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  I heard the sofa depress under his weight.

  “So, what can I do for you, Sawyer?”

  “There’s talk around town that you’re mixed up with that oddball hick up at Old Man’s Creek.”

  I took a deep breath. “He is not an oddball hick,” I said slowly and clearly.

  “Heck, Lara. You don’t know what a risk you’re taking going off with him alone to that godforsaken place. Anything could happen to you.”

  I felt my temper rising, but I held myself in check. “As you can see nothing has happened to me. I’m perfectly safe. Mr. Carson has been nothing but a gentleman.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Wow. Where did that come from? “I beg your pardon.”

  He stood up and started pacing the floor. “Don’t go to his house, Lara,” he burst out suddenly. To my shock he marched up to me, grabbed me by my upper arms, and pulled me upright.

  “Sawyer!” I squealed, completely taken aback and confused. What on earth was going on?

  He let go of me as suddenly as he had grabbed me. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, and took a step back. He seemed so agitated I couldn’t think straight or understand what was going on. I heard him move away from me as I rubbed my arms where he had grabbed me.

  He came back towards me, and though my instinct was to step back, I held my ground.

  “Please, Lara,” he begged. “I simply can’t bear the thought of you going to his house and spending time with him. It makes me sick to my stomach. I worry about you, you know?”

  My mouth dropped open with shock. My mind went blank. What the hell was he talking about? I ran my hand through my hair. I took a deep breath.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re engaged to Kayleigh, aren’t you?” I asked. I didn’t know Kayleigh, but her family owned most of the land around here, and most of the wealth too. Elaine went to school with her. When I asked her to describe Kayleigh, she just snorted, and said in a sour voice, “Just imagine a cow wearing a tiara, then imagine it being snooty to boot.” But I knew it wasn’t true. Kayleigh was beautiful. There was even talk of her becoming a model.

  He made a tortured sound. “Yes, yes, yes, I know goddamnit, but fucking hell, you know that I’m in love with you.”

  I felt cold all over. “What are you talking about?”

  “I loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you,” he declared passionately.

  “You didn’t want me. I offered myself to you, remember?” I cried.

  “Oh, Lara. What a little innocent you are. I love you, I always have, surely you know that, but I can’t marry you.”

  It hit me then and I took a step back. “Because I’m blind?”

  “No, no, you little fool. I wouldn’t care if you were legless and armless.”

  “Why then?” I whispered.

  “Fuck.”

  “Tell me,” I yelled suddenly.

  “It’s money, okay? It’s her fucking money,” he screamed back.

  I fell backwards into the chair, breathing hard. “This is crazy.”

  “I can’t bear to lose you to that, that murderer.”

  “Murderer?” I repeated in a daze.

  “Everyone knows he killed his wife.”

  “He did not murder his wife,” I said quietly.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do.”

  “Yeah, and everybody thought John Gacy was just a clown.”

  “I don’t get it, Sawyer. You’re going to marry Kayleigh. What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be my sweetheart, Lara.”

  A disbelieving laugh escaped my lips. “You want me to be your whore.”

  “No. It’s not like that. I love you.”

  “Not more than Kayleigh’s father’s money it would seem,” I said bitterly.

  “It’ll just be a marriage of convenience. It’s you in my thoughts, my heart, my soul. I love you, Lara. Please, just wait for me. I swear, we’ll be together one day soon. I want to marry you. With every fiber of my being.” He stopped to take a deep breath. “Just give me two years. That’s all I need. I have a plan. Old man Havington has promised me that I’ll be head of his business. I’ll work hard and make enough money for us. Enough to take care of you. You won’t ever have to work again.”

  “Two years?”

  “Yes,” he cried eagerly. “Two years is nothing. It’ll fly, you’ll see. Just please don’t give yourself to anyone else until them.”

  “What if you have kids, Sawyer?”

  “I’ll let her keep them. I only want the kids we make together.”

  I shook my head in wonder. “I used to envy Kayleigh. I used to think she had everything, money, looks, you. I used to dream of you, but you know what? I pity her now.”

  “You don’t have to pity her. She knows I don’t love her. She just wants to hang on the arm of the best looking man in Durango Falls.”

  I shook my head sadly. “Then I pity her more. Good luck with your life, Sawyer. I’ll certainly not be waiting for you.”

  He knelt in front of me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and I hated it. To think I cried for this man. What a silly girl I was.

  “Please, Lara. Please. Please understand,” he urged desperately.

  “I understand perfectly.”

  “No, you don’t. I want to give you everything. Everything I’m doing is for you. Say you’ll wait for me. Please don’t go to that crazy wolfman.”

  “You’re not half the man he is,” I said through clenched teeth.

  He jerked forward, and suddenly his lips were on mine. Wet and insistent. For a second I was paralyzed, then I opened my lips and bit down hard. He screamed and fell backwards. “You bit me,” he cried incredulously.

  “Get out,” I said, wiping my mouth. I could taste his blood. “Get out and never come back.”

  “This is not over. I’m not giving up,” he yelled, but he picked himself up and rushed out. I listened to the door slam then began to cry. I had no one.

  Everybody who really loved me was gone forever.

  Twenty

  Kit

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wutmEjdbedE

  I opened my eyes to pale blue light stealing into the room. The fire had gone out hours ago, and the tip of my nose was numb with cold. My first thought was, She won’t be coming today.

  I sighed, and my breath turned into white smoke. The days when she was not due to come over had started to stretch like endless wastelands that I had to trudge across. I shut my eyes and thought of her in her home fast asleep, and felt a strange sense of peace.

  I imagined her sightless eyes closed. Would she be dreaming now? How did people who had never had sight dream? I decided to ask her the next time I saw her. She was full of surprises. The other day she surprised me by saying she “watched” movies.

  The thought of a blind person sitting in front of a screen filled with moving images, and trying to ‘get’ a movie purely by listening to the sounds coming from it was sort of outlandish. I would have thought nobody would since so much of the stories are told through images, little nuances of hand movements and facial expressions.

  But Lara assured me that she did “watch” movies. The last two were The Hunger Games and The Twilight Series.

  “What did you think of them?” I asked curiously.

  “Well, the music scores were really good, the heroines kicked ass, but the heroes were complete wimps.”

  That sure made me smile.

  “My rating: 3 stars for Twilight and 4.5 for Hunger Games,” she said.

  “When was the last movie you watched?” I asked.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “What was it?”

  “Spiderman.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “I thought I was playing it on the wrong speed, or I was watching a rerun of Friends. Not only was it so slow moving, I only managed to squeeze one laugh out of it.”

  I laughed. “I take it you d
on’t like Friends.”

  “I think that is one of those programs better left to the sighted,” she chirped.

  After she left I looked for a DVD I hadn’t watched yet, and put it into my player. Inception. I closed my eyes and tried to follow the story. Wow! I sure picked a bad movie to start with. I couldn’t follow a thing. The temptation to open my eyes was so great I ended up blindfolding myself.

  As the movie went on I realized the music was incredible, and created an awesome background, but all the action scenes without pictures were just long unintelligible passages full of gunfire, screaming, grunts, and screeching cars. In the end though, it was all explained and I kinda got it, but it made me appreciate Lara’s world a whole lot more.

  Instead of taking off the blindfold I walked around my house for a bit. After all, I knew the inside of my house like I knew the back of my hand. Fuck, was that a disaster or what? That night I learned I knew shit about the inside of my house. I banged my knee twice, nearly fell over a chair, and hurt my shoulder on the doorframe when I turned too fast to close the kitchen cabinet. I desperately wanted to take the blindfold off, but I didn’t.

  This was Lara’s world.

  It made me appreciate the bravery of blind people. The level of trust they place in each step. When I finally took off my blindfold I went to sit on the porch. It was freezing cold and snow on the ground glittered like diamond dust. The pleasure I got from the wolves and the night was still there, but I missed her. I thought my life would stay on the same path, but ever since she came into my life nothing has been the same.

  She was like a tornado, ripping up stuff that I thought was solid and cemented down forever, but damn if that slip of a girl didn’t turn my life into something beautiful. Full of life, laughter, joy, cake … and flowers. Yeah, flowers. Who’d have thought? Me and flowers!

  She brought flowers with her the other day.

  “I can’t see them, but I can smell them,” she said. “Besides, you can see them so you might as well enjoy them.”

  I must have looked a right fool when I went into the grocery store and walked out clutching a bunch of flowers. I don’t know where she got hers from, but the ones that I got didn’t smell too good. I was a bit embarrassed about it, so I filled an old empty tin with water, stuck them in it, and thought it would be the end of that sorry story, but every time they caught my eye, they reminded me of sweet Lara.

  That was Saturday night. Today was Monday. I pulled the blankets up around my neck. Well, she was not coming in today. Which was probably just as well, since I had a bunch of stuff to do.

  I needed to get more wood chopped up. Since Lara came into my life I found myself using more wood to keep the place warmer. I don’t know why I kept the place so cold and inhospitable. I’d better sort the downstairs window out too. One of the frames was loose and there was talk of a big blizzard rolling in late tomorrow night. One really strong gust of wind and it could blow right off.

  The blizzard would probably maroon me in for a couple of days, and the pipes will probably freeze again so I really should fill the bathtub with water, and get enough provisions in for the next couple of days.

  I glanced at the alarm clock. It was not yet six. Just enough time to do a bit of hiking up the mountain before the sun came up. Been a couple of weeks since I went up. It was always beautiful at this time of the year. The thought cheered me up, so I pushed away the blankets and walked into a new day.

  Only Chepi was around when I came down to the porch. I gave her a piece of bacon and she wolfed it down as quickly as she could. I crouched down and rubbed her gently behind her ear, while she licked my face and made a purring sound.

  The air was crisp and sharp. She followed me part of the way, but once I crossed the small frozen lake, she whirled around and went back. I climbed steadily for half an hour while I followed the tracks of a chase. At least five wolves and their prey.

  At a clearing I saw the old buck the wolves had pulled down. He had made his last stand with his back to the trees. Poor bastard must have been exhausted from the long winter and the wolves would have been ferocious with hunger. He wouldn’t have lasted long. His carcass bore the marks of his predators’ attack.

  They had bitten into his hamstrings, slicing right through to make it impossible for him to run. His throat was mangled, a crimson river flowed away from his neck, and his eyes were glassy, but there was something valiant about him. He had died fighting an age old enemy.

  The wolves had only eaten his entrails, but they would return to their kill later. It was man’s traps and poisons that made wolves not go back to finish their meal. There was deep satisfaction in knowing that on my land the wolves had learned to trust again. Here they could roam, hunt, go away and come back to feed without fear.

  Wilderness was in balance. The way it should be.

  It was a gruesome sight, but the truth was neither wolf nor deer can survive without the other. The deer if allowed to breed unchecked, would overgraze the land and die of starvation, and the wolves without the deer would perish in the winter when the heavy snows hid the small rodents, fish, snakes, grubs, birds, and berries that give them sustenance during the other seasons.

  I made my way back down the mountain before the sun filtered through the trees.

  Twenty-one

  Lara

  When the blizzard came, it was on us so suddenly it caught even Kit by surprise. I was sitting at the kitchen table, half-way through chapter twenty-three, when a blast of wind blew hard against the door.

  It was so violent I stopped mid-sentence. Kit’s chair scraped back abruptly. He walked to the window and said, “Holy smokes.”

  “Kit?” I called anxiously.

  “Damn, it looks like a serious blizzard out there.”

  “Really?”

  “Fuck,” he cursed. “The storm got here faster than the weatherman said it would. It was not supposed to arrive till late this evening. Damn, I should have paid better attention to the wolves. Things are always going to get bad when they all huddle up on the porch.”

  I stood up and reached for my coat. “I should go home before the roads get too bad, then.”

  “We can give it a shot,” Kit said doubtfully. “But it might not be possible. Once we’re out of the protection of the windbreak from the trees the storm, if it gets worse, could easily knock my old truck off the road.”

  “God,” I exclaimed alarmed. “How long do you think the blizzard will last?”

  “It’s not forecast to last more than a few hours, but you can never say. It could even last days.”

  “Days?” I gasped.

  “It’s unlikely, but I have to warn you of the worst case scenario. Do you have a pet that needs feeding, or something urgent that you have to do?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good. We’ll just wait and see what happens.”

  “Wait? For how long?”

  “A few hours.”

  I worried my lower lip. “Are you sure I wouldn’t be intruding?”

  “No way,” he said with a laugh. “I like having you here, remember?”

  Outside the wind howled. “What if it lasts longer than a few hours?”

  There was an odd silence. “You can sleep in my bedroom. I’ll change the sheets for you, and I’ll sleep downstairs and make sure the fire doesn’t go out.”

  “I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble,” I murmured.

  “I never have visitors so it’ll be a pleasure,” he replied gruffly.

  A blast of wind rattled the windows, and I was suddenly excited. I had a brilliant idea.

  “Kit?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you do something for me?”

  “You want to go home?” he asked, and he sounded so disappointed, I felt bad for him.

  I shook my head vigorously. “I want you to be my eyes. I’ve never been out of town during a blizzard, and I’d love to see it through your eyes.”

  “Huh?”

  “
You’ll figure something out. I trust you completely.”

  Kit obviously wasn’t sure about my idea, but I was. I wanted to be out there in the midst of the whirling storm.

  “Right, get your coat and let’s go out onto the porch.”

  After I slipped into my coat, he came up to me and gave me a warm scarf. It smelled of him and my stomach clenched like a fist. I wrapped it around my neck, and he handed me a pair of thick men’s gloves. I pulled them on and he opened the front door. A strong gust of wind carrying fluffy flakes of snow slapped me in the face. I gasped and laughed at the sensation, and felt him turn to stare at me.

  “Tell me what you see,” I urged.

  “It’s … it’s cold out here.” He stopped. “Obviously, you can feel that yourself,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “The wind is blowing hard … uh … sorry. Let me start again.”

  I smiled at him encouragingly.

  He was silent while he looked around. “The wolves are milling around out front. They’re looking towards us, but none of them have come close yet. When they stand in the snow is when they look most beautiful.”

  “Come on,” he said taking my hand. We went down the steps and stood on the ground. The strong winds full of fluffy snow buffeted us, and tore at my coat, making it flap.

  “You know how long the driveway is, right?” he shouted above the noise of the wind.

  I turned towards his voice and nodded.

  “Okay, on either side of the driveway are sapling trees.”

  “Cedars,” I yelled, my smile widening. “Even in the winter I can smell them.”

  “That’s right,” he approved. “They are almost bent over with the strong wind. That roar you hear is the wind tearing through all the big cedars lining the road. But they are good and sturdy, nothing will hurt them.”

  As the snow poured down on us, Kit called out, “Right now, the blizzard has suddenly got so bad, the air is almost white and you can’t see squat. I can’t even see the tall cedars out at the road anymore.”

  Twenty-two

  Lara

  An hour later we were breaking bread, so to speak.