But she never gave him a chance to organize those thoughts. “If you take half a step to the left, your path is clear to the kitchen.” Like a beacon, her concise directions called to him from a distance. She must have gone into the kitchen herself.
Not yet trusting that the edge of a rug or leg of a chair wouldn’t leap into his path, Mac stood rooted to the spot.
In an effort to form an image of what she looked like now, he tried again to picture the Jules he’d once known. Having graduated in Cole’s class, she’d be seven years his junior. “Braces. Freckles.” He tapped the memories out loud. He’d watched a couple of coed league games one summer to support his brother. “You played second base. Killer arm. Shag hitter, always made contact with the ball.”
He could remember details of a fifteen-year-old softball season, but couldn’t remember the layout of his own house. Frustration made his damaged voice tight. “So what have you been doing all this time, playing for the majors?”
Her voice returned to the living room. “Nah, I got cut last week. Right after the braces came off.” The husky music of her laughter defused the tension that had paralyzed him. “You coming?”
He heard the rustling sound again. Then the clank of pots from the broiler pan beneath the oven. She’d abandoned him once more.
A trace of scent lingered in the air. Something crisp and fresh, like autumn air and sunshine. With arms outstretched, he followed that scent into the kitchen. Just as she had promised, there’d been nothing in his path to stumble over.
But his victory was short-lived. When his feet hit the smooth linoleum, shards of pain shot through his eyes. He reeled back a step, squinting against the bright overhead light. He shielded his eyes with his hand and cursed. The remnants of torn and burned tissue contracted at the glare, an autonomic response of organs that still did everything they were supposed to do—except see.
“Sorry. I’m a nurse. I should know better.” Julia’s hasty apology registered the same time that crisp sunshine smell floated past him. He heard the tiny click of the light switch, then the gentle rasp of cotton on cotton coming toward him and circling around him. Mac dipped his head to follow the faint rustling sound. It had to be Jules herself.
He tried to anchor himself to her scent, pinpoint her heat. Though finely tuned to compensate for his blindness, he had yet to master control of his other senses. Julia’s proximity was a bombardment of sensation—warmth and scent and sound.
And touch.
Strong, supple fingers pulled his hand from his eyes and Mac froze. “I read the write-up from your doctor.”
She gently probed the tender new skin at his cheek, temple and brow. “He prescribed bandages on your eyes until the end of the week.” In his mind, the inspection of her fingertips was a timid caress against sensitized skin, a stark contrast to the confident strength with which she still held his hand. “If you wore them the way you’re supposed to, the light wouldn’t aggravate your condition.”
His condition? He was a crippled-up cop. A cop who should have seen the accident coming. Who should have seen a lot of things before he ever lost his sight.
Mac snatched her hand from his face, putting an end to the unwelcome examination. “My condition is called blindness. I can’t see your hand in front of my face. I can’t see you. I can’t see a damn thing!”
Their fingers twined together as he shook his fist to make his point. “You can push and poke and prod all you want, but I’m still a blind man.”
Unknowingly, he clung to her while he spoke. Long enough to detect the uniquely feminine combination of soft calluses inside her palm, and even softer skin on the back of her hand. Long enough to note the blunt, functional fingernails at the tips of lithe, lineal fingers.
Long enough to feel the fine tremors trembling within his grasp.
Was that Jules’s shocked reaction to his spare, unadorned words? Or the remnants of his own anger running its course?
But almost as if she sensed the instant he began to analyze the subtle movement, she freed herself. “You’re a man, Mac. Pure and simple. A man who happens to be blind. Millions of people live with that handicap every day and lead full, productive lives—”
“Spare me the inspirational speech.”
He’d heard the same lecture from his doctors, the police psychologist, his parents—even his big brother. He should be grateful he was alive. Hopeful he had a 50-50 chance of regaining sight in one eye.
But a friend was dead.
His career was finished.
His life had flashed before his sightless eyes.
He didn’t need some freckle-faced Florence Nightingale doing the neighborly thing for old times’ sake. He needed to be alone to figure out where he’d made his mistake, and devise a plan to make everything right again.
“Go home, Julia.”
There. He’d made himself perfectly clear.
He turned toward the open doorway. He hoped.
“I found a pair of sunglasses with the price tag still on them.” She started talking again without comment or argument, as if his succinct command had been an invitation to make herself at home.
Mac halted his grand exit. With his fingertips, he reached out and verified that he had found the door. The worn contours of sculpted oak reassured him. He wasn’t the one disoriented this time.
The clang of metal on metal and the suction pop of the refrigerator door opening behind him indicated she was preparing a meal. He ignored the sudden anticipation that wet his mouth and rumbled in his stomach, and concentrated on her words. “Somebody’s trying to take care of you. At least the glasses would protect your eyes from the light, if not from infection.”
The glasses had been a gift from his youngest brother, Josh. Along with some lame advice about making him look cool, and turning him into a babe magnet.
Such questionable laws of nature no longer applied to him.
“You don’t have to be here, you know.”
The racket behind him stilled, followed by a long, controlled whisper of air. “Yes, I do. For twenty-four hours.”
Twenty-four hours? What was that about?
He heard the rustling noise again. Julia was moving.
Wrapping his fingers around the doorjamb for balance, he tipped his ear toward the intriguing sound. In his mind he pictured a pair of legs, dressed in soft, snug denim, the thighs gently touching with each step.
He closed his eyes unnecessarily and envisioned her as a fifteen-year-old. She’d had a stocky, muscular build, perfect for snagging grounders and blocking base paths. He wondered what she looked like now. If she’d filled out in the right places over the years. If those muscles had turned into curves. If those long legs he heard brushing together were rounded or straight. Or…good God, what the hell was he thinking?
This was a fine time for his intellectual curiosity to rear its head. He wanted to get rid of her, not study her like some
