chapter 8

*Grace*

“Uh. Gross.” I wake slowly, a bad taste in my mouth from the alcohol the night before despite that I brushed my teeth before bed. Rolling off the side, I make my way to the bathroom, holding my bladder so I can brush again, first and foremost.

Pulling on my robe, I make my way downstairs.

Rob’s already up, showered and dressed and studying at the dining room table, his notes, book and laptop spread about him. He’s made coffee, thankfully, and I watch him covertly as I fix myself a cup.

It’s readily apparent he’s frustrated. In profile, he peers at the screen on his laptop, occasionally squinting. When he does refer to his notes, or the book, it seems he struggles even more.

A suspicion creeps into my mind, the part where I’ve stored teacher things. I’ve seen similar behaviors in students when I was teaching.

Approaching the dining room table, I take the seat opposite, noting Rob’s brows drawn together and irritation clouding his handsome face. “Good morning. Thank you for making coffee. And for cleaning up the mess from last night.”

Rob leans against his chair back, almost grateful for the distraction. Pushing his laptop out of the way, he smiles at me, studies my expression. “You’re welcome. It was only a couple glasses. You slept late,” he comments. “I was surprised I was up before you.”

Biting my lip, I look into my coffee, embarrassed. “I seldom drink, and when I do, it’s not usually more than a glass or two. I think I had four last night. I don’t know why Ella thought she should bring so much. I hope I didn’t say something untoward.”

His gaze upon me intensifies, but his only reply is an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Suddenly, I feel warm and not from the coffee. “What are you working on?” My eyes wander over his papers and books.

Heaving a deep sigh, Rob glances down at his mess strewn about the table. “I have a paper due on Monday. I’m not a good reader, so I’m having a hard time understanding the material to be able to write.”

“Have you always had problems reading? Or is it just this material?” I ask, my earlier suspicion growing stronger.

Rob shakes his head. “It’s anything I have to read. This is maybe worse because the font is so small. I have a digital copy of the book, so I can enlarge the font, but I’m still having trouble.”

I’m nearly certain now. “You don’t wear glasses or contacts, do you?”

“No. It’s just reading. I’m bad at it.”

Rising, I come around the table and take the seat next to him. I set my coffee aside, drawing his book toward me.

The topic is economics, and the print is indeed small. There are few section headers, photos or diagrams, and the text goes on mostly uninterrupted in long paragraphs for several pages. The thin paper allows the text from the opposite side to show through and the glossy ink has a sheen that makes parts of the word or even entire words appear faded, even for me. “Yeah, this is a lousy textbook.”

I set the book aside and glance at his notes. Though there aren’t many, Rob’s jotted them in large, clearly formed letters, evenly spaced along the page and with wide spaces between each word and group of words. A few misspellings catch my eye, and in one of these, one of the letters is reversed.

Finally, I glance at the book program on his computer. Sliding the laptop to me, I check the settings, and, finding what I want, make some adjustments to the way the digital text is presented on the page. “Is that easier to read?”

*Rob*

I hear Grace moving about upstairs, and welcome the impending distraction she brings, particularly from this homework.

And especially a distraction as lovely as Grace.

When she makes her way downstairs and into the kitchen, I steal a glance at her, just for the pleasure of it. She looks relaxed, and frankly, cute as can be with her sleep-tousled hair.

After she fixes a cup of coffee, she takes a seat across from me. She’s a little embarrassed when I mention how late she slept, excusing it by explaining she doesn’t drink often. Of course, I already knew she was a lightweight. That one shot of cinnamon whiskey in the cider on Christmas eve had her out cold for most of the night.

Across from me, Grace apologizes for possibly saying something inappropriate and I can’t help but smile again. I wish you had, I think, my body yearning.

The feeling is immediately quashed when she asks about my homework, and though I don’t mean to, my frustration with this subject and class pours out. To her credit, Grace listens, asking me a few questions, then moves to the seat next to me and takes a look at my textbook. When she reaches for my laptop, I lean back to let her get closer.

Though unshowered, a clean floral odor emanates from her skin and hair, tinged lightly with a faint feminine musk. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t arousing, because it is. I consciously switch to deep inhalations, saturating my senses in her scent.

When she’s done, Grace updates my laptop settings for my digital text, and I give a soft gasp as the letters that had been jumping about and switching places on the page grow still and much clearer. “Wow.” A smile stretches across my face, all of my attention suddenly on homework. “That’s a lot better.”

“I can make a couple more adjustments if you need,” Grace advises. “Test it out. Read the first line.” Turning the laptop to face me fully, she watches my expression carefully, particularly my eyes.

Adrenaline floods into my veins and I feel hot, my smile fading.

I focus on Grace’s face, and seeing only calm curiosity there, my sense of exposure and insecurity wanes a little. Still, I hate reading aloud, even as short of a sentence as she’s asked me to read. “I think it’s fine like that. Thanks. It’s so much better.”

*Grace*

I know in the instant I ask Rob to read out loud from his text that I’m right.

Mentally, I list all the things I knew about him and hadn’t put together until now. Excellent spatial thinking skills. Exceptionally intuitive and good at reading others. Incredible memory. Difficulty reading fine, justified text in certain fonts. Misspellings in his own writing and the presence of reversed letters.

I don’t want him ashamed though. Turning in my chair to face him, I set my hand on his wrist where it rests along the chair’s arm. As gently as possible, I ask, “Are you dyslexic?”

“I’m not diagnosed.”

I feel his hesitation. “But maybe? It’s okay, either way. There are more tools I can show you that can help. I can help.” I prompt him for a response with raised brows and an encouraging smile.

Rob looks down at my hand where it rests on his arm. “I think probably,” he admits. Letting a few seconds tick by, he gathers his courage. “What else can you show me?”

Smiling brightly at the opportunity to help him and more so, at the trust he’s given me, I click through a few more settings on his digital text, showing him how to use the text to speech function to have the program read the text to him.

Opening another program on his laptop, I explain how to use speech recognition to dictate his paper rather than having to type or write it, and adjust the settings so, with one click, he can have the program read back what he’s dictated. Finally, I help him set up his laptop’s voice recognition, so he can speak to initiate internet and document searches.

The frustration and irritation is completely wiped from Rob’s face when I’m finished. In its place is a beaming smile and he looks at me with a mixture of emotions I don’t entirely recognize.

My body does though and I feel the electric sensitivity between us again. “I’ll leave you to this,” I say softly, rising and picking up my now cold coffee. “I’ll fix some breakfast.”

Rob’s still working when I set a plate of hot food beside him. He thanks me distractedly, but when I climb the stairs to go shower and dress, he scarcely notices.

I don’t mind. It’s clear he’s understanding the material, and I’m happy for him. At least I’ve accomplished one good thing today.

*Rob*

Grace is lost in her own thoughts, cleaning and dusting upstairs in her bedroom. She startles when I knock on the doorjamb behind her, standing just outside the threshold of her room.

“Sorry to startle you,” I apologize as she turns.

I glance about her bedroom, my eyes flicking over the homey gray and white décor, studying it as if I’ve never seen it before. The dark, heavy wood furniture is upholstered in linens with delicate floral patterns, the whole room simply refined and decidedly feminine in exactly the way that fits my impressions of Grace.

I’d come up here because I was grateful. Though she’d recognized my dyslexia, her ocean blue eyes were full of compassion and absent of pity, her hand warm through the sleeve of my thermal shirt when she’d touched me. In that instant, gratefulness became much more.

Focusing on my purpose, I force my eyes to her face and away from her bed, dismayed to find rather than uncomplicate my feelings, her beauty compounds them. “Grace, I wanted to tell you thanks. Again. I think you’ve single-handedly ensured I’ll graduate. Maybe even on time.”

“On time? What do you mean?” Setting her dust rag and furniture polish aside, Grace takes a seat on the foot of her bed facing me.

There’s no suggestion—I know Grace only took a seat so she could give me her full attention—but something about seeing her there, on the end of her bed, watching me with those deep blue eyes of hers, starts a chain reaction of biochemicals and the dark tendrils of desire close over me.

Though I know I shouldn’t, I cross the threshold of her room. Kneeling on the floor before her, I let my arms rest close alongside her thighs on the bed, carefully not touching her.

“You know I’m going to school on the GI Bill,” I explain, looking at her delicate hands in her lap. “The bill makes payment for classes directly to the college, then gives a housing and book stipend to the student. I can attend thirty-six months of classes.”

“Yes,” she replies, though I haven’t asked a question.

“After that, whether I’ve completed a degree or not, the benefit ends. I chose St. Mary’s because they transferred all the credits I’d taken while on active duty. That way, if I had to retake classes, I had the money and time.” Looking up at her, I’m swept into her eyes, now a dark, violet-blue I’ve never seen before. It takes my breath away. “You’ve made this so much easier, Grace. I’m not so worried about finishing a degree anymore.”

“You’re welcome.”

The words are breathy, full of a desire raised from the innermost recesses of her body. Suddenly, I’m worried about something else. I don’t dare believe what I’m hearing in her breathing, seeing in her expression. Her exquisite lips are parted in that way that makes my heartbeat falter and they’re flushed an infinitely kissable deep pink.

And I definitely want to kiss her.

To take her clothes off her.

To lay her back on this bed.

Placing my hands on her hips, I pull her a few inches closer, my eyes on hers. It’s there—I can see it—the same yearning, the same aching need crashing about inside me, desperate to break out. It’s there in her. But hearing it and seeing it doesn’t amount to an invitation and I’ve already overstepped by entering her bedroom, by touching her at all.

I draw a deep, steadying breath, stand and gently pull her to her feet. “Listen, I’ve been at that paper all day and need a break. Would you like to go for a drive with me? We could get dinner—my treat as a thank you— since you haven’t started it yet.”

*Grace*

It’s not lost on me that he’d used my first name. In Rob’s voice, it feels like a magic word. He’s a pleasant distraction from worrying about how to keep the farm running, so I focus on him, taking a seat at the end of my bed to listen.

Immediately, I regret it. The dark intensity I’d seen in his eyes when our hands met on the car door returns, more powerful than before.

And unlike that day in the hardware store parking lot, bundled and cold and public, today we’re alone, inside the private shelter of the warm farmhouse, and staring at one another across its most intimate space.

I’m in over my head.

I also know I don’t want safe waters. I’m betting odds that Rob can see it when he strides across the room and kneels in front of me, his hands along my legs as though worshiping in prayer.

Completely caught off guard, I stare at his bowed head, barely resisting the urge to run my fingers into the chaotic black spikes. Rob leans in as he speaks, explaining about his GI bill and school.

It’s unconscious on his part, I feel sure, but I’m still acutely aware of his upper body between my legs, the thinness of our clothes and his warmth through them. The touch leaves me shivering delicately, heat rushing to the surface of my skin.

That’s when Rob looks up, puts his hands on my hips and slides me closer to him. The touch ripples through me with doppler effect, the most potent waves concentrated deep inside me, directly between his hands and body between my thighs. It’s eager reciprocal is there in his honey-colored eyes. The same dark intensity of desire I feel raging around inside me is plainly visible inside him.

I lose track of how long we’re locked like this, in this war of temptation. My nerves have all rerouted and are jockeying for position in one of the places our bodies make contact, clinging against each other like iron filings drawing to Rob’s magnetic touch.

Heaving a deep breath, Rob stands, pulling me to my feet with him. He’s so close, if I extend my fingers, they’d brush his chest. And I’m keenly aware that to keep us balanced, one of his muscular thighs is between mine, the other against my hip.

“Listen, I’ve been at that paper all day and need a break.” The last three words seem supercharged by the way he looks me in the eye, the way his voice is barely a whisper, loud in the dead silence of the room. “Would you like to go for a drive with me? We could get dinner—my treat as a thank you— since you haven’t started it yet.”

In the space of a question, the intensity between us is barely contained, battering against the boundaries of our circumstances. The dark closeness of his car would only feed it, and the noise of a public restaurant wouldn’t be enough this time to dispel it.

The word ‘yes’ is on the tip of my tongue and I’m drawing breath to speak it when Ella’s words from the night before loom like a wall in my head.

“The whole town is buzzing about you and the foreign guy picking out paint… Paul and I heard an earful at the pub a few weeks ago… You live in a fishbowl, Gracie. These people are dying for some excitement.”

The frozen ice beneath me gives way, plunging me into the river’s icy waters.

As much as I want to go, it wouldn’t do to give the gossip mongers any more fat to chew. It wouldn’t do to lead Rob on when I don’t know if I’ll even have the farm at the end of the year or where I’ll go if I don’t. It wouldn’t do to complicate the relationship between us when I have nothing to offer him.

“You go ahead and go.” I loathe the words as I speak them but force a tight smile to my face. “I have some things I need to finish here.”

Rob steps back immediately, releasing my hands. “Okay. I’ll be back in a while.”

*Rob*

At a random intersection, without paying any attention, I turn the car and continue driving. Miles slip away, right and left turns blur into one another, and the sun moves across the sky. Around me, the scenery switches from dark, fallow farmland to undeveloped forestland with the occasional residence, but I see none of it. My mind’s replaying each interaction with Grace, carefully analyzing them to understand my mistake. I was certain she was going to say yes, I think, disappointed.

At some point in my meanderings, the road turned from asphalt to gravel to hard-packed dirt, became winding and narrow and enclosed on both sides by trees. The leaf and needle waste is a chestnut blanket coating the ground beneath their canopy and adds to my gloom. I have no idea where I am anymore, and I’m not sure I care.

I was certain what I felt growing between us— in the past few weeks, last night, today—was mutual. Now, I’m just confused.

When the road ends abruptly at a washed-out bridge over the river, I put the car in park. As with most such places, the area had become a dumping ground for unwanted items, and roadside, there were piles of abandoned pallets, yard and leaf waste, decaying Christmas trees, weather-beaten cardboard boxes, random garbage and rusting appliances among the discarded trash.

This side of the river slopes gently southwest and edging the incline, the trees are crowned with bright green bud growth. The carpet of brown is dappled along the yellow-green verge with a narrow-leaved vine that hugs the rocky ground in spite of the stronghold winter refuses to relinquish.

Though I’ve lived in this part of the country for over two years, I can’t recall ever seeing this plant and peer at it closely. Low-growing clusters of star-shaped white flowers striped with pink and dotted at the center with yellow tip their faces upward, reaching for the sun like sunbathers on a beach.

Their tenacity impresses me. How they focus on what they need, stubbornly ignoring the forces that work against them, if not with dignity and grace, then at least with sheer determination. Opening the door, I lean out and pick a cluster of the flowers. Perhaps Grace knows what they are. Setting my picking on the passenger seat, I tip my head back against the headrest, staring at nothing.

The sky outside is growing dark when my phone rings, startling me out of my thoughts. I press a switch on the steering wheel, connecting the call through the car’s speakers and the phone’s Bluetooth. “Hello?”

“Hi, son,” my parents reply in stereo.

“Mom? Dad? What are you doing? Let me call you back.”

“It’s okay, Rob. We knew you’d be calling later, but we’re going to have breakfast this morning with some friends and won’t be home,” my father explains.

I draw a deep breath, trying to exhale my frustrations and focus on my parents. Compared to what they’ve had to go through for twelve years halfway around the globe, my heartbreak is a little woe. “That’s nice. Is everything else okay?”

“It’s the same as it always is here. It doesn’t sound like everything is okay there,” my mother comments.

A weak, ironic smile pulls the corners of my mouth. Mom’s so sensitive to my moods, I think and feel too embarrassed to even be upset. “Nothing, Mom. I haven’t heard anything from the lawyers yet.”

“I wasn’t worried about the lawyers. I was worried about my son.”

I know what’s coming next and my face splits into a smile. Though we’ve been separated since I was sixteen, my mother knows my signs. Her voice is relaxed and patient as she speaks the familiar words that let me know she’s there for me.

“I’ll wait for you to catch up.”

This time when I exhale, the tension drains away with it. We might be on opposite sides of the world, but my family’s there for each other. “It’s a—it’s a girl, Mom,” I admit shyly. When no commentary is forthcoming, I continue. “The lady, Grace, that hired me as a handyman. I really like her and I thought she liked me, but today when I asked her out, she turned me down.”

“Hmmm.” I can tell my mother is considering everything she knows about Grace. “Don’t doubt your instincts, Rob. She hired you because she can’t do everything by herself. That must be an awful lot for one person.”

Though there weren’t many words to my mother’s reply, I recognize a lot of insight there. Where Grace is concerned, no doubt I have tunnel vision.

And it was so plain. No one’s life is as simple and tidy as they let on, and Grace’s life seems very simple.

So simple in fact, that I’d seen her aloneness. Felt the weight of the burdens she bears. And while I’d been obliviously working on my paper, Grace had been cleaning a house that’s already neat as a pin with only the two of us in it. Like the subtle changes in my disposition and voice that my mother has picked up—my cues of distress— Grace had been revealing her signs of distress to me.

Though I desperately want to take her out, get her away from our carefully choreographed life of polite distance, what I should have been doing was asking her if she’s okay. If I consider Grace worth pursuing, I need to do it right. “Thanks, Mom. Let me call you tomorrow, okay?”

“That sounds a bit better.” I can hear the smile in Mom’s voice. “Okay. We love you.”

“I love you both, too.”

*Grace*

Struggling against tears and despair, I tear the latest sheet from my notebook, wadding it into a ball and pushing it towards the others scattered about the dining room table. My grandparents had always grown corn and soybeans on the farm, even last year before Juliet died. The profit may not have been much, but it had gotten them by.

Now though, with a hefty chunk of last year’s profit going to lawyers and court fees to probate Juliet’s estate, I can’t find a balance of these crops that’s affordable with what’s left in the bank. No combination of acres planted with each crop or a single crop allow me to sow the entire farm.

And without planting the full acreage, I wouldn’t turn a profit, especially if the previous year’s prices stay stable or fall.

Insecurities mound one on top of the next, crashing about inside my head, like a multi-car pile-up on the interstate. Helpless against them, I begin to tremble, tears spilling down my cheeks and leaving wet stains on the blank paper before me. Overwhelmed, I clutch my head in my hands and let them fall. Silent sobs wrack my body as I slump over the table, my head tucked into my folded arms.

*Rob*

There’s a light on in the dining room as I pull up, parking beside Grace’s truck. I check the time, realizing I’m later than I intended. Likely Grace has already prepared dinner and eaten, and I’ve missed an opportunity to talk I desperately want. Killing the engine and lights, I lock the car, hurrying across the front lawn to the farmhouse door, the dry grass crunching beneath my feet with the cold.

What greets me when I open the door sends a five-alarm frenzy up my spine and I stand frozen, staring at Grace’s lowered head as she sobs, wrestling with my visceral response to seeing her cry.

As her tears ebb, her sobs subside to shallow, spasming breaths, and suddenly Grace is angry. Standing abruptly, she sweeps her journal and the wadded papers littering the table together into a pile. Turning, she stuffs them roughly into a drawer of the dish hutch behind her. Flipping the switch, she plunges the room into darkness, doing the same as she makes a circle through the kitchen and into the great room to the stairs.

I flatten myself against the entry closet as Grace rises, praying desperately that she won’t come around this way to the stairs, catch me intruding. Hearing her at the kitchen laundry, I roll around the corner, flattening myself against the dining room wall and wait until I hear her bedroom door close, her moving about upstairs.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I hang my coat, then return to the kitchen. The lamp over the kitchen sink barely illuminates the room and I make a mental note to check the bulbs in the morning. It does give enough light for me to see what I need. Grace hadn’t prepared a meal, which meant she likely hadn’t eaten since she fixed brunch for us that morning, almost twelve hours ago.

Regret wars with self-loathing as I enter the dining room and open the drawer where Grace stuffed her papers. Smoothing one of the wads, I quickly surmise what she’d been doing from the tallied numbers and curse myself.

This whole day you were wrapped up in yourself. She helped you without asking for anything, and you left her here battling with her own demons. Maybe if you’d thought a little about her and come back at a reasonable hour, she might have taken you up on that offer of dinner after all. Might have talked to you about what’s going on.

Wadding the paper again, I close it in the drawer, returning to the kitchen and fixing myself a sandwich. I eat it without tasting, leaning against the kitchen counter, then climb the stairs to my room. Standing on the landing, I stare at the door to Grace’s room. No light seeps from around its edges or foot, no sound comes from the other side.

Undressing in my own room, I climb into my bed but sleep is slow to come. As the night wanes, inspiration finally hits and a solution presents itself. Relieved, I drift to sleep.