by Laura Brown
I had a moment of déjà-vu. Carli, on my bed, writing, like it was the most normal thing. It hit me deep inside, a sight for sore eyes yet also a bit like a ghost sat in my room. I wanted to touch her, feel her body moving beneath mine, see her naked skin. Ensure she was real. I turned to the floor and worked on keeping myself in check.
She looked up, bottom lip tucked between her teeth, and handed over the notebook. I took it from her, careful not to touch her this time.
I’m sorry, and thank you. I haven’t touched the OxyContin since you left. I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to. But I couldn’t. And I didn’t. And as my head cleared, I realized it had been part of what held me back. If you hadn’t challenged me . . . If you hadn’t shared your father’s story . . . I don’t know where I’d be today. I owe my recovery to you.
I shook my head and picked up the pen.
But I pushed you away. I didn’t stay to help you through the rest. I deserted you.
Her eyebrows pulled tight, and she looked up at me. “You talk to M-A-T-T-I? Don’t listen to her.” She picked up the pen before I could respond.
You gave me what I needed. No one else would do that. D tries, but she doesn’t know me like you do. No one does.
My chest ached at her words. She took the paper back and wrote. I studied her face, the curve of her cheek, wondering where we stood. Where I wanted us to stand.
She tore the paper off and folded it in half. She held up a finger and bent to her purse, pulling something out that she then held behind her back. Her eyes were wide. With her hair in a ponytail, a pulse point beat at the base of her neck. She nodded toward the letter.
I salvaged these from the trash. I haven’t refilled. There’s very little I can do to prove I haven’t taken any. I kept this to prove to myself I could overcome. And, yeah, in case I failed. I don’t want to fail. I want you. I know, I’ve probably lost. Too little, too late. But you need to know, not everyone ends up like your dad. Sometimes the only crash is the pills going in the trash.
I looked up, and she held out the bottle, the date from months past. She walked over to my trash can and tossed them in. Shoulders back, shuddery breath aside, she turned to face me. Tears filled in her eyes, but she stood her ground. We stared at each other. Words floating back and forth, both of us trying to figure out the right thing to say.
“I like your beard.”
Wasn’t expecting that. I scratched my cheek as she collected the paper and pen.
I liked it on you the first time we met, and the random spots in between where you let it grow. I always wondered what it felt like.
Her cheeks were pink when I finished reading. Like when we first met, those two spots of color on her face. In fact, she resembled that woman, before the attack and the pills. Was Carli really back?
I took a step toward her and picked up her unbandaged hand, brought it to my cheek. Even through the hair, her fingers were cold, always cold. I held her to me as her fingers played with the bristles.
The wall between us crumbled. We stood still. One of us needed to make the first move. Did I trust her? Could I trust her again? Caution had been my way of life, taught to me by my father.
I thought of his last message, of his faith in me. He told me to go with my gut, to fuck it all. What I wouldn’t give to do just that and take Carli back.
She slid her hand down my face, brushing her fingertips under my bottom lip. Then she was gone and back to writing.
I didn’t know love until I met you. Sure, I love my sisters, and they love me. But we don’t say those words. We don’t know those words. We weren’t raised with love. We were raised to survive. And be perfect. Only I was never perfect, and until you I truly believed that. Imperfect Carli, no one would want me.
I closed myself off. But you are stubborn. You told me you love me and kept signing it even when I never signed it back. You gave me all of you when I had nothing to give.
You must know you have my heart. You have all of me. I don’t know where we stand, or where we can even stand after everything I put us through. But you deserve to know this much, to know what’s been there and I’ve been afraid to acknowledge. So . . .
I blinked at her words for a moment, scarcely allowing myself to believe them. Was she about to tell me what I thought she was?
I looked up at her nervous face. She took in a breath and signed, “I love you.”
I smiled so wide it hurt. She loved me. I thought I lost her, either through my own behavior or her father’s or the pills. Yet here she was, telling me she loved me.
I squatted in front of her. No longer holding back. This was what I wanted, what I needed. The only way to get it was to trust her words as truth. “I love you too.”
Carli’s watery eyes nearly spilled over. “Still?”
I brushed at her cheek. It was dry, but I needed to touch her. “Forever.”
She grabbed my cheeks and pulled my face to hers, giving me an openmouthed kiss, one with the promise of longevity and future. The past two months faded away as I collected her into my arms and poured my heart into hers. Only this time, she poured right back. This was Carli, full and open and everything I’d ever wanted.
Mine. Truly mine.
I kissed down her neck, rubbing my beard against her skin. Her grip on me tightened, and something vibrated in her chest. I pulled back. “You really like the beard?”
She caressed my cheek. “Keep it. Please?”
I kissed her again, planning on never shaving it off again. “Only if you stay. With me.”
A flicker of worry crossed on her face. “You want me, brain damaged?”
She hadn’t figured it out yet? I reclaimed her lips, giving her everything I had. “Yes. I want you. As you are now.”
A warmth crossed her eyes, and I nearly kissed her again before waiting for her answer. “I’m yours.”
I yanked her to me until we both fell backward on the bed. Our mouths devoured each other without reserve or resolve. Just her. Just me. Together.
Author’s Note
SIGNS OF ATTRACTION began as a very simple concept for me: I wanted to write a story about my own hearing-loss journey. Once upon a time, I was very unhappy with my ears. I didn’t like them. I didn’t like wearing hearing aids. I wanted to be “normal.” And yet in many ways, my ears have always been a part of me, as much as my hair color or the shape of my nose.
As a freshman in college, I took an ASL class. This class changed my life forever. I not only found a language, I found a home in the Deaf Community. I stopped calling myself “hearing impaired”—a negative term within the community—and began calling myself Hard of Hearing and sometimes even Deaf.
I transferred to Boston University, into the Deaf Studies program. One of those classes was a linguistics class. I had CART with me, and a grad student used interpreters. Now, Signs isn’t a personal love story. Sure, he was cute, and we were friendly, but I was already dating my future husband.
Flash ahead years into the future, when an idea struck. I thought back to that linguistics class, with the mix of CART and ASL interpreters, and an idea was born. Carli began speaking her lines, replacing my actual linguistics professor with my macroeconomic professor I could not understand, and the rest really is history.
There are bits and pieces of truth in this novel from my own life, and many things that are not from my own experience. My hearing loss is genetic, though I did envision Carli as a mirror image of my ears. One thing that is true: I spent my first college party at BU in a corner, talking with another Hard of Hearing student. This was the first time I had a conversation with anyone who understood what it was like to wear hearing aids. This friend was so kind to spend the entire party with me. The experience affected me enough that I wanted to give Carli the same.
So, what are my ears like? I have what is considered mild to profound conductive and sensorineural hearing loss. What does this mean? I’ll start with the second part: conductive sensorineural loss means my damage is from both ne
rves and bones. In fact, when I was nine, I had surgery on my right ear, resulting in a bone being removed from my body. As to the first part: my left ear has a mild hearing loss. I can hear spoken language even without my hearing aids on, though I do need the volume turned up.
My right ear is a bit more complex. When I was younger, this ear had a moderate hearing loss and missed some speech sounds without my hearing aids. The surgery didn’t help, and two accidents later, my ear is now considered moderate to profound. Deaf. For me, this means I can still hear sound, but parts of speech are missing, and everything needs to be LOUD. I still wear a hearing aid, and it helps, even if listening solely with my right ear is a bit of an extreme sport in guessing games.
I sometimes describe myself as Deaf/Hard of Hearing, using both signs at the same time, much like Reed did in the novel.
As for Reed, I wanted to make him Deaf—he might hear a few extremely loud sounds like a lawn mower or airplane, but mostly he hears nothing—and show how much Deaf people can. We can drive. We can go to college. We can do just about anything, even play music and dance. Here I have an educated Deaf man, a teacher, a graduate student, who is very comfortable in his own skin. Is that true for every Deaf person? Sadly, no. It really boils down to language access. ASL is a full language and denial of it has hurt so many.
I always wanted to bring hearing loss into my stories. I find that many people know of hearing loss without really understanding it. Hearing aids don’t fix hearing loss. They amplify sounds. That’s all. Think of taking an old recording that is scratchy and turning the volume up. The sound becomes distorted and harder to hear. That’s similar to hearing loss.
I hope to have spread a little awareness with Carli and Reed. But mostly I wanted to write stories about my world, my ears. And give these stories to others like me. Hearing loss isn’t something I’ve seen as an attractive trait I possessed, especially not hearing aids. It’s been an uplifting personal challenge to write a heroine and hero with a hearing loss. These characters, these words, have helped alter my personal view of myself, removing those lingering traces of negativity related to my ears.
Thank you for stepping into this world with me. If you share my ears, I do hope you enjoyed. If you’re hearing, I hope I showed you a little about what it’s really like to have a hearing loss, from both Carli and Reed’s POVs.
About the Author
LAURA BROWN lives in Massachusetts with her quirky, abnormal family. Her husband’s put up with her since high school, her young son keeps her on her toes, and her three cats think they deserve more scratches. Hearing loss is a big part of who she is, from her own Hard of Hearing ears to the characters she creates.
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CHANGE OF HEART
by T.J. Kline
MONTANA HEARTS: TRUE COUNTRY HERO
by Darlene Panzera
ONCE AND FOR ALL
AN AMERICAN VALOR NOVEL
by Cheryl Etchison
An Excerpt from
CHANGE OF HEART
By T.J. Kline
Bad luck has plagued Leah McCarran most of her life, until the tide turns and she lands her new dream job as a therapist at Heart Fire Ranch. But when her car breaks down and she finds herself stranded, the playboy who shows up to her rescue makes Leah wonder if her luck just went from bad to worse.
Leah McCarran couldn’t believe her luck as she popped the hood of her classic GTO and glanced behind her, down the deserted stretch of highway in the Northern California foothills. Steam poured from her radiator, and there wasn’t a single car in sight.
She blew back a strand of her caramel-colored hair as the curl fell into her eye and caught on her mascaraed eyelashes. Even those felt like they were melting into solid clumps on her eyes. It was sweltering for mid-May, and, of course, her car decided to take a dump on the side of the highway today. She fanned herself with one hand as she looked down at the overheated engine. It probably wouldn’t have been nearly this big a deal if her cell phone hadn’t just taken a crap, too. To top off her miserable day, she’d spilled her iced coffee all over the damn thing getting out of the car and likely destroyed it once and for all.
This wasn’t the way she’d hoped to start her new job or her new life at Heart Fire Ranch.
Walking back to the driver’s side of the car, Leah had no clue what to do now. Luckily, her boss wasn’t expecting her until this evening, and she’d had the foresight, knowing her penchant for bad luck, to leave early. But until some Good Samaritan decided to drive by and stop for her, she was S.O.L. She kicked the tire as she walked by. As if trying to deny her even that small measure of satisfaction, the sole of her worn combat boot caught in the tread, nearly making her fall over.
“Son of a—”
Leah caught herself against the side of the car, willing the tears of frustration to subside, back into the vault where they belonged. That was one thing she’d learned as a child: tears meant weakness.
And showing weakness was asking for more pain.
She bent over into the car, looking for something to mop up the sticky mess the coffee was making on the restored leather interior of her car. She reached for the denim shirt she’d been wearing over her tank top before she’d left Chowchilla this morning, before the air had turned from chilled to hell-on-earth-hot.
“Shit,” she muttered. Trying to sop up coffee with denim was like trying to mop a floor with a broom: it did absolutely no good.
“Hot damn! That is the most incredible thing I’ve seen all day.”
The crunch of tires pulling off the asphalt of the highway was a welcome sound, but the awe she heard in the husky voice was enough to send a chill down her spine. Leah threw the shirt down onto the coffee-soaked floorboard. Standing up, she spun on the heel of her boot, her fists clenching at her sides as she tried to control the instinct to punch a man in the mouth.
“Excuse me? Do you really have so little class?”
“Oh, shit! No, that’s not . . .” She watched as the man unfolded himself from a late model Challenger and shut the door, jogging across the empty two-lane highway to her side. “I’m sorry, I meant the car.”
Leah crossed her arms under her breasts and arched a single, disbelieving brow. “Sure, you did.”
A blush flooded his dark caramel skin. “I swear I meant the car. Not that you’re not . . . I mean . . . crap.” He cursed again. “Let me try this again. Do you need some help?”
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An Excerpt from
MONTANA HEARTS: TRUE COUNTRY HERO
By Darlene Panzera
For Jace Aldridge, the chase is half the fun. The famous rodeo rider has spent most of life chasing down steers and championship rodeo belts, but after an accident in the arena, his career is put on temporary hold. When he’s offered a chance to stay at Collins Country Cabins, Jace jumps at the opportunity to spend more time with the beautiful but wary Delaney Collins.
The cowboy winked at her. Delaney Collins lowered her camera lens and glanced around twice to make sure, but no one else behind the roping chute was looking his direction. Heat flooded her cheeks as he followed up the wink with a grin, and a multitude of wary warnings sounded off in her heart. The last thing she’d wanted was to catch the rodeo circuit star’s interest. She pretended to adjust the settings, then raised the camera to her eye once again, determined to fulfill her duty and take the required photos of the handsome dark-haired devil.
Except he wouldn’t stand still. He climbed off his buckskin horse, handed the reins to a nearby gatekeeper, gave a young kid in the stands a high five, and then walked straight toward her.
Delaney tightened her hold on the camera, wishing she could stay hidden behind the lens, and considered several different ways to
slip away unnoticed. But she knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. Not when it was her job to shadow the guy and capture the highlights from his steer-wrestling runs. Maybe he only wanted to check in to make sure she was getting the right shots?
Most cowboys like Jace Aldridge had large egos to match their championship-sized belt buckles, one reason she usually avoided these events and preferred capturing images of plants and animals. But when the lead photographer for True Montana Magazine called in sick before the event and they needed a fill-in, Delaney had been both honored and excited to accept the position. Perhaps after the magazine viewed her work, they’d hire her for more photo ops. Then she wouldn’t have to rely solely on the profits from her share of her family’s guest ranch to support herself.
She swallowed hard as the stocky, dark-haired figure, whose image continuously graced the cover of every western periodical, smiled, his eyes on her—yes, definitely her—as he drew near.
He stretched out his hand. “Jace Aldridge.”
She stared at his chapped knuckles. Beside her, Sammy Jo gave her arm a discreet nudge, urging her to accept his handshake. After all, it would be impolite to refuse. Even if, in addition to riding rodeo, he was a hunter, an adversary of the animals she and her wildlife rescue group regularly sought to save.
Lifting her gaze to meet his, she replied, “Delaney Collins.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jace said, his rich, baritone voice smooth and . . . dangerously distracting. His hand gave hers a warm squeeze, and although he glanced toward Sammy Jo to include her in his greeting, it was clear who held his real interest. “Are you with the press?”
Delaney glanced down at the Canon EOS 7D with its high-definition 20.2 megapixel zoom lens hanging down from the strap around her neck. “Yes. I’m taking photos for True Montana.”
The edges of his mouth curved into another smile. “I haven’t seen you around before.”