Holiday Confessions

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.”