"I have a towel, thank you." Lyssa's voice was more breathless than it had been in the pool, and Cody started to worry that maybe she just didn't want to burden anyone.
"Isadore, please call the doctor. I want to make sure Ms. McElfen—"
"McElhannon," Lyssa quickly corrected.
"Lyssa fell in the pool and I want to make sure she wasn't hurt."
Isadore gasped. "My goodness, child, are you all right?"
Lyssa groaned. "You're both making way too much of this."
"Am I?" Cody asked.
He heard her soft sigh and wished he could see her face. He wished even more that she was in his arms so he could know that she was all right.
"Yes. Isadore, please don't call anyone. Please. I'd rather forget this happened."
Cody felt the dog's tail whip against his leg as he passed. Otis's barking and whining had stopped now that Lyssa was out of the pool. With a whoosh of air, Lyssa moved by him.
"You were so upset," Lyssa crooned to Otis. "You're such a good dog for alerting Cody that I fell in the pool."
Confusion filled him. "What are you talking about?"
"Otis alerted you by barking. Isn't that why you came in after me?"
"Yes, but..." he said, trying to keep his sudden skepticism at bay. "Is he trained to do that?"
"Well, no. He was resting by the table, not guiding me. It's hard to tell how any dog will react in a situation like this."
Irritation mingled with anger, simmering just below the surface of his composure.
"Otis alerted me," he said flatly.
She chuckled softly. "Well, yes. How else would you have known I fell in?"
"The big splash you made was a good clue," Cody said shortly.
"But he kept barking," Lyssa protested.
"And barking."
Lyssa hesitated, her voice a little unsure. "Yes."
"Tell me, how long did it take you to cook up this little scheme?"
She fell silent for a moment. "Cody, what on earth are you talking about?"
"You were the one who was talking about heroes. You tell me."
"I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at."
"I think you do. You wanted me to be a hero. Now you've done it. I've saved the day."
She laughed wryly. "I fell into the pool, Cody. You came in after me. I guess, yeah, that makes you my hero."
"And if I hadn't been here, what would have happened?"
She was silent.
"Don't you dare back down on me now, Lyssa. What would you have done?"
"I probably would have very ungracefully made my way to the side of the pool, climbed out, wrung out my clothes and felt pretty embarrassed about the puddles I'd made through the house."
He sighed, humiliation flaring up inside him. He was beginning to think Lyssa was different. What had made him think she'd see him as a man when no one else seemed to?
"Thank you for at least being honest."
"About what? Falling in the pool?"
"About staging this little—"
By the swoosh of air that belted him, he knew she'd swung around quickly. "Hey, wait just a second. I fell in the pool. Maybe I don't like admitting I can be a klutz, but that's the truth."
"You mean you didn't pretend to be drowning, either?"
"What are you talking about?"
He laughed, but the anger that had been simmering began to burn deep inside his gut.
"Is that part of your schooling, humiliating your students?"
"If anyone should be humiliated, it's me. I was angry and wasn't watching where I was going. I can't swim very well and I fell in the deep end of the pool. I'd swallowed some water and started coughing. I panicked. Before I knew what was happening you were wading into the pool after me. I didn't stage anything."
"No, you just stayed nice and quiet until I found you. Made me think you were in trouble so I could rescue you."
"No, that's not it at all. I wasn't drowning. But it would have taken me a while to get out of the pool on my own and I appreciate your help. Obviously you don't believe that so you can go ahead and think what you want."
"You lied."
"How do you figure that?"
"You pretended something that wasn't real."
She sighed heavily. "What's real is you got out of that chair and came in after me."
His laugh was harsh and his mouth tasted bitter. "Well, Alyssandra, you got me out of the chair, all right. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ."
"No. No more. You're not going to sink back into that hole after coming this far."
"Who gave you the right to come here and decide what hole I should or shouldn't be in? I don't want you here in my house or in my life. And I don't want your pity. Just take your dog and get out!"
"I can't! If I leave, Otis has to stay."
Ironically, his fury was blinding and he would have laughed if he didn't feel so damned lousy. His head pounded so strong it felt ready to explode.
"I don't want your dog."
"He's not my dog. Technically, he belongs to your father. So neither one of us has a say in this. And I won't let all his training go to waste because you're being so bull-headed."
Drops of water sprayed him, as if she'd turned to walk away, then swung back toward him quickly.
"Just for the record, there's nothing about you to pity. You're an able-bodied man who needed a kick in the butt and you're just sore that I, unwittingly, was the one to give it to you."
"I was doing perfectly fine before you showed up."
"Not from where I've been sitting!"
She turned and stomped toward where Otis was patiently waiting. She grabbed the leash and gave the forward command. With a scratch of claws on the ground, Otis immediately stood and began walking away toward the French doors. Cody heard the squeak of the patio door.
"Where are you going? I'm not done."
"Well, I am, and if you want to continue taking your bitterness out on me, you're going to have to come find me. I'm not putting up with you or your bad moods anymore. You're on your own."
"Wait a minute."
He didn't hear anything more except the quick slamming of the door.
"Lyssa!" he hollered, not caring that he was now inside the house and in his anger his voice was booming against the walls.
His boots were still filled with water, adding a burden to his movement that only fueled his anger. He yanked them off and tossed them aside. However, the puddles he'd created by dumping his boots, combined with his wet feet slipping on the slick surface of the floor, didn't make walking any easier.
Cody held his arms out straight and waved them back and forth, reaching for things he knew were there but couldn't see. His hip collided with a chair and then a table. He felt the centerpiece that had been filled with ceramic fruit for as long as he could remember tip over. The fruits rolled to the edge of the table and crashed to the floor into what sounded like a million pieces. Undaunted, Cody didn't stop to pick up his mess. Instead, he used the table as an anchor and eased his way around it.
His foot slipped on a wet spot on the tile floor and he fell hard to one knee, wincing at the pain that shot through his leg.
"Oh, my goodness, Cody. Are you all right?" Isadore was behind him. "All this water on the floor. Let me help you."
"Don't touch me." With his hands in front of him, Cody crawled along the floor, trying to distinguish the direction Lyssa had taken. The puddles turned to the left. Toward the kitchen stairway that led to the second floor.
"I didn't hear you come into the house," Isadore was saying, but Cody wasn't listening.
His hand slipped on the wet surface beneath his palms and he went down again, this time smacking his shoulder and his cheek on the floor. Instead of defeating him, the pain only fueled an already burning anger.
"You're going to hurt yourself." Isadore's voice was just short of a cry, but Cody was infinitely glad she didn't attempt to approach him.
The stairs were wet when he reached them. He stood and gripped his hand on the rail and used it to propel himself up two steps at a time. When he reached the landing, he ran his right hand along the smooth walls and counted doors until he reached Lyssa's bedroom.
He leaned on the middle of the door, intending to steady himself just enough not to attack. Instead, the door gave way and he stumbled in, crashing to the floor.
# # #
"The door was closed."
Lyssa tried not to act as alarmed as she was by Cody's sudden intrusion.
She'd needed to get away from him. To clear her head. Hell, to even find it. Never in her life had she acted in such an unprofessional way with a student. It shamed her to think she'd stooped that low. But Cody was just so ... infuriating. How could he think she'd be so cruel as to intentionally stage a drowning? It was beyond comprehension.
But while her little stomp through the house, soaking wet and fuming, had been enough to cool her unleashed fury, it was clear that hadn't been the case for Cody.
He quickly got to his feet and stared at her. Well, not at her. It was as if he were looking through the haze of a ghost.
"You may have closed the door, but apparently it hadn't shut all the way or I wouldn't have ended up in a heap on your floor."
He had to have flown through the house to have made it to her room this quickly.
"You need to leave, Cody."
"I will. But not until I've finished what I have to say."
"Do it and then please leave."
A vein jumped to life in his neck and his jaw clenched. "This is my home. My sanctuary.
I don't care what my father asked of you."
"Your sanctuary, huh? Just how deep does that sanctuary go? How long are you going to stay buried here before you realize you aren't even living?"
The initial intrusion forgotten, Lyssa found her blood pounding stronger than it had been by the pool.
"You have no idea what you're talking about, Lyssa. How could you know if you've never been blind?"
"For your information, Mr. Know-it-all, I was blind for twenty years of my life. I've sat in that dark seat just the same as you, so don't give me that line of crap that I don't know how you feel. I was there!"
Lyssa's voice had risen to a fevered pitch, leaving her ears ringing and her heart pounding. With each word she uttered, she rose up, as if trying to reach the unreachable brass ring.
Cody stopped short.
"You .. . you're blind?"
It took a second for her to draw in a deep breath as she reeled in her anger.
"I was blind at one time. I'm not anymore. And when I was blind I managed to go to school, go shopping, visit my friends, and work a job. This job. I've only been able to see for about four years. And there's nothing I do now that I didn't do when I was blind."
"You just never learned how to swim."
She shook her head and would have laughed at the sarcasm in his voice if she'd been in a better frame of mind.
"I never got around to that."
"Did you ever ride horses?"
"No. I've never been on a horse, either."
He sighed, his shoulders sagging. "Why not?"
"I... don't really know. We didn't have horses like you have here. My sister was never interested and frankly, neither were my parents. They're not really the outdoorsy type. I guess I was just never exposed to them."
He nodded.
"Get out of those wet clothes and we'll go riding, then."
It was just like that. His anger was gone. Vanished—as if it were never there.
"Wait. I just told you I've never been on a horse before."
With his hand stretched out in front of him, Cody turned and made his way to the wall, then the doorway. "There's always a first time."
"If I do this, will you stop being so obstinate about working with Otis?"
"You're putting conditions on this?"
"Yes. Or no deal."
Her heart hammered. A horse? Yeah, she liked them, but had never really been within twenty feet of one. Still, she wasn't about to lose the ground she'd gained.
"Deal."
"Good. Give me about a half hour."
"How long does it take you to get out of wet clothes?"
"I need a half hour," Lyssa insisted.
Cody hesitated, then nodded. "I'll meet you downstairs in a half hour then."
Holding the wall, he backed through the doorway and turned toward his bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Lyssa closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't need the half hour to dry off and dress. That would only take a matter of minutes. She needed the time to compose herself, rid herself of this unsettling feeling that had engulfed her. She hadn't expected to feel the things she'd felt when Cody had held her. She hadn't expected to be so breathless.
Glancing down at herself, she noticed the wide puddle that had collected on the floor around her bare feet and the wet clothes in a heap on the floor. She refused to feel guilty about being glad, just this once, that Cody was blind and couldn't see that the whole time they'd stood there arguing she'd been standing there naked.
* * *
Forget the fact that Cody didn't even ask her if she'd wanted to go riding. His gruff command had been delivered almost as an order. There was something commanding about him, and yet...
Normally, it would have ticked her off to no end. But Cody hadn't asked her to come to the ranch and bring Otis with her, either. She'd invaded his world in a way that made him uncomfortable. So maybe this made them even.
Even, my foot, Lyssa thought. How the hell was she going to get on a horse? She'd never been on a horse. And what she knew about them could probably fit on the white space on her newly acquired driver's license.
There's always a first, Lyssa decided. Her adult life had been filled with firsts, not the least of which was today, when Cody was holding her in his arms as he carried her across the pool. Lord help her, she didn't know what had come over her. But there she was, wrapped in muscled arms that felt like steel, and suddenly her head started spinning and she'd caught herself getting breathless. If she hadn't run away when she had she would have ended up making a huge fool of herself.