Holiday Confessions

by Anne Marie Winston

  Since it was a mild evening for November and the weather had been clear and dry all week, they decided to walk the few blocks to the Dobbin House. Brendan left Cedar at home, noting it was hard for the big dog to get out of the way in a restaurant. “His tail has been stepped on every day this week during business lunches,” he explained.

  He carried a white cane, and she was surprised at how well he was able to negotiate the uneven sidewalks of the old town. “If I couldn’t see where I was going, my knees would probably be permanently skinned from falling.”

  His mouth quirked. “It’s been known to happen. But I’m pretty careful on these sidewalks because I expect them to be uneven, so I usually do okay. Whether I’m using the dog or a cane, I find I really have to focus.”

  “How did you learn to use the cane? Did you have to go to some kind of school after your accident?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “In Pennsylvania, the Bureau of Blindness & Visual Services assigns you a mobility trainer. Unfortunately, it’s done strictly by zip code and all the instructors aren’t equally good. And I only got three sessions, anyway.”

  “Three sessions!”

  “Yeah.” He snorted. “I’m lucky. My family had the resources to hire a private trainer for six weeks. She was enormously helpful.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” A moment later her curiosity got the better of her when he didn’t elaborate. “In what ways?”

  “She taught me how much easier things could be if I learned Braille. A lot of adult-onset blind people never learn it. But now I have a special label maker and I can put special labels on my clothing so I know what matches what, which spices are which, stuff like that. I learned to use a screenreader, which translates typed messages, like e-mail and Web sites, to oral text, and I got a few assisted-living devices like my talking watch. You can’t imagine all the things that are available now, although most of them are not really necessary items.”

  “What was your biggest challenge?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “I had to adjust to using my sense of touch a lot more and to memorizing things like distances, placement of furniture. Listening to traffic patterns is another skill that takes concentration to master.”

  “What about people? Is it frustrating trying to figure out who’s talking to you?”

  “Not usually.” His swinging cane detected the edge of the curb, and he stopped just as she was about to grab his arm. “Let me know when we have the light,” he added. “Unless it’s someone I haven’t seen for years, I’ve found I’m pretty good at recognizing people’s voices.”

  “I think you’re amazing,” she said sincerely. “I guess unless each of us is confronted with something like what you’ve gone through, we never know how we’d react. But I could never do what you do.”

  “I’m just living,” he said mildly.

  “Alone,” she elaborated. “Independently. You support yourself, you care for two animals.”

  “You do what you have to do,” he said. “If you’d asked me if I could handle being blind when I was a college kid, I never would have been able to imagine it. I’d have said no way.”

  “I suppose.” But she was still doubtful. She’d meant it when she’d said he was amazing. As she got more and more used to being with him, it was hard to remember that he was blind. He was just…Brendan.

  They approached the restaurant then, and she quietly directed him through the entry. After they’d hung up their coats and the hostess began to lead them to a table, he turned to her. “May I take your arm? You could guide me to our seats.”

  “Sure.” She didn’t hesitate. “Uh, right or left?”

  “Left. It’s called the ‘sighted guide’ technique. Just hold your arm close to your side and let me put my hand under your elbow. That way, you’re a step ahead of me and I can tell if we’re moving up or down steps or ramps, and you can keep me from banging into things.”

  “Okay.” She moved into position and waited for him to take her left arm. He raised his right hand and sought her elbow, and his fingers brushed her rib cage and the side of her breast as he did so.

  A bolt of white-hot lightning flashed and she swore she heard a clap of thunder as a surge of heat rushed through her. She closed her eyes. Had she ever been so aware of a man before?

  “Lynne?”

  His voice was deep and close to her ear. She turned her head to see his mouth only inches from her. What would she give to stretch up the few inches necessary to close the gap between them? She cleared her throat, determined to get her mind off Brendan and back on dinner. “I was just waiting for the hostess to show us to the table,” she said lamely, starting forward.

  She stopped when he was beside his chair and said, “The chair is directly to your left. The back is next to your left hand.”

  He put out his hand and grasped the back of the chair, easily settling himself as she moved to her own seat on the far side of the table. But when she glanced at him, he was scowling ferociously. It was the most unpleasant expression she’d seen since he’d fallen over her boxes the week before.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His shoulders moved dismissively. “Nothing.” There was a moment of tense silence, and then he sighed. “It just really bugs me sometimes that I can’t do the things I should do for a date, like seating you. Like opening doors.”

  “That’s not important to me,” she said. “Although it might be if you could see and you were just too self-absorbed to bother.”

  That startled a snort out of him, but she noticed his lean features relax as he chuckled. “You sound as if you’re familiar with men like that.”

  “You can’t imagine how many dates I’ve had that have treated me like…like an accessory,” she said, thinking of several of her more boring evenings on the arm of whichever spoiled playboy was chasing her at the time.

  There was a short silence. “I take it you’ve dated a lot of men of the ‘self-absorbed’ persuasion,” Brendan said, a distinct query in his tone.

  She was shocked to realize she’d nearly forgotten that Brendan had never seen her, that he had no idea who she had been. “Not so many,” she said, trying to minimize the damage. “Maybe I just remember them vividly because they were such spectacularly bad dates.”

  “How about good ones?”

  “Good dates? I’ve had some of those, too.”

  “Any in particular?” His voice was light but she thought she detected an intensity she couldn’t quite define.

  “There was one,” she said, “that I thought might be a prince, but he turned out to be a toad.”

  “Frog.” Brendan corrected her. “In the fairy tale, she kisses a frog.”

  “I know, but this one was definitely a toad.”

  “What did he do that earned him toad status?”

  Oh, dear. She chose her words carefully, thinking of how she’d met Jeremy at a post-show party after a large job in Paris. “I met him when I was young and still a bit starry-eyed. He was British, and wealthy. Very wealthy, and I suppose his family had certain expectations for him. I thought he loved me, but it turned out he liked the way I adorned his arm better than he actually liked the person I was.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Her mouth twisted and she willed herself to breathe easily. Jeremy was far in the past. “I was starting to dream about marrying him. When he realized that, he let me know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t suitable for a wife. On the other hand, he’d have been more than happy to keep me on the side after he did get married.”

  Brendan quietly said a word that had her eyebrows rising. “You deserve better.”

  “That’s what I told myself.” Then she gathered her courage and said, “What about you? Any—what do you call female toads? Toadettes?—in your past?”

  He smiled. “No. No toadettes. If anything, I was the toad.”

  “How so?” She cocked her head, curious.

  “I was engaged once, too.” He paused a moment as if
waiting for her reaction. But she carefully didn’t respond, finding herself surprisingly resentful that he’d actually nearly married. How silly, when she herself had been engaged.

  When she didn’t speak, he went on. “It…just wasn’t working out, so I ended it. She didn’t want to break it off, but I insisted. So I guess I’m the toad.”

  “You must have had good reasons.” Of that she was certain. Brendan was not the type of man to hurt someone needlessly.

  “They seemed good to me at the time.”

  Something in his tone made her wonder…. “But now you regret it?”

  “I did, later, and for a long time. But—”

  The waitress approached then, and he never finished. Dinner was pleasant; the meal, interesting. Their server wore a long skirt and apron with a period blouse. The food was prepared and presented as it would have been a century ago.

  As they ate, the conversation was light and easy. Brendan clearly was done with personal revelations, but she would have given a lot to know what he’d been about to say.

  It wasn’t as though she could ask, though. If she continued to pry, he might ask questions that would be awkward for her, as well.

  And she didn’t want to talk about her past. It would be too easy to slip and say something that would make him realize that she was—or once had been—something more than simply a girl next door.

  She would tell him, she promised herself. Eventually. But it was just so nice to be with someone who didn’t react to her as A’Lynne, the redheaded supermodel from the cover of Sports Illustrated.

  Afterward, they walked back to their building. As they climbed the stairs, she said, “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

  “Sounds great. I’d love to.” Brendan followed her into the apartment and took a seat on the couch as she hurried into the kitchen. Feather immediately appropriated a place to lie down—right across the top of his feet. As Lynne worked in the kitchen, she could hear him talking in deep, gentle tones to the old dog.

  Something in the quality of his voice reminded her of the way her father had talked to her when she was small. Her father. She’d avoided thinking of him during the past week. She had gotten very good at that, but Brendan’s tone had pushed her mental barriers aside. Whatever else he might be, no one could ever say her father was a man who didn’t love his children.

  She sighed. Why did he feel compelled to marry again? She wished he’d stop tying himself legally to every woman who came into his life. Not because of any inheritance claims Lynne and her sister might have—heaven knew, Lynne had enough money squirreled away to keep her comfortable for the rest of her life, and CeCe was married to a software development engineer who owned a highly successful company. Josh was a wonderful man she’d met in college who adored her and their two children.

  Hmm. That was something to think about. While neither of her parents was a stellar role model for marriage, Josh and CeCe had been married for nine years and had been together for nearly fourteen. And they were as happy as anyone she’d ever seen.

  Now, where had that random thought come from? The last thing she needed to be thinking about was marriage. How silly.

  She carried a small tray bearing the coffee and its accoutrements into the living room and set it down before perching on the sofa a respectable distance from Brendan.

  “Did you get your piano delivered this week?” he asked after she had handed him a steaming mug.

  “I did! I can hardly wait for next week!” She felt like a little kid, ready to bounce with enthusiasm. “I’ve been practicing scales and a few finger exercises I remember from before.”

  “You’ll be a concert pianist in no time.”

  “I wish. Did you ever play an instrument?”

  “Trombone, in high school. But I didn’t continue in college.”

  “I never played anything in a band, although I always thought it would have been fun.”

  “It was. I went to a big high school with a very competitive band and we actually marched in the Rose Parade one year.”

  “Wow! I bet that was exciting.”

  “It was.” He chuckled. “Although, I think the anticipation leading up to it was nearly as big a deal. We spent a year and a half before, raising money to get there.”

  “Sounds like your high school memories are good ones.”

  “Yours weren’t?”

  She shrugged. “I was taller than any boy in my class from the beginning of sixth grade on. Even by my senior year there were only a few guys taller than I was. I wasn’t much of a basketball player so I didn’t have anything that might have given me an identity. I loved ballet but that wasn’t a school activity.”

  “You should have looked into modeling. Isn’t height a requirement for that?”

  Oh, dear. It was the perfect opening…but she wasn’t ready to tell him yet. He seemed to enjoy her company now. Just her—Lynne. Once she told him who she was, she would have no way to ever know again if he was responding to her or to her image.

  “I should have thought of that,” she said lightly. Not a lie, since she’d fallen into modeling purely by chance when a photographer had taken her picture at a charity event at which she’d been working for the bank where she’d gotten a job as a teller out of high school. “Add on a pretty older sister who was the captain of the cheerleading squad, and you get a girl who faded into the background most of the time.”

  “Hard for me to imagine,” he said. “I think I would have noticed you. Even in my dopey-teenage-boy stage.”

  She chuckled. “You think so?”

  “I know so.” He set down his coffee cup. “I have to get going. I need to work tomorrow morning, clearing up the last details from the trial.”

  “Oh, I forgot!” She set down her cup and rose with him, following him toward the door as Feather wound around their legs. “Is it over?”

  “Ended yesterday.” He leaned his cane against the wall and linked his arms above his head, stretching mightily. “Thank God.”

  “Good outcome, I take it?”

  “Of course.” He grinned as he lowered his arms. “I wish I was always able to say that. This was a pretty solid case. Insurance fraud.”

  “Congratulations!” She punched his shoulder lightly, feeling the solid flesh beneath her balled fist. “Why didn’t you say something during dinner? We could have celebrated.”

  “I didn’t think of it during dinner,” Brendan said. He reached out and settled his big hands on her shoulders, lightly rubbing his thumbs over the silky fabric of her blouse. “I was too engrossed in you.”

  She was too stunned to speak. Engrossed in her? Before she could summon words, he purposefully slid his arms around her, tugging her closer. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  It wasn’t a question, but as his face neared and his warm lips found hers, she didn’t care. She put her arms around his neck, an action that allowed him to pull her more closely against him, as he took her mouth with a firm, thorough exploration that sent sizzling streams of excitement arrowing through her body.

  Had she ever felt this before, this nearly irresistible urge to throw caution to the winds and give herself to this man? Had she ever felt that her flesh was going to leap right off her bones if a certain man didn’t touch her?

  One hand slid down her back, pressing her into the hard contours of his body, and she couldn’t hold back the small sound that escaped from her throat as their bodies slid into snug proximity, fitting together as if they’d been made for that very purpose.

  Brendan tore his lips from hers, stringing a feverish trail of kisses along her jaw to her ear, where he found a spot so sensitive that her knees actually buckled when his tongue caressed her there.

  “Lynne.” He breathed her name against her skin, raising goose bumps along the tender flesh of her arms. “I’ve been wanting to do this.”

  She smiled as her head fell back and he slid his mouth along the column of her throat. “I’ve been wanting you to do this.”
<
br />   He chuckled, then his mouth sought hers again. He kissed her strongly, deeply, repeatedly rubbing his body against hers and setting her afire so that she twisted against him and moaned.

  Finally he withdrew in tiny increments, leaving her throbbing and regretful. “I’ve got to go,” he said hoarsely, still holding her loosely against him. “Before I rush you into something you’re not ready for.”

  She was unbelievably touched by his insight. “I’m not,” she confirmed. “But you could probably change my mind,” she added honestly.

  He groaned. Dipping his head, he pressed one last, hard kiss against her mouth. “Do you have to make it harder?”

  The moment he said it, silence fell between them. A heartbeat passed, and then he ruefully said, “Poor choice of vocabulary,” as he set her away from him.

  She laughed, delighted with his frankness. “We’ll pursue that another time.”

  “God, I hope so.” His words were fervent and he smiled as he picked up his cane and his hand sought the door handle. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Brendan paused inside his own apartment. Cedar was kenneled in the kitchen, and the metal rattled as the dog anticipated his release. “I’m coming, buddy.”

  He negotiated easily through his apartment and released Cedar from the kennel, stroking the broad head as the dog pressed himself joyously against Brendan. “I love you, too, buddy,” he said aloud. “But I sure wish there was someone other than you touching me right now.”

  His breath was still fast and shallow from the moments with Lynne as he clipped on a leash and led Cedar down to the park at the rear of the building. He hadn’t been looking for a relationship. In fact, it had been so long since he’d even been interested in learning more about a woman that he had been starting to think that perhaps his lack of interest was related to the fact that he could no longer see them.

  Now he knew that couldn’t have been more wrong. He just hadn’t met the right woman.

  He entered his apartment again, still aroused by the mere thought of Lynne’s slender curves and sweet mouth. As he removed his pants and his hand brushed against his own hard flesh, he groaned, wishing relief could be that easy. But he wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything less than his pretty neighbor stretched out beneath him in his bed, her long, slender legs wrapped around his hips and her body arching against him as he pleasured her.