Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Baker, Fran

  Doing his best to disguise the unfortunate physical effect she’d had on him, Nick shrugged off her gratitude and geared up for a lecture. Little idiot had it coming! “Why weren’t you wearing a life jacket?”

  “I don’t own one.” Was it her fault that every time she had an extra dime to her name, someone in her family needed it more than she did?

  “You can’t swim and you don’t own a life jacket.” His derisive expression spoke volumes. “Lady, you’re an accident looking for a place to happen.”

  “No, I’m not!” Dovie jumped to her feet so fast and furiously that her jeans—his jeans, rather—fell down around her ankles with a soft whoosh.

  A mischievous smile shunted across his alluring mouth when he heard her pants drop. “Do my ears deceive me or are you trussed up tighter than a Christmas turkey right now?”

  “Gobble, gobble!” she snapped, in no mood to be patronized. Least of all by him!

  Like sunshine after rain, his laughter cleared the air between them, and she caught herself basking in the rich, welcome warmth of it.

  “Ask a stupid question …” Dovie quipped, smiling as she reached down to pull up her pants. The numbing air nipped at her bare backside, and she thought how cold he must be with only his long johns to protect him. “Which reminds me, the least I can do is offer the man who rescued me a cup of coffee.”

  “The man who rescued you is named Nick Monroe.” He rubbed those strong but compassionate hands together briskly, trying to warm them. “And I’d give my eyeteeth for a cup of hot coffee.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Nick, although I can’t say much for the circumstances.” Holding the waistband of her borrowed jeans securely in place with one hand, she squeezed icy water out of her hair with the other. “I’m Dovie Brown.”

  “Dovie.” His deep voice breathed such luxuriant new life into her old-fashioned name that it melted the very marrow of her bones.

  And when he reached out and caught her wrist, drawing her closer and asking, “Let me see what you look like,” she couldn’t have denied him had her life depended on it.

  The blood rushed to her head, a dizzying high, as he ran his long fingers through the short, damp layers of her hair. He brushed it this way and that, seemingly fascinated by the take-it-or-leave-it simplicity of style and its tendency to wave as it dried.

  “I’ll bet it’s brown.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Actually, it was a pretty safe bet.” Nick slid his hand around to her satiny nape, twining his thumb in the lowest hairs. “About half of the population has hair that’s some shade of brown.”

  “Do tell.” Shivers of delight winged along her spine when his fingers followed her hairline from the base of her skull to the shell of her ear.

  “Mm-hmmm.” He lifted a damp tendril of hair from her cheek, marveling at its feathery-fine texture. “Light or dark?”

  “Dark.” Her eyelids drifted closed as his searching fingers traced their slightly tip-tilted shape, leaving a faint erotic glow in their wake.

  “And your eyes?” Pain and longing such as he’d never experienced before twisted his gut. What he wouldn’t give, just this once, to see them sparkling with laughter or smoldering with passion!

  “The same, dark brown.” Dovie tensed when Nick’s hands came up to frame her face between his palms. She’d held up pretty well, considering, and she could only hope that he wasn’t disappointed by what he was “seeing.”

  “Beautiful,” he murmured reverently as he contoured the classic rise of her cheekbones, the narrow slope of her nose, and the bewitching curve of her mouth.

  Dovie could hardly believe her ears. Her parents had always called her “dependable,” and she’d done everything in her power to prove them right. Friends and relations generally relied on her when they needed a favor. Her nieces and nephews had gifted her with the nickname “Aunt Granny.” But neither kith nor kin had ever called her—

  “Beautiful,” he repeated huskily, rubbing the tip of his forefinger back and forth across her lower lip. Feeling her breath on the top of his finger and her warm skin beneath, he was tempted … oh, so tempted.

  Eyes closed and lips primed by the exquisite friction of Nick’s finger, Dovie awaited the heat of his kiss with eager dread. She barely knew him, but he’d pushed all the right buttons and opened all her secret doors.

  “Look”—he dropped his hands in stringent self-denial—“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” Touching her hadn’t been a particularly smart move. He knew himself well enough to realize that he’d gone too long without a woman. One kiss wouldn’t cut it. And something told him that this woman wasn’t into playing games.

  “I—” Opening her eyes, only to encounter his frozen expression, Dovie felt chilled clean to the bone. “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, these are my eyes now.” Nick held out his hands, palms up and fingers splayed, and hot color climbed her cheeks as she remembered that those same hands had removed all her clothing a little while ago.

  “And?” Abruptly she felt her old insecurities begin to slip back into place. She was too short … too fat … too plain.

  “And a lot of sighted people are uncomfortable with the idea of a blind person”—his unsmiling face looked as ominous as those storm clouds overhead—“feeling them up, for lack of a better phrase.”

  For long seconds she simply stared at his hands, which were as clean and steady as a surgeon’s. Then she went limp with relief when she remembered who he was.

  “Why on earth should I be embarrassed?” Dovie asked, as much of herself as of him. “You’re a doctor!”

  “Not anymore.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing!” Nick said it in a way that told her the topic was closed to further discussion. He reached down, found his socks and waders right where he’d left them, then changed the subject with a curt “Which would you rather wear?”

  Dovie had more sense than to beat her head against a stone wall. Besides, the snow that had been threatening all morning had finally begun to fall, and neither one of them was exactly dressed to brave the elements.

  “The socks.” She took them gingerly, trying to avoid touching him. In spite of her precaution, her fingertips grazed his. The fleeting thrill of flesh against flesh struck nerve endings she hadn’t even known she possessed.

  “We’d best get a move on,” Nick said, every sensory receptor in his body suddenly going like a fire bell. Nothing could come of these feelings, of course, so the sooner he hit the road the better for both of them.

  “I suppose,” she said, and sighed, knowing he was right but strangely reluctant to admit it aloud. Silence fell like a hundred-year-old oak, and they were back to square one.

  He was insane to go home with her, Nick thought as he pulled on his rubber waders. Especially considering the effect she’d had on him since the first instant her Lorelei laughter had beckoned his imagination.

  Belatedly he realized he had his waders on backward. Though his throat worked furiously, not a word passed his lips.

  Watching him struggle to get his waders on the right feet, Dovie felt a strong urge to offer her help. It would go so much more quickly if she did! But something—a sixth sense, perhaps—warned her that this muleheaded man would probably rebuff the gesture as rudely as he’d rejected everything else about her.

  She slipped on his socks and forced herself to look elsewhere while he finished dressing.

  “Where do you live?” He broke the silence at the same time that his tapered fingers began fumbling with the small belt at the waistband of his waders.

  “At the top of the hill.” She balled her hands into tight fists and pressed them to her sides, fighting to keep from reaching over there to buckle it for him.

  “Do you have a telephone?” How the hell could a man who’d sutured thousands of serious lacerations have so much trouble threading a strip of rubber through a piece of plastic? he wondered.

  “And electricity,
and indoor plumbing …” Dovie relaxed her clenched fists when he finally got his belt buckled. The hardest thing she’d ever done was to stand there and do nothing!

  “Fine.” Cursing himself for a clumsy fool, Nick took a swipe at the delicate snowflake that had dared to land on his badly bent nose. “I’ll call my houseman and have him come after me.”

  “Okay.” But the thought of his leaving brought an odd lump to her throat.

  The blustery wind tore at his thick black hair, whipping it about his austerely handsome face as he swallowed his pride and sought her help. “Can you point me toward my fly rod?”

  “Here—” She started forward, only too glad to get it for him.

  “No!” Nick’s command thundered to the hills and back again, stopping her cold. “Just tell me where it is,” he said, “and I’ll get it myself.”

  “Behind you,” she whispered, wounded as surely as if he’d slapped her hard. “And a little to your left.”

  “Thank you.” Turning in the direction she’d indicated, he found his fly rod. Damn! He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but he’d had his fill of meddlesome strangers.

  Seeing as how he was so bent on doing for himself, Dovie pulled back. “You’re welcome.”

  It was more than pride that made him as independent as a hog on ice, she realized as she watched him take his tackle down. He seemed to think he had to justify his existence and prove his worth to every sighted person he met. Maybe all he really needed, she mused, was to be treated normally.

  Holding that thought, she turned the tables on him. “Where do you live?”

  “Richmond.” After removing the leader he’d used with his lure, Nick tied the end of his fishing line to the eye at the tip of his fly rod. Soft jubilance lifted his heavy spirit as he made a perfect surgeon’s knot. At least he could still do that right!

  “Gosh, you sure came far out of your way just to catch a trout and turn it loose.” Desperate for something to do with her hands, Dovie knelt and began wringing out her wet clothes.

  “Sure did,” he agreed smoothly, cautious. Some things were better left unsaid. If he told this pint-sized mother hen about that cabin he’d rented a half mile west of here, he’d probably find her camped on his doorstep tomorrow morning oozing chicken soup and sympathy from every pore!

  What the heck, Dovie decided, she might as well shoot the works. “Are you married?”

  His taciturn profile told her she’d pushed him too far.

  She sighed dismally. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  If she had pressed him, Nick would have remained obdurately silent. But on hearing that sigh followed by the note of regret in her voice, he opened up a little. “I’m divorced.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her apology was no less sincere for its brevity.

  “I’m not.” The terse denial was rude, and he tried to soften his words. “It happened a couple of years before I went blind, so there’s no sense in your thinking I was abandoned in my hour of need.”

  He took up the slack in his line, then locked his reel, so it wouldn’t spin loose. “Are you—”

  “No,” she interrupted rashly. “I’ve never been married.”

  “—ready to go?” he finished wryly.

  “Oh …” Realizing she’d jumped the gun, she blushed beet red. “Just about.”

  Hurrying now, she stuffed her damp underwear into the pockets of her jeans—his jeans, that is. If they ran into any of her neighbors along the way, she’d lots rather explain why she was wearing Nick’s clothes than why she wasn’t wearing her bra and panties.

  Dovie scrambled to her feet then and took a last look around, trying to see if she’d forgotten anything. “Darn!”

  “What’s the matter?” Nick spun around, surprised by the vehemence in her voice.

  “I dropped my fly rod in the river!”

  “That makes us even, then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The winter wind riveted the icy snow into his face, stinging it, but his smile rippled teasingly, like a summer stream, across his lips. “If that trout’s got a lick of sense, it grabbed your fly rod and my sunglasses and headed stright for the Caribbean.”

  “Your sunglasses!” She whirled toward the river, foolishly bent on jumping in after them, since it was her fault that he’d lost them.

  His strong hand shot out to stay her, in a firm grip just above the elbow. “Forget it—they’re long gone.”

  “I’ll buy you another pair.” Even if it meant a hard-candy Christmas, she’d come up with the money somehow!

  “There’s an extra pair in the glove compartment of my car.” His sinewy fingers squeezed her upper arm in gentle assurance. “My houseman will have them when he comes after me.”

  Dovie shivered, helpless against the tides of desolation that suddenly swamped her. Oh, dear God, she didn’t want him to go!

  “You’re cold.” It wasn’t a question; Nick could feel her trembling.

  Her teeth had begun to chatter, but it had little to do with the cold.

  Without further ado he steered her away from the river, marching her, as if hell-bent, through a barren tangle of wild blackberry brambles and straight up Spicey Hill. The way he moved, sidestepping thorny vines and ducking under snow-laden dogwood and tulip tree limbs, she could hardly believe he was blind.

  “Wh—where are we going?” she asked, panting, too rattled even to recognize the path she’d walked alone a million times or more.

  Nick didn’t miss a beat as he spoke the words that Dovie Brown had never dreamed a man would say to her. “We’re going home!”

  Three

  * * *

  “I hung your waders in the entryway.”

  “Thanks.”

  A fire of pungent cedar and peach wood leaped obediently when Dovie knelt and touched a match to the kindling under the logs she’d laid earlier that morning. “And I stood your fly rod by the front door.”

  “Fine.”

  “Sit down and make yourself at home.” Rocking back on her heels, she thanked her lucky stars she’d kept that big old fireside chair when she’d divided Pop’s things with her brothers and sisters.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Nick said, and sat.

  Not that she ever used the chair. With all due apologies to women’s lib, it was made for a man, constructed as it was of solid walnut and upholstered in a deep wine leather that wore the patina of paternal love as proudly as it bore the stains and scratches that were inevitable where eight healthy children were involved.

  Just seeing how comfortable Nick looked now, his dark head lolling against the tufted back, his tanned hands resting easily on the hobnailed arms, and one bare foot crossed casually over his knee, Dovie felt her heart dance a wild jig of welcome.

  The fire grew, its orange-and-crimson light caressing his features as gently as a lover’s hand.

  From her position on the floor she studied his profile, following the rugged lines of his forehead, nose, and lips, which were lit a burning yellow-red. Scars and all, Nick Monroe was the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on.

  Enough dawdling, though; she had things to do.

  “After I’ve changed,” Dovie said as she stood, “I’ll throw our clothes in the dryer and make us some coffee.”

  “No hurry.” Nick sprawled lazily in the cushiony chair, letting the warmth from the fire seep into his bones. In all honesty, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed.

  Still, she hovered as nervously as a hummingbird in her bedroom doorway, which opened off the living room. “Maybe I should make the coffee first.”

  On that note, he sat up straighter and started to stand. “Tell you what: I’ll put the coffeepot on while you change clothes.”

  “But you’re—”

  Half-sitting, half-standing, he tensed.

  “—company!”

  And the fire punctuated her concern with a pop.

  “Why, so I am.”

  Then the fire brea
thed a sigh of relief as he bowed to the tradition of Southern hospitality and resumed his seat.

  A covey of goose bumps raced up Dovie’s arms when he braced his broad shoulders against the leather cushion and stretched out his lean, athletic legs. “I could raise the thermostat if you’re chilly.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said smoothly, “but I’ll take a fireplace over a furnace any old time.”

  “Promise you’ll stay put?” she asked.

  “Where would I go?” He swiveled his head as if looking for the door, then shot a devilish grin in her direction and had the pleasure of hearing her laugh. “You’ve got my pants.”

  Her smile wavered as, once again, she hesitated. “Holler if you need anything.”

  Something in her tentative tone struck a deeply responsive chord in Nick. Having spent the last twelve months learning how to deal with rejection, he could no more refuse her offer than he could climb behind the wheel of his Bronco and drive himself home. “I will.”

  Dovie left her bedroom door slightly ajar while she rummaged through the drawers in her chiffonier for something to wear. As regularly as clockwork she stuck her head out the opening to make sure she hadn’t missed his call.

  “Cuckoo!” he teased the third time she checked on him.

  Feeling like the biggest fool on two legs, Dovie ducked back into the bedroom and shut the door firmly behind her. Calm, cool, and collected—those were the bywords from here on out! she promised herself. And with that in mind, she took her sweet time about changing clothes.

  Nick sat there listening to the sounds that the walls couldn’t quite muffle. He heard the rustle of denim and chamois cloth being dropped to the floor. The twang of bedsprings as she sat down to remove his socks. And when all fell quiet again, he pictured a beguiling little vest-pocket Venus in the nude.

  Hair and skin so invitingly touchable, it made his fingers tingle … opulent breasts that would fill his hands, and then some … that wand of a waist, and hips that were nicely rounded but not overdeveloped …

  Those images, and others, burned holes in Nick’s mind as he stared into the darkness at where the door would be if he could see it. If he hadn’t stopped to help at the scene of that automobile accident that fateful night. If he hadn’t started back to the tangle of metal and glass to make sure he’d gotten everybody safely out. If the damned gasoline tank hadn’t exploded in his face.