“Damn,” he said again.
Clara knitted a few more slow stitches. “I couldn’t get him to slow down, no matter what I said. I realized that his speed was what was screwing him up, and if I could get him to somehow slow down and feel his way across the needle, maybe he’d have a better chance of it.” The words, now that she was going to say them, sounded silly when she thought about them, so she said them quickly. “I told him to pray.”
“Really?” Lincoln sounded skeptical.
“I’m not religious,” she hurried to say. “But there was more to his knitting than just knitting, you know? It was like he was wishing, like he was wishing as hard as he could. So I told him that with every stitch he made, he should think about her feeling better. He got mad at me about that, when I said it, and it made him knit even faster. She wasn’t getting well—there was no way she could. She was too far gone. I asked him why that would make wishing for her to feel better the wrong thing to do.” Clara concentrated on making a careful slip-slip-knit, feeling the three stitches marry into one. “It was like magic. His shoulders dropped and he slowed down just enough that the stitches started sliding off his needle the right way. Everything evened out. He got it. With every wish he made, he seemed to get a little lighter.”
“You let him quit trying not to hope. Takes a lot of energy when you’re trying not to wish for what you want the most.”
Clara looked up sharply, wishing again she could see his eyes. “Voice of experience?”
He shrugged. “Wonder if my aunt is almost done,” he said brusquely.
It was a brush-off. Obviously.
She stood, pushing her hurt down into her stomach. Where it still fit. “All righty, then. I’ll go check on her.”
He leaned forward, lifting his hand. “No, wait. I’m sorry. It’s just…I’ve done my share of pointless wishing, I guess.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “You didn’t say anything wrong.” Clara was the one who’d taken the conversation the wrong way. Damn it. She’d never been good at talking to men, and now that she’d lost weight, now that men actually wanted to talk to her, she’d gotten worse at it. Always steering them into a no-man’s land full of sentences difficult to finish and emotions impossible to manage.
“Wait,” he said. “I’d love to talk to you more.”
Why? Why would he? Had she flashed cleavage at him as she stood? She obviously hadn’t been much of a conversationalist, so it had to be her body. “I’m sorry—” she started.
“But you’re married,” he said, his shoulders falling in a way that kind of made her feel...good.
“No.”
“Long-term boyfriend?”
God, the man smoldered. She was almost glad his sunglasses were on, because if she could see his eyes, she’d probably fall right on her head. “No.”
“Short-term, hot fling staying at your house?”
She couldn’t help the smile. “Not lately. As far as I remember. If there’s one there now, it’s because he found out where I hide the key.”
“Which is where?”
“Under the owl figurine between the two pink flamingos.”
Lincoln snapped his fingers loudly. “Now I know.”
He was flirting. Clara said, “But you don’t know where I live.”
His head swiveled so that he was looking upward at her apartment over the store.
“Okay,” Clara said. “Good guess.”
“Simple. Also, my aunt said she thought the owner lived here.”
“Ah.”
“And now that I know where your key is, you should probably agree to have dinner with me tomorrow night, just so I don’t divulge your hidden key location to the media.”
“Number one,” Clara said, her heart racing a bit faster than it should have. Had he just asked her out? “You realize that’s really creepy, right?”
“It would be if I believed you’d told me the truth. But you don’t have an owl or a flamingo, do you?”
“Of course not.” She had a frog flanked by two gnomes.
“What was number two?”
Clara had forgotten already. What was it? Oh, yeah. “I don’t date.”
“Really? Weren’t you just talking about a terrible date?”
“I just decided it.” This was true, actually—she’d decided that if love hit her like a thunderbolt, she’d heed the blast, but until then, she was off the market.
“Ah. Right this moment. Flattering.”
“No, I didn’t mean….”
“So, you in the market for friends?”
How did someone answer that? God, she wanted to be his friend. She wanted to talk to him more. She wanted to get closer to him, to see if he smelled the way he looked—part pine, part motor oil, part danger.
Instead of answering, she said, “I’ll just go check on your aunt.”
She could feel his gaze on her back as she went in.
She’d copped out. Damn it. When would she learn how to be brave in this new skin?
***
Inside, Clara found that Peggy had corralled Weezie’s yarn into a high, toppling pile on the counter. Together, they were poring over the new issue of Rowan.
Weezie said dismissively, “No one over forty should wear something sleeveless.”
Peggy said, “Are you kidding me?” She stripped off her sweatshirt and showed off her upper arms in the black tank top she wore. Both arms were brightly adorned with twisted snakes and colorful flying dragons. “Check this out.” She flexed. “I’m over fifty. I do pushups.”
Weezie’s eyes widened. “Well, you’re the exception, then. You should make this sweater, not me.”
“Are you two having fun?” asked Clara.
“Did Elizabeth Zimmerman like garter stitch? You bet I am. I’m stopping now, because if I blow all my nephew’s money, he’ll stay on my couch forever instead of buying a house in town. And I want him off my couch eventually.”
“I’ll ring you up, then.”
As she hit the keys on the register and admired the shades of merino and alpaca Weezie had chosen, she tried with all her might not to say anything about Lincoln. She wouldn’t ask questions—not a single one.
Peggy, though, bless her heart, was curious enough for both of them. “So. Your nephew, huh?”
“Ain’t he handsome?” Weezie stuck out her not-inconsiderable chest. “My sister’s son.”
Peggy was pawing through the sale basket for the umpteenth time, just in case any Kid Silk Haze had mistakenly fallen into it. “Why’s he here?”
Weezie slid the credit card across the counter. “Don’t tell me the total. Let it be a surprise for him.”
“Really?” said Clara.
“He’s loaded,” Weezie said sternly. “Like I said, he’s moving here.”
“Why?” said Peggy, displaying the surprise Clara felt. “Who moves to little old Snow Creek?”
“He’s an adventure trainer. Or guide. Some fancy name. He leads handicapped people up mountains and back down again.”
Peggy said, “Well, we have enough mountain for it. Bless his heart. Why the handicapped? That some kind of specialty of his or something?”
“Well, ever since he had the accident—it kind of changed everything for him. Before that, he was a firefighter. Daredevil in his soul, born and bred. He spent every vacation going up mountains somewhere I couldn’t pronounce. And when he was below base camp, it was always all about the girls and the cars and the fires. Sometimes he’d work for months on end—you know the wild fires we have up here every summer—he’d work twenty-one days straight, have two off, and then be back on again for another three-week round of firefighting. All on overtime, of course. So when it wasn’t summer, the boy had the time and the money to do whatever the heck he wanted.”
Clara said quietly, “Do you want me to wind this for you?”
“Oh, God, yes. I hate balling yarn,” said Weezie. “I’ll sit right here while you do that.” She schlumped into the large easy chair
Clara kept by the swift and ball winder just for that purpose. Usually people sat for a while, but it was never long before another color across the room caught their eye. She’d made twenty percent more in sales since she’d started offering the ball-winding service.
She clipped off the yarn tag. “What kind of accident?” she asked as casually as she could.
“Explosion.”
“Oh!” The hank unfolded the wrong way in Clara’s hands, and she had to wrangle it to get it to sit correctly on the swift. “He doesn’t….” She didn’t know how to say it. Your nephew is so gorgeous he doesn’t look like he’s been in an explosion. Maybe it was under his clothes—that was it. He was probably covered in hideous burn scars, and maybe that’s why wore the leather jacket now. Maybe he hid it from the world that way.
That was something she could understand.
Clara had a sudden, intense longing to see the scars, to test them, wherever they were, with the tips of her fingers.
“Yep, I know. He looks normal, huh? If you didn’t know he was blind, you’d never guess it.”
***
Lincoln was already seated inside the Main Street Diner when she got there for their dinner date. She’d refused his offer to pick her up at the apartment. She didn’t—couldn’t—wrap her brain around the protocol. Would she be expected to lead him? Did he normally use a cane? When he had come down the sidewalk and up her stairs at the yarn shop with his aunt, Weezie had been clinging to his arm. She’d never suspected that Weezie had been guiding him, and Clara guessed that had been the point.
So when he’d asked her out on the porch, right in front of Peggy and Weezie and Weezie’s multiple shopping bags, Clara had accepted and then insisted that she would meet him here.
Hoo. Even seated in the booth, the man was tall. Clara was no slouch at five seven, and she suspected that when she sat across from him, he’d still be a full head taller than she was. He wore a black button-down shirt and dark jeans. With the sunglasses on, he looked like some kind of fashion model. Relaxed. One elbow on the tabletop. Hot as hell.
She was still many yards away from him. A whole restaurant to walk across.
Clara hadn’t seen his eyes. Were they horrible? That would be okay, right? She’d already imagined them all sorts of ways—glassy, scarred, pointed in two different directions. She’d even imagined them gone altogether, the skin smooth and shiny under his eyebrows. She’d had a nightmare about it, actually, and she was ashamed to think of it now—the way he’d reached to kiss her, and how she’d flinched in surprise.
God knew, she knew something about that kind of pain, of being looked at as less-than.
She was ashamed of herself.
Now, as she looked at him seated in the booth, there was nothing monstrous about him at all. Just a big, handsome guy with a sweet, strong face.
At the yarn store, she hadn’t noticed he was blind. How does one not notice that? Clara had always prided herself on being someone who picked up on the little things, and she’d had a whole conversation with the man and hadn’t noticed, not once.
She took another step. She was so nervous her elbows felt itchy.
Raul, the night waiter, poured Lincoln a glass of water and left an extra on the table before walking away. There were only two other people in the diner, which was surprising—the place wasn’t as busy at night as it was in the morning when their biscuits and gravy flew out of the kitchen like they had wings, but nights were normally busier than this. The couple was already deep into sharing what looked like a large pile of ravioli.
The diner looked good at night. Christmassy, with strings of red and green lights in all the windows, and brass bells hanging from the door handle and the inside counter. Warm. Romantic.
Clara came closer, gathering her courage. She wore a short blue dress that she never would have attempted to smooth over her hips a year ago. She’d made herself up as if she were going on a date with a non-visually-impaired man, spending fifteen minutes smudging her eyeliner exactly the way Caroline Bonny had shown her at the drug store—deepening the line at the outer edges for a smoky look. Caroline wore her modest makeup easily, as if she woke up in it, but had assured Clara her eyes would benefit from the outlining. Clara was a little worried she’d fallen onto the trampy side of the eyeliner tracks, but before she left home, if she looked at herself sideways in the mirror, she looked almost…pretty.
And Lincoln wouldn’t be able to see it. Clara had no idea if she was relieved or upset by this.
She approached the table. Should she say something? Touch his arm?
Before she could decide, Lincoln turned his head. “Hi, you,” he said.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I could tell by your footfall. Your left foot hits the ground more loudly. I noticed it yesterday.”
“Really?” She’d heard about that, the superpowers the loss of hearing gave a person.
He smiled. “Nah. The waiter, Raul, is an old pal.”
Shoot. She’d believed him. He wore a smile that said he was pleased with himself, and Clara wondered all over again what was under those sunglasses.
“How are you?”
“Fine.” Her voice was breathier than she liked, as if she’d run to the restaurant, as if she'd overheated in her heavy coat in the cold air and ended up red-faced and sweating for her date.
Not that he would have been able to see her sweating, she realized again with a jolt. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Is it snowing out there yet?”
She looked out past the faded, red-lettered Main Street Diner on the window. “Not yet.”
“I love the snow,” he said. Without fanfare, he reached up and took off his sunglasses.
And just like that, Clara fell in love.
***
Was that possible? Of course it wasn’t. No one fell in love in the space of a heartbeat at the sight of a visionless gaze. If the eyes were the windows of the soul, how could his possibly display what was inside?
But they did. His eyes were a light crystalline blue, the color of river-washed quartz. They reminded her of the pale edge of spring’s dawn sky, just before the true blue suffused the air. The skin on either side of his eyes was scarred, a thick twisted rope of lighter-colored skin, and the bridge of his nose looked permanently gouged.
But those eyes. They were so kind.
Lincoln repeated himself, maybe because she’d apparently lost the ability to speak. “I love the snow, maybe because I lived for so long in Oakland. They get snow there once every twenty years, and it’s just mud when it sticks. You like a good storm?”
Clara was wearing black, strappy heels, her favorites since she’d lost the weight. The only problem with them was that every once in a while she caught her own heel with the other heel’s edge and tripped. She did it now, on purpose, kicking her own foot sharply under the table, giving a quick intake of breath. She needed to pull it together. “I do. I love it here. But what about you? Have you been to Snow Creek often?”
God, how could she know his eyes were kind? His eyes were just beautiful, and beautiful didn’t equal kind—she knew that too well from being teased most of her life by gorgeous people who thought her weight made her not only a target, but someone who actually deserved the ridicule she’d been subjected to on a daily basis. Somehow, over the years, she’d gotten used to the stares, the nudges, and the giggles as thin people walked past her.
People could be cruel, and they often were.
But not those eyes….
“Yes. I’ve been here quite a bit.” His words were stilted. Awkward. They sounded like they were on a first date, which they were. But somehow it felt like a really, really important first date.
Lincoln’s hands fumbled on the table, and he held his sunglasses in his hands. He raised the glasses toward his face and then stopped midway, lowering them again to slowly rest next to his knife.
Was he nervous? A man who looked like he did? Impossible.
; He said, “I used to come here every summer as a kid. Me and Doc Joe ran the countryside in the summer. You know him? He’s a vet, just out of town now. And I would have never in a million years predicted that I’d come back here to run a business.”
That stiff awkwardness, as starched as a napkin at the Mitten Inn, bloomed between them again. “Your aunt said you were a firefighter….” Was that okay to ask?
“I was.” He paused, listening.
Clara said nothing. She waited.
“There was an explosion and my eyes took the brunt of it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Me, too.”
“So now you….”
“I run a visually-impaired ski training team.”
Clara opened her mouth and closed it.
“Yeah, that’s the reaction I usually get.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Again. Stupid.
“I train the guides how to lead their partners.”
“How do you….”
Lincoln leaned back, at ease again. “Radio headsets. The guide skis just ahead of the visually-impaired skier and calls back changes in terrain and direction.”
“That’s amazing.”
“It is. It’s made my life livable, honestly. I’m setting up shop here in Snow Creek.”
“As good a base as any,” Clara said.
“It was here or the Himalayas.”
“Wow.”
“You’re easy to impress,” Lincoln said. “You should hear my stories about hunting polar bear with Joe when we were kids.”
Clara leaned forward, her forearms on the table. “Big polar bear opportunities in Snow Creek, huh?”
“The best. Absolutely the greatest imaginary polar bears you ever saw. We shot the hell out of them.”
“With what?”
“An air rifle that Joe’s dad gave him for his tenth birthday.”
Clara took her napkin off the table and laid it in her lap, conscious that he couldn’t see her doing it. “My dad gave me an air rifle when I was a kid, too.”
“Really? I didn’t think girls got into that as much as boys did.”
Love on Main Street: A Snow Creek Christmas Page 30