Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(92)

Even if I couldn’t.

There has been lots of laughter, and knowing looks, and looks that know are the best kind, of course. There have been presents, impractical ones.

Misunderstandings cleared up to make way for love in the New Year.

Carols are playing from every radio station.

I reach up and curl my hand around his nape, pull him down to me.

“Is this the part where I’m irresistible?” he says. I can feel him smile against my temple.

“There’s always that part, but yes, and I’m drawn to you despite my hard-boiled and gruff exterior.”

I kiss him, not an almost kiss.

“Is it good?” I ask. He breaks our kiss to look up at the picture, hanging behind me. It’s an exposure of me—I know that.

We set the camera up on a fence post and I stood in its line of exposure, close-up. I wanted to see how it saw me.

“It’s beautiful, Jenny. You’re looking right at the camera. Your eyes are—so happy, wide open. Your hair’s kind of blowing across the bottom of your face, but it looks pretty and wild like that.”

“Turn on the light,” I tell him.

He turns on the vanity lights, and I step in front of the picture hanging up over his bathtub.

I look gorgeous.

I touch the print on the edge of the paper, to tip it up away from the glare.

“What’s she thinking?” Evan asks.

“I think she has a lot to look forward to. I think she knows that it isn’t how her eyes see that makes her a scientist, but who she is that lets her see the world. I think she’s thinking about how much she hasn’t seen, yet.”

“Yeah, so much.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“Exactly,” he says.

He kisses my temple, my neck. I turn for a real kiss.

Think about all the small things in the big world.





Acknowledgments


This was a difficult story to write, which means there are even more people to thank, who inspired and supported me.

Thank you to the Ohio State University Medical Center Nisonger Center, where I rotated and worked closely with patients and families and learned that for all of us, every one of us, “ability” is a construct, and that all of us will face physical, sensory, and cognitive changes in our lifetime. Universal Access must be just that, universal, so that we all may access the world as we choose to.

Thank you to my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, who, when I said, out of the blue, that I wanted to do a holiday story and sent her a synopsis about a microbiologist with retinitis pigmentosa, replied, “This is great!”

Thank you to my editor, Sue Grimshaw, and the entire Loveswept team, who developed the Heating Up the Holidays concept with the talented Lisa Renee Jones and Serena Bell. I’m honored to appear alongside such gifted writers. Meeting everyone at RWA 2013 cemented how privileged I am to work with such inspired and powerful women.

Did I say this was a hard story to write? I want to thank Shelley Ann Clark, for her help early on and developmental feedback about the character of Jenny, as well as two friends who asked to be nameless—one working in OT and one with visual difference. These early comments were foundational.

Ruthie Knox and Alexis Hall were instrumental in the development of the writing and story and looked at many drafts, and what’s more, provided support I’ll remember for the rest of my life. They supported my voice, these characters, and met me where I was at to see that this was good, then better. Their brutal, honest, and loving feedback kept me going. Also, Alexis, thank you again for Fred.

Thank you to beta readers Amber Lin, Shari Slade, and Serena Bell. Serena Bell’s read, particularly, was so dear to me. I absolutely could not do any of this without you.

I want to thank, too, the science and math teachers and professors I’ve had through the years. I’ve been lucky that every single one was influential and passionate. Whenever we can, we must remove barriers and correct underrepresentation in the sciences. It’s a big world, and we need all hands on deck.





PHOTO: © ELIZABETH WELLMAN


MARY ANN RIVERS was an English and music major and went on to earn her MFA in creative writing, publishing poetry in journals and leading creative-writing workshops for at-risk youth. While training for her day job as a nurse practitioner, she rediscovered romance on the bedside tables of her favorite patients. She writes smart and emotional contemporary romance, imagining stories featuring the heroes and heroines just ahead of her in the coffee line. She blogs at wonkomance.com and at her site maryannrivers.com.





After Midnight


Serena Bell





Chapter 1


December 31


11:41.

11:42.

11:43.

At this rate, it would never be midnight, and Miles Shepard would never say a permanent good night to this sadistic son-of-a-bitch year.