“That old?” he teased.
“It’s not the same for me.”
Isaiah cocked his head to see her face. “I’m not following.”
She avoided his gaze by fussing with her coat. “Someday maybe I’ll meet a man who won’t care about my aphasia. But chances are good that I won’t meet him soon. I can’t have a baby all by myself.”
Isaiah’s heart caught, and he wanted to give himself a swift kick for being such an idiot. A beautiful woman like Laura normally had men standing in line to take her out on dates, and he had just assumed . . . God, he was such an airhead sometimes. The general rules of thumb couldn’t be applied to her. As lovely as she was, her speech alone would put a lot of guys off. She also had a host of other problems.
“You don’t necessarily need a man to have a child nowadays,” he reminded her.
“Getting pregnant isn’t the worry. It’s afterward. I couldn’t raise a child by myself.”
Isaiah cautiously circled that. He’d been in her apartment, and it was not only spotlessly clean, but charming. She was also a wonderful cook. “I think you’d be a fabulous mom.”
“Thank you. I only wish you were right. But there are too many things I can’t do.”
As far as Isaiah could see, she had all the basics covered. “Like what?”
She laughed. “Do you want a list?” Then, with a self-deprecating snort, she added, “Forget I said that. Making out lists is one of the things I can’t do very well. Writing is hard for me.” She gestured helplessly with her hands. “A lot of things you do without thinking are hard for me. I can’t write checks, either.”
“How the hell do you pay your bills?”
“I take them to the bank and have a clerk make out money orders for the right amounts. Then I drive around to pay in person.”
Isaiah couldn’t imagine it. He paid his bills over the Internet with a credit card, which he paid off once a month.
As though she guessed his thoughts, she flashed a smile and said, “It’s not so bad. I just work around things. When I go food shopping, I walk slow, cover the whole store, and really look at things. Most times I get home with all the stuff I need.”
“How do you pay?”
“Mostly with a card, sometimes with cash. I just hand my money to the clerk and hope she doesn’t cheat me.”
Isaiah had known from the first that Laura had trouble counting, but he’d never stopped to consider the ramifications of that when it came to everyday living. She had to give people her money and trust in them not to shortchange her?
Pulling himself back to the original subject, he said, “All that aside, you get along all right. If you can manage for yourself, why not for a child?”
Shadows had darkened her eyes when she looked up at him. “Kids need help with homework. I couldn’t give it. They get sick and need medicine. I can’t read labels very well. They want bedtime stories, too, and I’d take until midnight getting just one read.”
Never more than in that moment had Isaiah realized just how drastically that swimming accident had altered Laura’s life. All the things most women took for granted might never happen for her—no challenging career, no husband, no kids, no grandchildren. She loved animals and couldn’t even have a pet because she lived in a little apartment over someone’s garage.
“Don’t,” she said with a prideful lift of her chin.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I hate it.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. It just seems so unfair.”
“I’m glad for what I’ve got. I’m happy. I have a good life. Maybe it isn’t what I wanted before, but it’s enough.”
Enough. Someone like Laura shouldn’t have had to settle. Granted, she was handicapped, and any man who married her would have to compensate for her shortcomings. But there would be trade-offs. Laura would probably enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. Her husband might have to read the bedtime stories, help the kids with their homework, and handle all the finances, but on the plus side, he’d never come in after a hard day and be responsible for fifty percent of the domestic duties, either. There were a lot of men, himself included, who would feel damned lucky to come home every night to a hot meal on the stove, with a beautiful woman like Laura to serve it.
The thought brought Isaiah up short. Red alert. What the hell was he thinking? He cast her a sidelong glance, taking in her cameo-perfect profile. A guy could do worse, no question there. But he wasn’t ready to settle down. Just the thought made him want to run.
He had too many other fish to fry first.
The following evening Laura was scheduled to work her first night shift. When she arrived at the clinic shortly before nine, she sat in her car for a few minutes with the dome light on, going over and over the number code that would, if keyed in properly, disarm the security system. After any door of the building was opened, a four-number code had to be entered on the console pad within one minute to prevent the alarm from going off.
For anyone else, it would have been a simple enough thing. For Laura, it wasn’t. The code, 6925, was an evil combination of numbers for her. She sometimes saw letters and numbers upside down and backward, making sixes, nines, twos, and fives very tricky. An upside-down and inverted six, for instance, looked like a nine, and vice versa. In a slightly different way, twos and fives were equally treacherous.
Laura had come into the clinic that afternoon to practice entering the code under Val’s supervision, and everything had gone well. But that didn’t mean nothing would go wrong when she tried to do it by herself.
After taking a deep breath for courage, she exited the car and strode resolutely toward the rear of the building. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs as she inserted the key in the door lock. Please, God, don’t let me screw up. In order to keep this job, she had to be able to set and disarm the security system. Otherwise she’d be able to work only during the day, when other people were present. That wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the kennel keepers. One week a month, everyone was required to work the night shift.
Laura’s pulse was racing as she pushed open the door and entered the dimly lighted back room. Hurry, hurry. A minute was only sixty seconds long. How many of those seconds had already passed? She closed and locked the door, just as Val had instructed. Then, clutching a paper with the code written on it, she hurried over to the alarm console, a small rectangular panel affixed to the wall. Stay calm. Just look very carefully at each number before you punch it.
With a trembling finger Laura entered the code and then pressed 1 to disarm the system. Then she stood frozen in place, half expecting the sirens outside to start wailing. Instead the little red light blinked and turned green, which meant the system had been successfully disarmed. She closed her eyes and went limp with relief. Thank you, God. She’d done it right. Now all she had to do was reset the alarm so no unauthorized person could enter the building while she was in here alone.
With painstaking care Laura reentered the code and then pressed three, per Val’s instructions. The little green light blinked and turned red again, just as it was supposed to do. Laura grinned and almost danced with happiness. She could do this. Heck, yeah, not a problem.
Tucking her thermos and lunch sack under one arm, Laura shook free of a coatsleeve as she proceeded through the storage area to the door that opened into the kennels. She’d taken perhaps ten steps when the alarm went off. The shrieking wail was so loud it seemed to bounce off the walls and arrow straight to her eardrums. The noise startled her so badly that she almost wet her pants. Oh, God. Horrified, she dropped her things on the floor, scrambled to open the door, and spilled into the kennels. As she ran up the center aisle, the frightened dogs added to the din, barking and howling and pawing at their cage gates.
Until now Laura had never appreciated how large the clinic was. She was out of breath by the time she entered the front hall that divided the examining rooms from the offices. In the event that the alarm went off, the security company was s
upposed to telephone the clinic before alerting the police. Laura had never used any of the phones in the back rooms and wasn’t sure where they were. She needed to be at the front desk to take the call.
She had just reached the lobby when the siren abruptly turned off. Almost instantaneously the telephones started to ring. Laura circled the counter to grab a receiver. “Hello?”
A woman replied, “Hello, this is Harris Security. As I’m sure you know, the alarm at the clinic just went off.”
“It was an acci-dent,” Laura huffed. “I must have punched a wrong number when I came inside.”
“Ah, I see.” The woman laughed. “No harm done. It happens now and again. All I need is the password.”
Laura’s brain went blank. The password. Oh, God. She clamped a hand to the side of her head and almost mewled with dismay. She’d been so worried about remembering the code that she hadn’t thought to refresh her memory on the password. It had something to do with dogs. The name of a particular breed, maybe? Only she couldn’t remember which breed. Poodle, cocker, Aussie? None of those sounded right. What on earth was she going to do?
“It’s some kind of dog,” Laura said shakily.
“Yes, but I need more than that,” the woman informed her. “If you can’t tell me the exact word, I’ll have to call the police.”
Laura made a fist in her hair. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The password, she needed the password. Please, God. Her mind remained stubbornly blank. “I have brain damage,” she explained. Just then she heard a crashing noise come from one of the offices. She jumped and looked over her shoulder, wondering if someone else was in the building. “The office mana-ger told me the password,” she explained. “But when I’m upset, I get confused.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “But that’s the policy. I need the password.”
Laura took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Can you just call one of the vets? They’ll tell you it’s okay.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
Isaiah had just finished eating and was tossing the plastic dinner tray into the recycle bin under the kitchen sink when the phone rang. He groaned and grabbed the portable from the counter before the answering machine could pick up. As was his habit, he bypassed saying hello. “This is Isaiah.”
“Dr. Coulter?” a man asked.
“Speaking.” Thinking it was a client with a question about a pet, Isaiah grabbed the bottle of beer he’d just uncapped and circled the bar to sit down while he talked. After he’d been on his feet all day, his back was killing him. “How can I help you?”
“This is Officer Radcliff, Oregon State Police.”
Isaiah shifted his hips to sit on a bar stool. The rattan creaked as he settled his weight. It wasn’t always bad news when law enforcement called. Only last week, the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association had hit him up for a donation. Nevertheless, Isaiah’s heart beat just a little faster. “Is there a problem?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out. The security alarm at your clinic went off a few minutes ago. The woman inside the building was unable to give the security company the correct password, so we were notified.”
The tension eased from Isaiah’s shoulders. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was shortly after nine. A picture of Laura’s face flashed in his mind, and he smiled slightly. “I see.”
“She says she works for you, a lady named Laura Townsend.”
“Ms. Townsend does work for me. This is just her first time on night shift. She’s never had to deal with the security system before.”
“So she said. Well, that’s good. She isn’t a burglar, at least.”
“Nope, she’s authorized to be there.”
“According to her, the problem with the alarm could happen again. She says she has a condition of some kind that can make her see letters and numbers backward. That being the case, it might be best if you keep her on days so she doesn’t have to mess with the alarm.”
The officer had a point. “I’ll come in and take care of it,” Isaiah said. “Tell Ms. Townsend I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
After the police left, Laura decided to work in the kennels until Isaiah arrived. The time would pass more quickly if she kept busy, she assured herself, and that way, when another employee was called in to take over her shift, she wouldn’t be leaving a mountain of work for someone else to do.
As Laura collected soiled bedding from one of the cages, she fought back tears. From the start she and Isaiah had agreed that he would let her go if she couldn’t do the work. Part of her job description was to work nights one week a month, just as the other kennel keepers did. Now that she’d proven herself incapable of fulfilling that requirement, Isaiah would have no choice but to fire her.
For a number of reasons, the thought made Laura sad. This was more than just a job to her. She was going to miss all the friends that she’d made here at the clinic. And, oh, how she would miss working with the animals. Her niche. The other kennel keepers did just what was required of them and nothing more. Only Laura took the time to give each cat and dog some extra attention every day. And why not? She had no one waiting at home for her—no kids, no husband, not even a significant other. If she wanted to dawdle in the kennels after her shift was over, she could and often did. As a result, in a very short while, this job had become the center of her life.
She suspected that Isaiah knew how much she loved working for him. He would probably feel terrible about having to let her go. At the thought, Laura wiped the tears from her cheeks and straightened her shoulders. Time to put a cheerful face on it. She didn’t want to be all puffy-eyed and blotchy when he came in. That would only make him feel worse. They had made a bargain, and she meant to hold up her end of it.
She was hosing out cages when he finally arrived. The instant she saw him striding up the center aisle, she shut off the nozzle, hooked it through the wire, and went out to meet him. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt that looked as if it had been washed almost as many times as his faded Wranglers, yet he still managed to look wonderful.
“Hi,” was all she could think to say.
His blue eyes twinkled with laughter. “Sounds like your first night-shift started off with a bang. Or should I say with a bell?”
Forcing a smile, Laura pushed up the sleeves of her pink knit top. “I’m sorry you had to come in so late. I practiced setting the alarm with Val today, and I thought I could do it.”
He tucked the tips of his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. “What’s the problem, exactly? Maybe we can work around it.”
“I wish. But I don’t think we can.” Her throat felt tight. “Numbers and letters are hard for me. Sixes can look like nines. Twos can look like fives.” She shrugged and attempted to laugh. “Now you know why I don’t write checks.”
His eyes clouded with concern. “It’s no big deal, you know. Practically everyone sets off the alarm at some point. We’ll figure out a way to—”
“I’m quitting,” Laura inserted, cutting him off in midsentence.
A taut silence fell between them. Even the dogs seemed to sense the tension and stopped whining. Isaiah slowly lifted a hand. “Whoa.”
“It’s what we agreed,” she reminded him. “I never wanted the job if I couldn’t do the work.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “I can’t, and that’s the end of it.”
“Isn’t that a little hasty?”
“You can’t trust me to touch the alarm, Isaiah. That means I can’t work nights. All the kennel keepers have to work nights. It’s part of the deal. I don’t want special treatment.”
“I’m not offering you special treatment. I just think we can work around the problem.”
She lifted her hands in defeat. “I went over the code again and again. It’s not a matter of needing more time. I see the numbers wrong at times, and no amount of practice will fix that.”
“How are you with eights?”
“Eights?” she echoed bewilderedly.
&nbs
p; “Yeah, eights.” He traced one in the air. “Upside down, inside out, or sideways, they always look the same.”
That was true, but Laura couldn’t see how it pertained. “What do eights have to do with it?”
He grinned and winked. “One nice feature of our security system is different authority levels. Just by pressing a few buttons, I can assign you your own user code. How does four eights sound?”
Laura could scarcely credit her ears. “All eights? You can do that?”
“If eights are easy for you, I not only can, but I will.”
Laura had been so certain she would have to quit the job that the suggestion threw her completely off balance. Tears stung her eyes again, and it was all she could do to keep her chin from quivering.
“That’d be great,” she said. “Only what about the password? I couldn’t think of it, either. Right after the police left and I calmed down a little, it came to me. But I couldn’t for the life of me remem-ber when the alarm person called.”
“Is there any one word you think you could remember?” he asked. “One that always comes to mind when you get rattled and can’t think clearly?”
Laura didn’t need to think very long to answer that question. “Stupid.”
“Ah, honey.” Before Laura could guess what he meant to do, he hooked a hand over her shoulder and drew her against him. “You’re not stupid. Don’t even think that way.”
His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at her temple. For just an instant Laura allowed herself to relax in the circle of his arm. Ah. She let her eyes drift closed. He felt so big and strong and solid. He settled a hand on her hair, his touch so light and insubstantial that it might have been a whisper.
“Don’t put yourself down,” he scolded softly, his lips feathering her hair. “You were an environmental scientist, for God’s sake.”
“Was. Past tense.”
“It still means you had the brains to get a degree. Aphasia doesn’t affect intelligence.” He ran a big, soothing hand over her back. “You’re just as smart now as you were then.”