Holiday Confessions

by Anne Marie Winston

  That would, indeed, be satisfying.

  Dropping his hand, he padded naked across the hall to the bathroom. He’d never been a fan of cold showers but tonight might just be the exception to the rule.

  Six

  There was a message from Brendan on her answering machine when she got home from church the next day. Did she want to go hiking in the Michaux State Forest?

  Yes! Her heart leaped at the sound of Brendan’s voice, and her fingers trembled as she called him back.

  When he answered, he sounded strangely diffident as he repeated the invitation. “There’s only one catch,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to drive.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind driving,” she said quickly. If driving meant she got to spend the afternoon alone with him, she’d drive across the country.

  The hike was pleasant, as the weather was still mild. The path was a wide, well-traveled one that Brendan and Cedar had no trouble covering. The first half, however, was nearly all straight uphill, and by the time they reached a plateau that looked out over a nearby ridge, she was almost panting.

  Brendan, she noticed, didn’t even look as if he’d broken a sweat.

  “No fair,” she said. “How can you make this look so easy?”

  His smile flashed. He was wearing jeans today that faithfully hugged the strong contours of his thighs and—though she tried not to stare—closely molded to the bulge in the front of his jeans. His light-green sweatshirt emphasized his tanned skin and dark hair and she knew that her breathlessness wasn’t all due to the climb.

  “Faithful exercise,” he said.

  “Hey! I exercise faithfully!”

  “Maybe I’m just naturally in better shape than you.”

  She snorted, showing him her opinion of that, and he laughed. Then he turned and gestured to the view before them. “Tell me what you see.”

  “How do you do that?” she demanded, stepping to his side.

  “Do what?”

  “How do you know which way is the view?”

  “Well, much as I’d like to claim I can sense it,” he said, “this one is a no-brainer. We came up the hill, and I turned to talk to you. But Cedar is still standing in the same position he was when we reached the top. And I already knew the open view was straight ahead at the top of the trail since I’ve been here before.”

  He reached for her hand and a warm glow spread through her as he laced her fingers between his. “So tell me what you see.”

  She cleared her throat, trying to think past the surge of her pulse and haze of awareness clouding her brain.

  “Ah…the leaves are mostly off the trees now, and the tree bark makes the mountain look sort of silvery. It’s a pretty day and the sky is very, very blue. Down in the valley between the two mountains is a river, and since we had a wet summer, the water level is still high and there are splashes of white where a few small waterfalls have formed.”

  “Very nice images. I had been here with my college roommate before the accident. I can still picture it in my head, but it’s nice to hear your description. It really brings it back.”

  “Did your roommate live in this area?”

  “He still does. That’s who I work for.”

  “So that’s what drew you to Gettysburg.”

  “That’s what drew me to Gettysburg,” he confirmed. He picked up Cedar’s harness handle. “We probably should start down again. I have dinner plans this evening—a working dinner, actually—and I have to prepare.”

  As they hiked back down the hill, she found herself amazingly content. He hadn’t invited her to do anything that evening—but he’d told her the circumstances of his outing rather than leave her to wonder whether or not he had another date.

  She volunteered for the first time at a local soup kitchen the next day. Her fellow volunteers were mostly retirees who had known each other for years, but they were so warm and welcoming she felt as if she’d been there forever by the time the last dish had been dried and put away. When they learned she was free and interested in volunteering some more, they promptly shanghaied her to help deliver meals to people who were homebound every day for the rest of the week.

  She suspected Brendan was having another busy week because she didn’t hear from him for two days, and she was glad she was busy. She hadn’t heard anything more about the preschool application she’d sent in. On Monday she attended an executive committee meeting of her library group, where she learned more than she’d ever expected to know about the cost of transferring selected historical texts onto CDs. That evening she got out a brush Brendan had sent along with Feather’s food and gave her a thorough brushing out in the backyard of the building. She figured if she saved all the hair she collected, in about a year she’d have enough to knit a sweater.

  She had her first piano lesson on Tuesday and was working on some new finger exercises that evening when the doorbell rang. She nearly broke her ankle rushing to the door because Feather darted in front of her determined to beat her to it. But it was worth it when she opened it to see Brendan on the other side, looking ridiculously hot and handsome in a black suit with a white shirt and conservative burgundy tie.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey. Did I hear music?”

  She nodded, then remembered to speak. “Yes. I had my first piano lesson this afternoon. Would you like to come in?”

  He shook his head. “I have to go back to the office this evening. But I wondered if you’d like to go to a community concert with me tomorrow evening. The featured performers are a jazz quartet that’s pretty well-known.”

  “That sounds nice. I’d love to.” He just asked me on another date!

  “I’ll knock on your door about seven,” he said. “It starts at seven-thirty, so we’ll have plenty of time to walk over. It’s at the high school.”

  He was as good as his word the following evening, and they strolled over to the school for an evening of jazz. Cedar lay down at Brendan’s feet the entire time, seemingly asleep. At intermission she said, “I can’t believe the music doesn’t bother him.”

  “His puppy raisers used to take him to their kids’ band concerts. He’s a music buff from way back.”

  She laughed. “A cultured dog.”

  After the concert they walked home again, and to her utter pleasure, Brendan put Cedar on a stay and then kissed her at her door, leisurely exploring her mouth and urging her closer to his hard body until she had to tear her mouth away and draw a breath.

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “You are a potent package, lady.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “I think.”

  “I’m pretty tied up tomorrow and Friday,” he said, “but if you’d like to get together on Saturday, I’m game.”

  “I need to do some Christmas shopping at the outlets,” she said. “Not fun but necessary. You can come along if you like.”

  “That would be great. You can help me pick out gifts for my mom and my sister.”

  “But I don’t even know them,” she protested. “How will I know what they like?”

  “I know what I want and their sizes,” he said. “You can be my style and color consultant.”

  “I can give that a shot.”

  Tuesday evening, Lynne opened her door as he was fitting his key into the lock and invited him for dinner, but he had to pass because he was going back to the office for a seven-o’clock meeting. “Are you going away for Thanksgiving?” he asked.

  “Yes. My sister is having Mom and me for the meal.” She hesitated. “Would you consider letting me take Feather along? I promise I won’t let my niece and nephew harrass her.”

  “That would be fine.” He’d been worrying about how both dogs would do at his parents’ house. His dad was driving down to get him tomorrow evening and it had been on his mind.

  “That’s great!” she said. “I’ll only be gone overnight, because I’m not leaving until Thursday morning.”

  “No problem
.” He stepped closer, snagging her by the waist and tugging gently. “Come here and kiss me goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.” As his lips met hers, he could feel her smiling.

  On Wednesday morning, he had to go down to the Franklin County courthouse in Chambersburg, nearly an hour’s drive away. It didn’t take as long as it might have, because he caught a ride with a local deputy who was driving down for a trial, and the guy drove as if he was an entry in the Indy 500. Even without sight, Brendan could tell they were moving a lot faster than the speed limit.

  The deputy had the radio tuned to a country station and proceeded to sing along at top volume. Off-key. Brendan wouldn’t have been surprised if Cedar, kenneled in the back of the big SUV beside the deputy’s patrol dog, had started to howl.

  As they passed the turnoff for the Michaux State Forest, his thoughts immediately turned from the case he should be reviewing to the past weekend. To Lynne.

  The shopping trip on Saturday had gone well, in his estimation. He’d hated shopping even when he’d been sighted. Now it was torture. But with Lynne, he’d barely noticed the annoyances. She’d matter-of-factly given him directions and if she’d minded the extra time he was sure the trip had taken, it never showed.

  In fact, she took his lack of sight in stride better than some people he’d known for years. Like his own mother, who hovered anxiously every time he went home, asking him frequently how she could help him. For a long time it had annoyed him. Now he just let it roll off, knowing his sister was sitting on the other side of the room smirking. His sister, Jeanne, married with two young children, was usually the object of their mother’s almost compulsive need to help, so she enjoyed the respite whenever he came home.

  Lynne, on the other hand, never assumed he couldn’t do something. If he needed help, she responded in a low-key way. She asked good questions when she didn’t understand something. He knew Jeanne would like her.

  He wanted to take her home to meet his family, maybe at Christmas, although he hadn’t told her yet. They’d only known each other for three weeks.

  Only three weeks…and in those three weeks, he had quickly recognized that nothing in the life he had led so far had prepared him for the emotions he was beginning to feel in connection with the tall, sweet-tempered woman across the hall.

  He was walking through a hallway on the second floor when he heard a woman’s voice say, “Brendan?”

  He stopped, instantly swept into the past, but unsure if he was imagining things. “Hello?”

  “Brendan.” The voice drew closer, and he heard a woman’s light steps tapping across the floor. “It’s Kendra. I thought it was you and then I saw your dog and that clinched it. How are you? What are you doing here?”

  A hand touched his forearm, and he automatically raised his own and clasped it. “I’m good. Just down here for a case. How about you?”

  “I haven’t seen you in so long.” She fell silent, and an awkward moment passed as she clearly remembered the last time she’d seen him. “I’m here to get my passport renewed. Joe and I are hoping to travel to Ireland in the summer to visit my grandmother. Remember her?”

  He did, indeed. A fiery little Irish lady, Kendra’s grandmother had come over for Christmas once while they were in school. “I do. Is she doing well?”

  “Oh, yes. We’re going because…well, I’m pregnant, due in February, and we want her to see the baby. She’s getting too old to want to fly anymore.”

  “Congratulations.” He smiled, meaning it. “You’re going to be busy in the new year.”

  “Yes. I can’t wait. I’m sort of hoping for a girl, but I know once I hold this baby in my arms I’m not going to care one little bit.” Her voice bubbled with enthusiasm, but Brendan recognized nerves beneath the bouncy tone.

  “I really am happy for you, Kendra,” he said quietly. “I wish things could have worked out differently. I was a jerk and I’m sorry for that.”

  “You weren’t a jerk.” Her voice was low and gentle. “You were a man dealing with a life-altering event in the best way you knew how.” Her voice changed, becoming teasing. “It was the wrong way, obviously, since you weren’t smart enough to keep me.”

  “My loss. Joe’s a lucky guy.” He smiled. They’d been close once and although their lives had taken paths far different from the one they’d once expected to tread together, he had fond memories of their youthful years together.

  “Is this a new dog? Last time I saw you, you had a golden retriever.”

  “Feather. I retired her not long ago. This is Cedar and he’s working out very well.” He went on to tell her a little more about Cedar, and after a few more moments of small talk, she stretched up and kissed his cheek and they parted ways.

  He got called into court shortly after that and didn’t really have time to think about the encounter until the trip home, with Deputy Depree singing “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’” beside him.

  When he got home, his father would probably be waiting, and he and Cedar would be off to his parents’ home for a few days. He wished Lynne could go with him.

  And he suddenly realized just how much he’d been thinking of her over the past few days. It had been nice to run into Kendra, but there was no pain like the last time, when he’d gone to her house to tell her he wanted her back—and found out she’d gotten married.

  No, this time he was genuinely happy for her. He had Lynne now, and the old sting was gone. In fact, there was little comparison between his boyish feelings for Kendra and what he was beginning to feel for Lynne. Holy hell. Was he actually considering the implications of the “M” word?

  Marriage. In retrospect, he’d taken Kendra’s love as his due. Everyone grew up, fell in love and got married. At least, that had been his distinctly shallow view of the world back then.

  He had cared for Kendra. But their relationship had been based largely on sheer sex appeal, like any healthy young animal. With Lynne, there was more. They shared some interests, enjoyed each other’s differences. She’d been pleased when he’d won his last case; he’d been delighted that she’d taken up piano again. He tried to make her laugh just for the pleasure of hearing the musical sound, and he appreciated that she didn’t seem to view his blindness as something that made him less or different.

  He hadn’t made love to her—yet—but he was pretty sure that when he did, the explosion would be able to be seen in Taiwan. So, yeah, the physical attraction was definitely part of it. He could hardly wait to take her to bed, because it would be one more link between them, as well as being the best damn thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life.

  Since he’d chosen to walk away from Kendra, marriage had always been a someday-down-the-road occurrence, and he’d been in no hurry to pursue it. But now…now the daydream had a face and a voice. He could picture living with Lynne, sharing the little moments that made up a lifetime together.

  And kids. A wild sense of anticipation rushed through him. He hadn’t pressured her so far but that was about to change. Both because he wanted to tie her to him so thoroughly she’d never even think of wanting to get away, and because his patience was wearing thin.

  He wanted to know everything there was to know about her, but she was amazingly reticent for a woman, and unless he asked directly she rarely volunteered information about herself. He was keenly aware that she still held a deeply private part of herself away from him—away from everyone.

  He fully intended to stay with her, to keep her with him until they were parked side by side in rockers on the front porch of a nursing home. So she was just going to have to get past that little tendency to hold part of herself back.

  As he’d anticipated, his father was waiting when he returned. And Lynne wasn’t home, much to his intense disappointment. He hadn’t realized how much he’d counted on introducing her to his father. Feather barked from inside and he called to her through the door before he left, feeling vaguely guilty, though he knew Lynne already loved her and would take care
of her as well as he could have done.

  But it was with some reluctance that he gave Cedar the “Forward” command and started out of the apartment building behind his father.

  Thanksgiving at CeCe’s house had been a whirlwind of parades, pumpkin pies and pesky children who begged her to play games incessantly. “Just one more, Aunt Lynnie? Please?”

  How was she supposed to resist that? Her niece was great with Feather, especially once she explained that Feather was an older lady and probably wouldn’t want to chase their balls or run around the yard much.

  All in all, it had been an extremely pleasant visit. Neither she nor her sister had mentioned anything to her mother about her father’s newest marriage, so the holiday had been fairly tranquil. If they could just make it through Christmas, they could tell her—and then she’d have a good while to rant and rave. Hopefully, she would have vented the worst of her outrage before another big family event.

  She knocked on Brendan’s door after she brought her luggage up from the car Friday afternoon, but there was no answer. Oh, right. He was probably working.

  But she didn’t hear his footsteps at all Friday evening or Saturday. He must have gone away for the holiday weekend. Intense disappointment stung her and she caught herself holding back tears several times.

  Once again it appeared she had presumed too much.

  She remembered vividly the conversation they’d had about Thanksgiving. She’d told him her plans—but she hadn’t heard his. In hindsight, it was a pretty clear sign that he wasn’t ready for intimacy on a deeper level.

  And that was okay with her, because neither was she, she assured herself vigorously. She was just disappointed because they’d been spending so much time together.