If Tillie could merely have left things alone, Amy most likely would have focused on the exact things her mother kept shoving into her face. After all, Mark was physically unable to do many of the things she found most important in the world.
If she ever married, Amy would want a husband who could go for long runs or bicycle rides with her. Mark couldn't. She wanted children, but had never taken to the idea of being a single parent. Mark would never be able to practice tossing a football or shooting hoops with his kids. Could he even make sure their diapers were completely clean? Religion and politics weren't as important to her as they were to her mother. She cared more about the type of person than about the church or synagogue they attended or how they voted. Still, she knew that many relationships foundered on these issues.
Her mother's too blatant efforts, however, gave Amy the opportunity to consider the other side of Mark. Of course his injury closed a number of doors for him. Of course there were things he couldn't do. Still, he was able to do a great deal.
In response to his mother's continued questions, Mark explained how he caught the bus every morning and made his way to work. He cooked his own dinner most nights and did his own shopping. While his initial hiring might have been helped by his status as a handicapped veteran, he had moved up through the ranks and received commendations that could not merely be given: they had to be won.
After they had finished dinner, Amy stood to help her mother with the dishes.
"Let's forget that," her mother told her. "I'll have plenty of time to get to them after the two of you leave. I have an idea. Let's play Trivial Pursuit."
She and her mother usually played a game after they had finished dinner, so it took Amy a moment to realize that her mother was relaunching her campaign against the suitability of the only man she'd brought home in years.
When she caught on, Amy started to object.
Too late. Mark answered before she could do more than open her mouth. "I'm game. Unless you need to get back to your apartment soon, Amy?"
"Of course not," she answered. Finishing her laundry really could wait until tomorrow.
Tillie brought in the battered board and set it on the table.
"Before we start, I have to ask a couple of questions," Mark told them.
"Shoot," Amy said.
"Do you play that you have to announce your rolls, or can you cheat?"
"No cheating," her mother announced.
"Good. That'll make the game go faster. Second, I won't be able to read questions. Would one of you mind doing that for me?"
"Not at all," Amy assured him. She'd be happy to pound his questions at her mother. Unfortunately, her mother was something of a trivia fanatic and had spent years drilling her daughter to be the same. She was afraid Mark would be left far behind.
Still, the man had agreed to the game. She hoped he knew what he was doing.
They rolled to see who went first and Tillie won. She proceeded to answer four questions correctly including one for pie, before missing one by giving the current answer, not the answer that had been correct back in the seventies when the game was created.
Amy followed and managed to flub her first question.
Mark picked up the die, rolled, ran a hand across the die to feel his number, then asked that his piece be moved to the blue square.
For the next five minutes, Mark correctly answered the questions her mother read to him, rolled, used his fingers to read the number he had rolled, and instructed Amy which color he wished her to move his marker to. He must have had a mental picture of the board because he always knew when he was answering questions, what color he had to negotiate, and when he could reach a roll-again square.
When he had five sections, her mother put down the box of cards, reached out, and grabbed his hand and shook it.
"I thought I was good at this game," she announced, continuing to shake his hand like he was some sort of TV celebrity. "I'll tell you what. Come with me to the senior center and we'll play partners. I think we can make some good money."
"We used to play in the hospital," Mark admitted.
"Well I'm impressed. It isn't a skill you can use every day, but it's still pretty amazing."
"Ah, Mother, are we going to ask Mark his question?"
"Nope. I think I'll buy some new games if you're going to invite Mark over again."
That put Amy on the spot. She had invited Mark over intending that her mother realize the futility of pushing her at men. Admittedly her mother had stepped far over the bounds of acceptable behavior when she had insisted in pointing out Mark's flaws so obviously. Still, did Amy really intend to ask Mark back?
Inviting a man over once was one thing. If he came over again, they would be a number and her mother would start a wedding countdown. It wouldn't be fair to her mother, and it certainly wouldn't be fair to Mark. Despite the undeniable physical attraction she felt toward Mark, an attraction that his ability to deal with her mother had only enhanced, she wasn't ready to consider a serious involvement a man with such a terrible handicap. Just because her mother had been tacky and inappropriate didn't mean she wasn't right.
"How about next weekend," her mother suggested. "I was thinking about--"
"Next weekend is the Collin Creek Classic," Amy said. "I'll probably go out with friends afterwards. Why don't we play it by ear?"
"Oh. I know you do like your bicycling, darling." Her mother frowned for a moment. "What a pity Mark can't ride. You always say how much nicer it would be if you had someone to ride with."
"Well actually," Mark broke in, "I'd be happy to ride with you, Amy. If I understood my taxi driver, you live pretty close to the start of the race. Why don't I swing by and pick you up about an hour before it starts?"
"You can ride a bike?" She couldn't have been more amazed if he'd broken out a pair of wings and flown away. "Do you have some kind of electronics to keep from hitting the curb? I haven't ridden a whole lot, but I've never heard of any blind bicyclists."
"I'll figure something out."
"Mark, this isn't a joke. This is a competitive race. There'll be thousands of people wobbling around. I don't know what kind of fancy electronics you think you might rig up, but it won't work. You could get hurt."
Mark gave her the inscrutable smile of a Buddha statue. "Then we'll both have to be careful. Won't we?"
Chapter 4
Amy checked her hydration system for the tenth time and looked at her watch.
Why hadn't she told Mark to forget this crazy idea? If he really did decide to ride, she would spend the entire day worrying about him hurting himself instead of competing seriously.
She didn't blame his reaction to her mother's none-too-subtle comments about his blindness. Still, getting himself killed in the Dallas area's biggest bicycle event might make her mother feel like a heel, but it would hardly disprove her point.
She threw open the door as soon as she heard the firm knock.
Mark grinned at her, then handed her a box of fancy Godiva chocolates. "You need to keep your energy level up while you ride," he told her.
The simple gesture melted her irritation. "Thanks, Mark." Then she looked at him, really looked. His black bicycle shorts molded to his thighs, conformed to every nuance of his body. Every single one.
She gulped, then raised her eyes from those all too revealing shorts. At least his shirt was fairly loose, with the traditional bicycle pockets on the back. One muscled arm cradled an aerodynamic helmet against his side. He had swapped out his standard shades for a wrap-around pair that gave him a dashing air, like an Olympic skier.
"You look fantastic," she told him.
He reached out and stroked her cheek. "You look pretty good yourself."
Thank goodness he couldn't see her. She had been proud of her pink warm-up suit, yet compared to him, she looked like a couch potato accidentally entered in the marathon. "I'll just be a second," she told him.
A year before, she had bought an aerobics top that ma
tched the yellow of Mark's jersey. She'd never dared wear it in public since it had turned out to be a lot skimpier in reality than it had seemed when she'd tried it on at health club.
She pulled off her new warm-up suit and hunted through her drawers until she found the top. She had already been wearing her black padded bicycle shorts under her warm-up pants so she didn't need to change anything there. With a longing glance at the less revealing warm-up suit she'd left piled in the middle of her bedroom floor, she headed back to where she'd left Mark in her living room. They might end up in a ditch somewhere, but at least they'd be color coordinated.
"My bike is chained to my porch," she told him.
For an irrational moment, she found herself disappointed that her new outfit didn't at least rate raised eyebrows, or maybe even a whistle. Then she remembered. She'd never get a whistle from him. Mark couldn't see. As far as he knew, she could be wearing baggy sweats.
"I've taken care of that," he told her.
"I don't think so. I've got one of those Kryptonite locks. They're supposed to be able to keep even Superman out."
Mark chuckled. "I mean you won't need your bike."
Oh, great. She should have known. Or maybe she had known and had just gone into denial when Mark had appeared looking so good. Of course he couldn't ride.
"Look, I've been training to ride in this event for months now. It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to me. I understand that you can't ride, but I'm going through with it. I'll tell you what, why don't we get together after..."
His frown silenced her. "I intend to cycle," he said firmly. "With you. You'll see how if you'll come with me."
He turned and walked down her apartment building stairs. He lightly touched the banister as he descended, a gesture that anyone might make. A gesture that she recognized was his only concession to blindness. He must have left his cane at home.
"Yo, Captain, over here."
Finally, Amy understood. A big man in an Air Force uniform stood with a bicycle built for two leaning against his legs.
Strange wires whose purpose she couldn't immediately determine seemed to sprout from the bike and a bar protruded from the handlebars. All in all, the effect was somewhere between E.T. and the Wizard of Oz.
"Since your apartment is less than two miles from the starting point, I thought we would ride there and make sure we could manage," Mark said.
"You get in front," the big man told her.
Amy gulped, then straddled the bike while both men stared at her. They weren't giving her much choice.
"You were right, she's too small," the big man told Mark.
Other than her fellow basketball players, no one she knew called Amy small. In her stocking feet, she easily reached five foot eight. Her workout routine didn't build body-builder bulk, but she would never blow away on a breezy day, either.
"Amy, this is Andrew. He served with me in the Air Force. Andrew, I've told you about Amy."
Andrew stuck out his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, ma'am. We were afraid Mark'd given up on the female sex. What with Leslie and--"
Mark elbowed Andrew in the side, shutting him up.
"Leslie?" She wasn't sure she really wanted to hear anything more about this. In fact, if Mark was involved with another woman, she thought maybe the two of them should be setting off on this bicycle contraption.
"Ancient history," Mark told her.
"Hey dude. Didn't mean to get you in trouble with your girlfriend."
"Have you told everyone I'm your girlfriend?" She knew she was raising her voice, but she figured she had good reason. If, after one cup of coffee and a dinner at her mother's house, Mark was going around telling people that she was his girlfriend, he was too far ahead of her. He hadn't even tried to kiss her when he'd dropped her off that evening. Maybe if he had...
Oh, why was she thinking about that now?
"Andrew is talking without thinking. Again," Mark said.
Andrew wrinkled his forehead, tugged on his baseball style cat, then squinted at her. "Well, you were right, Mark. I'd say we need to lower that seat a good inch and a half."
"I'll get it," Mark said.
"What about--"
"Drop it."
Amy glared at him, then realized that part of the reason for her pique was that she had somehow thought she had discovered this diamond in the rough all by herself. But Mark had only been blind a couple of years. There was no way a hunk like him would have gone undiscovered by women.
Mark's hand traced up her thigh, then reached under her hips, flipped a quick release lever, and lowered the seat. "Sit down and put your feet in the pedals," Mark instructed. "Andrew will hold the bike steady."
"Whatever you say, partner." Despite his joking tone, Andrew grasped the front handlebar.
Mark slid his hand down Amy's calf then up to her knee. "Is this pedal all the way down?" he asked.
Amy pushed. "Uh huh."
"I think we may have overdone it then. Stand up for a second please."
He kept his voice calm and conversational, but its tone made her obey without even thinking about it.
"Try it again," he instructed.
She sat back and extended her leg again.
"You got it this time," Andrew told the two of them.
Mark silently put one large hand on her waist and ran the other hand down her thigh and calf a second time. "You centered on the bike?"
She wiggled a little. "Yes," she said quickly. His hand had left her legs and was heading for her hips.
Her entire leg tingled pins and needles where he had touched her. It wasn't a bad feeling. In fact, it was a more than pleasant sensation. Still, she definitely wasn't ready for him to bring this tingle, and his warm hands, to her hips.
"Okay, then. Let me on and off we go."
Andrew continued to hold the tandem while Mark strapped on his helmet and then mounted behind her.
"I'll give you guys a push start," Andrew announced.
"Wait just a minute," Amy said not even bothering to hide her sudden panic. "I have no idea how this thing works."
"Nothing to it," Mark told her. "Have you ever ridden a tandem before?"
"When I was about six," Amy answered. The rusty beach bike she had ridden then had as much resemblance to the high-tech machine she straddled now as Columbus's Santa Maria had to the Queen Mary.
"The person in front does the steering and breaking. If you need help with the brakes, the stoker, that’s the guy behind, has a disc brake he can work. We lean into the turns, and we don't stop unless we have to."
"How will you know to stop pedaling?" Amy didn't have to use more than a small fraction of her imagination to come up with true and valid reasons why she should back out now before it was too late.
Mark laughed. "That's where the high-tech equipment comes in. Unlike most tandems, I've got a dual fly wheel here. You brake, my derailleur goes south. Don't worry, I won't be able to pedal you into an accident."
"I'll give you guys a push," Andrew repeated. "Just take it easy until you get the feel of it."
Without waiting for an answer, the big man let go of the handle bars, walked to the back of the bike, put both hands behind Mark's back, then shoved.
A cheer went up. Amy almost crashed into a solid line of shouting men, half of them wearing uniforms. Even the women scattered in the crowd looked as if they could eat bullets for breakfast and spit out spent shells.
"What's wrong?" Mark asked.
"I think half the army is here to see us off." Amy fought for control, half climbed a curb, then pulled the bike into the road.
Mark sighed. "I should have guessed that Andrew couldn't keep his mouth shut. Only they wouldn't like being called Army. They're Air Force."
A storm grate grabbed at the bike's narrow wheels and Amy twisted the handle bars.
To her surprise, Mark managed to adjust his weight to her terrible overcompensation. He even kept pedaling slowly along as she struggled with the controls.
"What are all those Air Forcers, or whatever they're called, doing out here?" she asked when she finally felt like she could talk and control the bike at the same time.
****
"Airmen," Mark told her. For the first time he could remember, he said the word without feeling a painful stab of regret for what he'd lost. "They're called Airmen."
"What they aren't is bicyclists. So what are they doing here?"
"I think they came to see you."
Amy swerved again, then steadied the bike. He had paid a little extra for the best helmet he could find and now he was happy he'd made the investment. If they even made it to the starting line, it would be a minor victory. Whatever had given him the idea that this would work?"
"Sorry," she told him.
All of Mark's earlier determination evaporated. "Listen, we don't have to go through with this."
"What are you talking about?"
"Tandem bicycles are hard enough when both members of the team are really involved. Pretty clearly that isn't the case here. I wanted to prove something and I got carried away but I can see that it was a mistake. I don't want to get you hurt."
"I swerved right now because I was surprised at what you said, not because I can't handle the bike. I think this whole thing is as light as the bike I was planning to ride. Not to mention having someone else do most of the pedaling makes things a lot more fun."
"If you say so." He wondered if she was going through this because of the pity factor her mother had told him about. "You can change your mind when we get near the starting line."
"I'm not going to change my mind. And no way you're going to get off that easy, bud." She sounded downright sinister.
Blind Date Page 5
