Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (59 page)

She walked closer and saw that h
e was weeping. “Ben,
”
she called out.

He did not
respond
. 

“Ben
!” She yelled. “
Please stop and talk to me.”

He turned and threw dow
n what was left of the branch.
When she
reached
him, he went down on his knees. She
put her hands on his shoulders
and he grabbed her
around
the waist, still weeping. “I c
ouldn
’t let him kill those pups,” he gasped.
“It wasn’t right.”

Danni
stroke
d his head and whispered, “He didn’t. He could no more kil
l those pups than you could
.”

He
looked
up at her and wiped his eyes.

“He
took
them home to feed them through the night.”

He
released her and
flopped
back
ward
on
to
the ground
. After another minute, he
started to laugh
, but it
sounded more like a
coughing
groan
.

After several moments,
Danni
spoke
.
“
Joe
l
wants to
see you
. I told him I’d try to find you.
Will
you come with me?” She held her hands out to him.

He lay still for several minutes. Then, l
ike a
child, he reached for her hand
. He stood up.
“
Okay
.”

Silently, she led him back through the woods, and down the hill. When they
arrived at
the
broke
n fence, he held
up
the
top
slat so that she wouldn’t have to
bend down to get out, and
crawled through himself. They walked her bike back to the cottage, where she gave him what was left of the dinner she had barely touched.

After he
ate
,
Ben
called
Joe
l
.
“Do you still want me to come over?”

“Yes.”

Ben left
the cottage
as soon as he hung up the phone.

“You wanted to see me.
”

Joe
l
turned
his back on
the basket of
squeak
ing pups.
“Let’s go in the other room. They’ve had their meal and can go another hour or so before I start in again.”

He
offered a seat
to Ben, who opted for the rocking chair
.
“You were inappropriate this afternoon.”

“How’s that?”
Ben
rocked
faster
,
and then slower.

“I think you know. When a client tells us
to put
down an animal
, we do it
.”

“But you didn’t.
”

“That may be, but I didn’
t argue with
him
. I know that man. He may reconsider what he said to us and want these pups. I’m giving him that
chance.
If he’s adamant, I’ll
talk to him
again,
and
make another decision.”

“You can’t kill them!” B
en stood up. “They’re healthy. Those pups
deserve to live!
”
H
is eyes filled with tears.
“There’s been too much death
around here. T
hat
wonderful old Goldie.
I could hardly
look
Eric
in the eye
when
we
had to
put his dog down
. T
he pit b
ulls,
the horses, and now these pups.
All we see
lately
is death, t
oo much death.”
Ben
turned away from
the man
who had mentored him for nearly a year.

Joel waited, watching Ben’s shoulders move up and down.
“
We’ve had to put other animals down and you handled
all those situations
professionally and with concern for the owners
and their animals
.”
He
shook
his
head.
“
You aren’t thinking of the horses or the pups
or any of the
other
pat
ients
we’ve
had
lately
.”

Joel
rose and
put his arm on Ben’s shoulder
.
“You’
re thinking of Jimmy.
You’
re grieving for that
precious
little
baby
with the big blue eyes
.
”

Ben
could
not
speak
.
His heart was in his throat.

“Have you talked to
Danni
about how you feel?”
Joel pressed
, his voice low
.

He
shook
his head. “I can’t.
I couldn’t. It hurts too much. And s
he’
s still hurting. I can’t add to
her
pain.”

“If you don’t talk to her, your pain is going to eat you alive.
Don’t you think she deserves to know how you feel? It might help her get
through her grief
,
to know you share it.
”
Joel
reached for a box of tissues and tossed it in Ben’s direction.
“You have
to talk to her. Not doing so i
s getting in the way of your work. I can’t have you working here if you can’t develop
a little
psychological
distance from some of the difficult things we have to face. It’s not that I
don’t want you to
care, to have
feelings about the
animal
s we
treat
.  But
you cannot let your
emotion
s govern how you respond to situations or to the people who create them.
” He
pat
t
ed Ben’s shoulder again.

“Look at me, Ben.
”

When he did, Joel asked, his voice
now
sharp,
“
Do you know how high the suicide rate is among vets?
”

“I
never
—I didn’t—”

“
I don’t want you to become one of those statistics.
I want you to
go home a
nd talk to
Dannilynn
. If you don’t
,
and you continue to act this way
,
I
can’t have you back
at
the clinic
, or working with me
.”

Ben
left Joel
’s
house
and drove aimlessly
down the length of
Cedar Island
. At places where he could see the ocean
in the moonlight
, he stopped and stared at the moving water, allowing the constant sound of the
waves
on the shore to wash over him
, as if they might remove
how bereft he felt
. 
How can I tell
her how much Jimmy meant to me—how I feel about her? What if she doesn’t feel the
sam
e? What if she resents
that
I thought of Jimmy
as
my
son,
our
son
?
When he turned north again, the sun was
high
in the sky
, the tide going out, leaving pools among the mossy rocks
. He
had never
felt
so tired.
When he
arrived
at
the cottage,
Danni
was gone. A note was propped on the kitchen table.

Ben,

I’
m at the clinic. I’ll be back later. 

Danni

Unable to keep his eyes open, Ben went into his bedroom
to
l
ie
down.
He was asleep within seconds.

The
screen door bang
ed
.
Ben rolled over.

“Ben?”

Danni.
H
e
squinted at her
, his eye
lid
s swollen from sleep.

“I’m back,” he mumbled.

She perched on the edge of
his
bed.
“Where’
d you go?”

“I
took
a ride down the island
.
I had
to think.”

“
Joe
l
told me you had to talk to me or he wouldn’t let you work
with him anymore
.” Her eyes
were tear-
filled.

He
shook
his he
ad. “I can’t.
”
Even to his own ears, it
sounded as
if his
heart
was
break
ing
.

She sighed
and stood up.
“W
ell, w
hen you
can
, I’ll be in the other room.”

Danni
went into her bedroom
,
picked up the baby blanket
draped in
the cradle, folded it, and held it to her face.
Jimmy’s
scent
was still
faintly
captured
in its fibers. She
tucked
the blanket
into a box
her mother had left
. On top of the blanket, one by one she placed the baby’s tiny shirts and
cloth
diapers
,
and
the
one-piece outfits he had worn
. The first pair of booties her mother made went into the box, as did the rattle
Jimmy
had
never play
ed
with.
On top of the clothing, she placed the m
any pictures they had taken,
except for
her
two
favorites
, each
of
Ben and herself and the baby cuddled together.
She closed the box, set it aside, and
reached for another box
.

“What are you doing?”
Ben
was
leaning
against the
door
jamb
.

She glanced briefly at him and continued filling
the
second
box.
“I’m putting Jimmy’s things away
.
I couldn’t do it
before, but I need to do it now.
”
Her
tears returned
unbidden
.

He
reached for her and crushed her in a hug. “
Oh,
Danni
.” His voice was a combination of a groan and a cry. “
I couldn’t tell you before, but I have to tell you
now
. I
love
d him so
much
. I’d rather have died myself if he could have lived,” and he wept as she clung to him.

Her heart stopped and then started
rac
ing.
“I know you
di
d. I wanted to tell you
so many times
I
wished you
were
his father,
but
I didn’t need to. Y
ou were. You changed his diapers, you cuddled him, you talked to him, you
even
caught him
when he was born
. Y
ou
were
his daddy. It didn’t
matt
er to me that—”
She couldn’t go on, thinking how lucky she was that Ben had been with h
er through her pregnancy, Jimmy
’s birth, and
e
specially
his death. Ben’s heartbeat, so strong and steady,
drummed comfortingly against her breast,
like his arms when he
’d
held her at night and
made her feel safe, like he was with the animals at the clinic.