by April Wilson
“Hurt Shane is probably more like it.”
My eyes widen. “Shane? Is that why she has a bodyguard? Because of Shane?”
“My brother’s a very wealthy man, and he’s made a few enemies over the years. He’s been responsible for putting more than a few people behind bars – some of them pretty high profile.”
“Do they know who’s behind this hit-and-run?”
“Shane has his suspicions. The driver of the car is angling for a plea deal. He said he’d give up the name of the person who hired him for a lenient sentence.”
“Poor Beth. And poor Sam. God, I hope he’s going to be all right.” I don’t think I’ll ever get the memory of seeing him lying in a pool of blood out of my head.
When I’m done eating, I observe Jamie as he finishes his meal. I notice he has no trouble locating everything… his sandwich, his fries, his bottle of beer. Every time he drinks from the bottle, he sets it back down in exactly the same spot.
Jamie leans back in the sofa and stretches his long legs with a groan. “God, what a day,” he says, running his long fingers through his hair.
He rubs his hand on his thigh, and my gaze gravitates to it. His skin is tanned, and there are thick veins visible on the back of his hand. His fingers are long and masculine, his nails trimmed bluntly. He has sexy hands. And arms, too. Hell, everything about him is sexy.
As if he knows what’s on my mind, he flexes his hand on his thigh, then rubs it the length of his leg, from his hip to his knee and back again. He seems almost… nervous.
And that makes me nervous.
“Molly?”
At the sound of my name, my stomach sinks like a stone. “Yes?”
He reaches for my left hand and lays it on his denim-covered thigh. Then his hand covers mine, and he links our fingers together. My heart starts tripping all over itself, and as I stare at our joined hands, I’m finding it hard to breathe.
He rubs my hand along his thigh and swallows hard. “I know we agreed not to complicate things – our friendship – with anything more… and I respect that. I do. It’s just, my feelings haven’t changed. In fact, they’ve grown.”
He pivots on the sofa so that he’s facing me. Our hands are still joined, and I can feel his thigh muscles tensing beneath my hand. With his free hand, he reaches for my face, his hand moving slowly, hovering just inches from my cheek, waiting, as if asking for permission to touch me. I can’t resist reaching out and pulling his hand close, pressing it to my face.
He brushes his thumb along my bottom lip. “I keep thinking about our kiss in the barn, and I can’t help wondering what might have happened if Elly hadn’t walked in when she did.”
Now it’s my turn to swallow hard.
“I know you have your reasons,” he says, his voice low and steady, “but I wish you’d give me a chance. I may not be ideal boyfriend material, but I’d work hard at being the person you need. I know you’ve been through a bad break-up, and you’re still dealing with your ex, but maybe moving forward is the best way to let go of the past.”
As I gaze into the darkened lenses of his glasses, I realize how desperately I wish I could see his eyes. I squeeze his hand. “Would you take off your glasses for me?”
He stills, and then his chest rises and falls with a heavy sigh. “I never take them off when I’m around people.”
His statement doesn’t come across as combative, or even a polite rejection. It almost sounds like a question. I think I caught him off guard.
“I want to know what you look like without them,” I say, my voice not much more than a whisper.
His lips flatten, and I can tell my request has made him uncomfortable. I watch him as he struggles with a decision.
He sighs. “All right, I’ll take them off. But you need to know that I rarely ever take them off for anyone.”
I realize what a big deal this is for him. I feel honored that he trusts me enough to reveal this part of himself.
Jamie blows out a heavy breath, then reaches up to slowly remove his glasses and hook them on the neckline of his T-shirt. He turns to face forward, away from me, his eyelids closed. It’s as if he has to steel himself to be so exposed.
I don’t say a word. I just wait patiently for him to proceed at his own speed. Finally, he turns to me and opens his eyelids.
Chapter 22
Molly
For a moment, I forget he’s blind, because I’m looking into a pair of beautiful brown eyes, the color of fine whiskey and flecked with bits of green and gold. He looks right at me, then blinks a few times and looks away, as if embarrassed. I stare at his profile, fascinated at seeing him without the glasses. He looks so different – so normal. Just as handsome as I knew he would be.
I reach for his hand, squeezing it. “Jamie.”
He squeezes back, then glances back at me. I’m astonished at how real his eyes look, how naturally they move.
When Charlie jumps up onto the sofa, landing between us, Jamie blinks as his eyes follow the cat’s movement. It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know he was blind, I’d never believe it.
“They’re beautiful,” I say, still holding onto his hand. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect.”
“They’re a perfect replica of the eyes I was born with. The prosthetists painted them to match my eyes in my high school graduation picture. My mom says they got the color just right.”
It takes me a moment before I notice the faint scars radiating outward from the edges of his eyes, undoubtedly remnants of the debris from the explosion that destroyed his sight.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. He looks so… normal. I also realize, a little belatedly, how truly attractive he is. His whiskey-colored eyes are mesmerizing, and I could stare at them forever.
I go up on my knees to face him, gently tracing his eyebrows. I’m feeling choked up by the trust he’s placing in me. He’s obviously sensitive about his eyes, although I’m not sure why. They’re beautiful. But still, they’re prosthetic, just like my breast forms. They’re placeholders for the real things, which we lost.
Holding my breath, I lean forward to gently kiss the skin around his eyes. As he lowers his lids and relaxes with an audible sigh, my heart breaks. One of his warm hands moves behind me and slips beneath my top to rub my back just above the waistband of my jeans.
All the skin-to-skin contact makes me ache for more.
I always thought he was attractive, even with his dark glasses, but now I’m getting the full impact and it’s breathtaking. Why does he hide behind those glasses?
“You don’t really need to wear the glasses, do you?” I say.
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Why do you?”
“For two reasons. When strangers meet me without the glasses, they assume I can see, and that leads to all kinds of awkwardness. The glasses, along with the cane or Gus, make it more readily apparent that I can’t see. Secondly, to be honest, I use them as a shield, to protect my privacy. I know my eyes look real – at least that’s what my family tell me – but they make me feel self-conscious. I always wonder if people are staring at them. It’s silly, I know, but there you go.”
“It’s not silly.” I totally understand. Our prosthetics are outward signs that we’re different. That we’re somehow maimed. I often wear multiple layers of clothing just to shield my body from scrutiny.
Jamie visibly shudders when I trace his forehead with the tip of my index finger. His eyebrows are nicely shaped and a shade darker than his hair. I notice for the first time that the eyebrow over his right eye is bisected by a short, jagged scar.
He holds perfectly still as I run my finger down the side of his face, skimming the tip of it past the tiny, white scars bracketing his eyes, to the top edge of his beard. His nose is blade straight, and even beneath his beard, I can see that he has a strong jawline. I love how his beard and mustache frame his sensuous lips.
“Who trims your beard?” I ask him. He’
s always well groomed when I see him.
His lips quirk with a small smile. “I do.” He intercepts my wandering finger and brings it close to his mouth, holding it hostage just an inch from his lips.
I stare at those beautiful lips, dying to taste them.
His lips part, and when I feel his warm breath on the tip of my finger, I shiver. His eyes shift naturally as they follow the flow of our conversation. And when he blinks periodically, just as a sighted person would, it’s so easy to forget he can’t see.
Jamie chuckles, the sound low and rough. His thigh muscles, which are pressed against my legs, tense. “You can’t touch me like this and not expect me to want to kiss you. It’s just not fair.”
Oh, my God, he’s aroused. We both are. I can feel heat building between my legs as desire pools low in my core, making me ache. “I – ”
He releases my finger and slips his hand behind my nape, drawing me toward him until the tips of our noses barely touch. “What do you say?” he whispers. “Will you give us a chance? Will you give me a chance?”
When I pull back a few inches, my gaze goes to his lips again, and I unconsciously wet my own. I think he can hear that, as he barely manages to suppress a grin. How can he be so funny and so sexy at the same time?
“Maybe.” I know I’m tempting fate by not adamantly saying no. I should put a stop to this right now, not lead him on. It’s not fair to either of us. Even if I did let him kiss me, even if I encouraged him, where would it lead?
The idea of being intimate with someone again fills me with dread. The thought of him touching my chest, coming into direct contact with my body, feeling my scars and flat chest terrifies me. After Todd’s reaction, my confidence is shaken to the core.
My God, I want to say yes, desperately. But I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, and he’s asking me to blithely jump off. I’m petrified, frozen and afraid to move forward. “Jamie, I – ” I choke on the words.
He frowns. “What are you afraid of, Molly? Surely you’re not afraid of me. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s not you.” I may not have known Jamie for that long, but I trust him.
His fingers gently massage my nape, sending shivers down my spine. “Then what is it?”
“It’s – ” The words stick in my throat.
All I can think about are the words Todd threw in my face when I confronted him after catching him having sex with his assistant. “How in the hell can you expect me to be happy about this, Molly? I assumed you’d have reconstruction! How in the hell do you expect me to be satisfied with a woman with no breasts?”
“No!” I jump up from the sofa, bumping into the coffee table as I stumble back in a desperate attempt to put distance between us. “I can’t do this! I’m sorry!”
Jamie shoots to his feet. “Molly, wait!” He holds his hands up in surrender, like he’s trying to placate me. “I screwed up, and I’m sorry. I misread you. I thought – I thought I felt a connection between us. I thought you wanted – shit!” He scrubs his face with his hands, then runs his fingers through his hair. “Molly, I’m sorry I put you in an uncomfortable situation. I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
And now my face is burning with shame, because it’s not his fault. He didn’t misread the situation. He didn’t misread me. I know full well I was giving him mixed signals. “It’s not your fault, Jamie.” It’s mine.
He laughs with remorse. “I like to think my visual impairment doesn’t hold me back, but obviously on occasion it does. Like now. I obviously misread you, and for that I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes, dreading what I’m about to say. I can’t in good conscience let him take the blame for this. I sigh. “Jamie, you didn’t misread anything.”
He goes still, and my confession hangs in the air between us.
He looks confused, a little bit hopeful, but also wary. “Say that again?”
“You heard me.”
There’s that little grin playing with the corners of his mouth again. He steps forward, slowly, reaching for my hands. When I give them to him, he pulls me against his chest and holds me tightly.
“Tell me what just happened,” he says, his lips in my hair. The muscles in his arms are trembling. “Tell me what I’m missing here.”
I have to crane my neck up to look into his face. He’s still got his glasses off, and I love being able to see his eyes, prosthetic or not. I’m not used to seeing him like this… his face so totally open to me. It feels… intimate, like he’s bared his soul.
He cradles my face with his hands. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Molly. My ability to read body language is a bit limited, I’m afraid. Help a guy out here.”
I laugh nervously.
“Is this about Todd?” he says, suddenly scowling. “Are you sure you’re not still in love with him?”
“God, no! Absolutely not. Although he is dangerous – don’t underestimate that.”
“If it’s not about Todd, then what is it?”
“Jamie, I – I don’t want to talk about it.”
His hands slip around my shoulders to my back, and I feel myself tensing in anticipation that he’s going to embrace me again. I’m wearing my bra with prosthetic breasts forms, and I’m afraid he’ll be able to tell. I hate that Todd’s made me so self-conscious about my body.
I lay my hands against his chest and gently push back. He takes the hint and releases me, his hands falling to his sides.
“I won’t push you,” he says gently, taking a step back. “If you’re not ready, I’ll wait. As long as there’s a chance, I’ll wait.”
“Thank you.” But the truth is, part of me regrets not telling him. I’d give anything to feel his strong arms around me, holding me close to his body. Part of me is desperate to ask him to hold me.
I feel crushing disappointment when he slips on his glasses and starts picking up the trash from our meal and our empty bottles.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I’ll take care of it.”
He smiles politely. “It’s no problem. I want to.”
I watch him as he makes his way to the kitchen, his hands full as he juggles both the trash and his cane. He walks right into one of my chairs and it topples over onto its side. He makes a rough sound of frustration and drops everything he’s carrying on the table – a little too hard – and picks up the chair and rights it. Then he collects the trash again, and his cane, and continues to the kitchen, cursing incoherently beneath his breath.
I follow him into the kitchen, feeling a growing sense of dread. Have I pushed him too far? He must know I’m there, watching him – I’m not being stealthy – but he doesn’t say anything. He just puts the trash in the can and the empty bottles in the recycling bin.
He turns to me, shoving his hands into his pockets. His expression – what I can see of it – is carefully schooled. “It’s late, and you’ve had a stressful day. I’d better let you get to bed.”
My throat tightens at the lack of emotion in his voice. He sounds so distant, and it’s entirely my fault. “Thanks for helping me clean up.”
He nods. “No problem. Thanks for going with me to the hospital.”
It’s like we’re strangers all over again, politely thanking each other for things that people who care about each other shouldn’t have to say thank-you for. “Jamie – ”
“Molly, it’s fine, really,” he says, dismissively. He grabs his jacket off one of the kitchen chairs and slips it on. “Sleep well. I’ll see you… later.”
It feels like he’s saying goodbye. Dread sinks in my belly like a stone, and I think I’m going to be sick. Part of me – the lonely, desperate part – is screaming at me not to let him leave, to take a chance and jump off that cliff.
“I’ll let myself out,” he says, gripping his cane and heading for the door.
I stand there in the kitchen, watching his back as he collects Gus and leaves, quietly shutting the door behind him.
I assumed you would have reconstruction, Molly!
I chose not to. I didn’t want more surgery, and I didn’t want to deal with the complications of implants. If I had to do it all again tomorrow, I’d make the same choice. My body is what it is. I don’t want to pretend it’s something it’s not. That’s just not me. I can’t put it into words – it’s just who I am, for better or for worse.
I slip on a nightgown, then turn out the bathroom light and return to my bedroom to crawl under the sheet and blanket. Turning on my side, I wrap my arm around the spare pillow, cuddling the cool fabric.
I’d much rather be cuddling with Jamie right now. The realization that I could have had him here with me right now pains me. If I hadn’t been such a coward.
I reach beneath my nightgown and run my fingertips along the path of the incisions, feeling flesh that’s just now starting to regain sensation. I can trace the ribs that lie beneath my skin, and it amazes me to think that my heart sits just beneath their bony protection.
I wipe my wet cheeks on the spare pillow, ignoring the tears burning my face. “Enough with the self-pity already!”
Charlie jumps up onto the bed and rubs against my shoulder, purring loudly.
“You don’t care if I’m defective, do you?”
He brushes against my shoulder, purring like a little motorboat. I fall asleep petting him.
Chapter 23
Molly
The next couple of days pass uneventfully. I spend all of Tuesday holed up in my studio, working hard on my commissions, and other than the customers who stop in, I see no one.