One time Josie had brought up how controlling Wayne was—how he kept nagging at her to only wear contacts, how he insisted she take out her braids and get a relaxer for the wedding, and how she hadn’t been able to invite Colin to the wedding because Wayne wouldn’t allow it. But Loretta had cut her off with a hard, “You bet put that Fairgood boy out your mind. You got yourself a good black man and he’s willing to marry you!”
Her mother said all of this like Wayne was a hero astronaut and not just a good-looking law student Josie had randomly met while studying for her sociology class in the library. So despite her reservations, Josie married Wayne Simmons, a man who looked just about perfect on paper, in a small wedding ceremony in the backyard of Wayne’s parents’ home in a tony Atlanta suburb.
Her mother had even bought a new church suit for the event. “Oh, you look just like a fairytale princess, baby,” she’d said afterwards. “You living the dream.”
If only, Josie thought now, climbing out of her old bed. She stepped into the shower a few minutes later, still thinking about what a mistake she’d made. What had started out as a dream come true had quickly turned into a nightmare once Wayne moved her to his hometown of Atlanta, a city where she didn’t know anyone and didn’t have a support network.
But the warm spray of the shower helped to wash those terrible memories away before they overwhelmed her as they still occasionally did. At least she had hot water, she reminded herself. And she was grateful for that.
Even if it came at the price of working for Beau Prescott.
Josie shook that unhelpful thought out of her head. It was a brand new day, a Friday, which meant she’d only have to work for eight hours, and then she could go put in some volunteer hours at Ruth’s House.
She got out of the shower feeling much better than when she’d woken up. If she could just keep her head down like her mother had done when she’d had this job, she’d be able to get through the next eight hours, no problem. She looked into the mirror and forced herself to smile.
But it ended up looking more like a grimace.
CHAPTER 5
THE DOORBELL RANG just as Josie was walking through the foyer, on her way to the kitchen, and she found an older, but heavily muscled, black man on the porch.
He introduced himself as Mac, Mr. Prescott’s home aide, and Josie almost hugged him when he asked to be shown up to Beau’s room so he could help him get ready for the day. She was so happy Beau’s L.A. assistant had hired somebody else to take care of what Mrs. Prescott had called, “Beau’s most personal needs.”
Beau was an asshole, and he’d only grown into a bigger one since high school. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still a heterosexual woman with eyes in her head that, unlike his, were still working. She couldn’t deny how hot he was—back then and now. And she had enough imagination to guess if Beau’s body looked as good as it had under a zip-up hoodie and jeans yesterday, then it would look doubly as good without any clothes on today. She didn’t think she could keep herself from staring if she was forced to attend to his most personal needs along with her other duties.
Mac, with his affable demeanor and down-to-business clipboard, felt like an extra buffer between Josie and her surly boss. In fact, it was Mac who came down to fetch breakfast for the both of them, which meant her mornings would be Beau Prescott-free from then on.
She gave Mac—or “her savior” as she privately referred to him—a huge smile, and pushed two plates of biscuits and gravy in front of him.
But Mac didn’t smile back. “What do you know about this injury of Mr. Prescott’s?” he asked her.
Josie shrugged. “Not much. His mother said it was temporary and that he just needed me to clean, cook, and do some general care-taking for him until it comes back.”
Mac frowned. “She said it was temporary?”
Josie nodded. “That’s what she told me Beau told her.” She had a feeling she really didn’t want to know the answer to this question, but she asked, “Why are you asking?”
“I can’t really get into it without breaking the confidentiality agreement I signed before taking this job, but Mr. Prescott’s expectations seem a little, how can I put it… high. When he requested an aide with a football background, I figured we’d be a perfect match since I played all through college. But he’s refusing any kind of training to deal with his sight loss. Turns out he just wants me to run him through his training program. He says all he needs is for me to help him exercise everyday, so he’ll be ready to go back to playing football next season.”
“And you don’t think that’s what he should be concentrating on?” she guessed.
Mac didn’t answer, but the troubled look that flickered across his face was all the answer she needed.
“I’m not sure how well you know Mr. Prescott, but if you can get him to at least consider some adjustment to blindness training, that would help him considerably.”
This request made her heart sink. She knew Beau better than most, considering she had watched him grow from a boy to a man. But she couldn’t convince him to let her lead him across a room, much less take his blindness training seriously.
“I’m sorry, but cooking and cleaning is kind of all I’m really equipped to do in this situation.”
Mac gave her a “fair enough” nod. “In that case, do you usually make food this heavy?”
Josie, who’d been surviving on soup for the last few months, shook her head. “Not for myself, no. I was just making the same stuff my mama made for Mr. Prescott when he was playing high school football.”
Mac made a note in his smartphone. “Tomorrow, I’ll bring a cookbook for you. If he’s serious about staying in fighting shape, we need more protein and less carbs and gravy.”
“Okay, sorry about that,” Josie said. “I’ll just get these plates out of your way.”
But Mac grinned and said, “No, leave it.” He forked off a piece of biscuit, circled it in the gravy, and popped it into his mouth. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! My wife’s blind, too, so I do most of the cooking for us. That means I haven’t had biscuits and gravy this good in a month of Sundays—they require a woman’s touch, you know.”
He stated this with such authority that Josie decided not to correct him. Besides, it was a pleasure to see a man about the same age Loretta would have been had cancer not taken her too soon, enjoying one of her mother’s recipes.