From The Ashes. Sharon Mignerey

had gone from distracted to interested when her gaze lit on him. That at least was something.

      “Is your car far?” He shrugged out of his cashmere top coat and settled it over her shoulders. The coat was huge on her, but somehow looked right, too. When she shivered once more, he reached out and closed the top button to keep the coat from slipping off her slim shoulders.

      “Actually, we rode the bus today. I was headed for the Park and Ride across the street.” She glanced at him. “I should have known better than to leave home without a coat.”

      “The weather can turn on a dime,” he agreed, looking from her to her destination, turning his head to compensate for his lack of peripheral vision. “Across the street” didn’t come close to describing the long walk across the hotel parking lot, up a hill and across another parking lot to the bus stop. There, she still wouldn’t have any protection from the weather except for a glass-enclosed lean-to.

      “Look, you don’t know me from Adam,” he said, “but I’d be happy to give you a lift wherever you’d like to go.” This close, he became aware of her fragrance—soft, mysterious. Her soft brown hair had slipped from the clip holding it up, and tendrils curled around her face. When he’d watched her demonstration, he’d thought she was in her early twenties. Now he pegged her age at least ten years older, though nothing about those years made her any less appealing.

      “And you’d be able to tell me what’s on your mind,” she allowed, “since you said you needed a dog.”

      “That’s right.” He waited while she searched his face without any apparent recognition. Given all the notoriety he’d recently had, finding one person who didn’t know him on sight was a relief. “I’m harmless, I promise.”

      She grinned. “So said the spider to the fly.”

      He liked her sense of humor. “Probably. But if you’re not going to go with me, I want my coat back. It’s cold.”

      Once more her eyes danced, and she patted the dog on the head. “What do you think, Polly? A warm ride or a cold walk?”

      The dog wagged its tail, and Angela looked back at him. He heard the quick beep of a horn, and he turned his head, taking in the vehicle he had stopped driving two months ago easing up to the curb. “My car is here,” Brian said, pointing at his Escalade. His driver waved.

      “Okay,” she said, stepping off the curb. “I am supposed to know you from somewhere, though, aren’t I?”

      He waited until they had reached the vehicle and opened the back door for her before saying, “That depends, I guess, on whether you read the sports pages.”

      She gave him another of those considering glances with her expressive brown eyes. “Not usually.”

      He opened the back door, and as the dog jumped in, motioned to Sam. “Say hi to Sam Waite.”

      “Hey,” Sam said.

      “Hi,” Angela responded, taking the arm Brian offered for support as she climbed into the backseat.

      He went around the vehicle to sit in the backseat with her, and, realizing his intention, she signaled the dog to climb into the back of the vehicle.

      “Where are we off to?” Sam asked after they were settled.

      “The lady’s pleasure,” Brian said.

      “In that case San Diego. At least it would be warmer there.” She smiled at Sam’s raised eyebrows and cheerful expression, then gave him her address, adding the directions.

      The address was far enough out in Denver’s northeast suburbs that Brian doubted it was on any direct bus routes. He wondered if the choice was part of the dog’s training.

      After they were underway, he figured she’d ask why he had a driver, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “That sounded rude. You know, saying I don’t usually read about sports.”

      “Not rude.” He didn’t like that he had put his career behind him on something less than his own terms, but he also knew that simply because sports had consumed him from the day he could walk, it wasn’t so for many others. “Truthful.”

      “You’re a ball player?”

      He nodded, allowing a grin. Ball player left a lot of room.

      “Football?” she ventured.

      “What makes you say so?” he asked.

      “You’re tall, but you don’t have that seven-foot height that seems to go these days with basketball players.” Her gaze left him and strayed to the gray day outside.

      “You left off baseball or soccer.”

      She shook her head with a good-natured grin. “I’m sticking to my first guess.”

      “You’re right. I played football.”

      “What team? Or maybe I’m supposed to ask what position.”

      “I’m a quarterback. Was a quarterback,” he said.

      “Are you completely insulted that I don’t know?”

      He shook his head. “Since I didn’t play here in Denver—”

      “Where, then?”

      “Boston.” He found her watching him as though what he said really did matter. Once he’d been conceited enough to think that it did. “Thankfully, my lousy season last year didn’t rate front-page news here.”

      “This is home?”

      “Yep. Born and raised. Graduated from George Washington High School. What about you?”

      “Transplant,” she said. “I grew up on the Western Slope. Glenwood Springs mostly.” She turned slightly in the seat, his large coat still draped over her shoulders. “Why do you need a dog, Brian Ramsey?”

      There it was, the bald question that had only a bald answer to go with it. The words didn’t come as easily as he wanted though he had been laying the groundwork for months now. This was one more step in the journey, and he liked the exchange he’d been having with her. The three words that answered her question would change everything.

      “Are you married?” he asked instead of answering her question. Extending these moments before the inevitable. “Involved with anyone?”

      “No.” She gave him a challenging look that could have meant he should mind his own business or that she didn’t want to be involved.

      “Me, neither.”

      “Good to know,” she said, her smile taking the sting out of the words. “What does that have to do with your wanting a dog? We train dogs only for the deaf and the blind as I told you during my speech. Do you want to help a family member?”

      He shook his head, studying her, in the middle of another of his daily realizations that everything in this life that he’d taken for granted for so long was precious. Driving. Looking at a pretty girl.

      “A friend?” Her eyes really were beautiful. She was close enough that he could see her whole face, even though his field of vision was markedly smaller than it had been a few weeks ago.

      “No.”

      She frowned, drawing his attention to a freckle at the edge of her lip. “Are you all right?”

      He took a breath and nodded. “Fine, today.” Absorbing all he could of her lovely face, he said, “I’m going blind. The dog is for me.”

      TWO

      Stunned by the news and hoping her expression didn’t reveal that, Angela watched Brian look away from her, then back, his own gaze challenging.

      “Now you know why I need a driver.” He gestured toward Sam.

      “Yes.” As with every other