She doesn’t want to, but her legs, she can feel, are open again. His hand is there like a breeze on a sheet. Who could she be, that this is happening? At every step Rachel has thought, am I this person, is this me, object of high school scandal, bride in a forest, mother in a bar, naked with a man from her child’s preschool? This is no stranger, raising her hips to him. Reynard sighs hungrily.

“No,” she decides again. “I need to get dressed.”

Her lover gives up for a second, sits cross-legged next to her with a nervy sigh. “Because—?” he says, like the teacher he sort of is.

“It’s wrong.”

“Wrong,” he says back, like it’s the name of a guy he sort of knows. “You don’t want to do it.”

“Look, I made promises to my husband.”

“I was there,” Reynard reminds her. “I was in charge of it. I officiated. It’s a con, Rachel. He doesn’t make you happy.”

“You weren’t a vicar and you’re telling me it’s a con?” she asks. “Nevertheless. I’m a wife.”

“You don’t know what you are,” he says, too kindly for what’s just come out of his crooked mouth. “You were a bride back then, but now you could be a fiancée again, someone’s, and just not know it yet.”

Rachel runs her hands through her hair as if to rid herself of, whatever they are, the words he is purring at her. He leans over to say it to her again.

“You’re in love with me.”

“No.”

“You are. I can feel it.” She scurries away a little, looks down the hall at her shoes. “You’re falling for me,” he says.

She stands up, but she does feel fallen. “It’s a mess,” she says, pulling something on. “I got stuck in something.”

“Something’s name is Ben Nickels,” Reynard says. “He works for the Trail.”