Reading Her Heart

by Ashlynn Kenzie

  "No, it's not like that. Nothing's wrong. At least nothing that I know of. Although I don't understand, I will have to say that. It's not like Mr. Benjamin to have left without telling a client about it."

  "Left. What do you mean left?" Andee's voice stuck in her throat.

  "Mr. Benjamin cleaned out his cubicle late yesterday afternoon, just before the office closed. I understood his last assignment was finished. He said he was taking an extended leave of absence to work on some projects of his own. I really don't understand…"

  "Neither do I. Neither do I, but I have to find him. I really have to talk to him. Give me his number, please."

  A look of consternation crossed the receptionist's face. "Look, I really am sorry, but I'm not allowed to pass on any information about our employees. I probably shouldn't have said as much as I did."

  "But he's not an employee any longer. You just said he was gone."

  "Yes, he is, but he hasn't actually left the company, you see. Technically, he is still an employee…"

  "I want to see the manager. Right now."

  The receptionist looked at her oddly for a moment and then pushed a button on her phone and ducked her head to speak into the receiver privately.

  A moment later a formidable looking gentleman with coal black hair slicked back from a high forehead rounded the corner from the depths of the office and came toward her with a frown.

  "I understand you expected to see Mr. Benjamin?" he said when Andee turned toward him. "I'm Rupert Anderson, the Buckley's manager, and I'm afraid I don't understand. According to our records, his last session was to be with a Miss Andee Carlisle at nine yesterday morning."

  "Yes, that's me. He was supposed to read questions for me on an exam." She could feel her heart pounding and wondered why her world suddenly seemed to be tilting. None of what she was hearing, nothing of what had happened in the hours since he had walked out the door of the library study room made sense.

  "Are you saying he failed to make the appointment, because Mr. Benjamin turned in a report showing he was at the library from shortly before nine until just a few minutes past eleven yesterday, in your company, along with a Dr. Haynesworth, I believe."

  She sat down abruptly on one of the sleek leather couches in the office and looked around the room with its careful arrangement of potted plants and pastel pieces of framed art.

  "No, he-he kept that appointment. It's just that, we—I mean, I still had some of his property, his tape recorder and textbook, and I expected him to pick them up, but then he never came, and he didn't call, and that's just not like him. I was so worried, you see. I mean, I know he lives alone, or at least I think he does, so I thought he might be sick or hurt and no one would even be aware, but-but…"

  She felt the first tears slide down her cheeks.

  "I'm very sorry, Miss Carlisle, but I don't think I can say any more, except that I spoke to Mr. Benjamin yesterday evening and he was fine. I believe, though, and I probably shouldn't say this, but I believe he was planning to leave the area for a while."

  "Please, please. I just need to tell him something. I just need him to know. Will you at least give him a message for me?" she asked, coming to her feet again and grasping his hand in both of hers. "Will you just tell him he was right, and I can see everything now?"

  "If Mr. Benjamin makes contact, I will certainly pass along your message, Miss Carlisle."

  "I know it doesn't sound like much. But it means everything to me. Just promise me you'll tell him. And, one more thing. Could you tell him I'll never forget him? Not ever."

  She was crying unashamedly when she left the building moments later.

  Rupert Anderson turned abruptly and made his way back to the safety of his office, hoping Mrs. Lovelady, the receptionist, had not noticed him blink.

  *****

  Her father called to congratulate her on her success and said he was coming to graduation. Andee told him he was welcome to visit her, but she would not be attending the ceremony herself. The effort, like so much else in her life, seemed beyond her in those first few days.

  She smiled her way through a two-hour lunch in one of the city's finest restaurants, alone with her father for the first time in years, and then slipped into a cab headed in the opposite direction to the one he took for the airport.

  A month after she regained her sight and nailed down her diploma, she got a job in the college library. She assumed Leila had put in a good word for her and was grateful. It was somewhere to go every day, something to do. Plus, she could stay in her small student apartment and she got permission to audit a graduate level class in Elizabethan history.

  When Mr. Benjamin came back, she thought, he might look for her. He might get her message and decide to wish her well. He might regret leaving without a proper good-bye and want to let her know why it all happened the way it did. He might want to tell her what she did wrong and correct her for her fault, and when she had convinced him she was sorry, he might want to be with her again. Someday. Even if it was just for a little while. So she needed to stay where he could find her easily, she told herself every lonely day. Because when he came back…

  *****

  Mrs. Jameson, the head librarian, summoned Andee to her office late on a Friday afternoon in August. She wanted to tell the young woman to expect an increase in pay and a slight promotion. She asked if Miss Carlisle had considered working in the library as a career.

  Andee smiled gently, pleased that she had made a good impression with work she did, indeed, enjoy, as much as she enjoyed anything in her life.

  "I don't really have any plans, Mrs. Jameson. I do like it here, though. Maybe I'll check into it and see what would be involved in getting another degree. Although I'm not sure I can afford to do that. I'm on my own and every penny counts."

  "Yes, I remember those days. But I think there might be some financial help that would make it feasible for you, if you're really interested. Let me know. And do something special for yourself with that little raise. I wish it could have been more. You're worth it."

  Leaving the campus, Andee decided to walk to her favorite bookstore and enjoy a decadent treat and a new book in celebration of her prospects. It was time, she knew, to move on, as hard as that might be.

  She had to stop listening for the sound of his voice, had to get past having her heart break all over again anytime she stepped out into the rain and smelled his fragrance, had to stop asking herself how it had all gone so very wrong.

  She was startled to see a copy of a new hardback book in the store window with a name she recognized. Tracy Topping's paperbacks were usually only available on dusty shelves in used bookstores. There was a display of the novel just inside the entrance, and a handful of women were perusing it with interest. She joined them and, having read the first few pages, knew she had to have the book. It was the one connection to Mr. Benjamin she wasn't ready to give up, those memories that were so similar to some of the situations in Ms. Topping's stories.

  She even forgot to try to mask her purchase by sliding it beneath a slick magazine or sandwiching it between something by Jane Austen and another by one of the Bronte sisters. When the cashier rang it up, the girl leaned toward her conspiratorially and whispered, "You know, this is a really hot seller now. It's better than the 'Gray' trilogy, in my opinion. More story and not so much really kinky stuff. Have you read any of Topping's other books?"

  "Ummm, well, yeah, I have. But not in a while." She wondered if she was blushing, but the young cashier didn't seem fazed.

  "You know, the author has a website. It's really good. Tracy posts stories on there from time to time for free. In fact, there's a brand new one there now. I just saw it last week. The web address is right in the back of the book. You ought to look it up."

  "Yeah. Thanks. I might do that," she said and forgot all about the sweet treat she had planned in her eagerness to get home and delve into the book.

  Four hours later, she was halfway through her purchase, curle
d up on her futon with a glass of orange juice and a not too ripe banana. It was the first genuinely happy moment she had experienced in weeks.

  She knew why. The book took her back to the world she had shared with Mr. Benjamin and she was content there. There must have been a Mr. Benjamin in Tracy Topping's life at some point, she thought. Maybe her webpage gave a hint about that.

  The page was not as forthcoming with personal information as Andee had hoped, but it did offer a half dozen or so free 'discipline' stories for fans of the author. Andee clicked on one at random and finished it with a happy sigh minutes later. She was about to turn the laptop off and go back to her new book to read herself to sleep when the title of one of the other stories caught her eye: Blind to Her Need.

  She began to read.

  "He saw what Angie needed the moment he met her: a firm hand, lovingly applied. Ben Nicholas, a man with years of experience to draw on, knew he was the one for the job. The fact that the stubborn little miss saw things differently only made his task more interesting. But that was not the most challenging aspect of their relationship. That would come when Angie lost her sight and Ben lost his heart."

  She read the rest of the story through tears. Then she took a chance—a one in a million chance—and emailed a letter.

  *****

  Nick sat on his small front porch in the early morning mist that hung over the mountains of East Tennessee. He was happy in the silence of the hills, he told himself, but it was a lie. The truth was, he was simply as content as he could expect to be for the rest of his life—a life that would always be missing the one thing that could have made him truly happy.

  He thought about that missing element every day. It never hurt less than it had the day he had heard the truth from Andee's own lips and realized that he was the one who had been blind all along, blind to her real feelings for him. It had been enough to make him turn his back on everything in his life, except writing.

  That he had clung to as he moved across country, back to his ancestral roots, and settled into a life of simplicity and solitude. That lifestyle was broken only by occasional face to face contact with neighbors in the small mountain town near his simple cabin that was set in the midst of ten acres of mostly wooded rolling hills.

  Those casual relationships and his Internet contacts shaped his life. His editor emailed. He responded with books. He assumed they sold well. His bank account said so.

  The books paid the bills, but the stories he posted on his website were the thing that kept him going. It was there that he poured out his heart in clever disguise. So much subterfuge was possible on the Internet, he had realized early on. His, he told himself, was harmless and essential.

  At first it had only been bits and pieces of his experience he offered his blog fans, but recently he had thrown caution to the winds and written what he knew best from the depths of his soul. It had proven to be the therapeutic experience he hoped for in some ways, but it had also strengthened his longing for the woman he had thought he knew so well and realized he would love so long.

  The story had attracted considerable interest on his website. Scrolling down, he saw there were a half dozen new comments about it since yesterday.

  The third one changed his life.

  "Dear Tracy Topping (whoever you may be), please consider this a letter to Mr. Benjamin Nicholas. You see, I love his story. More than that, I love him. I need to know if he could ever love someone like me. Tell him, please, that my name is Andee. I'm a girl who once was blind, but now I can see.

  THE END

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

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