The Blinding Light (7 page)

“Thanks, Jake. I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

I just patted her shoulder. That’s what they all say.

T
HE
SUN
was going down as I pedaled my way back to Patrick’s. Peak hour traffic had started, and I kept to the footpath instead of the road. It made for a rougher ride and I had to keep stopping at each side road that intersected, but it was a lot safer than the road with cars on it.

The house was in darkness when I arrived, and for a moment I thought that Patrick had gone back to sleep. Then I remembered the guy was blind. Why would he bother with lights?

“Patrick? It’s Jake. Are you awake?”

I fumbled for the light switch and heard the clicking of Gregor’s paws as he came to greet me. I patted him roughly, thumping him soundly on the shoulders and playfully rubbing his belly. “Hey, boy. Did you miss me? It would be nice if at least one of you missed me.”

“I missed you.” I looked up and saw Patrick coming down the hall. He was dressed in trakkies and a T-shirt.

“You did?”

“Of course. I had to fetch my own drinks.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Dickhead.” I looked him up and down. “You look better.”

He stood uncertainly against the wall. “Yes. The nap helped me. Then some idiot rang me on my mobile and told me to get out of bed.”

I smirked. “I wonder who that was? It didn’t sound like a nice thing to do.”

Patrick smiled sunnily. “Whoever it was, I think he enjoyed doing it.” His grin transformed his face and my heart jumped in my chest. The man was stunning.

I turned away and opened the fridge to hide the arousal that was starting in my pants, but then realized that he couldn’t see it. “So, you hungry? We’ve got chicken soup or chicken soup. What do you feel like?”

The scrape of the chair let me know that Patrick was settling down at the kitchen table. “Chicken soup sounds nice. I didn’t say so at lunch, but it was delicious. Where did you get it?”

I busied myself pulling out the containers and plates to prepare our meal. “Get it? I made it, man. The best tasting things are made from scratch. You need to look at your diet. Way too much salt going on there from all the canned shit and premade stuff you eat. You’ll turn into a preservative.”

“How do you know how much salt I consume?”

I patted his shoulder as I walked to the microwave, lamenting the clothing draped over it, stopping me from touching bare skin. “Who do you think does your groceries?”

He gave a wry smile. “Mrs. Huntley?”

I snorted at his joke.

“You think I don’t know that Mrs. Huntley left? I do. I know exactly when you started too. I can smell your perfume when I get home. I just pretend that I don’t know I have a new housekeeper. Then I don’t have to remember a new name of someone who’s only going to stay a couple of weeks.”

I found placemats and set glasses on the table for us to use. “Have you ever thought about being nicer? Then they won’t keep leaving.”

“I am nice!” he cried.

“Dude. Fussy, anal, and arrogant are the nicer words I’ve heard people use about you.”

“Fussy? What? I’m freakin’ blind, in case you haven’t noticed. I need to be fussy and anal about my house because I can’t see. I had one woman rearrange all the plates and dishes in the house because she had a bad back and didn’t want to lean down. Well, nice for her, but I couldn’t find a bloody thing! Then there was one woman who never dusted, and when I asked her about it, she told me that what did it matter to me? I couldn’t see it. Huh!”

“I guess that sounds pretty terrible.”

“Terrible? Some people think that blind means stupid. This is my house and I’m paying them to do a job. They should do it properly.”

“True. But you could try putting a couple of
pleases
and
thank-yous
in your notes if you want to be nicer.”

“Why? I’m paying them good money, not the other way around. Why should I go out of my way to say please?”

I plonked his steaming bowl of chicken soup down in front of him. “Why? Because your housekeeper is a bloody human being, Patrick. Manners don’t cost anything. But your lack of manners has cost you several housekeepers by the sound of it. Now eat! Your spoon is on your right and there are two pieces of buttered bread on your left.”

I took the chair across from his and picked up my own spoon. I saw him tilt his head as if listening for something. “You’re eating with me?”

I was starting to get angry with his lord-of-the-manor act. “Yes. Where do you want me to eat? Out on the veranda like a good servant?”

He frowned. “No. It’s just that not everyone wants to eat with a blind man. I can be messy.”

Just like that, my anger deflated. “Patrick, I practically raised my younger sisters. As long as you don’t need to be spoon fed and I don’t have to wipe your mouth with a wet cloth afterward, I can put up with a bit of mess.”

“Oh.” I could tell he was surprised but pleased I was staying. I’d never thought of how hard it might be for him to be blind in public. He fumbled for the cutlery and we were both silent for a while, eating with gusto. Finally he said, “So how many sisters do you have?”

“Three. Ellie, Lizzy, and Maria.”

“And they’re all younger than you? What do they do?” He seemed genuinely interested, not just making conversation, so I gave him a bit more of their personalities.

“Yeah. Ellie’s twenty-four, two years younger than me. She has a little girl, Skylah, who’s five. They live over in Palmyra. Ellie’s a good sort—she’s got a decent job now, answering phones in an office or something like that. She’s closest to me, I guess. We shared a room for most of our lives. She’s got a fireball of a temper and is as stubborn as heck, but I love her still.

“Lizzy’s twenty-two and she’s the smarty one of the family. She’s got another three weeks until she graduates from university. God, that’s been the longest and shortest four years of my life. She lives over near the Murdoch Uni where she’s studying. I’m glad she’ll hopefully be earning some decent money soon and I don’t have to help her out anymore, but I can’t believe she’s nearly finished. It seems like yesterday I was driving her to her first class.”

I shook my head, not that Patrick could see. “And then there’s Maria. She still lives with Mum, but there’s nothing much I can do about that. I live in a three-bedroom unit with three other people and Lizzy’s the same. Maria could go and live with Ellie, but they just butt heads all the time. Ellie insists on being in charge, and Maria never listens to anyone but me. She’s in her final year at school and wants to go to university. Her exams start next week.”

Patrick nodded. “What does she want to study?”

I sighed. “Chemistry. I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”

It was a joke but Patrick didn’t laugh. He had an affronted look on his face. “I have a degree in chemistry. What’s wrong with that?”

I chuckled. “It was a joke, man. I’m as proud as any big brother could be that Maria has her head screwed on straight.”

He looked abashed and scooped up some more soup. “This is really good soup. How did you learn to make it?”

“I read a recipe book and then practiced.”

“Well, it’s great.”

“Thanks. Did your mum teach you how to cook?”

“Hell, no. Did your mum teach you?”

“Ha!” I snorted. “The only thing my mother taught me to do is how to fetch another can of beer from the fridge, and how to pick up men who are the love-you-and-leave-you type.”

I saw Patrick roll his eyes. “It sounds like she’s on par with my mother. Maybe they’re sisters?”

“Yeah? What was your mum like?”

“I only knew her for two days. Then she walked out of the maternity hospital and left me there.”

“What?” I was flabbergasted.

“Yeah.” Patrick was matter-of-fact about the issue. I guess he’d had his whole life to get used to it. “Apparently she wasn’t really in a position to look after herself, let alone a baby who was blind.”

So that answered one question I had. “So you were born blind?”

“Yeah. They think she did drugs or something when she was pregnant, and it caused my blindness.”

“Shit! So what happened to you?”

Patrick shrugged and patted the area next to his bowl until he found the plate with bread on it. “I was adopted by Max Stanford. He was a bachelor in his fifties who wanted a child to pass on his money and property to. They wouldn’t let him adopt a perfect baby, but a blind baby?” Patrick trailed off suggestively and shrugged again. “He never cared about my eyes and I’m pretty sure there was some sort of large donation made in order for me to be placed in his care. So I was raised by a large contingent of nannies and private tutors until I was old enough for Max to mold into what he wanted. We both ended up with what we wanted—so it was a win-win situation. I was given the name of my birth mother so I could look her up, but I’ve never bothered to track her down. She could be dead, she could be living next door, she could be cleaning my house. I don’t care.”

I laughed. “Nope. Not cleaning your house—that’s my job.”

He smiled at me. Gosh, I thought, I could spend my life gazing at that smile. I had to readjust myself in my pants. I coughed slightly and gathered my plates to take to the dishwasher to hide my embarrassment. “So is Max still around?”

His smiled dimmed, and I immediately felt bad for asking. “No. He’s been gone eight years now.”

“Man, sorry. So tell me about you? Are you planning on having a dozen kiddies to run through this house and keep your housekeeper busy?”

“No.” His answer was short and he didn’t try to explain. I looked at him over my shoulder as I loaded the plates in the dishwasher.

“Why not? A good lookin’ fella like you ought to have a couple. You would be doing the world a favor by filling it with beautiful children instead of some of the ugly mugs I see. You know, I’ve never understood people. They go off and have plastic surgery to fix all their ugly faults, marry someone who’s had plastic surgery to fix their failings too, and then they wonder why their kids come out looking so terrible. People seem to think that somehow surgery alters their DNA and their sperm or something. You’re not thinking that your blindness is genetic, are you?”

“No. I’ve had all the tests. My eyes are perfectly formed but my retinas never attached in the womb. It’s not genetic.”

“Cool.”

“What about you? Do you have any kids?”

I laughed as I ran some water in the sink to wash up the last couple of items. “Unless you have an appalling memory, you’ll know I’m gay. How do you think I’m going to get a kid when there’s no uterus involved in my sexual conquests?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure you can buy them on eBay these days.”

I cracked up. “You probably can! But, no, serious. I’d love one but I can’t afford a kid at the moment. To me a kid is something special. I know accidents happen and all—hey, look at my sister!—but people shouldn’t be having kids unless they can afford to look after them. I can’t even afford breakfast tomorrow.”

“You can’t?”

Shit! I didn’t mean to admit to that. I’m not one to go running around telling everyone my problems. “Forget I said that.”

But Patrick stood, reaching out a hand in my direction until he found my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing, man. Payday is tomorrow and I’ll be getting paid then. It’s cool.”

He turned me toward him. We were standing with less than a foot between us. We were approximately the same height, Patrick an inch taller, so our mouths weren’t that far apart. I focused momentarily on his sightless eyes before dropping my gaze to his lips. Man, oh man.

“You’re lying.” Mr. Stanford was back, and my easy dinner companion gone.

“So?”

“Tell me, can you afford breakfast tomorrow, Jake?”

I had read somewhere that pleading the fifth meant you actually were guilty of the crime but didn’t wish to incriminate yourself by saying it out loud. “I’ll be fine.”

Patrick’s expression didn’t change. He moved his hand up my neck and cupped my face in his palm. “You’re too thin. You will arrive here tomorrow at eight o’clock and make me breakfast again. Then you’ll sit and eat with me.” He finished his decree with a nod and stepped back to leave the room.

I shook my head at him and crossed my arms across my chest, ignoring the raging hard-on that had come from his simple touch. “Manners,” I growled.

He stopped, tilting his head to the side. “What?”

“Manners, Mr. Stanford, manners,” I said in exasperation. I hoped the Mr. Stanford title would prompt him.

It did. “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “
Please
come and make me breakfast at eight o’clock tomorrow.”

I rolled my eyes. He’d put please in the sentence but it had still come out as a demand. I had watched enough chick flicks with my sisters to know my Victorian manners. I put on a
falsetto
voice and told him, “Thank you, Mr. Stanford. I would be ever so pleased to come to your humble abode tomorrow and partake of a meal with you.”

I
ARRIVED
before the appointed time the following day. Patrick had shown me how to set the alarm for when someone was home as opposed to when you were leaving the house unattended. There were sensors on the windows and doors to secure the house as well as motion detectors inside. When Patrick was home alone he just activated the windows and doors. He told me he’d been robbed several times in the past, people thinking that a blind man was a soft target. This made me angry. A man shouldn’t be afraid in his own house.