Blue Skies (8 page)

Those gorgeous eyes went bright with anger. “Do you know what you said to me right before you passed out?”

Hank hadn’t a clue. Evidently, that showed on his face because she jutted her small chin and said, “It was an appropriate ejaculation, given the circumstances. Does that refresh your memory any?”

Before he could reply, she closed the door in his face. An appropriate ejaculation? He cringed at the implications. Normally, he never used obscene language around women or children. It was a hard-and-fast rule, drilled into him by his father. He closed his eyes, feeling ashamed. She’d given him a precious gift—her virginity—and he’d said a filthy word like that to her?

He stood there, torn between pounding on the door until she opened it again and walking away. He decided on the latter. He’d made initial contact. She was feeling hostile, and rightly so. In a couple of days, maybe she’d be more inclined to talk to him.

When Bess got home three hours later, Carly explained how she’d awakened that morning with blurry vision. “The eye doctor here in Crystal Falls can see me at a quarter of five. Would you mind driving me?”

“Of course not.” Bess frowned in concern. “Does Dr. Merrick think you may be losing your sight?”

Carly avoided meeting her gaze. “He says that chances are it’s only a little inflammation. But, given the pregnancy, it could also be the lattice regaining a foothold.”

Bess clasped Carly’s shoulder. “This fast? How can that be?”

“He says most of the nutrients from my food are going to the baby now instead of to my eyes. Some women lose their sight rather quickly.” Carly tried to smile. “There’s no point in getting upset, Bess. If it happens, it happens. For now, I’m trying to think positively. Why worry when it may only be an infection? Chances are I’ll be able to see for months yet, maybe even until the end of my pregnancy.”

Later that same afternoon as Carly left the medical building with Bess, she recounted everything the eye doctor had told her. “He says the matted eye problem is caused by an inflammation in my eyelids,” she said. “I need to use the antibiotic drops more often and give my eyes frequent breaks.” Carly grinned. “Eat your heart out. Frequent naps, doctor’s orders.”

Bess unlocked the doors of her old Toyota. Over the roof of the car, she asked, “And your corneas? How are they looking?”

Carly climbed into the vehicle and fastened her seat belt. Her stomach fluttered with nerves as she said, “He could see some deterioration, but at this point, it’s not that severe. He’ll call and confer with Dr. Merrick. One of them will call me tomorrow with more information.”

Bess said very little during the drive back to the apartment complex. Once they were home, she went to the kitchen to pour herself some ice tea and Carly some juice. En route back to the living room, she fixed Carly with a worried look. “You think you’re going blind again, don’t you?”

“You’re forgetting that I’ve been blind all my life. If it happens, I’ll deal with it.”

Bess still looked worried, but she let the subject drop. Carly was relieved. If she went blind again, chances were that it wouldn’t be soon. She didn’t want to think about it until it happened. Then she would deal with it somehow. She was good at dealing with things. When you are born blind, you have to be.

Bess canceled a job interview the following day so she could be at the apartment when Dr. Merrick phoned. When Carly ended the conversation with the physician, Bess sat rigidly on a kitchen chair, her brown eyes shadowed with concern, her mouth drawn taut with tension.

“What did he say?” she asked.

Carly pushed her hair back. “There’s a definite deterioration of my corneas. The local doctor could detect cracks developing.”

Bess closed her eyes.

“On a bright note,” Carly went on, “it’s not a sure indication that I’ll go blind during the pregnancy. Lattice is weird stuff. It may progress rapidly for a while, and then go into remission. Or, on the flip side, it sometimes causes little damage at the beginning of a pregnancy, and then runs rampant a few months later, causing blindness in a matter of days or weeks. My eyes are clear of infection. The deterioration thus far is minimal.” Carly shrugged. “It’s a wait-and-see game. Since the damage so far is slight, I’m hoping I’ll be able to see for several more months.”

“How can you be so calm? It drives me crazy.”

Carly rolled her eyes. “You think it might help if I screamed and pulled my hair? I have to take what comes. Just pray for me, Bess. If possible, I’d rather not go blind. It’ll be a lot easier if I remain sighted so I can go to school as planned.”

On Monday night, Hank gathered his courage and dialed Carly’s phone number. She answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Carly, this is Hank.”

His lines well rehearsed, Hank took a breath to continue, and in the interim, the phone clicked and went dead.

“Carly?”

No answer. Hank held the phone away and stared at it. How in the hell could he communicate with her if she refused to speak to him? She clearly expected him to just walk away and forget she existed, that his child existed. Well, he had news for her. No child of his was going to grow up never knowing its father. And he’d be damned if he would abandon its mother when she needed him.

Hank sat down at his desk and wrote Carly a long letter, apologizing profusely for his inexcusable behavior the night they met and once again offering her financial and moral support during the pregnancy. By Friday, when no reply was forthcoming, either by mail or phone, he had to accept that a passive-aggressive approach wasn’t working. As a last resort, he tried the old standby, sending flowers. When all else failed, sometimes a dozen roses did the trick.

Lying on the floor in front of the television, Carly frowned as she tried to put a puzzle together, a pastime that bored her to tears but was necessary to help train her visual cortex to recognize and learn to match different shapes. What really rankled was that a child’s puzzle was so difficult for her to master. It made her feel dumber than dirt.

The doorbell rang just then, providing a welcome distraction. Swallowing her last bite of pickle, she sprang to her feet. For just an instant after she came erect, the room spun and the beige carpet seemed to undulate. Carly stopped and waited for her visual cortex to stop acting up before she proceeded across the floor.

His ruddy face a swimming blur, a thin man stood on the porch. In his arms, he held a long box that Carly decided was light pink. The many different shades of pink confused her, and she was beginning to despair that she’d ever learn them all.

“Are you Carly Adams?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

He stepped forward to thrust the box into her arms. As he did, his face came into clearer focus. Carly saw that he was young, with red hair and funny little brown spots all over his face.
Freckles
. Carly had heard of freckles but never actually seen any. He flashed a warm smile. “These are for you, Ms. Adams. A card from the sender is inside. Hope you enjoy.”

Bewildered, Carly watched the man lope away until he was nothing but a distorted blob bouncing across the swimming green backdrop of lawn that was shared by all occupants of the apartment complex. A lovely scent wafted to her nostrils, drawing her gaze back to the box. Roses? The smell was unmistakable.

After closing the door, Carly went to the kitchen table, opened the box, and gasped with pleasure as she peeled back the waxed green tissue paper to reveal the brilliant red buds.
Roses
.

As she stared down at the flowers, a part of her wanted to lift them from the box and examine them. She’d always loved their scent, but she’d never had an opportunity to study them up close. They were far lovelier than she’d ever imagined, the furled petals velvet soft. Only who had sent them? Her dad, presently living in Arizona, was on a fixed income. He might send her a card to congratulate her about the baby, but roses were beyond his budget.

Suddenly, Carly knew who’d sent the flowers.
Hank
. Her first impulse was to dump them in the trash, just as she had his letter, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Anything so beautiful deserved to be enjoyed. She lifted the long-stemmed blossoms from the box and lightly touched her nose to the petals. She couldn’t throw them away. She just couldn’t.

She consoled herself with the thought that Hank had probably ordered the roses over the phone and paid by credit card. He’d never actually seen the flowers, which lessened her feeling of distaste about keeping them.

Bess came home just as Carly was sticking the last rose into an empty sauerkraut jar, the closest thing to a vase that she had.

“How did the job interview go?”

Bess tossed her purse on the couch. “I was one of over fifty people who applied. I didn’t even get a maybe.”

“Next week you’ll find something,” Carly assured her.

“Oh!” Bess cried when she saw the flowers. “How beautiful!”

“Aren’t they, though?” Carly stood back to admire the arrangement. The jar wasn’t quite tall enough, and the buds sprawled in all directions, magnifying their presence on the table.

“Who sent them?”

“Don’t spoil it by asking. I almost threw them away.”

“Hank.” Bess picked up the little gold card that Carly had left lying unread in the folds of tissue. She scanned the message, her expression turning pensive. “Hmm.”

Carly didn’t like the sound of that. “What does it say?”

“Nothing much, only that he’s very sorry and hopes you’ll call him.”

“Not likely.”

“A dozen long-stemmed roses, hand delivered by a florist, are expensive, Carly. He’s obviously doing everything he can to make peace with you.”

“Poor Hank, is that it? Sorry. I’m not buying.”

Bess went to the refrigerator for her afternoon glass of ice tea. “In my opinion, any guy who sends roses to apologize ought to be allowed to say it in person. What can it hurt to hear him out?”

Carly stepped back to the table to fiddle with the flowers. When she reached for a sagging bud, she misjudged her aim and knocked over the jar. Water went everywhere.

Bess sprang to the rescue with a towel. “Is your vision getting that bad?”

Carly just shrugged.

“Answer me, Carls. Has your vision become that much worse over the last week?”

Carly didn’t want to lie, but at the same time, she found it difficult to say the words aloud. “A little worse. I’m hoping it’s due to the blepharitis.”

“Have you called Merrick?”

“Why? I’m using the antibiotic drops. They’ll either take care of the blurry vision or they won’t. Merrick told me, straight out, that he can do nothing if it’s from the lattice. The disease will just run its course.”

Bess flopped on the sofa with her glass cradled in her hands. She gazed at the roses for a moment. “Oh, Carls, I really, really think you should at least talk with Hank. How can that hurt?”

“Funny you should use the word
hurt
. That’s exactly what I thought a dozen times that night while I was throwing sanity to the wind. ‘What can it hurt?’ And you know what happened? He
hurt
me. Forget the emotional aspects. He did me physical injury. I could barely stand straight for two days.”

“Only because he was drunk and didn’t know he needed to be careful. He’s sorry, Carly. We all make mistakes.”

“Mine was trusting him in the first place. I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to speak to him again. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist.”

Bess mulled that over. “You’re still attracted to him.”

Carly pretended to gag. “Spare me.”

“It’s true. I see it written all over you. That’s why you’re so dead set against seeing him again. You’re afraid he’ll sweet talk you, that you’ll forget how awful it was the first time and end up in the same situation again.”

“Never.” When Bess started to say something more, Carly threw up her hands. “
Enough!
How can you even think I’m attracted to him? Just because I made one stupid mistake doesn’t mean my bra size is higher than my IQ.”

“Isn’t he entitled to make one mistake as well?”

“Do you
really
believe I was his first mistake? Give me a break. I wasn’t his first barroom score. Our encounter just ended on a more sour note than most.”

“Maybe so. But, just for the sake of argument, is there a law that says he can’t have seen the error of his ways? I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. There aren’t many guys who’d go to such lengths to stand good on their responsibilities.”

“I don’t want to be one of Hank Coulter’s responsibilities.”

Carly ended the conversation with that and went to her bedroom. She sat on the edge of the mattress and buried her face in her hands. Deep down, she knew Bess was right. She was afraid of Hank Coulter. The last time she’d been alone with him, disaster had struck. She remembered how he’d looked the other morning, standing on the porch, bigger than life and exuding strength. There was something about the man that rattled her. That being the case, all her feminine instincts warned her to stay away from him.

Chapter Eight

K
icked back on the recliner, Hank was dozing his way through a Winnie the Pooh flick that Molly had put in the VCR to soothe Garrett back to sleep after a bad dream. When the phone rang, he vaguely registered the sound and Jake’s voice saying, “Hello.” An instant later, Hank was being shaken awake by his sister-in-law.

“For you,” Molly whispered.

Taking the portable, Hank kicked down the footrest and stood up. “Hello,” he said as he moved toward the kitchen to escape the noise.

“Hi, Hank. This is Bess. I tried you on your cell, but you didn’t answer.”

Hank patted his belt. “Sorry. I must have left it in my truck.” He rubbed his eyes to bring himself awake. “What’s up? Is Carly okay?”

“No, actually, I’m afraid she may not be.”

That brought Hank fully alert. “What’s wrong?”

“I think she’s losing her eyesight.” Bess quickly related instances when she’d noticed Carly knocking things over and squinting to see. “I think it’s happening very fast. In addition to that and the morning sickness, she’s getting terrific headaches.”

“Has she called her doctor?”

“He told her there’s nothing he can do. I got on the Internet tonight and got some info about lattice during pregnancy. The prognosis is pretty grim. Some women go blind very quickly, in as little as three weeks in some cases, and judging by things I’ve observed, I’m terrified Carls will be one of them.”

Hank passed a hand over his eyes again. “Three weeks?”

“She’s seeing on borrowed time, Hank. She’s hoping the blurry vision and messed-up depth perception are due to the inflammation of her eyelids, but I think she’s deluding herself.”

Hank braced a hand on the edge of the counter. “This is all my fault. I am so sorry.”

“I’m beginning to believe you really are,” she said softly.

“She still won’t talk to me. I’ve tried phoning. I even went to the apartment one morning. That ended with her closing the door in my face.”

“I heard. The roses were beautiful, by the way. She’s not usually so witchy. It’s just—well, the entire situation is overwhelming for her, and I think you frighten her a little.”

Hank could think of a number of words to describe Carly, but “witchy” wasn’t one of them. “I sensed her wariness. I’m just not sure what’s causing it. As badly as I screwed up that night, I didn’t force her into the truck with me.”

“I’m not sure what’s troubling her. She hasn’t talked a lot about it.”

“Any guesses?”

“A painful first experience, and a fear that she may fall prey to your line of blarney again? There was a boy, way back when. I won’t go into details, but he did her really dirty. She believed him, she believed you. Maybe she doesn’t trust her judgment anymore.” Bess sighed wearily. “Hurt pride may be part of it as well. I’m reaching. I honestly don’t know. Maybe it’s a combination of several things. We women are complicated creatures.”

“The very least I’d like to do is help her out financially.”

“Maybe you should stop taking no for an answer.”

Hank arched an eyebrow. “What, exactly, does that mean?”

“My friend is pregnant and, whether she’ll admit it or not, about to go blind again. She’s had morning sickness practically every day. The headaches from the sudden stimulation to the visual cortex have been persistent as well. That isn’t to mention the complications any woman may have during a pregnancy. Come September I’ll be going to school to get my MBA, plus working full time. Who’s going to take care of her if she gets sick or has unexpected problems with her eyes? And how on earth is she going to make ends meet when the additional bills start rolling in?”

Hank had no answers.

“She’ll be strapped, Hank. Her college savings will be gone by spring, pissed away on living expenses and medical bills, leaving her without the money she’ll need for a second eye surgery. What’ll she do, stay blind until she can save enough to get another SK?”

Hank started to say something, but Bess barely took a breath before she continued. “As a rookie teacher, she pulled in twenty-nine thousand annually the last two years. After taxes, that isn’t much. By living together, we both managed to save for college, but it was tough. Even if she returns to Portland and gets her old job back, she’ll be lucky just to keep a roof over her head. In short, Hank, she’s going to need help, and lots of it. If you’re willing to step in, I think you should, and soon.”

“How can I help if she refuses to even talk to me?”

“The question brings me full circle. Stop taking no for an answer. Sometimes—” She broke off and huffed into the receiver. “God, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but sometimes a woman lets her emotions cloud her judgment, and Carly tends to be worse about it than most. A lot of disabled people accept their limitations and settle for less. Carly isn’t made that way. If our friend Cricket and I could do it, she was bound and determined to do it, too, with as little help as possible. Riding a bike, jumping on a skateboard. Cricket and I yelled directions, and away she went until she hit a parked car or sailed off a curb. As a kid, she always had scraped knees and elbows, but she never gave up. Doing things by herself has always been extremely important to her.”

Hank couldn’t see how that pertained.

“Now she’s pregnant,” Bess said unnecessarily. “You’re offering to play the big, strong man and come to her rescue. Carly didn’t get where she is today by letting other people do everything for her. Does that make any sense?”

“Not really.” Hank couldn’t imagine a blind girl on a bicycle. What in God’s name had her parents been thinking? “We all need help sometimes.”

“Carly has needed help all her life. It wasn’t the exception for her, but the rule. She had a choice, giving in and letting the blindness control her life—or fighting with everything she had to be normal. She developed an attitude, sink or swim, do or die. Even when she was little, she refused special treatment. She found her own way to our first-grade classroom. She carried her own lunch tray. She climbed the rope in gym. In high school, she walked the track to count off the steps between hurdles, and the next afternoon, she jumped them. If she fell, she righted the hurdle and tried again.”

“Good God,” Hank whispered.

“When she realized people could tell she was blind because she hung her head, she started standing ramrod straight. She refused to let blindness make her different.”

“In other words, she’s stubborn as hell.”

“Stubborn. Difficult sometimes. But just look at her. Would you ever guess that she was totally blind a little over a month ago?”

Hank definitely hadn’t guessed it the night he met her. “No,” he admitted gruffly. “Where are you going with this, Bess?”

“Carly may not want anyone’s help, but she needs it, regardless.”

“You’re a fabulous friend, Bess.”

“Right now, I’m being a Judas,” she said shakily. “You have no idea how rotten that makes me feel.”

“You’re only trying to help her.”

“And, in the process, I’m revealing things to you that she may never forgive me for.” She hesitated, and then she plunged onward. “I think this pregnancy has become another string of hurdles for Carly to jump. In addition to her wariness of you, getting through it by herself is all tied up with her sense of self-worth. Other women get pregnant and have their babies out of wedlock. Other women manage to make ends meet while raising a child. They don’t usually marry a man they don’t love to get a free ride.”

Hank rubbed the back of his neck. “She needs to think about the welfare of our baby.”

“I know. But for her, maybe that’s easier said than done. She’ll want her son or daughter to be proud of her one day. To Carly’s way of thinking, she’ll be admirable only if she stands on her own two feet.”

“So what’s the answer?” Hank glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone in the kitchen. Then he told Bess about the discussion he’d had with his brother Zeke. “If I could convince her to marry me, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s the only workable solution I can come up with. We could go into it as a temporary arrangement, a stopgap measure until she has her next surgery and gets her master’s. If, at that time, she still wants out, I’ll cut her a check for start-up capital and give her a divorce.”

“
If
she still wants out? Can I take that to mean you’ll remain in the marriage if she doesn’t?”

Hank turned to rest his hips against the counter and watch the door. “I’d be open to the possibility. What’s to say we won’t hit it off and be happy as clams? It’d be a hell of a lot better for our child if we stayed together.”

Long silence. Then Bess said, “Go for it.”

Hank frowned. “Go for what?”

“Marry her. You and your brother are right. It’s the best solution. With all the other expenses that’ll be hitting you, trying to support two households would bankrupt you. If Carly believes it’ll be a temporary situation, she’ll eventually accept it. Trust me on that. Give the girl lemons, and she makes lemonade.”

“Problem. How the hell can I marry her when she won’t even talk to me?”

“You don’t strike me as being a stupid man, Hank. Get creative.”

“How? I can’t force her to marry me. There are laws against that kind of thing.”

“There are also laws that give fathers certain inalienable rights. Carly is in no position to provide for a child right now.”

A tingle crept up Hank’s spine. “What are you suggesting?”

“You’ve tried being Mr. Nice Guy. Has that worked?”

“No.”

“Well, then? Maybe it’s time to play dirty. She won’t risk losing that baby. I know her.”

Hank didn’t like the turn this conversation had taken. “Doesn’t she have some family to help her out?”

“Only her dad in Arizona. Carly was a midlife baby, so he’s an older man. She could stay with him, but it’s a seasonal retirement community that rolls up the carpet in April. No schools, and as far as I know, no public transportation, either, making it next to impossible for her to commute to a nearby town to hold down a teaching position. She’ll be blind, remember. The blind can’t drive. Her dad would do his best, but he hasn’t been well. He definitely isn’t up to caring for a child while she works—and she may not be able to count on him for daily transportation.”

“She’ll have to be able to work, both for the income and the health insurance benefits.”

“Exactly.”

“And there’s no one else?” Coming from such a large, close-knit family, Hank could barely conceive that. “No brothers or sisters?”

“She’s an only child. Her dad’s seventy-three. Her mom died of ovarian cancer two years ago. I’ll be there for her, of course, but I’m going to be stretched pretty thin, working and going to class. I can drop out of school, I guess, but I’d still have to work eight to ten hours a day. Our friend, Cricket, is in Colombia right now, working on a dig. She can’t come home to help out, not without jeopardizing her career.”

“I understand,” Hank said, and he honestly did. This was his problem. He couldn’t expect other people to drop everything and rush to Carly’s aid. He’d gotten her into this mess, and it was up to him to get her out of it.

Carly awakened the next morning to discover, much to her dismay, that all the sauerkraut and Brussels sprouts were gone. Bess had already left for an interview at a vet’s office, so a chauffeur wasn’t at Carly’s disposal. Because the sauerkraut and Brussels sprouts seemed to settle her queasy stomach, she quickly threw on her clothes, brushed her hair, and set out walking to the supermarket, four blocks away.

Forty-five minutes later, she turned back onto her street. Her mouth was watering for the foods she carried in plastic bags, one in each hand. The heaviness of the groceries made the handles dig into her flesh, and her fingers had long since gone numb.

She was almost to the apartment complex when she noticed a blue pickup parked at the curb. As she turned to walk up the center pathway that bisected the grassy apartment common, a man swung out of the vehicle and slammed the door. Though he was little more than a blur of blue denim, Carly knew it was Hank by his loose-jointed stride and the sharp click of his boots on the pavement.

Her heart tumbled wildly in her chest. She’d told him in plain English that she didn’t want to see him again. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

Each decisive tap of his boot heels told her how quickly he was gaining on her. She almost broke into a run to escape him, but pride held her back. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her bolt like a frightened rabbit.

Before she could reach her porch, he came abreast of her on the walkway. “Here, let me carry those for you.”

Carly kept walking. “No thanks. Just go away.”

“No can do.”

He wrested the grocery bags from her fists, somehow managing to do it in one fluid swipe despite the tight clench of her fingers. She considered making a wild grab to reclaim possession, but one glance at his well-muscled shoulders told her a physical contest would be an exercise in futility.

As if he guessed her thoughts, he flashed a slow grin. “Hello to you, too.”

She wasn’t about to exchange pleasantries with him. He added insult to injury by gaining the porch just before she did. “We’re going to talk this out, Carly.” The teasing warmth had left his voice, replaced by steely determination. “If you’d feel safer chatting with me at a restaurant, that offer’s still open, but talk we will, one way or another.”

“Safer?” Carly managed to scale the steps without tripping, which was no easy feat. Advancing on the door, she said, “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Wary, then.”

“I’m not wary of you, either.”

Hands trembling, she dug in her pocket for the house key. Refusing to look at him, she stabbed at the brass deadbolt, hoping she might get lucky and hit the hole.
Not.
Frustrated beyond measure, she stabbed several times and still didn’t hit her mark.

He shifted the sacks to one hand and snatched the key from her. On the first try, he inserted it in the hole.

Carly stepped over the threshold and turned to slam the door in his face. He thrust a boot through the opening, held up the key and groceries, and flashed another grin. “Forget something?”