but an attractive beach house with comfy looking furniture. Cool beach colors and breezy window treatments. Lovely. She also noticed the strong features of her neighbor. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but he had a chiseled jawline and long, lean body. That would also be lovely … if one could ignore his elitist ways. She could not. He was very tan.
If it wasn’t for his stark impoliteness, she’d want to get to know him. Wow, her libido kicked in and there she’d been thinking it was all but dead. Well, nice to know there was still some coal in the engine, though she’d not be chugging her way down this particular track.
Instead of speaking as she neared, she just smiled … giving him enough rope to hang himself as it were. She’d met men like him before. Stuck-up types. But she’d always had the decorum to ignore their impoliteness. Not today. Not any longer.
She stopped at the base of his stairs. He rose to his feet and took a step closer to the edge of the patio, but still didn’t speak. Good Lord.
He did have a bit of a frown on his face. A confused looking frown that she could barely see around his shades.
“Hello,” she said, a little too loudly.
“Oh, hello.”
She huffed. “You know, I didn’t want to come up here, but I’ve passed your house multiple times and waved, and you’ve never waved back. Not once. I know some of the full-timers don’t like the tourists, but I live here. And we’re neighbors. And it wouldn’t kill you to wave.” The intensity of her voice surprised her.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m really sorry. I—I didn’t see you.”
She let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “You didn’t see me? Really?” Under her breath she muttered, “Jerk.” Angela shook her head, turned around and started jogging again.
“I’m Ryan,” he said. “I didn’t get your name.”
She stopped, planted her hands on her hips, and turned to stare at him.
A smile was on his face as he stood barefoot on his deck.
She returned to her post at the bottom of his steps. “So, now you want to be friends?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know you. All I do know is that you sound like a lovely person except for the bite in your tone.”
The word psycho killer slipped back into her mind. “That doesn’t even make sense. You know what, never mind. I shouldn’t have stopped here. I wouldn’t have but Officer North suggested it.” There, any serial killer would back off if they thought she was connected to the local police department. Find another victim.
The man chuckled. “Officer North said that, huh?”
She wasn’t in on the inside joke, but she could tell there was one. “Yes. I asked about you and said you’d never waved back.” Her sense of honesty kicked in and she added quietly, “I might have called you rude.”
“Officer North is a jerk. Total jerk.” The guy tilted his face to the sun. “He’s also my baby brother.”
Flame worked its way to Angela’s cheeks. “Oh.”
“He say anything else about me?” The man asked, tilting his head of dark hair.
“Uh, no.”
“Didn’t mention any details about me?”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that I’m blind.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not funny.”
Ryan didn’t smile. Only stood arrow straight at the top of his steps, facing just a little bit akimbo to her.
Oh. Oh dear. “You really are blind?”
He nodded. “Eighty percent. So, when a lovely neighbor is jogging past, I can’t see her. I do see some close up.”
“Ryan, I am so sorry. I mean, really. I’d been waving, and you never acknowledged me, and I had no idea. I’m—” She huffed again. “You know, you can stop me anytime.”
“Stop you,” he said, with a wicked smile. “This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. A beautiful woman shows up at my back door and wants to chat. Then, I explain about my sight, and she’s putty in my hands. Why would I want this to end?” He scooted to the edge of his steps and Angela fought the urge to help him navigate the steps.
She was torn between frustration and embarrassment. Ryan navigated the stairs easily without any help at all. He stopped close to her. “There you are,” he said.
She let a long breath escape her mouth. Blind. She knew she shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but she did. She felt guilty for being so mean, and now she felt bad for him—which was