Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance (15 page)

“I know this is going to sound terribly unromantic, but I’ve got to feed my hogs.”

He grabbed her hand. “Oink, oink.”

She laughed and pecked him lightly on the cheek. “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

“Oh, yeah?” He pretended to snarl as he caught a handful of her hair and lowered his head. Since losing his eyesight, he’d found no joy after sex, only
a kind of frantic despair. He couldn’t stand the thought of that now, of how empty his life had been, so he kissed her with a telling need, a message of just how vital she had become to him.

“Mmmh.” Her breath struck his face like soft puffs of cotton when they drew apart. “Can you hold that thought for about fifteen minutes?”

He groaned. “Oh, damn. I’ve created a monster.”

“Last night you said you were praying for it,” she retorted, feeling desirable and utterly secure in the smug realization of it.

“At this rate I’ll be praying for a speedy death.” He turned her and playfully swatted her blue-jeaned bottom. “Go on, Porky. I’ll put the coffeepot on.”

“Porky?”

“Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but, “I meant to say Petunia.”

“I should hope so.”

“What time is it?”

She glanced at her bedside clock. “Eight-thirty.”

“Ah, good.”

“Got a late date?” she teased as she sashayed out of the bedroom.

“No.” Nick trailed behind her. “But Harley said he was going to stop by around nine this morning to wish us a Merry Christmas.”

“Why don’t you invite him to have dinner with us?” Dovie carefully avoided looking at her lonely little Christmas tree as she crossed the living room. Usually there were dozens of gaily wrapped
presents piled beneath it, just waiting for adults and children alike to tear into them. This year, though, she’d distributed her gifts early so the members of her family could open them in their own homes.

Family … Looking back, she could see she’d cheated everyone, herself included, by becoming so dependent on their dependency.

She hadn’t made a doormat out of herself on purpose, of course. Nor had she intentionally raised her brothers and sisters to be such big babies. But something in her personality, maybe something as simple as a desperate craving for the attention she’d missed by being the oldest of eight children—

“Knock, knock.” Nick tapped at her temple with a gentle knuckle. “Anybody home?”

“Oh.” Dovie came out of her reverie only to realize she’d lost track of their conversation. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said Harley is going to have Christmas dinner at his sister’s house in Richmond.”

“Well, then,” she said, “I guess it’s just you and me against that twenty-pound Smithfield ham.”

Correctly divining the source of her distraction a moment before, Nick confessed, “I want you to know that I feel guilty as hell about driving this wedge between you and your brothers and sisters.”

“And I want you to know that the wedge has been there since I was old enough to mind the babies
while Mama cooked or cleaned or did one of the million other things essential to keeping house.”

“What do you mean?”

They moved to the enclosed back porch, where she automatically worked while they talked.

“Just that ever since I can remember, I’ve needed to be needed.” She filled two buckets with equal portions of the corn, chestnuts, and powdered skim milk that she would feed to her hogs. “If Mama had morning sickness, which she did more often than not, I was only too happy to play the ‘little mother’ and get my brothers and sisters fed and dressed and off to school.”

Dovie paused and shredded some of the orange peel she had left over after making her ambrosia, then added it to the mixture in the buckets. “And if Pop was worried about money, which he was more often than not, I’d be the one to say, ‘Don’t worry about new shoes for me; the ones I’m wearing fit me fine.’ I said that even if they pinched! Once, when Pop was laid off for a long stretch, I even volunteered to drop out of high school and get a job. Thank God my counselor talked me out of that.”

The mantel clock chimed eight forty-five.

“Understand, I’m not saying that my parents didn’t love me. Nor am I trying to blame them for my mistakes. They did the best they could under the circumstances—I believe that with all my heart.” She took a gallon jug from under the porch sink and filled it with water. “But they were so busy that I tried to get their attention by making
myself indispensable to them. Unfortunately it became a lifelong pattern.”

Her voice went raspy with regret. “I think it was only natural that my brothers and sisters stopped seeing me as one of them and started reacting to me as a third parent, which probably created some resentment on both sides. I mean, it couldn’t have been much fun for them to take orders from someone who was only a couple of years older than they were. And believe me, putting my own needs on the back burner and catering to their every whim got to be a real drag at times.”

Water gurgled as she poured it out of the jug.

Nick hadn’t touched her, but let her talk it all out, drawing from her the truths that he’d guessed days ago. He’d pieced the picture together by himself, but now he felt compelled to share his single greatest fear about their relationship.

“Are you attracted to me because I’m blind and you see me as someone who needs you to take care of him?” he asked her bluntly.

“Believe it or not, I don’t see you that way at all.” Dovie stirred the contents of the buckets with brisk, practiced motions. When the mixture was the right consistency, she rinsed off the paddle and hung it back on its peg. “In fact, I realized when I woke up this morning that I fell in love with you the first time I heard you laugh.”

Suprise flickered across his face. “You mean—”

“Before I fell in the river,” she admitted almost shyly. “Before I even knew you were blind.”

Relief poured through every vein of Nick’s body. “Dov—” But his voice cracked and the remainder of her name went unspoken.

She washed and dried her hands, then slid her arms around his waist. “All my life I’ve laughed to keep from crying. But when I heard you laughing after you released that trout”—she smiled reminiscently—“it was almost like a song. And as crazy as it sounds,
I
knew all the words.”

Nick found himself speechless in the face of an enormous tide of emotions. He closed his eyes against her hair and hugged her to his chest, understanding what she meant and thinking that if he’d looked the whole world over—

The mantel clock struck nine.

The doorbell rang.

“That must be Harley.”

“You want me to answer it?” Dovie asked.

“No, I’ll get it.” After touching her forehead in the briefest of kisses, Nick released her and ushered her toward the back door. “If I recall correctly, you were on your way out.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“My buckets,” Dovie reminded him.

The doorbell rang again.

“I’m coming!” Nick yelled as he went back for her buckets. “Here. Now, don’t say I never gave you anything.”

“Hey, are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked huffily when he yanked the back door wide open.

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, you,” she said with a suspicious glance at his carefully innocent expression.

He scrambled for an explanation. “Look at it this way: The sooner the hogs get their breakfast, the sooner I’ll get mine.”

“You’ll get yours, all right,” she muttered as she marched out into the frosty air.

“Don’t bet on it,” he said before the back door banged shut behind her.

Dovie made short work of feeding the hogs. But not short enough, apparently, because when she came in through the kitchen, Nick was alone.

“Where’s Harley?”

“On his way to Richmond.”

“But I wanted to wish him Merry Christmas.”

Nick poured them each a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “He’ll be back tonight, so you can do it then.”

“It won’t seem the same, though.” Dovie took a foil-wrapped package from the bread box and a serving plate from the cupboard, then set them on the counter.

“What’s that?”

“Your breakfast.”

“My …?” He leaned over and inhaled deeply of the rich, yeasty aroma that escaped when she peeled back the foil. “Mmmh.”

“Chocolate sticky buns,” she explained as she transferred them to the serving plate. “They’re sort of a tradition around here on Christmas morning.”

He scraped a squiggle of chocolate off the foil and
unabashedly licked his finger. “Sinful, positively sinful.”

Laughing, she arranged the plate on a tray with their coffee cups. “What do you say we take these to the table and pig out?”

“Or we could take them a few steps farther and have breakfast in bed,” he drawled suggestively as he followed her out of the kitchen.

“You’re incorr—”

She broke off when she saw the mountain of gifts—foiled, beribboned, and one wrapped in plain brown paper—that cascaded around the foot of her Christmas tree.

Gentle hands pried the tray from her trembling fingers and placed it on the table. “Go see who they’re for.”

But she knew who they were for. And she knew who they were from. Love rose in her like a great hunger. “I … I have nothing to give you in return.”

“Look at me, Dovie.” Nick stepped in front of her, blocking her view but not touching her. “Your love is the greatest gift I’ve ever received. There’s nothing you could buy me that I would treasure more.”

She drew in a deep, ragged breath. “Thank—”

He laid a silencing finger over her lips. “We have the rest of our lives to thank each other. All I want to hear right now is the sound of wrapping paper being ripped.”

Dovie grabbed his finger and bit it gently. “Is it all right if I throw in a few squeals of delight?”

Nick grinned and stepped aside. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

She knelt on the floor, all aflutter with excitement as she gathered the collection of packages around her. “I don’t know where to begin!”

“Why don’t you start with this one?” He sat on the edge of the wing-chair cushion and indicated the biggest package, the one wrapped in plain brown paper.

“Okay,” she agreed, and reached for it first. But before she could open it, the doorbell rang again.

“I’ll get it.” He rose and started out of the room, then stopped and wagged a warning finger at her. “No fair peeking while I’m gone.”

“Cross my heart.” But she couldn’t resist giving the gold cord that was tied around it a bit of a tug. Then she had to lift it and squeeze it, finding it excitingly light and soft. Like a bundle of feathers! And also there was that piece of tape that looked a little ragged around the edges—

“Dovie.” Nick said her name so strangely that she glanced up with a guilty start, prepared to swear on a stack of Bibles that she hadn’t peeked.

But the words died on her lips when she saw all five of her brothers and her sister Mary flanking him. Hoping against hope, she pushed the packages away and started to stand up.

“Stay where you are,” Curtis urged.

“We’ve just come to apologize,” Jack said.

“To both of you,” Ray added.

Lon looked her squarely in the eye. “You’re right.”

“We’re a bunch of spoiled brats,” Merle admitted.

Mary clasped her hands together fearfully. “Can you ever forgive us for the way we’ve behaved?”

“Yes,” Dovie said softly, hardly daring to believe her ears. Joy burst through her heart as she leaped to her feet and launched herself at each of them in turn. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

It was like old home week then, with everybody hugging and kissing and laughing and talking, and nobody listening.

Finally Curtis broke away and turned to Nick. “If it’s not too late, I’d like to be the first to shake your hand.”

Nick met him halfway, talking his hand in a grip so hard their knuckles turned white. “Actually, you’re just in time to watch Dovie open her presents.”

“We don’t want to interrupt your private celebration.” It seemed appropriate that Curtis, who’d always been the ringleader, now served as the family spokesman. “We simply wanted you to know how ashamed we are that it took a stranger to make us see our Dovie for what she is—a beautiful woman who deserves the best.”

“I’ll try to live up to your trust,” Nick assured them in a voice gone gruff with emotion.

Dovie’s heart filled her breast with wingbeats as her other brothers and her sister Mary took a turn at welcoming Nick into the family fold. When the
healing was complete she asked contentedly, “Does anyone want a chocolate sticky bun?”

Six hungry expressions came and went in the blink of an eye.

“I’d love one, but I promised Linda that I’d come straight home and help her with the baby,” Curtis said with a wistful smile.

“Sorry, but I told Rachel and Rebecca that I’d take them for a ride on their new sled,” Jack explained, adding hopefully, “Maybe next year, though …?”

“And every year after that,” Nick agreed in a tone that made it clear he meant it.

No one else could stay either, so after another round of hugs and kisses and handshakes, Nick and Dovie were left alone.

They radiated back to the living room and the pile of presents beneath the tree. Her wobbly little pine suddenly looked so beautiful, so dignified despite the hodgepodge of homemade ornaments it wore, and she knew it was because she was seeing it through the eyes of love.

“Now …” Dovie knelt and reached for the biggest package again, the one wrapped in plain brown paper. When she finally got it open, she sucked in a breath and covered her mouth with her hands as she exclaimed in surprise, “A down coat!”

“Try it on,” Nick urged from the comfortable depths of the wing chair.

She did as he asked, running a hand along a deep-plum-colored sleeve and admiring the
attractive quilt-through design that held the goose down in place. “I look like a purple polar bear, but I love it … really.”

He laughed and handed her another package, which she promptly tore into after she took off her coat.

“A life jacket!”

“How does it fit?”

Dovie jumped to her feet and slipped it over her head. It hung on her like a sandwich board until she tied it along her sides and belted it in back. “Perfect.”