changed yet again, the muscles in his cheeks going slack, his soft, full mouth bringing a memory of sweetness without so much as a sip.

  Honey.

  A moment stretched between them, then he flicked her a look full of hot intent. Her heart jumped against her breastbone, sending electric sparks along her nerves to pool in her breasts, between her thighs.

  She cleared her throat and used the spoon to dissolve the honey in the liquid. Each gentle clink of spoon against ceramic sounded loud in the silence.

  His voice, when he spoke, was low and rough and desperate. “Why are you letting me do this, Rachel?”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  This question, Ben thought, from a man who habitually ducked any question starting with why. Turns out people could change. He could change.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked gently.