LITMIR.BIZ

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in high school he’d held a special appeal for all the girls, dangerously so for Kim, who’d seen him as forbidden fruit—the bad boy who would be able to tempt her too much. Which hadn’t stopped her from spending a good many hours fantasizing over the aloof adolescent who didn’t seem to know she existed.

      Some things never change, she thought as she adjusted the scarf she wore in public to hide the scarred side of her face. She got out of the car and slammed the door closed. With the mower roaring, he didn’t hear her. She walked into the yard, the scent of freshly mowed grass ripe in the air, then winced as Jay proceeded to mow right on past his property line and across his neighbor’s bed of yellow daffodils that under the warmth of the late February sun had just begun to bloom.

      Two steps later, he turned the mower around and cut another swath back the way he’d come, clipping the flower bed again and leaving a narrow strip of uncut grass on his own lawn.

      “Jay!” she shouted, jumping out of the way so he wouldn’t mow her down, too.

      Jay shoved the mower into neutral, stopped and listened. He’d heard something—or someone. God, how he hated the eye patches that covered both his eyes making him dependent on his other senses, the oppressive darkness of being blind making him less than a man. Vulnerable in ways he hadn’t thought possible.

      He tensed. “Is someone there?”

      “Jay, it’s me. Kim Lydell. Turn off the mower!”

      The familiar smoky, blues-singer’s voice of the TV newscaster sent a message directly to his groin. He killed the mower and turned his head in the direction he thought he’d heard her voice from.

      “Kim? What are you doing here?” Over the years he’d had more than a few dreams about her, but never in the bright light of day—assuming he could have seen the sun, rather than simply feeling its warmth on his skin.

      “At the moment I’m trying to save your neighbor’s flower bed.”

      “Huh?”

      “You managed to wipe out two big chunks of daffodils with that mower of yours. You want to try for some recently bedded pansies? The neighbor ought to love that.”

      Of all the things he’d dreamed of Kim saying if and when they met again, a discussion of flowers hadn’t been the topic that came immediately to mind. “What are you talking about?”

      “Jay, you mowed right on through the flower bed at the edge of property.”

      “No, I didn’t. I paced off every foot of the grass before I began mowing. I wouldn’t—”

      She shoved a slick handful of leaves against his chest, and he caught a faint floral scent. It could have been Kim’s sweet perfume, or the flowers she said he’d inadvertently trimmed. He wished it were the former.

      “I messed up, huh?” he said. Worse than that, he’d done it in front of Kim Lydell, every guy’s fantasy newscaster. For the past four days, since the explosion, he’d been desperately trying to act as though everything was normal. Dammit, his blindness was temporary! And if the lawn needed mowing, he was damn well going to—

      “I hope you have an understanding neighbor.”

      “Yeah, probably.” Clarence and Essie Smith were both in their eighties and kept trying to adopt him, particularly since the accident. There was yet another in a long line of casseroles molding in his refrigerator while Jay tried to relearn cooking for himself blindfolded. At least he was getting pretty good at scrambled eggs, the middles only a little runny and the edges singed. God knew what the stove top looked like though. “So, besides rescuing the local flora and fauna, what brings you to this part of town?”

      “I never got around to thanking you for the flowers you sent to the hospital…or for rescuing me, for that matter.”

      He shrugged, wishing he could see her. But in his mind’s eye he pictured her collar-length blond hair curving softly against her jaw and eyes that special shade of blue that reminded him of springtime wild-flowers. “All in a day’s work.”

      “The bouquet, too?”

      “Yeah, well, I thought you might need a pick-me-up.”

      “I did, more than you could know.” Her voice dipped to a low, husky note that was little more than a warm breath of air rippling across the hairs on his bare arms. “It was very sweet of you.”

      “How are you doing since Paseo del Real’s little trembler?”

      “Great, great. No problems at all.”

      He caught a touch of agitation in her voice as if she didn’t want to talk about the earthquake and its aftermath. “So, I haven’t seen you back on TV yet.” Or in recent days, heard her, since he couldn’t see a damn thing.

      “I’m, um, on a bit of a sabbatical.”

      “Oh.” He wondered what the hesitation in her voice meant.

      “So, are you going to invite me in for a glass of ice tea, or something?” she asked.

      “Tea?” His forehead pulled tight as he did a mental inventory of his pantry. “I’ve got beer.” A beverage he could find in the dark.

      “Even better.”

      She hooked her arm through his and he felt the soft swell of her breast brush against his skin. Heat simmered through him, making him ache for her. “Guess I can leave the rest of the mowing till later.”

      She laughed, warm and seductive. “I’m sure the neighbors will appreciate that.”

      Her shoes made clicking noises on the walkway. High heels, he concluded. And there was a subtle rustle of fabric with each step she took. A silk skirt, he thought. Or maybe soft cotton. His fingers itched to touch the material, to feel the texture and imagine the vivid color—cornflower blue to match her eyes or bright salmon to set off her honey-blond hair.

      The perfume was hers, he decided, the scent lightly riding on each molecule of air he breathed, and he inhaled deeply.

      He sensed by the slight lift of her arm when she reached the porch steps. A beat behind her, he followed her up the stairs without falling on his face—a significant accomplishment these days as attested to by the tender scrapes on his shins.

      Thank God the doctor said the eye patches would go in three more weeks or so. By then he’d have bruises on top of his bruises. Meantime, he wasn’t willing to sit around on his behind doing nothing. He wasn’t going to be a cripple.

      With a minimum of fumbling, he opened the screen door for Kim.

      She stepped past Jay into the house, her eyes taking a moment to adjust from bright sunshine to the dimmer light of the living room. An overstuffed couch and chair, worn but comfortable-looking, faced a small fireplace flanked by a bookcase on one side and a big-screen TV on the other. Magazines were stacked neatly on a coffee table along with a remote tuner and a half-finished mug of coffee that looked like it had been forgotten or misplaced several days ago.

      A big tiger-striped cat eyed Kim curiously from the center cushion of the couch then rose, stretched and yawned.

      “Make yourself comfortable,” Jay said. “I’ll get the beer.”

      “Need some help?”

      “Naw, I can manage.” He walked through the arched doorway of the dining room, swerved to miss the chair at the end of the table only to bump into a second chair. He swore.

      Kim winced. “You sure I can’t—”

      “Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control.”

      Kim got the distinct impression Jay was among the most stubborn men she’d ever met.

      The cat eased off the couch, his bulk giving him the appearance of a yellow bowling ball with stubby legs, and followed Jay toward the kitchen.

      Slipping her

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