To her delight, a couple of photo albums were mixed in with the Braille books. She grabbed them and headed for the couch.
"Hey, what are you up to?" Mark stepped out of his kitchen with a couple of glasses of water.
From the way the ice tinkled, she guessed he used expensive crystal glasses. Something she had always wanted. Her teacher's pay didn't allow her to make that type of investment yet, but she had big plans.
"I found a couple of photo albums. Would it be all right if I look through them?"
His face took on a strange look. Almost as if he were reluctant to open this part of himself. What did he have in there, the complete collection of his past conquests?
"They're just pictures of people you don't know. But if you really think you'd be interested, go ahead."
She plopped down on the couch and sank into the glove- soft leather. He put the glasses on the coffee table in front of her. She took a swallow, then flipped open the first album.
"Ooh, you were such a cute kid."
It shouldn't have surprised her. His hair had darkened over the years, but he looked exactly like the kid who had been elected most likely to succeed, always got the lead in the school play, and was the star of the high school football team.
"Even my mother thought so," Mark agreed wryly.
As she flipped forward in the album, she saw that Mark really had become most of the things she had guessed. He'd even played on the Air Force Academy football team for a year.
The pictures of Mark delighted her. The entourage of females that always seemed to surround him didn't please her in exactly the same way.
She was being irrational, she knew. She and Mark were only friends. Of course Mark would have had girlfriends. It was really none of her business.
"So who are all the girls?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Most of them are my sisters."
Now that she looked, she could see the resemblance. Three of the girls who recurred in many of the photos looked a lot like Mark although, somehow, they’d all managed to reassemble his strong features in extremely feminine forms. Since Mark was pure male, she was surprised that the effect was pleasant.
"Three sisters, right?"
"Right. Marion's the oldest. Then Milly. Jane was the baby."
"There's one other girl that seems to be in all of the shots."
She flipped the page and wished she had kept her mouth shut.
Mark's graduation picture from the Air Force Academy showed him incredibly handsome and dashing in a starched uniform. The mystery woman, wearing something that barely held in her more than ample endowments, had herself draped all over Mark like she was staking a claim.
"That's Leslie."
His tone was just a little too casual. Clearly he still had an emotional investment with this woman. Where was she now?
"Andrew said something about Leslie. Your girlfriend?" She made the question casual. Something one friend might ask another.
"No." He shook his head firmly.
"If you don't want to talk about it--"
"That's all right. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life tied down to a blind man. It's a perfectly natural reaction."
Amy's hackles rose. "It is not!" she said hotly. "You're still the person she fell in love with."
As he stared at her, again she had the feeling that he could see into her. "Yeah, sure." His voice sounded bitter.
"She broke up with you after you got hurt?"
"She tried to stay. It didn't work out."
He was still making up excuses for this woman.
Amy felt herself torn between anger at a woman who would let blindness come between her and the man she loved, and a sick understanding. Wouldn't she have a different attitude toward Mark if he hadn't lost his sight? Just a twinge of a third emotion, relief that this woman had been foolish enough to hook a man like Mark and then toss him back, surprised her. What was she thinking? Mark was just her friend.
Unfortunately for her peace of mind, the parade of beautiful females didn't stop after Leslie had disappeared from the scene. Mark seemed to attract them unconsciously.
"Who are these other women?" she asked.
"Women?" He looked genuinely puzzled.
"You know, in these pictures. There's one in front of SMU and another at a pool." At a pool wearing a bathing suit that should be illegal.
"Oh. A lot of times my readers give me pictures of themselves, stick them inside my scrapbooks. I'm not quite sure why since I hardly ever spend time looking at them."
Another of Mark's sick jokes.
Amy had a pretty good reason why his readers would give him pictures--to scare away anyone who visited and took a look through his photo albums. A couple of Mark's readers could have made the cover of Cosmo magazine without breaking into a sweat. She wondered if he knew that. She decided that it wasn't her position to tell him, a decision that made her feel a little guilty. Just a little.
Chapter 6
"So are you going to give me the tour of the house?" Amy dropped the photo album so hard it might have bit her.
"Sure." Growing up, he'd dreamed about a place like this even when he lived in an apartment so small he had to share a room with two of his sisters. It was a place he could call home with just enough garden space for a few flowers and fresh tomatoes. Close enough to work that he could walk when the weather was nice. And close enough to all of the excitement that living in a city could mean.
Of course, in his dreams, he'd shared the place with a family. Keep dreaming, Mark.
"I guess you've figured out this is the living room," he said.
"I would call it a library. How do you read so many books?"
He laughed. "It isn't easy, really. I can't afford to pay readers for pleasure reading. I have a machine that can sense the shape of the letters, but it's painfully slow. Mostly what I do is scan the pages and play it back from the computer. Using an electronic reader is easier, but I always wanted a collection of paper on my walls."
He led her into his study.
Here, more than anywhere else, he could forget about his blindness and concentrate on what he enjoyed. His stereo, his computer, and his collection of antique electric trains gave him countless hours of enjoyment.
"Would you look at the size of those things?" Amy said. "My sister and I had a train set when we were kids. But I never dreamed they made model trains this big."
He couldn't tell whether she was being polite or really interested. He could bore her for hours on details of who manufactured what when, and how each train was operated. He decided to assume she was being polite.
"I got a paper route when I was a kid just to earn money for trains. They were cheaper years ago."
Thinking about the paper route made him think about bicycles, a subject he really wanted to avoid right now.
"The dining room is over here."
Her "uh-huh," sounded discretely underwhelmed. He hadn't figured out what to do with the formal room since he usually ate in the breakfast room. Still, maybe he should replace the antique table he'd picked up on a trip to Turkey. The thing had been beautiful once, but that had been decades before.
He'd never thought a house tour could be particularly insightful. From Amy's comments, though, he learned more about her than he would have guessed possible. She seemed to like the things he'd bought while stationed abroad in the Air Force. She squealed with delight over the airy breakfast room that he'd built onto the large porch which had once wrapped most of the way around the house.
"What's upstairs?" she asked.
"Just the bedrooms."
"I want to see."
How long had it been since he had invited a woman into his bedroom? If he thought about it, he could calculate down to the year, month, and day. Letting Amy upstairs on a house tour was likely to be as close to being in bed with a woman as he'd been for a long time.
He knew he was letting his hormones run wild. Why couldn't he just accept that she thought of h
im along the lines of her cat--happily spayed--rather than as a potential love interest? Hadn't Leslie pounded that reality into his brain once and for all? A blind man could be a friend, safe, unthreatening and most of all, unisexual. You'd think his hormones would have learned the lesson back then. Apparently they had forgotten.
He led her up the stairs.
"I love your paintings. Am I supposed to recognize the artists?"
"I'd be surprised if you did. I got a few of them when I was stationed in Europe. The rest I bought from blind artists."
"Blind--no offense but that sounds like a strange career choice. Sort of like Beethoven doing his best composing when he was deaf, I guess."
He hadn't thought of that analogy before. He'd bought the paintings because he liked the artists and because they needed the business. Obviously, he hadn't been able to look at them himself. He'd let his readers decide which ones to hang where. The ones they'd agreed were total rejects either got hung in one of the empty spare bedrooms or stored below the stairs.
"My room is to the right," he told her.
"What about the other rooms?"
"They're empty." A house full of children could be a handful. Still, he had never been able to overcome his irrational wish that his house came equipped with a couple of kids. Most of the time he kept the extra rooms closed and tried never to think about them. Once in a while it worked.
Amy oohed and ahhed over the size and airy views in his empty bedrooms, but when she walked into his bedroom, he could actually feel her freeze and tense up.
His Air Force training had stuck with him at least to the point that he made sure his bed got made and his clothes properly put away every morning, so it wasn't the normal male mess she was reacting to. "Is something wrong?"
"It's all very perfect," she said, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear her.
He tried to imagine how his room looked. Pretty much like any bedroom, as far as he could tell. Although he hadn't needed the added width of a king sized bed for any nocturnal adventures, he'd bought the largest size anyway because of his height. Shorter beds didn't let him stretch out. One of his readers had helped him select the dark wood frame. He'd liked the pleasing sensation of its heavy lacquer finish, and she'd liked something about it, although she wouldn't tell him what.
Other than that, his bedroom consisted of a few more paintings, some photos of the units he'd served with while in the Air Force, and normal bedroom furniture.
"If there's a mess here or something, I can't see it, so you have to tell me," he reminded Amy.
"No. It's just so male. I'm used to flowers and lace."
"I'm not much good making sure my patterns match," he reminded her. "With solid colors, I'm a little safer."
Since he'd bought the house, each of his three sisters had visited. Beyond that, had any woman actually seen the upstairs of his house? Most often, his readers came to his office downtown. On rare occasions when he had to work late and his home was more convenient, the readers stayed in his study. Sure, he’d had a couple help with the décor but that was it.
He felt suddenly self-conscious.
"Is that a water bed?" she asked, just when he was wondering how to get them both out of this awkward break in the conversation.
"Yeah. I was still in a lot of pain when I first moved in here. It helped."
His bed's wet gurgle told him she hadn't waited for an answer. "Careful," he warned. "You'll get stuck." He hadn't filled the bed very full, so a person tended to sink deep.
"I figured that out," she told him, laughing. "Come give me a hand."
He knew the distance to his bed. Hell, he'd walked it hundreds of times. There was no way he could get confused and he certainly didn't need his cane for something as simple as walking across his own bedroom.
The bed met his knee about a foot before it had any reason to be there, pitching him forward.
"Damn," he muttered as he lost his balance and started to tumble. "Watch out."
Only Amy didn't have a chance.
He fell forward, his hands in front of him to at least prevent their heads from crashing together.
One of his hands got caught in her long hair. The other ended up grabbing a breast before he figured out where he was.
"Oh!" was Amy's surprised reaction. But she didn't struggle, in fact made no move to escape from beneath him.
Strike three. He’d grabbed her breasts three times. How could he be so stupid?
Amy had the most incredible body. He'd known that, of course. He'd touched her before. On the other hand, he'd never gotten totally wrapped up in her, his legs between hers, one hand on a breast, the other behind her neck.
He had somehow thought she'd be bigger than she was. Not taller, and certainly not fat, but more muscular. While she had muscles in all the right places, they were slender, adding rather than subtracting from her femininity.
When he realized he was still holding her soft, warm breast, he fought his instinctive reaction to continue the caress and pulled his hand away.
"I misjudged the distance to the bed."
"I saw," she told him. She didn't laugh, but he heard a telltale exhalation that sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter. Still, he didn't think her amusement was at his expense. She seemed to be enjoying the entire situation.
When she spoke, he could actually feel her warm breath against his face. The temptation was too great and, knowing he was making a mistake, he yielded to it.
He pulled her toward him, then kissed her on the mouth.
He was sure she would slap him, push him away, and walk out of his life. He was absolutely certain he'd regret his impulsiveness for the rest of his life. Still, he was even more certain that he needed to kiss her despite the risk. He could no more resist this opportunity than he could open his eyes and see.
For just a moment, Amy lay absolutely still in his arms. He knew he'd made a terrible mistake. He couldn't read the little visual signs women send to indicate their receptivity. She couldn't possibly be surprised by the attraction she held for him, but that didn't mean she was willing.
So why didn't she do something? Even if she slapped him, that would be better than this complete stillness. Then, incredibly, she threw her arms around him and kissed him back.
Her lips opened under his touch, her tongue meeting his, caressing it.
She ran her hands up his back, stroking its muscles, exploring, questioning some of the scars he'd picked up.
His errant hand returned to her breast, this time on his conscious command.
She gave a soft mew as he cupped it, held it, and ran his thumb over the hard nub of her nipple through the form fitting sweater she wore.
Then she crushed his body to hers, and kissed him harder than he could ever remember being kissed before.
He wanted to stay like this forever.
"I think we'd better go visit your friend with the dog," he said, his voice more than a little hoarse. It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say.
"Maybe we'd better."
****
Amy supposed it was a nesting instinct. At some subconscious level, knowing that Mark had a house like that, a house that, aside from its spotless upkeep, would be prefect for a family, created all sorts of hormonal fluctuations in her.
Then again, maybe she'd just been too long between boyfriends.
One thing for certain, Mark was sexier than any man had any right to be.
She mentally cursed whatever army or terrorist organization had planted the mine that had maimed him. He was so close to perfect.
She thought about ignoring the hand he thrust out to help her get out of his bed. But that would be tacky. Besides, that would deny her the pleasure of touching him again.
He hoisted her out of the bed without any visible effort, then dropped her hand as if it were a burning coal.
"I'm parked right outside," she said.
He led her down the stairs, picked up a cane from the brass umbrella stand at
the front door, and locked the door behind them.
She waited until he had finished with the lock, then took his hand and tucked it into her elbow, leading him toward her car.
After seeing his house, she was a little ashamed of her little red car. It hadn't been new when she'd bought it, and thousands of miles of driving across the country to various team tryouts had aged it beyond its years. Still, it was practical, the air conditioning worked, and it got great mileage. What more could a working girl ask for?
Mark folded his cane and put his hands in his lap as she fired up the engine and put the car in gear.
Amy's thoughts returned to the scene in his bedroom. Obviously Mark had gotten carried away in the moment, just as she had. Of course he was feeling awkward about the whole thing. Still, she owed it to him to be honest, to let him know how she felt. Especially with the way she had led him on.
"I--" they both started at the same time.
"Let me go," she said. She felt unexpected tears gathering in her eyes and wiped them away with a sleeve. She wanted to tell him to forget the dog, to forget everything, and to take her in his arms again and forever. If he hadn't stopped a few minutes ago, she knew she wouldn't have. And if they'd made love, it would have changed everything. But they hadn't. And now painful reality had intruded.
"I'm not trying to be a tease," she explained even though she could think of no better description for her behavior. "I like you a lot and want to be friends. But let's be honest. We're just too different to have a chance at happiness together." As soon as she said it, Amy realized she'd been making a big assumption. From painful experience, she knew that guys didn't bring the same attitudes toward relationships that she did. They tended to be motivated by sex alone. Long-term happiness wasn't necessarily a part of the plan.
"Oh, friends. Sure." His bitter tone let her know for sure she'd made a mess of this.
"I know it's a line, Mark. But I mean it. I like being with you. We have a lot in common." She knew she was digging herself in deeper but couldn't see any way to handle this.
Blind Date Page 8
