Kate Hoffmann - Declan

Rachel watched as everyone slowly put their hand up. Dec nodded, then clapped his hands. “Great. Then it’s settled.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Kyle asked.

“He’s telling the truth,” Rachel said. “Everyone had their hand up.” This was not going well, she thought to herself. Though Dec had been invited to stay and watch her first two groups, she found him a distraction, as did many of her clients. The gamers had questioned him thoroughly and once they learned he was in naval intelligence, they wanted to hear all about it. The sex addicts were interested in hearing about his sexual conquests as a single guy. And now, her furries and plushies, the most fractured of her groups, had suddenly all voted the same. She’d never been able to get them to agree on anything before.

Rachel cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve got that settled, why don’t we pick up from where we left off last week.”

“You would be a really good tiger,” Evan said, pointing to Declan.

Dec blinked in surprise. “A tiger?”

“Yeah,” Debbie said. “I met a tiger once and he was so hot. He let me touch his tail. It was very erotic.”

Dec frowned and Rachel could see he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “I actually think Declan would make a good bear,” Rachel suggested. “He’s got the dark hair and the strong jaw. And he does like to growl a lot.”

“If you could dress up as any animal, what would it be?” The group turned to Janice Krandall, who’d been sitting silently to the right of Rachel. She sent Dec a hesitant smile and it was clear to Rachel that Janice had been immediately smitten with the new member of the group.

“Declan, what kind of furry would you want to be?” Rachel asked.

Dec considered the question for a long moment. “I guess I’d have to go with a horse. A stallion. A black stallion.” The group stared at him and Dec glanced over at Rachel. “What? Too obvious?”

“I don’t see a lot of horses as furries,” Evan said. “First of all, they can’t walk on two feet.”

“Yes, they can,” Janice said. “Those Lippizanner stallions do. And I met a horse once.”

“Mr. Ed was kind of nice,” Kyle piped up. “And Trigger. They’d make good furries.”

The rest of the session didn’t go much better. Rachel spent most of the time mediating arguments about whether certain animals could or could not be considered furries. Then, there was a very heated side discussion on the current confusion in the news media between furries and plushies. In the end, Rachel didn’t accomplish anything beyond providing Dec with absolute proof that Janice Krandall couldn’t possibly be capable of stalking her.

When the group finally left, Rachel sat back in her chair and watched Dec with a smug smile. “Are you satisfied?”

“I really wanted to be a stallion,” he teased.

Rachel growled, then stood up. “I’m talking about Janice Krandall. You must know she couldn’t be the one doing this.”

Dec nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Besides, she told me she was out of town last weekend at a furry convention in Atlantic City. She couldn’t have trashed your office.”

“Good. So we’ve ruled out my clients. What’s next?”

Dec frowned. “Explain to me this furry thing. They dress up in animal costumes and they mess around?”

“It’s like a disguise they wear,” Rachel said. “A way to hide their fears about relationships and the opposite sex. It’s no different than what you might do when you meet a woman you’re attracted to. You might tell a few stories, exaggerate a little, try to impress her. We all have our fears of rejection. The furries hide theirs behind a costume.”

“That’s a little sad,” Dec said.

“It’s just the way it is,” Rachel replied. “Everyone has their oddities and foibles. You’d probably get turned on if I wore a French maid’s outfit, right?”

Dec chuckled. “Are you saying you’d wear a French maid’s outfit for me?”

“I’m saying that you relate a French maid with something sexy. These people relate a person in an animal costume with something sexy. It’s not that wide a leap between the two.”

Rachel stood up and walked to her desk, then put her legal pad into her briefcase. “I just think that so many people are out there trying to make a connection,” she continued. “To find someone who might want to love them. And sometimes we have to make that happen however we can, even if it means dressing up in an animal suit. I don’t judge any of my clients, or anyone for that matter. As long as they don’t hurt someone else or themselves, then I think it’s all right.”

“So then why are you trying to convince them to put their suits away?” Dec asked.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to give them a way to see what affection and attraction can be like outside the suit. And maybe they’ll find out that they can function pretty well without all that fake fur.”

Dec walked to the door, then stopped Rachel before she opened it. He ran a finger along her jawline then gave her a gentle kiss. “I don’t know how you do it,” he murmured.

“Do what?”

“You don’t make judgments,” he said.

“I don’t see the point,” she said. “When it comes to sex and love, sometimes the journey is as important as the destination.”

Rachel looked up into his eyes, losing herself for a few moments in the deep blue depths. Was he falling in love with her? Or was that just her imagination playing tricks on her? Or was it wishful thinking? He seemed genuinely fond of her, that much she could say. But Rachel still couldn’t separate the man from the job. How much of what he said and did was part of his protecting her?

“I think I’d like to go home,” Rachel said.

“All right. Let’s go. I’ve got some things in the fridge we can make for lunch.”

“No,” Rachel said. “I want to go to my house.”

Dec paused. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“I don’t care. I just want to lay down on my bed and close my eyes and pretend that my life is going to get back to normal soon. If you’re good at what you do, then you can protect me there. At least for a few hours.”

“All right,” Dec said. “But when I say it’s time to leave, then it’s time to leave.”

Rachel nodded, then smiled. “Thanks,” she murmured.

They walked out of the downtown office building and strolled the two blocks to where Dec had parked the car. They’d driven only a few minutes when Dec cursed softly. “I think we’re being followed,” he murmured.

Rachel twisted to look out the back window, but he stopped her. “Don’t look. Just pretend we don’t see her.”

“It’s her?” Rachel asked.

“I’m not sure. Let me try to lose the tail and we’ll see.” He made a couple of crazy turns, switching lanes at the last minute and watching in the rearview mirror. Rachel held her breath, her heart slamming in her chest. Every now and then, she could see the car in the side view mirror. But then, suddenly, she watched as it turned off behind them.

“Is she gone?”

Dec nodded. “For now.”

“It was probably just someone going in the same direction as we were. Now we’re both getting paranoid.”

“No,” Dec said. “That car was definitely following us. And it fits the description of the car that Jerry gave me.”

“Jerry gave you a description?”

“Of a car that he’d seen around the station,” Dec said. He shook his head. “I don’t like this, Rachel. I don’t think we should go to your house. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“Can we at least just stop there?” Rachel begged. “I need to pick up some more clothes and I forgot to grab that cookbook that I wanted.”

“We’ll go tonight,” he said. “After things quiet down. I promise.”

“All right,” she said.

He stared out the front window, watching the traffic and glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds. Rachel hated when he was forced to be the professional. The Declan Quinn she loved disappeared-the humor, the wit, the boyish charm-and was replaced by a cool, calculating stranger.

“So, how do you think I’d look in that maid’s outfit?” she asked.

A grin twitched at his mouth and after a moment, he chuckled. “Pretty damn good,” he said.

RACHEL STOOD AT THE top of the stairs and called down to Dec. “Did you find the cookbook?”

“No,” he shouted. “What’s it called again?”

“Comfort Farm Cookbook,” she said. “It has a picture of an apple pie on the front cover.” She walked back into her bedroom and resumed searching her closet. She’d come to the conclusion that her wardrobe was in sad need of an update. All her clothes were entirely too conservative, not sexy. And she wanted to dress sexy now that she’d met Dec. He appreciated it and she liked his compliments.

“You are such a girl,” Rachel muttered to herself.

She grabbed a flowered skirt, then turned to walk to the dresser. But she froze when she saw a woman standing in the middle of her bedroom. Slowly, the woman aimed a gun at her and Rachel felt the blood suddenly run cold in her body.

They stared at each other for a long time without speaking. And then, Rachel realized she knew the woman. “Marcy?”

“I didn’t think you’d remember,” Marcy said. “When Daniel introduced us at the Christmas party, you barely looked at me. I knew right away.”

“Marcy, what are you doing?”

“What I should have done weeks ago, only I was too afraid. I’m not afraid anymore.”

“How did you get in?” Rachel asked.

“The key. You had an extra in your desk at the university. I took it.”

“Rachel!” Dec’s voice echoed up the stairs. “I found it. Now come on, let’s go. It’s getting dark.”

Marcy slowly crossed the room and held the gun up to Rachel’s head. “Answer him,” she said. “Answer, or I’ll shoot.”

“All right.” Rachel called, “I’ll be down in a minute. I’m just looking for that outfit that we talked about in the car.” Rachel said a silent prayer that Dec’s curiosity would get the better of him. She couldn’t deal with this alone. He would know what to do.