She blushed lightly and thrummed a scale with her left hand. “Nothing really. I had an idea for a song and I was fooling around with it. It’s a messy process, I’m glad you weren’t around to hear it.”
He cupped her neck and bent to place a quick kiss on her lips. “When it’s written, when you’re happy with it, you’ll let me listen?”
“Sure.” Allegra’s hand clung to his wrist. “How was the run? You feel wet, is it snowing?”
“Yeah, but it’s letting up. There are about three inches of snow on the ground.”
She sighed and rose, holding on to his arm. “I love the snow,” she said wistfully. “I loved that about Portland when we moved here. Ireland doesn’t really get much snow, just rain. I wish I could go out. Besides not being able to read, it’s the thing I miss most since the—the accident. Not going for walks.”
“No problem.” Kowalski sat her down on the couch, went to the windows to pull the drapes, then walked back to her. He picked up her hand and lifted it to his mouth. “I’ll take you out for a walk whenever you want, honey. All you have to do is ask.”
“Thanks.” She gave a sad smile. “But it—it’s hard. Sometimes people don’t know enough to tell me when there’s a curb or a hole and I trip. Or they tell me too late or too early and I trip. I fell a lot in the beginning and now I think I’m just too—too scared to go for walks.”
“You won’t fall down with me, guaranteed,” he said. “I won’t let you trip or fall.”
“No,” she replied softly, hand kneading his forearm. “Maybe not.”
It hurt him to think of all that she’d been deprived of. Five months without going for a walk. He shuddered at the thought.
Kowalski scooted closer, wondering how to say it, trying to choose his words carefully. “You know, honey, one of my men lost his sight in Afghanistan. Land mine.” Scotty’d lost more than his sight. He’d lost an arm and a spleen. Still, since then he’d married and had found a job at a radio station. Life after catastrophe was possible. “At the Vet’s hospital, they had rehabilitation courses. They taught him to read Braille and use a cane—”
“No!” Allegra stood up abruptly. “I don’t need to—” she stopped, biting her lip.
Kowalski was silent. Yes, she did, of course she did. She definitely needed to learn to read Braille and to use a cane. She needed a seeing-eye dog. She needed to change her house around. From what he could tell, the house didn’t make any concessions to a blind person at all. There were thousands of ways she could hurt herself.
Like now, for instance. She was shaking with distress, clearly wanting to pace her nerves away, but she didn’t have her bearings. One wrong move and she’d crash into the glass coffee table. A glass coffee table wasn’t a smart thing for a blind person to have in the home.
“Sit down.” Kowalski tugged at the sleeve of her sweater. She pulled away.
“Don’t you need to take a shower after your run?” This was said pugnaciously, that cute little chin thrust out.
“Sure do,” Kowalski said equably. “I stink like a goat. Now sit down.”
“Heavens.” A quick intake of breath. “Sorry.” She shook her head, biting her lip. “Oh, Douglas, I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t mean—”
Kowalski laughed. He couldn’t help it. Allegra thought she’d hurt his feelings. She’d clearly mentioned the shower to get him off a touchy subject.
Well, time for a reality check. It took more than the suggestion of a shower to offend him, when he’d spent twenty years in the Navy being called every insulting and blasphemous name imaginative and angry recruits could think up. By the same token, however, it would take more than a change of subject to deflect him when he wanted information.
“No, you’re right, I need a shower, but I need to cool off first,” he lied. “Now sit down. Right now.” That was said in his command voice and she dropped abruptly to the sofa, blinking at her instant obedience.
“We were talking about learning how to get around when you’re blind.”
“No we weren’t.” Allegra’s pretty bottom lip stuck out slightly. She had a mouth just made for pouting. “You were talking about it.”
“Uh uh.” He took her hand. “We were talking about it. As I was saying, I can talk to this guy I know at the Vet’s hospital and see if he knows some good rehabilitation people in this area. We can—”
“No.” Allegra withdrew her hand and stared straight ahead, not making any attempt to follow his voice. She was closing him out. This was not something she wanted to talk about.
She was saying no to him.
No. To him.
Kowalski’s jaws clenched so hard it was a surprise shards of enamel weren’t shooting out his ears.
Kowalski had very definite ideas on the way things should be, and he’d spent most of his life getting what he wanted. More to the point, he’d spent the past twenty years being instantly obeyed.
The navy was full of hard-headed men who knew what they wanted, too, which would be a recipe for disaster if it weren’t for the magic word that made it all work, that made the whole system hum smoothly—hierarchy. Kowalski gave orders to the men under him and in turn accepted the orders of his commanding officers. For the past twelve years, his commanding officer had been John Huntington, which was great because he and Midnight saw eye-to-eye on most things.
Kowalski had literally no tools to deal with a no.
Allegra wasn’t a recruit he could order about. She wasn’t even his official girlfriend or—God!—his fiancée, though if it were up to him she’d be his in the eyes of all the world. Still, she wasn’t. Yet. He had no right to tell her what to do and above all, she didn’t have to obey him. Even if, the way she was going about things, she was bound to get hurt sooner or later, and the very idea drove him crazy. He couldn’t do anything to protect her from herself.
Kowalski wasn’t used to putting reasonableness into his voice, but he gave it a shot. “Listen, honey, you really need to—”
She turned to him, her chin another notch up. “Speaking of need, I wish you’d hurry up with that shower because I’m getting hungry.” She flashed a dimple. “If you’re lucky, I’ll let you cook for me while I finish practicing, how’s that for learning how to be disabled?”
Kowalski’s jaws clenched again. She’d turned the tables on him.
“Okay,” he got out, rising reluctantly. This was going to have to be an act of persuasion, but it wasn’t going to be easy. He wasn’t used to persuading anyone. Looked like he was going to get a crash course in the art with Allegra. “I’ll go grab a shower then rummage in your freezer.”
She’d made her way back to the harp and plucked “From the Halls of Montezuma” from the strings with a devilish smile. “You do that.”
Chapter Ten
I’m developing that sixth sense they all talk about, Allegra thought, as she practiced scales. She could practically feel Douglas’ will beating down on her. He was a very forceful man, but then she was a stubborn woman. She’d even exasperated her father, at times.
“Allie, me love,” her father had said once, throwing up his hands, “you could give stubborn lessons to a mountain goat.”
She blinked back tears at the memory, taking a hand off Dagda to swipe at her face.
Douglas wanted her to blind-proof her house, walk with a cane, learn Braille. She’d heard it all a hundred times before, from the doctors, from the nurses, in gentle tones from Suzanne and Claire and Claire’s father, not to mention from the assorted Mancinos who were taking turns looking after her.
It was a total waste of time because she wasn’t going there. No way.
Allegra wouldn’t be blind forever. She believed that with every cell of her body. She had a deeply superstitious fear that giving in and adapting would lock her into blindness forever. She couldn’t bear the thought.
The doctors in Boston had been clear about the dangers of the operation, but Allegra didn’t care. Medicine was advancing rapidly and soon the surg
ical procedure would be perfected and life would return to what it had been before…before.
Something dark and jagged winged by in her mind, unsettling her.
She shook her head, as if to loosen the sensation, and bent to Dagda. She limbered up with a scale or two, then cleared her mind to focus on her playing. She’d start with “The Cliffs of Moher,” she decided.
The spell came, as always, without any notice, slamming into her, dropping her instantly into the blackest of black holes.
…you stupid little bitch! I’ll teach you to talk about breaking contracts!
…you can’t talk to my daughter that way!
No Pops!
Blood. Oh God, the blood! So much of it, streaming out of his head in a dark black lake… Pop’s legs kicking, then suddenly going still…
She turned around, backing up, but there was no stopping him. He was coming for her…
She tried to run, but he caught her by a hank of hair, pulling so hard tears streamed down her face. A vicious yank and she slammed against the wall, blood drops spattering, oh God, she was going to die, too, just like Pops…
Allegra sat, stunned, overwhelmed by the sudden burst of images in her mind, coming up from some dark, dank hell. It was as if her head had been taken over by a monster.
There was a dark, satanic new edge to the waking nightmare—smell. She could smell the coppery metallic scent of blood and the fetid smell of death. It was in her nostrils still, even as the images faded, receding back into the hellhole they came from, like some dark hellish tidal wave leaving broken bits of horror on the shore in its wake.
Allegra stood up suddenly and then froze, paralyzed, heart pounding with panic but no way to work it off. She’d completely lost her bearings, with no sense of anything but up or down.
Sounds to her right, which must be where the kitchen was. She turned gratefully, suddenly remembering she wasn’t alone. She instinctively reached out a hand to touch him, though he was in the next room. “Douglas?”
Her voice came out scratchy and thin, her throat closed with terror still from the panic attack.
How could he hear her? She took in a shuddery breath to try to call him again when suddenly he was there, and her hand was touching the very solid muscles of his forearm. How could he have heard her, when she could barely hear herself? But there he was, and the panic started loosening its hold on her chest. A large warm hand covered hers.
“I’m here, honey,” that deep voice said quietly, “you’re okay.”
No, she wasn’t okay, but at least that horrible feeling that a step in any direction would plunge her into a deep, dark abyss was gone. If he hadn’t been there, she’d have stood rooted to the spot until the panic subsided and she could make short, shuffling steps before bumping into the first obstacle to ground herself. Instead she was grounded on Douglas’ strong forearm.
Allegra leaned forward, arms open, and was immediately engulfed in his embrace. She huddled in a panic, pressing as hard as she could against him. He was so warm and solid, when everything around her was so cold and slithery.
“Douglas,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Oh, God, Douglas, the blood.”
“It’s okay,” he repeated, tightening his hold. His hand covered the back of her head. “What blood, honey?”
She burrowed deeper, trying to catch her breath, trying to stop the deep tremors racking her body.
“Honey?” Douglas’ deep voice was in her ear. “What blood? You’re not bleeding, I promise.”
Not where it could be seen, no. Allegra wiped her eyes on the soft material of his track suit, still in the grip of terror.
It was like the nightmares she had at night, only she was awake. There would be the immediate plunge into some horror, triggered by God knows what, leaving her trembling and crying and lost. And whether asleep or awake, she was unable to remember what the nightmare had been about. The spells came from nowhere and she was powerless while in their grip. They left in a slithering tide leaving her broken and stranded on some desolate shore.
This time wasn’t so bad because she was clinging to Douglas. He was so steady, like a rock. It helped, a little, to be able to push against him, push away, because it gave her a feeling of being in control.
She probably looked like a wild woman. She felt like a wild woman, eyes swollen with tears, babbling. Her hair, never tame at the best of times, was probably flying around her face.
Allegra pushed harder against Douglas’ broad chest. When he released her she wiped her face with the heels of her hands.
“Sorry,” she gasped, gulping in a huge breath of air. It felt like she hadn’t breathed for an hour.
This was so horrible. If she could see, she could quietly excuse herself, rush to the bathroom and splash cold water on her face and wrists. Apply makeup and comb her hair, all those things women do to restore themselves, make themselves able to face the world after something devastating. Right now, if she made a dash for the bathroom, she’d run smack into a wall and break her nose.
So she was, as always, trapped.
“Allegra?” That calm voice again, with a small note of worry in it.
“Sorry,” she gasped. There were no words, really, to describe what had happened, not without making her sound like a total lunatic. “I had, um, a panic attack. They come, um, at times. I never know when. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You can’t control panic attacks.” Oh God, just the sound of his voice made her feel better. It was so calm, so deep, so powerful. She wished she could catch his voice and hold onto it like she held onto his arm. For dear life. Nothing bad could happen to her while she was listening to that voice, holding onto that arm.
“Come with me.” Douglas’ arm was there and, as if it were iron and her hand a magnet, she found it unerringly. He walked them into the kitchen. “Sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea. How does that sound?”
It sounded wonderful.
“Great. Whoa.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry, but I need a—” Before she could even finish the sentence, a paper napkin was pressed into her hand. Allegra wiped her eyes, blew her nose and felt a little better. Though she probably looked like a witch, he didn’t seem to be running away in horror. That was good.
Something dinged—the microwave—and she heard the sound of something being set on the table in front of her. Vanilla tea, she could smell it. Her favorite.
Allegra gave a half laugh. “You nuked my tea?”
“Always do, it’s easier and quicker. Less mess to clean up. Good God.” A pause and she could almost hear the gears grinding in his head, together with possibly his teeth. Allegra thought she could hear him frown. The man had an incredibly forceful personality if his disapproval could be felt across a table. “Please, please don’t tell me you heat up the water for your tea on your stove.”
“Well, um…yes. Yes I do.” What did he think—that she blew on it to heat it up? Waved a magic tea wand?
“You have a gas stove.” He breathed it more than said it, in exactly the same horrified tones in which he’d say—you eat children for breakfast?
“Yes, yes I do. I have a gas stove. Always have. Food cooks better with gas,” Allegra said, mystified. She felt for the handle of the cup and brought it to her mouth. It was a little ritual with her. First she’d breathe in the heavenly vanilla and tea smell, letting it seep into her bones, then start sipping. Vanilla tea was perhaps the only thing in her life that had improved since she’d become blind. “Is that a crime?”
“It is if you’re blind,” he said, his deep voice harsh and disapproving.
Allegra stiffened. “Look, being blind doesn’t mean being spastic or stupid. I’ll have you know—”
His deep voice rode right over hers. “One miscalculation and your fu—freakin’ sleeve can catch on fire. Or if you forget to turn the gas off you can burn your hand, badly. A gas stove is a disaster just waiting to happen to you. You need to get yourself one of those ceramic-top stoves. At least you would cut
down the chances of burning yourself alive. Cooking with an open flame when you can’t see is insane.”
Well, that was pretty clear. Allegra hated being criticized, it brought out the worst in her and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. In her anger, she said what she hadn’t said to anyone, not even to Suzanne and Claire.
The words came tumbling out, rising in tone until she was shouting at the end. “You listen to me. I don’t want to get a ceramic-top stove, I don’t want to learn Braille, I don’t want a seeing-eye dog. I don’t want to walk with a white cane, I don’t want to rearrange my house. I don’t want to take lessons in being blind because you better believe I won’t be blind forever.”
Allegra raised a hand to her mouth, but it was too late. The words had escaped and were now out there, stark and real.
Can you feel stillness? Douglas was an unusually calm man, he never seemed to fidget or make any untoward noises, but now he was utterly and completely still. She had no sense of him at all. It was as if he’d vanished from the room.
The moment stretched on, Allegra with her hand over her mouth and Douglas seemingly disappeared. There was no noise at all in the kitchen, not even the usual sounds of traffic seeping in from the road outside. The only sound she could hear was her heart, beating triple time.
Finally, Douglas stirred. His chair scraped over her kitchen tiles as he reached out and took her hand in his. As always, touching him grounded her, made her feel connected to the rest of the world through him.
“Is that so? You’re going to regain your sight?”
Allegra nodded, throat too tight to talk.
“You know that for a fact? Is that what the doctors told you?”
Not really, but Allegra nodded anyway.
“Tell me about it,” he said, his deep voice gentle.
She waited a moment for the bands around her chest to loosen a little and to gather her wits about her. This was going to be hard and she was going to have to skirt around a few things and hope he didn’t notice.