The cop wasn't his girlfriend. Amy's stomach had almost rebelled when she'd seen Mark and this Levin woman together. But it didn't matter. It was just some police thing. Three hours at the police station had finally straightened that mess out.
Other than that, so far, the day had not gone according to Amy's plans, she thought as she and Mark traipsed wearily up the walkway toward his front door. He hadn't said a word to her in twenty minutes.
Earlier, she'd finally talked herself into following her mother's advice and headed to Mark's house with the idea of confronting him and finding out what had happened.
She hadn't counted on the reaction she'd had when she saw that cute brunette jogger approach Mark on the street and practically beg him to take her back to his bed--or so it had looked like to Amy.
While she'd sat in her car trying to get her courage up, the police cruiser had pulled up in front of Mark's house. She'd assumed the worst and followed the detective in, hoping to be able to help.
Inside, she had again let her imagination--and paranoia--run away with her, assuming the female detective was a paramour and infuriating Mark which hadn’t been her objective at all. When she'd finally figured out what was going on and had given the information the detective had asked for, Mark had only gotten madder.
"Exactly what did you think you were doing?" Mark asked impatiently, breaking his silence as he entered the living room. Molly greeted him excitedly, and he gave the dog an absent pat. "Don't you realize you could be in serious trouble?"
Maybe this wasn't the moment for her to follow her mother's advice and proclaim her deep and abiding love for this man. Right now she'd just as soon slug him as kiss him. Well, maybe not quite. Still, she could see the appeal in both choices.
"I've been trying to do my duty as a citizen," she told him. "Maybe the next woman they try to mug won't have you along to beat them up. You know as well as I that they weren't just after our money."
"I'm not responsible for other women." His eyes glared into her.
"This may come as something of a shock, Mark, but you aren't responsible for me either."
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. "I know I'm not responsible for you in general. On the other hand, it was me who suggested south Oak Cliff. I should have known better than to take you there. I almost threw up when they made you pull up your sweater."
"The way I remember it, we both decided where to go. I'd always heard that place has the best jazz in Dallas. It didn't work out like we'd planned, but that isn't your fault."
She sank onto the cool leather of his sofa. Molly came over and put her head on Amy's knee. She scratched the anxious dog behind its ears. "If we avoid going anyplace where there could possibly be some danger, we'll never leave our homes. I couldn't even go to work. Last week one of our students pulled a knife on a teacher. And this is in a private, Catholic, girls' school of all things."
Mark shook his head like a dog shaking off water. He paced, missing the coffee table with his shins by a fraction of an inch.
She started to warn him, then stopped herself in time. He probably knew exactly where the table was. He didn't need any help from Saint Amy.
"Maybe you should try working somewhere else," he said. "Somewhere safer."
"Exactly who do you think you are?" she demanded, springing to her feet again. "I don't intentionally put myself in danger, but I'm not going to huddle at home for the rest of my life like some harem girl in the Arabian Nights."
"Obviously not, since you broke into my house without even knocking. What brought you by, anyway?"
She decided to allow the change of subject, since they would get to it sooner or later. "I thought you might need some help."
"You just happened to be in the area when you saw a cop car in front of my house?"
"That's my story. Any reason I shouldn't be in the area?"
Mark glared at her. "Are you going to answer my question?"
"I don't know why I should. You haven't been answering mine."
He looked puzzled for a moment. "Question? Oh. Who do I think I am? That is known as a rhetorical question, Amy. I'm not supposed to answer it."
"Well rhetoric this. I'm a big girl and I take care of myself. If I want to drive in your neighborhood, I'll do it and nobody is going to stop me." Oh, Lord, she'd gone off the deep end here with this senseless argument. Why couldn't she just get to the real reason she'd come to see him?
"Considering how you opened up to that detective, in the future you won't have time for many pleasure drives in questionable urban neighborhoods. You'll be spending a lot of your free time at the Justice Center."
"Well it's my free time. It isn't as if you've been putting any claims on it."
"I know." His voice sounded subdued. "When I realized what I'd done, I felt terrible."
"Exactly what did you do?" She experienced a vivid recurrence of her feelings when she'd walked in on Mark and Levin and believed that they were romantically involved. Had Mark been avoiding her because he was seeing another woman after all?
"I told you weeks ago," he explained. "I put you in danger. Obviously I wanted to show you how tough and self- sufficient I am. Look, Amy, my blindness affects me in serious ways. You can't trust me because I can't even trust myself."
"You put me in danger on purpose?" She couldn't believe Mark would do that, and her voice showed her incredulity.
"Not consciously, of course. But afterwards, remember how you turned to me? Danger, admiration, adrenalin . . . I think you would have made love to me right then if I hadn't backed away."
You idiot, she wanted to say. I'd make love to you right now if you gave me half a chance. "Mark, I don't think you're an incomplete man, although you're acting like a complete idiot."
"Amy, take a good, hard look at me." He paused.
She stared at him, just as he'd asked. And what she saw took her breath away, as always. Mark was gorgeous under any circumstances. All riled up, he was spectacular.
"You've already done something I'll never be able to do," he said, softening his voice. "I have to hear from other people how pretty you are. The best I can do is run my fingers over your face and imagine the way you look."
"So what?" She didn't have a lot of patience for Mark's self-pity. Fortunately, she'd spent enough time with him to know that he didn't have any patience with it either. He was trying to make some sort of point here, but all she'd gathered was that he didn't seem to be involved with another woman, although not from pretty females throwing themselves at him. Not being involved elsewhere wasn't a bad start.
"So what kind of woman would get involved with a blind man?" Mark continued. "I can only think of two reasons. Either she wants his money, or she has a martyr complex. I don't have much money so that can't be it." He sank into a chair, looking suddenly tired.
Amy found another chair and pulled it close to Mark's. "That's the most serious case of poor pitiful me I've ever heard. What do you want me to do, call your mama?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm not a martyr! What I mean is, get over it. You can't see. Tough. You manage to cope pretty well. You've got a good job, you work out and have an incredible body. That little neighbor of yours certainly seemed interested in getting to know you better. I swear, an outfit like that should be illegal the way she practically draped her--"
"Have you been following me around or something?"
Oops. She hadn't meant to blurt that out. This didn't seem to be the time to tell him she'd been sitting in her car trying to get up her nerve to tell him she loved him.
"I came over to see you. All right?"
"Look, I'm trying to make decisions that are right for both of us. Aside from the physical danger I put you in, there are other ways I'm all wrong for you. We can't do things together that you could do with a sighted man--I would hold you back, drag you down."
"Because you're lacking one measly sense? Come on, Mark. Nobody's perfect. As I remember it, the guys who jumped us all had their eyesight."
"They didn't have my training."
"That's my point. People are a package. All of us have strengths and weaknesses. If we can, we learn to compensate for our weaknesses. I'd say you've done a pretty good job with yours. Especially now."
"Why especially now?"
"Because you took Molly. Don't you see that letting yourself trust and depend on someone else, even if she is just a seeing-eye dog, proves that you don't feel like you've got to do everything on your own? Don't you see how you could extend the concept, let people help you just as you help them?"
Don't you see, she wanted to say, that you could trust me, too?
****
With every breath, Mark inhaled Amy's soft, female scent. It filled his house again and he knew he'd never get it out of his system now, no matter how soon she left or how long she stayed away.
Amy had sat so near him that with every move he made, he seemed to touch her. When he made a point, his hand brushed hers. When she shifted her legs, her knee kissed his. He had to keep his logic about him, persuade her how foolish her arguments were.
Except he couldn't. He couldn't marshal his thoughts when she was so close to him. Instead he wanted to give in, to accept whatever she offered him for however long it would last.
He knew in his heart that a short-term affair with Amy would burn him from the inside, leaving him an empty husk of a man. Couldn't she see that? Weeks ago, he would have accepted her offer and thanked heaven for the opportunity. Hell, he would have accepted an offer from that neighbor.
Now it was too late. The pain from the inevitable end to any relationship would more than wash away any brief pleasure he might take from it.
"I haven't been totally honest with you, Amy," he said.
She inhaled, a sharp hiss. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe I haven't been totally honest with myself," he continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "I'm not a party kind of guy. When I was in the Air Force Academy, I messed around a bit. By the time I graduated, though, I was ready to settle down."
"And?"
Obviously she hadn't taken his point.
"What I'm trying to say is that I'm not looking for the same thing you are. We both know you invited me to your mother's house to persuade her you weren't ready to settle down yet. Well, that's not where I am. I don't think I could stand a short-term relationship with you. I think it would tear my insides out and destroy the man I've tried to become since I lost my sight."
Amy leaned subtly away from him. "I was afraid you'd see through why I brought you over to mother's house. I meant to talk to you about that over dinner the other night. Somehow, though, by the time we ate, I had a lot of other things on my mind."
"Well, I've had a lot of time to think about it." Over the past few weeks, he'd mentally reviewed every word he and Amy had shared, every moment they'd spent together. "You had a point to make then, and you made it. Being alone is better than being stuck with a--"
"Don't you dare say it. Maybe I was thinking along those lines at first, but I was wrong."
"Wrong about what?"
"Mark, I thought I wanted to be alone. I resented my mother's matchmaking because I thought I wasn't ready to settle down. Because I hadn't met the right man."
He didn't want to jump to conclusions but a surge of adrenaline pumped into his system. Was she saying she'd consider a real relationship with him? One that would last?
What she'd said about nobody being safe had been true. He couldn't deny that he'd worked so hard at becoming independent that he set ridiculously high standards for himself, standards he would never impose on others.
Looking back, maybe he had tried too hard to impress Amy. That didn't make him a bad person. Since he now knew he had that tendency, he should be able to control it. Right now he needed to take a total risk.
"Well, this is a first," Amy said. "No comeback? No arguments? You're so quiet I--"
"Amy, I'm going to ask you a question. I don't want you to answer right away. Do you promise?"
"If it's important to you."
"Good. Would you mind sitting very still so I can know where you are?"
She said nothing, but he thought she was nodding again. It was actually starting to please him when she forgot his lack of vision. He walked around her chair, trailing a finger on the slick lacquer.
"I did this once before," he explained, "but this time it really feels right." He got on one knee. "I'm in awe of the fact that you're interested in me at all. But there's only one way I want you, Amy, and that's for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?"
"Oh dear."
His heart felt like it would stop, then, betraying his wishes, it continued. Things could never be the same now.
"There is one other thing," he added. "The moment I met you, I realized there was something special about you. I know I've made myself three kinds of idiot trying to impress you and prove to you that my blindness is not as serious as it really is. But it took me a while until I realized what I was feeling. It took me a while because I've never been in love before."
"What?" she breathed the question so softly he barely heard it.
"I'm in love with you, Amy. I think I may have started to fall in love with you the moment I sat on you at the gym. Whenever and however it happened, I can't get it out of my system and I don't want to try. So unless you believe there’s a chance that this can be a forever kind of thing--"
"How long do I have to wait?" Amy asked.
"You mean to give me an answer?"
"Mm-hmm."
"I don't want you to answer until you've really thought about what living with a blind man would be like. If you want to continue dating for a while, that would be okay with me. But as far as I'm concerned, I've made up my mind. I thought it was only fair to warn you."
She took his hand and pressed it to her face.
For a split second, he thought she was sweating, then he realized he was feeling tears.
"I'm sorry," he started, "I didn't--"
"Feel my lips, silly," she told him.
He brushed his fingers over her lips. She was smiling despite her tears.
"Do you want to know why I happened to be in your neighborhood?" she asked.
"Of course I do. But you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"I came to tell you I love you and ask you for another chance. Of course I'll marry you, Mark. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather spend the rest of my life with."
"What about your mother?"
"She'd probably marry you too, but I saw you first so she doesn't get the option. I'm broad minded but that goes a little over the line."
"Very funny. It would be nice if she approved though. I don't think it would be comfortable for you if she treated me like dirt for the rest of our lives. How do you think she'll react?"
"I don't know, Mark," Amy said seriously. "I can think of two things that would bring her around, though."
"What's that?"
"More Trivial Pursuit. And, um, what, exactly, are your thoughts about babies?"
"I'm almost as crazy about babies as I am about you."
"Then I think it's safe to say that my mother will be blind to any faults you might have."
"Then everything is settled except the date." The idea of spending the rest of his life with this woman, raising their children together, filled him with more joy than he'd ever felt.
"Mark, you're forgetting one thing."
His world crashed around him. "What?"
"I think you're supposed to kiss me about now."
He didn't need a second hint.
Other books by Robyn Anders
The CEO’s S.O.S.
Counterfeit Cowboy
Dynamiting Daddy’s Dream House
Half a Ranch
Hometown Hero
The Truth About Cats