Holiday Confessions

by Anne Marie Winston

She laughed, finding the imagery apt.

  “And she absolutely hates rain and snow. If the weather’s lousy, I practically have to drag her behind me. She really hates getting wet.”

  “Oooo-kay. So how many other things do I need to learn?”

  “You have to give her a command to eat. But I can show you that in the morning.”

  “What about sleeping? Is she allowed on the bed? She hasn’t even tried to jump on the furniture.”

  “She’s never really been much for sleeping on the couch or the bed, unlike the big goober here,” he said, indicating Cedar. “He was on the couch the first day I brought him home. But it’s not off-limits unless you don’t want her getting up there. I never encouraged her—that yellow hair is a whole lot more noticeable on my suits than black hair is.”

  She couldn’t help scanning his clothing, then—and she forgot about dog hair almost instantly.

  He wore only a pair of sweatpants tied low on his torso and a disreputable Columbia Law T-shirt that was clearly from his college days. He must work out, she decided, because his chest and abs were heavily muscled as were the bulging biceps straining the arms of the shirt.

  Holy cow. She’d thought he was hot before, but now…the sweats weren’t tight, but as he turned to go back inside she could see that there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. His backside looked as hard and muscled as the rest of him beneath the soft fabric.

  He grabbed the heavy back door and hauled it open, holding it and standing back. “Ladies first.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. She started forward, and after a moment Feather moved to her side and trotted obediently up the steps and inside.

  As she moved up the stairs ahead of him, she reflected that it was rather pleasant to know he wasn’t ogling her. She’d lost track years ago of the number of men who appeared to believe that being a celebrity, especially a model, gave them free rein to slap, pinch, fondle or otherwise handle her body. Granted, most of them were famous men who thought the world had been created solely for their pleasure, but even among the general population there were those who didn’t appear to regard a model as an animate being with feelings and emotions.

  “Sorry I didn’t think about telling you her commands right away,” Brendan said from behind her.

  She tuned back in to the present. “Well, at least now I know the most important one.”

  He laughed. “That you do. You can walk her tomorrow if you feel like it, but if you don’t have time I’ll do it in the evening.”

  “Oh, no. If you don’t mind, I’d love to walk her. But I should tell her ‘heel,’ not ‘forward’?” She was certain that’s what he said to Cedar.

  “That’s only for a dog in harness,” he said. “She also knows a bunch more, but those are the only ones you’ll need, and some of the others are only things she needed when she was working.”

  “All right.” They were approaching their respective apartments. She fished out her key and turned. “Good night.”

  He smiled. “See you in the morning.”

  Well, she reflected as she brushed her teeth a few minutes later, she and her new neighbor had certainly gotten off on a better foot the second time around.

  She hadn’t mentioned him to CeCe, her sister. During their phone chat, they’d spent most of their time commiserating with each other over their father’s lamentable lack of judgment.

  “Why does he have to marry them?” CeCe had asked. “Why not just live with them? It’s got to be less expensive when he gets tired of them if he doesn’t have to pay alimony.”

  Lynne imagined there was some complex psychological reason for her father’s need to marry each new woman, although she couldn’t begin to guess at what it was. Nor did she really care. She’d accepted his failings a long time ago.

  She winced as she thought of the phone call that would have to be made to her mother tomorrow. Her mother had never remarried, and each time her father found a new woman, Lynne’s mother erupted in a spew of spurned anger.

  Sighing, she called to Feather. The dog came happily into her room and flopped down on the rug beside her bed. Lynne spent several minutes stroking her and rubbing Feather’s satiny belly.

  “You’re better than a man any old day,” she told the dog. “If I had a dog like you, I’d never have to worry about being left alone. You’d be faithful your whole life, wouldn’t you?”

  She had just finished her yoga workout the following morning when the doorbell rang. Wiping her sweaty face with a towel, she opened the door to see Brendan in a sharp charcoal suit with a white shirt and soft lavender-and-charcoal-striped tie, already dressed for the day.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Hi.” Instinct had her cinching the arms of her black sweater around her waist before she remembered that he couldn’t see her. She still felt fat in her exercise clothes. Sometimes it was hard to recall that she’d gained weight on purpose. “That’s a great suit. But how do you know you have on colors that don’t clash?” The man certainly was gorgeous. She’d bet that back in his college fraternity days, he’d had girls hanging all over him. Probably still did, for that matter.

  “I have Braille labels in some of my clothes,” he said. “And I have a fantastic dry cleaner. When I take dirty things to them, I always keep them separated in bags by outfit. So all these things I’m wearing will go in the same bag later. Then the dry cleaner reassembles the whole outfit again in a clean bag before I pick it up.”

  “Ah. So once you’ve bought something, you always keep it together.”

  “Right.”

  Feather brushed past her then and wove herself joyfully around Brendan’s knees. Heedless of the suit, he knelt and petted her. “Hey, old girl. I missed you, too.”

  Then he rose, and she saw the bag of food he’d set beside the door. “Here’s her breakfast and enough for dinner in case I’m late getting home.”

  “Okay.” She seemed to be reduced to words of one syllable as she looked at him again. It should be criminal for a man to look so good.

  “Is something wrong?” He cocked his head as if to study her, even though she knew he wasn’t seeing her expression.

  She expelled a rueful chuckle. “You look so nice that I’m just standing here thanking heaven that you can’t see me!”

  That made him laugh, too, and she felt less awkward.

  “Well, now you’ve got me curious,” he said. And before she realized it, he reached forward and unerringly settled one large hand on her shoulder.

  She nearly gasped at the touch of his warm palm. His hand was so big that his thumb rested easily on the hollow at the base of her throat, and she wondered if he could feel her pulse racing.

  “Ah,” he said, fingering the strap of her sleeveless leotard. “Exercise clothes. What were you doing?”

  “Yoga.” Back to one-word answers again. Did she sound as breathless and silly as she felt?

  “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll let you get back to it.”

  “I’m finished,” she said. “I do a brief workout three days a week and then go for a run, and the other three days I have a full-length routine I go through.”

  “That’s only six.” He still had his hand on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb lightly back and forth over her collarbone, and she suppressed an outrageous urge to step forward and mold her body to his. What was wrong with her?

  “Um…six. Right.” Oh, Lord, help me. “I take Sundays off, unless I feel like doing something.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “I run every day on the treadmill and I lift three times a week.”

  “Can I ask another stupid question?” She was going to be rude again, but she was really curious about how he managed so well. She finally moved back just a shade, and to her mingled relief and disappointment, he let his hand drop to his side.

  “There are no stupid questions, according to my old Latin teacher, only stupid answers.”

  “How did you know? Exactly where my shoulder was?”

&nbs
p; He looked momentarily puzzled.

  “Just now,” she clarified, “when you put out your hand, you didn’t fumble or grab the wrong body part, or anything. You put your hand right where you intended to.”

  He laughed. “How do you know? Maybe your shoulder wasn’t what I was aiming for.”

  She shot him a dirty look, then remembered the effect would be lost. “Very funny.”

  “You’ll never know, will you?”

  “I will when you answer my question,” she said firmly. This flirting was getting out of hand. He was just her neighbor, for heaven’s sake. Even if he was drop-dead gorgeous and she drooled every time he threw back his head and laughed like that. She was not looking for a relationship. All she wanted was to settle into a nice, small town and a nice, small-town life.

  “All right.” He finally grew serious. “When I lost my sight, my hearing gradually started to be…I don’t know, more than just the hearing that a sighted person takes for granted. Or maybe it’s just that I tune in to it a lot more now. I use it—and I imagine many vision-impaired people also do—to gauge height when someone is speaking, or distance.” He made a “who-knows” gesture with his hand. “I guess I’ve gotten pretty adept at it. It isn’t something I consciously think about. I just sort of knew where your shoulder would be.”

  “That makes sense.”

  He put his hand to his wristwatch, and a moment later a voice announced the time. “I’ve got to go. I’ll check in tonight to get my girl, if that works for you.”

  “That’s fine.” How cool was that? A talking watch. She hadn’t even imagined all the things that she would have to do differently if she were blind. “Have a good day,” she said.

  “Thanks. You, too.” He put his hand on Feather’s head and fondled her soft, floppy ears with his right hand. “See you later, girl. You have a good day with Lynne.”

  She squatted and picked up the bag of dog food, watching as he turned away and moved purposefully down the hall. He didn’t even hesitate at the stairs as he and the dog started down.

  What would it be like to depend on an animal that much? She doubted she could ever come to trust a dog enough to just step forward and head down a flight of stairs that easily.

  She turned and reentered her apartment as his broad shoulders disappeared. “Come on, Feather,” she said. The dog still was standing where Brendan had left her, and if she were a person given to flights of fancy, she’d have said the poor thing looked sad. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

  Brendan was anxious to get home that evening. It had been a long day preparing for a trial in which he was the lead prosecutor, and the rest of the week only promised to be even longer. He’d planned to take tomorrow off but he’d be lucky to manage it.

  He stopped to pick up his mail, then started up the steps to the second floor. He had barely set foot in the hallway when he heard a door open.

  Dog nails clicked rapidly on wood accompanied by a happy canine whine, and his heart lifted at the familiar sound. Feather hadn’t sounded that happy since the day he’d brought Cedar home. While he was in class at the training school for nearly a month, she had stayed with his old school buddy with whom he worked. Feather thought John Brinkmen was the greatest guy on the planet and Brendan had no doubt she’d been spoiled rotten in his absence. Brink had brought her back the day Brendan had returned and she’d been thrilled to see him until she caught the scent of a strange dog on his clothing. It had pretty much been downhill ever since.

  He caught Feather while Cedar stood patiently waiting for the next command.

  “Hey, girl,” he said. “Did you have a good day with Lynne?”

  He raised his head. Even if he hadn’t had Feather to warn him, he’d have known she was there. She hadn’t made a sound and she was still too far away for him to catch her scent, but he knew. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi!” She sounded jazzed, excited.

  “You sound happy,” he said, wondering what had put that tone in her voice.

  “Guess what I did today?” Her voice was jubilant.

  “Won the lottery?”

  She laughed. “Not even close. I bought a piano!”

  “Whoa. When you decide to do something, you don’t waste time, do you?”

  She laughed. “It’s being delivered Tuesday. And I called the college to see if I could find anyone who would give lessons. I start next week!”

  “Good for you.”

  “I also had an interview with the preschool. They only need someone for about twenty hours a week. And the more I think about it, the more I think I’d prefer that to something full-time. This way, I can look into taking classes and maybe even start in January.”

  “Will you go to Gettysburg?”

  “Can’t. The college doesn’t offer a teaching degree. But there are several schools within an hour that do. Today I looked at some schools online. Ship-pensburg University, Wilson College, Penn State’s Mont Alto campus and Messiah College are all less than an hour away. And they all offer education degrees except for Mont Alto, but I could do the first two years there if I chose and then transfer. If I wanted to stay at Penn State I’d have to finish at the University Park campus which is more than two hours away, but I don’t really want to get settled in here and then move and I don’t want to drive two and a half hours one way to school each day for two years, either. So I’m going to visit Shipp, Wilson and Messiah next week.”

  “You have a lot of energy, don’t you?” he observed in a dry tone.

  She laughed. “No more than the average person, I don’t think. It just seems that way because I’m starting so many new things.”

  He was dying to know where she’d worked before, what kind of career she’d just apparently walked away from. Maybe it was something as mundane as fast-food work, but he doubted it. Then he thought of something else.

  “You do realize,” he said, “that working twenty hours a week at what is probably minimum wage is not going to pay for this apartment.” Let alone a new piano.

  She went still. He might not have been able to see her, but he could tell from the very quality of the air that she’d practically frozen in place. Finally she cleared her throat. “I do realize that,” she said quietly.

  “I hope I haven’t burst your bubble,” he said hurriedly, regretting now that he’d said anything at all. She was an adult and her finances were none of his business. “It’s none of my business. I apologize.”

  “It’s not a problem,” she said. “I should have realized how it would look to someone who didn’t know me.” She hesitated. “I’m, ah…” She stopped again and chuckled nervously. “There’s no polite way to say it. I’m fairly wealthy.”

  “That was polite,” he observed. “You could have said you were loaded. Or filthy rich.”

  “I suppose I could have.” She chuckled again, and there were far fewer nerves in her tone this time.

  “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Filthy rich.”

  “Define ‘filthy rich,’ please.”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “Smart-aleck. Okay. More than a million.”

  “Oh.” Was that relief in her tone? “Yes.”

  She was worth over a million bucks? Was she some kind of industrial heiress or something? He couldn’t figure out any polite way to ask, so he just let it go. “That’s good,” he said lamely.

  He had fished his key from his pocket and as she spoke he unlocked his door. “Come on in,” he said. “So Feather was good for you today?”

  “She was delightful.” She trailed after him and he heard her shut the door as he bent to remove Cedar’s harness. “She just follows me from room to room. I guess she’s used to always being close to someone?”

  “Yeah. At work my dog lies beside my desk. She’s been pretty upset at being left behind every day, even though I was trying to come home at lunch to make sure she was doing all right.”

  “Well, I don’t mind having her hang out with me one litt
le bit. She’s more than welcome to come back anyday.”

  “Thanks.” It was nice to know he had someone to call on in an emergency, although he couldn’t possibly impose his dog on her regularly.

  “Have you been over to the battlefield yet?”

  “No. It’s near the top of my list, though.” Her voice grew warm and amused. “I think it’s probably illegal to live in Gettysburg and not know anything about that battle.”

  “I have an auto tour on CD. You can borrow it or, if you’re free tomorrow and you’d like company, I’d be happy to ride along.” He was mildly amazed to hear the words come out of his mouth, particularly since he hadn’t even been sure he wanted to take the day off. Had he just asked her out? He wasn’t sure the casual offer qualified as a date. Still, he hadn’t come anywhere near that close to dating since he’d ended his engagement a few months after his accident.

  “I would enjoy that,” she said. “And I’d love the company. Can we take the dogs?”

  “They can come along in the car. Cedar can go anywhere we go, but now that Feather is a pet and not a working guide, I’d have to check. I’m not sure that the Park Service allows dogs on the battlefield.”

  “I can check,” she said. “I’ll get online later and see what I can find out. If I don’t get results, we can call the Park Service before we leave in the morning.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been wanting to look around the battlefield. This will be perfect.” He could tell she was turning away as she spoke. “I’ll go look it up right now.”

  He followed her to the door. “What time would you like to go?”

  “I’m flexible. Is nine too early?”

  “Nine’s good.”

  “All right. See you then.”

  “Lynne.” He reached out and circled her wrist before she could pull open the door. “Thank you for caring for Feather today. She means a lot to me, and it was easier to be at work knowing she wasn’t alone.”

  She had stilled at his touch. Then, to his surprise, she turned her hand beneath his until their palms were touching, and she lightly squeezed his fingers. Her skin was warm and so soft he knew whatever job she’d held before, if any, hadn’t involved manual labor. He also knew that she hadn’t been any more prepared than he for the immediate sexual tension that had leaped between them. He’d felt an intense spike in his pulse when their hands touched, and from her small, stifled gasp, he suspected she’d felt the same.