Bold and Brave-Hearted Read online

  Janice gave her a little nudge with her elbow. “Go forth, have fun. And remember to keep your eye on the ball and get out of the way.”

  The players on the field all cheered when she stood up.

  With a troubled shake of her head, Kim walked toward home plate and Jay. “Why do I have the feeling we’re both about to get beaned?”

  He grinned and held out the bat to her. “You haven’t got a thing in the world to worry about. Ol’ Sampson out there on the mound can’t pitch faster than, say, fifty or sixty miles an hour. Won’t hardly hurt at all.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s not very reassuring.”

  The bat was heavy and awkward in her hands. She’d once tried out for the high-school drill team, but lacking even minimal coordination, had never participated in sports. The drama club had been her thing. “Jay, I don’t even know how to swing a bat. There’s no way I’m going to hit anything.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He gathered her back against him, his arms around her, his hands closing around hers on the bat, her spine curved against his chest and stomach. If they hadn’t been in a public park with dozens of onlookers, the pose could have become intimate. Now it seemed, well, familiar. And a promise of what might be.

  “Hmm, you’re wearing jeans today,” he whispered softly, his breath warm on her ear. “I like you in denim. And you’ve got on that flowery perfume again.”

  A ripple of awareness shuddered through her. For a blind man, he was certainly observant.

  The men on the playing field waited patiently for Jay to finish teaching Kim the rudiments of batting. Virtually all of them were smiling in a knowing way that made Kim feel self-conscious both about her scars and what they must think of her relationship with Jay. Coming with him today might have been a very bad mistake after all. At this point in her life—ugly as sin and unemployed—she had little to offer any man.

  Even less to a man who was a natural athlete.

  “Okay,” Jay explained. “When Sampson pitches, we’re going to swing the bat like this.” He demonstrated. “All we have to do is keep our swing level and we’ll get a hit. I promise.”

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t get that ball from the Braille Institute so you could do this on your own.” The letter from KPRX had so shaken her, she’d forgotten her promise to get that special ball until it was too late and the Institute was closed for the weekend.

  “Not to worry. The other guys wouldn’t agree to playing blindfolded anyway.” He took another practice swing with her. “Perfect. A home run.”

  Kim didn’t think so. “Wouldn’t we do better if we were standing somewhere near home plate?”

  “We’re not?”

  “About three feet off the mark, I’d say.”

  “Well, shoot, blue eyes. It’s your job to start us off in the right place.”

  Kim could only imagine what a ridiculous sight they made, the two of them standing up at the plate like Siamese twins, her butt linked to his pelvis. The catcher crouched behind them; the infielders moved up close and the outfielders jogged in so they were practically standing on the base path. But Jay’s teammates cheered them on from the dugout and the families had gathered around to watch the spectacle.

  Definitely a Kodak moment, she realized and she grinned in spite of herself.

  “Ready?” Sampson asked.

  “No,” Kim insisted.

  “Anytime you are,” Jay contradicted.

  The ball leaped out of the pitcher’s hand. Instinctively Kim closed her eyes.

  “Strike one!”

  “No way!” Jay complained to the umpire. “The ball was a mile outside the plate. Are you blind, or something?”

  The spectators whooped and hollered.

  Jay tugged her close again and took another practice swing with the bat. “We’ll get ’em this time, sweetheart. Keep your eye on the ball.”

  “So I can watch it hit me in the head?”

  “No, so you can tell me when to duck.”

  This time she kept her eyes open. She had the feeling the pitcher was throwing the ball as slowly as he could and still get it to the plate, but she managed to get her swing going milliseconds after the catcher already had the ball in his glove.

  “Strike two!”

  “See, we’re getting better already,” Jay said. “This time it’ll be out of the park.”

  Actually, Kim was looking forward to strike three so she could go sit down again among the onlookers.

  Looking like he was going to fire the next ball right down the pike, Sampson wound up and lobbed one toward the plate. Kim gritted her teeth and swung with all her might. Magically, the ball hit the bat and dribbled a few feet out in front of the plate.

  “We hit it!” The feeble effort was laughable but at least they’d connected with the ball. Kim couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride.

  “Then we’ve gotta run.” Jay took her by the hand, half dragging her toward first base, the bat still in her free hand.

  Meanwhile, the fans were cheering and the opposing players were clowning around trying to delay the throw to first base by dropping the ball and scooping it up again before tossing it at the very last moment to throw them out.

  By the time Kim stumbled across the bag, she was laughing so hard she could barely stand up and was at serious risk of wetting her pants.

  She was also called “Out!” by the umpire.

  “That’s it,” she said, gasping for breath. “My baseball career is over as of this moment.”

  Casually, Jay looped his arm over her shoulders, not breathing hard at all. “You can’t desert me now.”

  “Oh, yes I can.” Scooting out from under his arm, she turned him and pointed him toward the dugout, giving him a little push in that direction. “Next time one of your buddies can pinch-hit for you.”

  Still laughing, she escaped the baseball diamond and received a heroine’s welcome from the firefighters’ wives and their children. Despite a certain amount of embarrassment about Jay’s shenanigans, she couldn’t remember having more fun.

  Even so, she didn’t imagine she’d be applying for a job as a sportscaster anytime soon.

  AS THE GAME progressed, the wives lost interest and all except the youngest children wandered off to the nearby playground to enjoy the slides and swings. Growing more at ease with the firefighters’ wives, and always fascinated by people and how they lived, and accustomed to interviewing guests on TV, Kim began asking questions of the women sitting around her at the picnic table.

  “I admit to an insatiable curiosity about people,” she began, sipping on a can of cold pop someone had provided when she’d come back breathless from her foray into the sports world. She was keeping one eye on the baseball diamond, where Jay was playing right field with a buddy nearby, who she presumed could see better than he could. “When you send your husband off to work in the morning, does it bother you knowing he might have to risk his life to save someone else?”

  “I try not to think about it,” a woman sitting opposite her admitted. She had a baby in her lap who was less than six months old and an older boy who’d gone off to play with the other children. Little wonder she didn’t want to consider losing her husband in a fire.

  “At least when he’s at work I know he’s not out with some other woman,” a second woman joked, a twinkle in her eyes. “And when he gets home, he’s always glad to see me, if you know what I mean. Some mornings after his shift, I can hardly get the kids off to school fast enough.”

  The women laughed.

  “Is that how come you’ve got four kids?” one asked.

  “And they all attend summer school!”

  The woman looked smug and not at all embarrassed by the remarks.

  Another woman with a pixie-like face and glasses said, “When I imagine Stony at work, I think of him polishing the engine or doing physical training, not anything dangerous. Since he was a Marine when we got married and they kept deploying him to one hot spot after a
nother where I knew he could get shot at, I’m happier with him as a firefighter. At least he’s home more often.”

  “Bet you still have to drag out the garbage can every week,” the woman with the baby added. “I swear they schedule these guys to miss garbage night on purpose.”

  That brought another round of laughter.

  When they all quieted, Janice said, “It took me a long time to get used to the idea Ray could be hurt, or worse. I’m not sure I’m used to it yet. And every time I hear a siren…” She shrugged. “I guess it just comes with the territory.”

  The women settled into a pensive mood and Kim posed another question, she hoped on a less sensitive subject. “What about disciplining the children and handling household emergencies? With your husbands gone such long hours, how do you manage?”

  “I discipline my kids whenever they need it—which isn’t often,” the woman at the end of the table hastened to add.

  “If I can’t fix something myself,” Janice said, “I make a list for Ray of things that need to be done. Not that he actually does them, you understand.” Laughing, the other women at the table nodded their understanding. “But it makes me feel better. But say—” She gave Kim a curious look. “Are you thinking about joining the club?”

  The implication was obvious: was Kim considering marrying Jay? She ducked her head away, realizing Janice and her friends had no idea how impossible that would be once Jay could see again.

  “No,” she whispered, her throat strangely achy. “That’s not in the cards.” Not now, not ever. Nor was she sure how she’d feel about being married to a man whose job put his life at risk, no matter how these other women had adjusted to the possibility. Perhaps she’d covered too many stories of dangerous fires with multiple victims, including firefighters.

  A shout went up from the baseball diamond and everyone glanced in that direction.

  To Kim’s horror, Jay was sprawled face down on the dusty path between first and second base. Without thinking, she was on her feet and running as fast as she could toward him. The man was so damned determined to pretend he could do everything he could do before the accident, before he lost his sight—however temporarily. Swear to God, in the process, he was going kill himself!

  She hadn’t quite reached him when he’d begun struggling to his feet, shrugging off the helping hands of his buddies.

  “I’m okay. I fell. No big deal.”

  Someone brushed the dust off the front of his shirt.

  He slapped the hand away. “Leave me alone!”

  Slipping up beside him, Kim slid her arm through his. “I don’t know about you, Sammy Sosa, but I’m starving. You think we could get these people to serve lunch pretty soon?”

  He tensed, like a bow that had been pulled too taut, and then relaxed. “Good plan. C shift doesn’t like to beat the opposition too badly, do we, guys?”

  “Lunch sounds great,” someone agreed.

  Wordlessly, Logan handed Jay’s dark glasses to Kim as she walked him off the field. She nodded her thanks, but her vision was almost as impaired at Jay’s. Tears could do that to a woman.

  So could a man with a mountain full of pride.

  “NOTHING WRONG with your appetite,” Kim commented as Jay finished off a heaping plateful of potato salad, beans, gelatin and two hot dogs smothered in mustard and pickle relish.

  Jay had brought a blanket from home and they’d spread it out in a shady spot beneath a huge oak tree away from the crowd. He’d washed up after his spill on the softball field but there were still streaks of dirt on his face and his gray athletic shirt. His jeans were old, worn nearly white, with the beginning of a hole in one knee. Overall, he looked like a jock who’d had a rather bad day.

  “The hard part is taking a bite of something, figuring you’ve got potato salad on your fork and discovering you’ve speared a sardine instead.”

  “Life is full of little surprises.” Like meeting the boy you had a crush on in high school, finding you like him even more as an adult—and then knowing you still had no future with him.

  He set his plate aside and leaned back against the tree, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Against her will, her gaze lingered on the frayed zipper of his jeans and she wondered if his appetite for activities other than eating was equally robust. If his kiss of yesterday was any indication, bottomless would only begin to describe his reservoir of passion. Her skin flushed at the thought, an ache of need forming between her thighs.

  She shifted uncomfortably.

  Lifting his glasses, Jay rubbed at his eye patches.

  “Did you get enough to eat?” he asked.

  “More than enough. The ladies are good cooks.”

  “Half of that food, the guys made. One of the varied talents we firefighters pick up.” He knuckled his right eye again.

  Kim frowned. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

  “What? Cooking?”

  “No, rubbing your eyes.”

  He shrugged. “Besides being a stickler for balanced meals, Logan’s probably the best cook on our shift. He does a clam linguini that’s great, and he’s the one who usually cooks our holiday turkey and stuffs it with pecans and apples. He probably brought the pasta salad today. He’d make some woman a great wife.”

  She glanced over to the tables where Logan was eating with several of the firefighters who evidently didn’t have families. When she glanced back, Jay was rubbing his eyes again. “What’s your specialty?”

  “Noodles and nothing.”

  “Sounds a little, uh, bland. What is it?”

  “Oh, you usually put a little chicken and some veggies in it, but by the time the last guy gets any, all that’s left is noodles and nothing. But it still tastes pretty good.” He shook his head as if he were trying to dislodge something.

  “What’s wrong, Jay?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got burning rocks in both my eyes.” Cursing, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

  “Wait right here.” Trying to keep her panic at bay, she hurriedly got to her feet and ran to the table filled with firefighters. “Are any of you paramedics?”

  One man raised his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think Jay’s in trouble. His eyes are burning.”

  She never imagined a group of men could move so swiftly and with such calm efficiency. Within ten minutes they had Jay in the emergency room at Paseo del Real Community Hospital, and she was in the waiting room, desperately afraid he’d further damaged his eyes by taking a header in the dirt.

  TENTACLES of fear clawed through Jay’s chest. Like crawling into a structure fire, blackness enveloped him, smoke so thick he couldn’t breathe through his mouthpiece, his air cut off. Drowning in darkness, he’d lost his way.

  Red-hot embers tortured his eyes. Burning daggers lanced his corneas without bringing light.

  He was blind. Totally blind.

  He swore at his own stupidity. His pride.

  “I’m here, Jay.”

  He focused on Kim’s voice, husky with concern, lifting the veil of blackness around him. Instinctively he reached out to her and she took his hand, her fingers slender, almost fragile. He tried not to squeeze too tight but he desperately needed a lifeline. Something—someone—to draw him back from the fiery abyss of lifelong terror. Dependency.

  She grazed her cheek along the back of his hand, her skin as smooth and soft as a peach. “You’re going to be all right.”

  “The doctor—”

  “Dr. Plum washed out your eyes with a special solution. You’d gotten dirt under the patches and he had to get that out. Now he’s called a specialist. She should be here soon.”

  “When the doc took off my patches—” His throat worked convulsively but he couldn’t seem to swallow his fear. “I couldn’t see, Kim. A white light and a blur. Even without the patches that’s all—”

  “Shh, you’ll be fine. We’ll just wait for the specialist. I’ll stay right here with you.”r />
  He’d been in the emergency room often enough on the job to be used to the murmured comings and goings of the hospital staff, the whispered concerns of patients and their families, and the antiseptic smell. Kim’s faintly floral scent seemed out of place, something beautiful in a world that could be very ugly. A world where lives were turned upside down.

  What if he’d never be able to see her again—not on a TV screen, not even from a distance? The genuine smile that lit up her whole face and made her eyes squint when she found something funny. The way her hair curled beside her jaw, inviting a kiss right at the juncture of her throat.

  For years he’d limited himself to admiring her from afar. In high school he hadn’t had much of a choice, given his other obligations. And when she’d returned to Paseo del Real she’d come back as a TV star, hardly in his class, and so he’d simply contented himself with watching her on the screen. Now he had no choice at all.

  “Your friends are waiting in the lobby,” she said. “Rather than overwhelming the emergency room with a dozen firefighters or so, they sent me in instead.”

  “Smart men. Florence Nightingale beats the heck out of an ugly fire jock any day.”

  “They’re an amazing group of men—the wives, too. You’re all really a family, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. And I guess I blew the heck out of the family picnic, didn’t I?” All because he’d been trying to prove to Kim and everyone else that he wasn’t handicapped, that he could do anything any other man could do. Including act like a fool.

  “I didn’t hear any of them complaining.”

  “Only because they’d already had their lunch. You ought to hear the griping that goes on at the station when the tone goes off in the middle of dinner and we get a fire run. It’s even worse if it’s a false alarm. We’ve got this one lady, Abigail Trumblebird, who gets lonely about once a week and starts a fire in her wastebasket or something.”

  Kim knew he was babbling out of anxiety and soothed her free hand across his forehead. Truth be told, she wanted to touch him in any way she could, concerned by the pinched way his dark brows were pulled together even while he was trying to act light-hearted.