Her aggravation only enhances her beauty,he thought as he ran his eyes over every detail of her face.
He had to admit that he found it unusual she hadn’t yet commented on the fact that she knew who he was. “You don’t recognize me?”
An ironic smile finally tipped her rose-red lips as her uniquely colored eyes blinked once. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you bysight,” she replied with sarcasm. “I’m starting to thinkyoumight be blind, Mr. Tibideau.”
As she turned away from him, she raised her arm and flicked her wrist, extending a retractable cane from her palm.
How did I not notice that before?
All of a sudden, everything about the exchange made perfect sense. Every word and gesture she had made now shone through with amazing clarity. All he could think was perhaps hewasthe blind one, because everything else had disappeared with one look at her face.
Out of the corner of my eye, I’m aware of Phillipe as he walks over to where I’m madly scribbling in my notepad. When he’s finally standing near, I glance up at him, frowning.
“You’re leaving?” I ask. “We only just started.”
He points to the journal. “I’ll be back in a little bit. The next part you need to know is in there.”
Turning, he walks to the door and then stops to look back at me. The man is beautiful. That’s the only word to encompass his appeal, and I amstillstaring at him, holding my pen in midair.
“Do you want a coffee, Gemma?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’d love some tea.”
“Tea, it is. See you in a few,” he replies before disappearing out the door.
Finishing off my final note, I put the pen and paper down, reaching for the leather journal. It’s a bulky thing bound by a leather strap. I unwind it, open to the page directly after the one where I left off, and run my fingers over the typed entry. It’s hard to imagine her sitting at her braille typewriter, punching out each word smoothly and efficiently, but she did it with constant dedication for quite some time. Now, here I am, reading her most private thoughts.
Sitting back in the chair, I look down at the typed words and start reading…
His voice was what moved me—the sound of it when he spoke to me.
It was deep and smooth, and it reached inside and calmed me to my very core.
Phillipe didn’t even realize that I’m blind. When was the last time that happened?
He treated me like he would anyone else. He made me feel…normal.
I didn’t want to come to France. I admit that I was more than a little bit annoyed and offended when my mother suggested I “go and live a little, and see the world.”
Was that some kind of ironic blind person joke? No. That was my mother’s way of saying,Stop living in fear.
That makes me wonder. Is that what I’ve been doing? I don’t know. I don’t think so.
But here I am, staying with my Uncle Beau and running into a man in a French vineyard.
Not exactly where I saw my life going.
Life, I have discovered, always has a different idea in mind for me.
Oh, but his voice. “You don’t recognize me?”
He asked that like it was an everyday, God-given right to be able to see someone and know who he was.
If only it were that simple.
He called mespectacularas though he had never seen anything like me.
I find myself wanting to go back to the chateau tomorrow.
