Holiday Confessions
Anne Marie Winston

With special thanks to my guide-dog-using friends

who patiently answered my questions, especially:

Sally Rosenthal and Boise,

Tony Edwards and Paragon,

And the whole Juno List gang.

And

in memory of every beloved guide

who will always live in his or her partner’s heart.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Coming Next Month

One

L ynne DeVane was returning several more empty moving boxes from her new apartment to the hallway when she heard a loud crash and thud, followed by some very creative, vivid language. Whoa. She’d been a lot of places with a lot of jaded people but she’d never heard that particular combination of words before.

She dropped the boxes she was carrying and rushed through her open door into the hallway of the lovely old brick building in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she’d just rented an apartment. Boxes were scattered everywhere around a man—a large man—she noted, who was just rising to his feet and dusting off his dark suit pants. A golden retriever stood close by, nosing at the man with apparent concern.

“Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry,” she began.

“You should be.” The man cut her off midsentence, his blue eyes on his dog rather than her. “The hallways aren’t a repository for trash.”

She was so stunned by his curt response that she didn’t know what to say next. And before the right words came to her, the man groped for the frame of the open doorway directly opposite hers. “Feather, come.” He didn’t look back, but as she watched him fumble for a second with the doorknob, she felt concern rise.

“Hey, wait! Are you all right? Did you hit your head?”

Slowly, he turned to face her as the dog disappeared inside his home. “No, I did not hit my head. I banged the hell out of my knee and scraped my palm, but you don’t have to worry about being sued.”

“I—that wasn’t it.” She was taken aback by his abrupt manner. “You just looked as if you might be dizzy or disoriented and I was concerned.”

“I’m fine.” Now his voice sounded slightly weary. “Thank you for your concern.”

He turned and found the doorknob again. But as he turned the knob and carefully moved forward, a realization struck her.

Her new neighbor was blind. Or, at the very least, significantly visually impaired.

The man vanished inside and the door closed with a definite clunk.

Well, cuss. That was hardly the way to get off on the right foot with your closest neighbor. She began to drag the offending boxes down the back stairs to the trash receptacles at the rear of the building, where she’d seen a cardboard recycling container. If she’d had any idea her neighbor couldn’t see, she’d never have left boxes lying around in the hallway.

Even through her lingering chagrin, she remembered that he was extremely attractive, with dark, curly hair, a rough-hewn face with a square jaw and a deep cleft in his chin. The dog clearly had been anxious, and she wondered if it was a guide dog. But if it was, why hadn’t it been guiding him? And if it wasn’t, wouldn’t he have been using a cane? Maybe she’d been wrong and he wasn’t blind at all, just clumsy.

It didn’t really matter. She owed him an apology. With cookies, she decided. Very few men could stay mad in the face of her grandmother’s chocolate peanut-butter cookies, a family recipe bestowed on Lynne the day she graduated from high school. Neither of them could have guessed that it would be almost ten years before Lynne was able to eat those cookies again.

She hiked back up from the cardboard container and returned to her floor for a second trip. Maybe her neighbor would come out and she’d get another chance to apologize. But the door opposite hers was closed and it appeared that it was going to stay that way.

After the fourth trip she took a break and hung her grandmother’s large mahogany-framed mirror above the sideboard in her dining area. She caught sight of her reflection as she stood back to admire it, and was momentarily taken aback by the stranger in the mirror.

The woman she saw was a slender, washed-out blonde with her hair twisted up in a messy knot. The woman she still subconsciously expected to see had a headful of layered, permed coppery hair and she was thin. Not just slender but really, really skinny. And she wouldn’t be wearing ratty old jeans and a T-shirt. Instead she’d be in something unique from a top designer’s fall collection.

More than a year had passed since she’d walked away from a major modeling career. Her timing was professional suicide. Even if she ever wanted to go back, she’d burned all her bridges completely. She’d just finished her first Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition when she’d made the decision. The only place to go from there had been up, but she’d opted out.

“But why?” her agent, Edwin, had asked in frustration. “You’re the hottest thing since Elle MacPherson, honey. Your name could be bigger than anybody out there. Just think of it.” He’d sketched a mock billboard in the air. “A’Lynne. Just a single name. The face of…Clinique, or Victoria’s Secret, something major like that. How can you even consider quitting?”

“I’m not happy, Ed,” she’d said quietly. And she wasn’t. She was tired of hopping flights to God-knew-where for photo shoots in freezing-cold surf. She was tired of having to monitor every tiny bite she put in her mouth so that she didn’t gain weight. She was sick of the casual hooking up and the partying that went on at so many of the functions she was required to attend.

But when one of the producers of the SI shoot had looked at her critically and said, “Girlie, you could stand to lose at least five pounds,” something inside her had snapped. Enough was enough. She was already too thin for her almost six feet of height. And she wasn’t even sure she remembered her real hair color. Like most of her co-workers, she sported a distinctive hairstyle and color as part of her public persona. Unlike many of them, though, she had yet to resort to bulimic strategies, binging and purging, to lose the necessary weight. Was she anorexic? She didn’t think so. If she weren’t modeling, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t feel compelled to eat so very little.

But she wanted to find out.

“You might not be happy,” Ed said, “but you’re famous. And damned well paid. Who needs happiness when you’re a millionaire?”

The thought that she might one day become that cynical was the scariest one of all. “I don’t want to live like this anymore.” Her voice grew stronger. “I won’t live like this anymore. No more jobs. I’ll finish what I’m contracted for, but then I’m done.”

“But what in hell will you do?” Ed had asked, utterly perplexed. In his world, life was all about fame and wealth.

“Be happy,” she’d said simply. “Be an everyday, ordinary person with everyday ordinary concerns and schedules. Eat what I like. Do volunteer work, go to church. Be someone who matters because of the good I do in the world, not someone who only matters because of how good the weirdest designs on the planet look on my body.”

Yes, she’d definitely burned her bridges. She’d dropped the odd A that her mother had thought looked so sophisticated in front of plain old Lynne, and she’d begun using her real last name rather than her father’s mother’s maiden name. A’Lynne Frasier was dead, but Lynne DeVane was alive and well.

She’d moved back home to Virginia with her mother, gained back enough weight that she no longer looked as if she’d stepped out of a concentration camp and let her heavy mane of hair begin to grow back long and straight, although she wore it up and out of her face much of the time. With no makeup, her normal blond coloring made her forgettable enough that she’d managed, so far, to avoid recognition and the media harassment it would inevitably bring.

After a year, though, her sanity had demanded she find her own place to live. She’d decided on Gettysburg, just over an hour from her sister’s home. With luck, tucked away in a small town in the mountains of Pennsylvania, she would stay forgettable.

She crossed her fingers as she carried out yet another load of cardboard and stomped it flat before depositing it in the recycling container. If she didn’t run into any hard-core SI fans, she thought she had a chance.

She was getting winded after the seventh trip so she walked around to the front and lowered herself to the front steps for a few minutes to enjoy the small-town atmosphere of her new home. Holy cow. She’d thought she was in decent shape, but those stairs seemed to be getting steeper with each climb. Lowering herself to the top step on the small brick porch outside the entryway, she took a couple of deep breaths. Under her breath she muttered, “Are those boxes cloning themselves? Surely I don’t have that much junk.”

“Am I going to fall over you or your stuff again?”

Startled by the deep voice, she whirled around. Her grumpy neighbor had just opened the entrance door. His left hand was gripping the handle of a leather harness now, but the dog in the harness wasn’t the golden one she’d seen earlier. This dog was big and black and distinctly bulkier. The leather-covered metal handle, along with a leash attached to the dog’s collar, was firmly gripped in his left hand. She’d been right when she’d suspected he was blind.

Jumping to her feet, she opened her mouth to apologize again. And then she noticed he was smiling. Belatedly she realized his tone hadn’t been angry, but rather wryly amused.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just taking a breather. Those stairs are starting to make me wish I’d added a few more miles to my morning run.”

He chuckled. “Good thing it’s not a high-rise.”

She groaned. “Perish the thought. But if there was, there would be an elevator.” She took a deep breath. “I really am sorry about the boxes earlier. I guess you noticed I moved them.”

“I did.” He smiled again, strong white teeth flashing, and she was mildly shocked by her instant reaction to the impish, bad-boy quality in the expression. It invited her to smile along with him, to share some unspoken joke. It also made him one of the sexiest men she’d ever met. And it was a heck of a contrast to his earlier behavior.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I’m usually not such a bad-tempered jerk. And I know better than to leave the apartment without my trusty eyes.”

“Apology accepted,” she said. She looked at his dog. “Did you dye your dog to match your clothes or something?”

His eyebrows rose and then he laughed. He inclined his head toward the dog standing patiently at his side. “This is Cedar, my guide. The dog with me at lunchtime was Feather, my retired guide. I was just going down for my mail.”

“I thought if you weren’t using a dog you needed a cane.” She didn’t know what the protocol was for discussing a person’s handicapping condition, but he’d already yelled at her once, so what was the worst that could happen?

He grinned sheepishly. “It’s a hassle to harness the dog for such a short walk, so I don’t usually bother. I should take my cane but the mailboxes are just at the bottom of the stairs and I have the wall and railing to hang on to the whole way, so I cheat.” He extended his free right hand. “Brendan Reilly. I take it you’re my new neighbor?”

“I am,” she said. She placed her palm in his. “Lynne DeVane. It’s nice to meet you.” It was more than nice. His hand was large and warm and as his fingers closed firmly around hers, her breath caught for a moment at the leap of pleasure his touch produced deep within her. “And Cedar, too,” she added belatedly.

Reluctantly, it seemed, he let her hand slide free. “Are you almost finished moving in?”

She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes. Everything’s in. And I only have about six more boxes to unpack.”

“Only?” He shook his head, and she was struck by the naturalness of the movement. He hadn’t been blind all his life; she’d bet on it. “That’s six boxes too many for me.”

“In a few more hours, they’ll all be gone. And I can’t wait!”

“If I were a really good guy, I’d offer to stay and help you unpack.” He smiled again. “Sadly, I’m not that nice. I have to get back to work.”

“Was this a lunch break?”

He nodded. “I came home to let Feather out and give her a little more attention. I’m an attorney with a law firm a few blocks from here.”

“How convenient that it’s so close.”

“It’s handy because I can get around without needing someone to drive me,” he told her.

“I like it, too,” she said. “I was looking for a place away from the city, but I wasn’t quite ready to go totally rural, so this seemed just right.”

“Which city?”

“NewYork. I used to live in a studio in Manhattan.”

“Yikes. Those places aren’t cheap.”

“You sound as if you know that.”

He nodded. “Columbia School of Law. I shared a place on the Upper West Side with three other law students and it was still pricey.”

She nodded sympathetically, then remembered again that he couldn’t see her. That was something she’d always taken for granted. It was a little shocking to realize how much of a role body language played in her interactions. “You can say that again. I didn’t realize just how expensive it was until I started looking for something in Gettysburg. I like it much better here.”

“It’s a great little town,” Brendan responded. “Any special reason you chose it?”

“Not really.” She had no intention of telling anyone in her new life about her old one. “I came here in high school on a class trip and thought it was lovely, so I just decided to see if it was still as I remembered it. And it was, so I started hunting for a place.”

“You’re lucky to have found this. These apartments don’t turn over often. The tenant before you was a bachelor who lived there for almost thirty years.”

“Who knows?” she said lightly. “I might be here in thirty years myself.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I won’t keep you. It was nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” he responded. “Good luck with the rest of those boxes.”

“I promise I won’t leave them in the hallway,” she said with a chuckle.

“If I’d had a guide with me like I should have, it wouldn’t have mattered,” he countered as he turned toward the street. “Have a good afternoon.”

“Thanks.” She almost lifted a hand before she caught herself.

“Cedar, forward.” Brendan turned his attention from her to the dog.

She watched as he walked confidently away from her to the end of the block and headed toward the pretty little center square. She wondered how he’d lost his sight. He had an awful lot of the mannerisms of one who’d once been able to see, like the way he confidently extended his hand for a shake, or like the simple way he seemed to focus right on her face as he spoke. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn he was looking right at her.

She thought again of the cookies she had planned to bake. She’d still make them, even though he seemed to have accepted her apology.

That evening Brendan was checking his e-mail when his doorbell rang. Feather and Cedar, lying on opposite sides of his chair in his study, both leaped to their feet, although neither of them barked. Cedar barreled toward the door, but Feather stayed with him, and he put a hand on her head as he stood, turned around and automatically negotiated his way across his office. “You’re my good girl,” he told her softly as they went down the hall and through the living room.

“Who is it?” he called as he reached the door. Cedar’s broad tail thumped against the front of his right leg while Feather simply hovered near his left side.

“Lynne. Your neighbor.”

She wouldn’t have needed to add that. He’d remembered her name instantly. Not to mention the softness of her hand and her pleasantly husky voice.

Cut it out, Brendan. You’re not interested.

It was a lot easier to tell himself that than it was to believe it. “Hi,” he said, unlocking the dead bolt and pulling open the door. “I didn’t expect to see you again today.”

“I brought a peace offering.”

He heard the sound of tinfoil rustling, and then an incredibly, amazingly wonderful smell assailed his nostrils.

“What is that?” he asked, inhaling deeply. “It smells heavenly.”

“Chocolate peanut-butter cookies,” she said. “My grandmother’s recipe.”

“You didn’t need to do this,” he said.

“I know.” She paused for a moment and he’d bet his last nickel that she’d shrugged. “But I really am sorry for cluttering up the hallway, and besides, I needed a good excuse to make these.”

He laughed. “If they taste as good as they smell, I can see why. Would you like to come in?”

“Oh, no, I—”

“Please,” he said. “I fully intend to dig into these cookies right away and it would be nice to share them with someone who says something besides woof.”

It was her turn to laugh. “In that case, I’d be delighted.”

Brendan stepped aside and waited until he heard her pass through the doorway and move beyond it. Closing the door, he indicated the arrangement of easy chairs, couch and tables in his living room. “Please, sit down. Would you like a drink?”

“Do you have water or milk?” she asked. “Either of those would be fine.”

“No milk,” he said. “Are you an ice or no-ice person?”

“Ice, please.”

What in the world had possessed him to invite her in? As he got a glass of water for each of them as well as a handful of napkins and returned to the living room, he decided it was the voice. He’d already decided that getting tight with the new neighbor could get sticky, but something about that sexy, low-pitched voice had completely overruled his better judgment. Setting his glass down, he reached for the coasters he kept on his coffee table and slipped one under each glass. “There.”

Tinfoil rustled again and he realized she was removing the wrapping from the cookies. “Your dogs certainly are well behaved,” she said. “When I was a child, we had a cocker spaniel who would eat anything left unattended.”

“At least he wasn’t a big dog.”

She laughed, and the sound was a warm peal of music that made him smile in return. “Oh, high places didn’t faze Ethel. That dog climbed onto chairs—and tables—and could leap right up onto the counter. Drove my mother wild.”

He was used to hearing unusual names for dogs. But…“Ethel?”

“We had Lucy, too. But Ethel was the problem child.”

He chuckled. “That’s a polite way to phrase it.”

“You have no idea,” she said in a dry tone. “Are all guide dogs this well behaved?”

“For the most part.” He nodded. “They’re still only dogs, though. Just about the time I get to thinking my dog is perfect, he or she reminds me that there is no such animal.”

“You spend a lot of time training them, though.”

“We mostly just brush up on obedience on a regular basis and work on any specific commands we want to use. The puppy raisers are the ones who get the credit for the pleasant behavior.”

“Puppy raisers?”

“The people who get them when they’re little pups. They teach them basic obedience, they socialize them around lots of people and other animals, and they teach them good house manners.”

“Like not getting food off the table.”

“Or out of the trash, or anywhere else they see it, which can be a real challenge, especially for a Labrador retriever. The dog learns not to chase cats around the house, not to jump up on people, not to get on the furniture—”

She cleared her throat. “Ah, I hate to tell you this, but there appears to be a large black dog lying smack in the middle of your love seat.”

He laughed. “Don’t ever tell anybody, please, or I’ll get fifty lashes with a wet noodle.”

“You wouldn’t get in trouble for that?”

“No. Once we are partnered with a dog, that dog becomes ours. The only time a school might step in and remove a dog from a handler is if they suspect abuse. And I personally am not aware of anyone ever doing anything to warrant something like that.”

“Feather doesn’t get on the furniture?”

“Feather,” he said, “is not about to leave my side. She’s never been interested in sleeping on the couch or the bed.”

“I noticed she went into the kitchen with you and came right back out when you did.”

“Feather’s having a hard time adjusting to retirement.”

“Do they have to retire at a certain age? She still looks pretty chipper.”

“She is pretty chipper,” he said, “for a family pet. But she’s almost ten and she’s getting arthritis. She was starting to have trouble walking as much as I needed her to. And she was starting to hesitate.”

“Hesitate?”

“Lose her confidence. She didn’t want to cross the street, even when it was clear. One day she stopped in the middle of a crosswalk and wouldn’t move. I still don’t know if it was fear, if she was in pain or if she just lost focus. But that was the day I realized I was going to have to get a new guide.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Very.” He still found it difficult to talk about, and he had to clear his throat. “We were partners for more than eight years. I hated it. Felt like I was pushing her aside. I’m sure that it felt that way to her.” He sighed. “Some people keep their retired dogs, some let them go back to the person who raised them. Some are adopted by a family member or friend or someone approved by the training school. I thought it would be too hard to let her go. But now…now I’m not so sure.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. TMI, I’m sure.”

“It’s not too much information at all. I find it very interesting.”

He heard the ice clink in her glass as she took a sip. “Have a cookie,” she said after a moment, when he didn’t go on. “They’re always best when they’re still warm.”

“Twist my arm. Where are they?”

“On the coffee table. Ah, sort of to your right—”

“Think of the hands on a clock,” he said. “If I am facing twelve, where would the plate be?”

“Are you in the middle of the clock or at the six?”

He had to grin. It was a legitimate question. “The middle.”

“Two o’clock,” she said promptly.

He reached out, gauging the distance down to the coffee table, and was gratified when his fingers encountered the edge of a plate. It had little ridges around the edge, and…there. He picked up a cookie and brought it to his nose. “I’m not sure I can bring myself to eat this. I might just sniff it for the rest of my life.”

“I can give you the recipe,” she pointed out. “It’s not like you’ll never see them again.”

Instantly he could tell that she realized what she’d said. There was a short, horrified silence.

“Oh, cuss,” she said with feeling. “I am so sorry. What a thoughtless comment.”

“Cuss?” He was struggling not to laugh aloud. Most of the people he knew didn’t bother to censor their language.

Again he suspected that she shrugged. Then she said, “It’s a nice satisfying mix of consonants to mutter when I’m mad. I don’t like to use—or hear—strong language.”

“Cuss.” He said it again. Kendra hadn’t liked foul language, either. It was one of the little things he’d loved about her. “Works for me.”

Thinking of his former fiancée made him realize that he hadn’t thought of her in a long time.

“Anyway,” Lynne said, “I was in the middle of a major apology.”

“Unnecessary apology. It’s just an expression like ‘I see.’ You don’t have to censor your vocabulary.”

He made a show of taking another bite of his cookie and miming pleasure, hoping to get past the awkward moment. Since he’d lost his sight, the only woman he’d gone out with was Kendra. And after they’d broken up, he’d stayed as far away from the dating scene as possible for a while. In recent years, he’d dated some, but it had never seemed right; something within him just hadn’t been interested enough to pursue a relationship.

“I’m glad you like the cookies,” she said. “Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow night? There are more where these came from.”

“Thank you, but no.” His refusal was automatic. He might have almost mastered the art of eating without seeing his food, but he had a serious dread of making a fool of himself. “I have the dogs and—”

“You’re welcome to bring them. A little dog hair is not going to ruin my home.”

“You really don’t have to do that.” She felt obligated because she’d tripped him up in the hallway; he already could tell she was the kind of person who would take something like that to heart.

“I want to,” she said. “I know virtually no one here. You can tell me about the town.”

Well, hell. He could think it, even if he wasn’t going to say it aloud. Without telling her an outright lie, there was no graceful way to get out of it. “All right. What time?”

“Is six-thirty okay?”

“Yes.”

“Any special requests?”

“No spaghetti, please.”

He could tell he’d startled her. Then she laughed. “I guess that is a bit of a problem food, isn’t it? Okay. No spaghetti, I promise.”

He couldn’t place her accent. The way she’d said, “a bit of a problem” had sounded almost British. But every once in a while he thought he detected in her drawled syllables a hint of the South as well. Maybe tomorrow night he could steer the conversation in her direction. It would be a nice change from his usual routine of answering questions about his vision issues and his dog.

Lynne finally got the last packing box out of her new home. In just two days, after the furniture had arrived yesterday, she’d gotten most things in their proper places. Not many pictures on the walls or other personal decor, but that was something that would happen eventually.

The whole place needed a good vacuuming after she was done, and then she made another batch of cookies. She decided to make a chicken and bake some potatoes, and mixed up some honey-and-wheat bread dough. After she got it rising in the bread machine, she rinsed broccoli to steam later.

Cooking and baking still felt vaguely like forbidden fun. She’d spent almost ten years modeling, worrying about every extra ounce she gained, keeping her body at a weight far thinner than she would be naturally. Since she’d stopped, she’d gained nearly fifteen pounds. But she’d done it carefully and when she’d felt as if she looked more like a normal human being than a scarecrow in stilettos, she’d stopped and concentrated on maintaining that weight. It was ridiculously easy compared to the rigid diet she’d adhered to in the past.

As she soaked her aching body in a gloriously hot, soothing bath, she worked a cramp out of her calf, wincing as she kneaded the knotted muscle. She had to admit, even to herself, that she’d gotten a little carried away with the unpacking, cleaning and baking today. It would be pretty mortifying if she yawned in Brendan’s face. Or even worse, if she fell asleep!

With that thought in mind, she drank a soda loaded with caffeine as she set the table a few minutes before six-thirty, then rushed into her bedroom to put her hair up again.

Her hand stilled as she realized what she was doing. Brendan couldn’t see what she looked like! The realization was a surprisingly freeing thought. Tonight she would be judged solely on her character and conversation, on what she was like as a person. Her looks would never even enter into the mix.

It might be freeing, but it also was terrifying, she decided. What if she wasn’t an interesting person?

Two

B rendan finished washing up the bowls from the dogs’ dinner. He’d already taken each one out, but as he listened to the time, he realized he’d better get moving if he didn’t want to be late to dinner with his new neighbor.

He was pretty sure his shirt and slacks from the office were still clean, but he wasn’t taking any chances, so he headed into his bedroom to change. Clean pants. His fingers found pants hangers and he chose khakis rather than jeans and pulled out a brown belt, identified by the tiny Braille tag he’d used to label it.

He passed by the suits paired with dress shirts and matching ties on the metal hangers and felt the plastic ones that were his system for locating casual shirts. Better get a clean shirt, too. Showing up with an ink stain or food smeared on his collar wasn’t the impression he wanted to make.

He was running his fingertips over the label that clued him in to color when his hand stilled on the knit shirt he’d chosen. Since when did he care about making an impression on a woman?

Quickly he finished dressing and called the dogs. He harnessed Cedar and put a leash on Feather. She tried repeatedly to shove her way between Cedar and him, and when he finally used a stern tone, she skulked behind him as if he’d beaten her with a stick.

“I’m sorry, girl,” he told her as he stood in front of Lynne DeVane’s door. “I’m doing the best I can to make this work.”

“Make what work?” Lynne opened the door in time to hear his last comment.

He forced a laugh. “Sorry. I don’t usually stand around talking to my dogs.”

“Really?” Her tone held amusement.

He thought about it. “Okay, maybe I do.”

“I don’t blame you. They pay attention to what you’re saying more than people do most of the time.” The direction of her voice shifted and he realized she had stepped back so that he could enter. “Please come in and have a seat. But then you have to tell me what you were talking about.”

As he entered her apartment, he told Cedar, “Find a chair.”

“I didn’t realize you taught them things like that,” she said as Cedar took him across the room and he found a large wing chair with his outstretched hand.

“Good boy,” he said to the dog. To Lynne, he said, “It isn’t a formal command taught by the school, but when I first got Feather, another guide dog user suggested that it might be a useful command, along with things like, ‘find the door.’ Some people use specific commands to find a family member in a large store.” He’d chosen finding a chair for the first thing he’d teach Cedar, and already his big black dog was catching on.

“How long have you had Cedar?”

“We just graduated from the training school two weeks ago.”

“Oh, my,” she said, clearly taken aback. “I assumed you’d worked together much longer than that.”

He smiled. “He’s a good dog. And having worked with one dog helps. When you get your first dog, both of you have to learn everything together. Speaking of which, where is Feather?” He stretched his hand down to his right side where he’d been trying to teach her to lie, but she wasn’t there.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lynne said. “I was petting her. Isn’t that allowed?”

“No, it’s fine unless a dog is working,” he said. “She’s probably enjoying the attention. Since I retired her and got Cedar, she’s been getting more and more depressed.”

“How can you tell?”

He shrugged. “She’s not eating well. Sniffs her food and turns away. And she just seems kind of…lackluster. Dull. She used to be bouncy and her tail was always wagging. I could always tell because her whole body vibrates from the back end forward when that tail’s going.”

“It sounds funny to think of a dog suffering from depression, but I suppose it makes sense. Did you say you two worked together for eight years?”

“Yes. She just had her tenth birthday.” He sighed. “I’m starting to think I should have let her go. A lot of times the original families who raised them as puppies will take them back again, but if not, the school has a waiting list of families who will adopt a retired guide.”

“How could you give her up, though, after all that time together?”

She understood. Warmth spread through him. “Exactly. It’s not easy for a blind person like me who lives alone to care for two dogs, but I just couldn’t send her away. She’s a part of my family.”

“I can imagine,” Lynne murmured. “I don’t think I could do it, either.” Her voice changed as she bent over and addressed his dog. “You’re a beautiful girl, yes, you are. With a beautiful name.” She laughed in delight.

“Let me guess. She rolled over on her back and has conned you into rubbing her belly.”

“Oh, so you’re a belly-rub slut,” she said to the dog. “It’s disappointing to hear that you’ll do this for anybody.”

He chuckled. “In a big way.” He fondled Cedar’s ears as a comfortable silence stretched.

“I apologize for grilling you,” Lynne said. “You probably get really sick of people asking you questions about your dog or being blind.”

He shrugged. “You get used to it. It drove me crazy the first year or so, but it comes with the territory.”

“So you haven’t always been blind.” It was more a statement than a question. “I thought from some of your mannerisms that you had been able to see once.”

“I was sighted until I was twenty-one. While I was in college, I fell over a balcony railing at a frat party and landed mostly on my head.”

“Holy cow. You’re lucky you survived.”

He nodded. “Very.”

“A frat party,” she said reflectively. “I never went to college. Are those as wild and debauched as I’ve heard?”

He grinned. “I’ve been to a few that fit that description. But I hadn’t been drinking that night. A guy behind me tripped, and it was just sheer lousy luck that he plowed into me.”

“No kidding,” she said with feeling. “Did you know right away that you were blind?”

“Not right away.” He hesitated as the memories of those early days in the hospital welled up. Kendra had been with him when he’d asked the doctor about his vision.

“Let’s change the subject,” Lynne said. “I think it’s your turn to ask the questions.”

He realized he’d been silent too long, and he mentally smacked himself. He really was out of touch with socializing. Entertaining clients was a lot different from dating. Even if this wasn’t really a date. “Sorry. It brings back a lot of memories. It was…a time of enormous change for me.”

“I can imagine,” she murmured.

He decided to take her up on her offer. “What kind of work do you do?”

He felt a subtle change in the room, a tension that surprised him. He’d expected that to be a fairly safe question.

“I’m not working right now,” she said. “But I have a couple of interviews this week, so I’m hoping to have an answer to that question soon.”

“Okay,” he said. She’d probably just lost a job, and since that often happened under difficult circumstances even to the best of people, she might feel embarrassed or humiliated. “Let me rephrase that. What kind of work would you like to do?”

“My interviews are at a preschool and at an elementary school as an aide,” she responded. “But what I’d really like to do is go to college and learn to teach.”

“What age would you prefer?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I enjoy little kids, but I honestly don’t know enough about older children or teens to know whether or not I’d also like those age groups. Hence the job choices.”

“So you haven’t worked with children in the past?”

“No.” He heard her stand. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Iced tea?” he asked.

“I happen to have some. Sugar or lemon?”

“Just lemon, please.” He listened to the pad of her feet across the room and into what sounded like her kitchen, judging from the tile floor onto which she walked. Her place appeared to be laid out just like his, except with the floor plan reversed. The jingle of Feather’s tags alerted him that she had followed Lynne.

Was it his imagination or had his hostess become uncomfortable the moment he’d asked about her past? She’d leaped into action right after that, and she certainly hadn’t volunteered any information about what she’d been doing before she moved to Gettysburg.

He heard the clink of ice cubes, and a minute later Lynne returned with his tea.

“Is there anyplace in particular you would like me to put this?” she asked.

“Is there a table near me?”

“There’s an end table on the right side of your chair.”

“You can set it down there.”

He heard her moving toward him, and as the glass settled on the table, a whiff of clean, womanly fragrance enveloped him. She was close.

How tall was she? He thought she was probably pretty tall for a woman because her voice didn’t sound as if it was coming from miles below him when she was facing him.

“There,” she said. “It’s toward the front of the table on the corner closest to you.”

He reached out and lightly followed the lip of the table forward until his hand encountered the cool, smooth glass. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Dinner will be ready in a little bit. I played it safe and baked a chicken.”

“I like baked chicken. Any potatoes?” he asked hopefully.

“Also baked. Double-stuffed.”

“The kind with sour cream and cheese all mashed up with the potato and then put back in the shell?”

She laughed. “The skin, not the shell.”

“Whatever.” He dismissed semantics. “Sounds great, especially to someone who eats most of his food out of take-out containers or microwave dishes.”

“I guess cooking is difficult,” she said tentatively.

He laughed, picking up his tea and taking a sip. “I know another blind guy who’s a fabulous cook. He’s a partial, which makes it a little easier for him—”

“A partial?”

“A person who still has some vision, although it’s usually pretty limited. Some partials have more vision in one eye than the other, some have vision in certain quadrants of their field of vision. I have no vision, so I’m a total.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted. You were talking about your friend who cooks.”

He smiled. “No problem. I was only going to say that even when I could see, it wasn’t at the top of my list of fun stuff to do.”

“I always enjoyed cooking, even when I was a little girl. I haven’t done much of it in a long time, though.”

It seemed like an odd statement, and he wished he could have seen her face. “Life too busy?”

“Something like that,” she murmured. “Have you always lived here?”

He recognized an about-face in conversational direction when he heard one. “No. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, out near Pittsburgh. How about you?”

“A teeny little town called Barboursville in Virginia.”

“Is that anywhere near Williamsburg?”

“No. It’s above Richmond. Why?”

“One of the partners in my firm went to college at William & Mary. We were high school buddies so I was down there to visit a couple of times.”

“I forgot you told me you were with a law practice.”

He nodded. “Yes. Brinkmen & Brinkmen. Our offices are right on Baltimore Street downtown.”

“I’ve seen them. It’s a very charming little town.”

“And convenient, too.”

“Convenient?”

“Easy for me to get around independently.”

“Oh, right.” She paused. “I guess I didn’t think about that. You don’t drive, so you have to have at least basic services within walking distance.” She sounded as if she were talking more to herself than him.

“A lot of vision-impaired people live in large urban areas,” he said, “because things are so much more convenient, and there’s public transportation close at hand.”

“Didn’t think about that, either,” she admitted.

“Proximity to the things I need was one of the major attractions about Gettysburg. Main Street has a thriving business area thanks to the college and the tourists, so banking and doctors and dry cleaners are all within walking distance. And there’s a grocery store and a pharmacy, too, and some great restaurants.”

“Do you ever go over to the college?”

He nodded. “A lot of their music and theater performances, as well as the occasional guest lecture are open to the public.”

“Oh, good,” she said, sounding delighted. “I love music.”

“Do you play an instrument?”

“No. I played piano when I was a kid. It’s something I’ve always wanted to take up again.” Her voice sounded wistful.

“Maybe this is your chance,” he said.

“Maybe it is. So what else does one do in Gettysburg?”

“Well,” he said, “I hope you enjoy CivilWar history.”

She laughed. “Guilty. It was one of the things that drew me to the area. I want to learn more about the battlefield and the whole war.”

“I doubt you’ll have any trouble.”

She chuckled. “What else?”

“The usual things,” he said, “with an extra focus on history, perhaps. There’s a Community Concert Association, a library, a humane society, performing groups, a bunch of churches, business and civic organizations, stuff like that. If you want to get involved, I guarantee you’ll be welcomed with open arms.”

“I’ve never done any volunteer work. I wouldn’t know what to do.” Her tone was doubtful.

“You don’t need prior experience.” He felt like a cheerleader, and he wondered why she had so little self-confidence. “If you go to a meeting or two or join a church, it won’t be long before you’re being asked to help with things.”

“That would be nice.” He heard her rise. “Dinner should be about ready. Why don’t we go to the table now?”

Dinner was delicious and the conversation easy and inconsequential. They lingered for more than an hour, sharing coffee and cookies after the meal. Finally, he remembered that he had an extremely early morning the following day. He was just rising when her telephone rang.

“Excuse me.” She stepped away from him and he heard her pick up a handset. “I’d better take this,” she said, apparently having looked at the Caller Identification screen. “Hello?” Her voice sounded cautious and cool and although he knew it was rude to eavesdrop, he could hardly help hearing her side of the conversation.

“Hello, Daddy.” Her voice lilted with a pleasure he would have given a lot to have aimed at him. “How are you?…Yes. Yes. I know I haven’t. Oh.” The lilt flattened with what sounded a lot like disappointment. “…I see. When?…Congratulations. No, I don’t believe I’m going to have the time…. I’d rather you didn’t. No…maybe at Christmas. I’ll have to see if I can get away.” Her voice had taken on a bleak, distant tone. “Well, thank you for calling. I’m entertaining so I can’t chat.”

She concluded the conversation with speed and an affectionate word of farewell that sounded more rote than genuine.

As she set the handset back in the receiver, he hastily reached for another cookie so she wouldn’t think he’d been listening to her conversation. Even if he had.

She returned to her seat silently.

After a moment that seemed to stretch for a long, awkward time, he finally said, “Is something the matter?”

“My father.” She hesitated, then said, “My father’s getting married again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said cautiously. “I take it that’s bad news?”

She drew in a shuddering breath and he realized she was near tears. Somewhere down to his left, Feather whined, and he heard her get to her feet.

A moment later Lynne gave a shaky laugh. “Thanks, girl.” To him she said, “Your dog just gave me a kiss. I think she’s worried about me.”

“She’s not the only one.” Without thinking he reached out and placed his hand over the arm he’d heard her lay on the table, then slipped his palm down until he was covering her hand.

He felt her lay her other hand atop his and gently squeeze, then she slid both hands away. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m all right,” she said quietly. “I should be used to it by now.”

“Used to…your father not being married to your mother anymore?” Maybe her father had had a case of the forty-something itch and had scratched it with a divorce and a younger woman, not necessarily in that order. Lord knew he saw enough of that in his business.

To his surprise, she heaved an unladylike snort. “My parents were divorced when I was two,” she told him. “This lucky lady will be my father’s sixth wife.”

He knew his eyebrows rose, and he couldn’t hide his surprise. “Whoa. That’s…a lot of wives.”

To his relief she laughed. “And that’s the understatement of the decade.” She took a sip of her coffee, and the cup clinked as she set it down. “Sorry to let that intrude into our evening. He always manages to shock me when he tells me about his newest relationship, although I don’t know why.” She cleared her throat. “Feather was very sweet. Has she always reacted to human distress like that?”

He shook his head. “Not in general, although when she senses I’m upset she does the same thing. But as far as I know, you’re the only other person to receive the honor of a sloppy canine kiss.”

“I liked it,” she said. She rose from the table. “Would you like some more cookies to take with you?”

“Maybe just a few,” he said. “I have to confess that the first batch you gave me is gone already.”

“Better you than me,” she said. “I—”

A loud growl interrupted what she’d been about to say.

“Feather!” He looked in the direction of the sound.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lynne.

He sighed. “I guess she took exception to something Cedar did or maybe just the way he looked at her. She’s not handling being supplanted gracefully at all.” He called his guide to him, hearing the jingle of Cedar’s tags as he rose from where he’d been lying beneath the table.

“Poor girl,” Lynne said. “I can imagine how she must feel.” Her voice sounded lower and faraway, and he realized she had bent over and was hugging Feather. “It’s no fun being replaced, is it?”

“And watching me walk out the door with him each morning is hard on her.” He shook his head, thinking that having a father getting married for the sixth time, Lynne knew a fair amount about being replaced in someone’s affections. “Like I said, I really don’t want to part with her, but if she would be happier somewhere else, it isn’t fair of me to keep her.”

He rose and found Cedar’s harness. It still felt new and odd after the softness of the leather on Feather’s old one.

Lynne moved ahead of him to the door, and he called Feather to come along. He hadn’t bothered with a leash since they were just going across the hallway.

But he didn’t hear the familiar jingling of her tags.

“Feather, come.”

Nothing.

“What is she doing?” he finally asked Lynne. There had been a time when he’d have hated needing to ask someone to describe what he couldn’t see, but he’d passed that point years ago. More or less. He ignored the twinge of annoyance he felt.

“Ah, she’s still lying on the rug in the kitchen,” Lynne said.

He tried again. “Feather, come.” But he still heard nothing. “Dog,” he muttered beneath his breath, “if I have to come over there and get you, it isn’t going to be pretty.”

Lynne sounded as if she were trying not to laugh. “She’s welcome to stay.”

Stay? “No, thanks,” he said. “What an imposition that would be. Come to dinner, leave a dog behind for you to take care of.”

“I wouldn’t mind, honestly.” Her voice was soft.

With sudden clarity, he remembered the phone call she’d just received. She’d been pretty upset by it, no matter how well she’d pretended to recover. And Feather had comforted her. Maybe…

“All right,” he said before he could think about it too much more. “If you really want her, she can stay. You two can have a sleep-over.” He turned back in the direction of her kitchen. “But she still needs to come when I call her. Feather! Come!” He used the I-am-not-kidding tone he rarely employed, and this time he heard her as she heaved herself to her feet, lazily stretched and shook and finally strolled toward him.

“Smart-aleck,” he told her when she reached his side. He grabbed her collar as she attempted to worm her way between Cedar and him. “No, girl. Sorry.” He knelt, laying an arm across her soft back. “Would you like to stay with Lynne tonight?”

“You could get her when you come home from work tomorrow,” Lynne said hopefully. “I have an interview at one o’clock but I don’t expect to be gone more than an hour, if that. She wouldn’t be alone all day.”

And neither would Lynne, he thought, reading between the lines. “Works for me,” he said, “if you’re sure that’s not a problem.”

“Not at all.” The lilt in her voice told him she was being truthful. “I’d love the company.”

“Okay.” He snuggled his old dog for a moment, then rose and picked up Cedar’s harness. “We’ll see how she acts when I walk out the door.”

He gave the forward command as Lynne opened her front door, and Cedar led him straight across the hall to stop in front of his own door. “What did she do?” he asked.

“She went back to the kitchen and lay down on the rug again.”

He chuckled, although he felt vaguely hurt. “Traitor.” He extended his right hand, realizing that he was anticipating the touch of hers just a little too much. “Thank you for dinner. And again, for the cookies.”

She placed her hand in his, and the physical awareness that had simmered all through dinner hit him squarely in the solar plexus.

Lynne stilled as their hands clasped. Stilled completely, as if she were frozen. His body began to stir to life at the touch of her soft flesh. Her hand was small and delicate, nearly swallowed by his much-larger one, and he simply held it, unable to make himself release her. Slowly he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand and heard her suck in her breath sharply. Satisfaction rushed through him. She felt it, too.

What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re not interested in a relationship.

Chemistry, he assured himself. That’s all it was. It didn’t mean anything. And yet—he still held her hand clasped in his.

Her telephone rang, shrill in the silence that had fallen between them. He felt her hand jump and let her slide it from his. “That would be my sister,” she said, “calling to commiserate. I guess Dad just told her, too.”

He followed her lead, not acknowledging the moment that had passed, although he was still acutely aware of her. “I’ll let you get that,” he said. “How about we meet in the hallway at ten-thirty to take them out for the night? I’ll teach you her commands then.”

“All right.” She touched his arm briefly, hastily. “Thank you for coming over. See you in a bit.” She dashed back into her own apartment as the phone rang again, and he heard her door close.

Three

“F eather, do you want to go out?”

Lynne slipped on a light jacket, then picked up the soft leather leash that she’d found hanging on her door. His dog trotted to her, tail happily wagging. Her whole back end was wagging, Lynne realized, and she smiled as she clipped the leash to the D-ring on Feather’s collar. “You’re a sweet girl, did you know that?”

If a dog could grin, she’d swear this one was.

When she stepped into the hallway, Brendan was already there with Cedar. “Right on time,” he said. “She uses regular obedience commands—‘heel’ to move forward, ‘sit,’ ‘down’ and ‘stay.’ Why don’t you follow me out?”

Feather walked calmly at her side until they got outside to a grassy spot near the door.

“Okay, ah, do your thing.” She felt pretty silly, walking around in the grass, trying to get the dog to “go.”

“Park,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s the word you use to get her to go. I don’t think she’ll respond to ‘do your thing.’” There was a note of amusement in his voice.

“I can’t believe your dogs are trained to go to the bathroom on command. Are you serious?” She was used to pets who were let out into the backyard to sniff around until they found the perfect spot.

“Sure. You don’t think I’m going to stand out here when the weather’s nasty and wait until my dogs decide they’ve gotta go, do you?” He walked into the grass with Cedar. “Stand in one place like I am.”

She did as he was doing. “I don’t have to walk her?”

“Walking is good for her, but right now, no. Just tell her to park.”

“Park,” she repeated dubiously. “What—” But the reason for the word became instantly clear as Feather finally did her thing. Cedar did, too. Apparently the word was a magic charm. “That’s it?” she asked, somewhat incredulous. “Just come out here, stand and tell her to park?”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “The only other thing I’d recommend is that you bring a bag so you can pick up if you need to.”

“I didn’t think of that.” She eyed him. “What else do I need to know?”

“Sometimes she fools around,” he said. “Sniffing and goofing off. Then I just tell her we’re going in, which usually makes her remember she’d better get with the program or she’s going to be crossing her legs all night.”

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