“You don’t understand.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to get my sight back. This is how things will always be. And I don’t date. You should just give up now.”
“Give up?” He laughed. “You’re trying to convince a Marine to give up? Nowthatis funny.”
Cecelia paused, thinking. Then she laughed. ”I guess it is.”
The real reason she wouldn’t go out, the one she wasn’t about to tell him, was that she was afraid to go out on a date with another man, any man she didn’t know well, who might turn violent.
That crazy Elijah Blair, whom she’d gone out with, had turned violent, and back then, she could see.
They’d gone out. But he’d behaved so strangely, she’d turned him down for a second date. Yet even with full sight, she still hadn’t seen the attack coming. When he’d come at her with a baseball bat, she’d had no clue.
Now, she was even more vulnerable, completely unable to see an attack coming at her. She would miss those microseconds if a crazy man flipped that switch, and she’d never see it on his face.
No way am I dating anyone. The risk is too great. If I’d been blind when Elijah swung that baseball bat, I’d have been dead. I can’t risk dating anyone.
However, she didn’t say any of that. She ignored the way his voice reached something deep inside her, and the way his scent made her want to lean in, closer to him. Instead, she just shook her head, picked up her cane, and stretching it out before her, walked away.
Chapter 2
Brian stood quiet,watching her move down the hall, and then he turned and headed out to his car. He needed to go for a drive and think about what it might take to get her to say yes.
He was outside, opening the door of his mustang, when Leah strode toward him.
“I overheard your conversation with Cecelia and wanted to catch you before you left.” Leah gave a slight frown. “It won’t be easy getting Cecelia to go out on a date with you, away from the ranch, but I do think it would be good for her. However, you should know what she’s dealing with. I can’t divulge what she’s told me in counseling, you’ll have to talk to her to learn more than I tell you today. Just know there’s an issue she needs to work through and don’t take her rejection personally.”
Concern over what might be keeping Cecelia from saying yes now entered his mind, along with questions of what it might be. The Three C’s Ranch did harbor abused women. “Thanks,” Brian said. “Any input you have, I appreciate.”
Leah tilted her head as she locked her gaze with his. “Has she told you what caused her blindness?”
“No,” he shook his head. “But I’m hoping we’ll get to that topic soon.”
“She was attacked savagely outside a mall in Detroit,” she said. “Her attacker went after her with a baseball bat.”
“Dammit,” he bit out.
“The injuries are what caused her blindness. Two years ago, it was on all the news stations at the time. Elijah Blair. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about the attack.”
“I was probably overseas when it happened,” he said. “The timeframe is right.”
“It was all over the news,” she said. “Everyone talking about the ‘Batter Up’ attacker.”
“Much of the time, I wasn’t getting the news over in the Middle East,” he said.
“I’d rather you hear what happened from her or from me,” Leah said. “There has been gossip among the women, which I had to put a stop to. They don’t realize how keen her hearing is, or how soft her feelings are, especially when they start talking about what happened to her.”
“People who gossip don’t care,” he said. He hated that anyone had been gossiping about her. She seemed to be a sweet woman and deserved to be treated better than that.
“As for the rest of her story,” Leah continued, “she’s finally been able to tell it in small groups, and last month we recorded her on video, sharing her story, so it could be shared with our other center and with the ladies here. We have a collection of videos of the resident’s stories, only to be shared within the centers, to help new residents understand that they are far from being in this alone, and that other women have gone on to thrive after participating in the program.”
“That’s great,” he said. “I’m glad she’s grown stronger.”
“You’re new, and normally I’d tell you to give this more time, but your interest in her is clear, and I don’t want to put this off,” Leah said. “Since her story is out publicly enough that most everyone here on the property knows it, I can tell you this much: Cecelia went on a first date with a man she barely knew, and when she turned him down for sex, and then turned him down for a second date, he stalked her to the mall, the following night and took along his baseball bat. Elijah Blair owned several Blair’s Batter Up batting ranges and practiced often. When she turned him down, something made the man snap, and she was the recipient of his rage. He followed her to that mall and in the parking lot, went after her with that bat.”
Brian clenched his fists as anger filled his body with each word she spoke. The desire to kill the man who’d harmed Cecelia fueled that anger.
“He nearly killed her,” Leah said. “She was lucky he didn’t, but her face and skull were fractured during the attack, which left her with bleeding on the brain and permanent damage to her optical nerves.”
“Damn.” He frowned. “I hate that she went through that.”
