Forever's Affection (Forever In Luck Series Book 3) (19 page)

“Nope,
we’re good,” Linnie said, smiling. Then looking at Dani, she added, “Dani and I
were just talking, seems she’s in need of some reading and cooking
instruction.”

Jules
eyes opened wide and she smiled at the two of them, clearly thrilled with the
revelation. “Can I help? I’ll help if you want.”

Linnie
nodded. “We’re going to need your help, for sure.”

Glancing
over at Dani, Linnie gave her a telling grin, then looked at Jules and said,
“Maybe you know the best way to go about this? You know, like how we should
teach her.”

“Oh
sure,” Jules answered nonchalantly, as if it was no big deal. “We can look to
Gestalt’s Theory of Learning and break things down into two basic routes. Then
figure out which one comes naturally to Dani, and take it from there.”

Smiling
widely, Linnie gave Dani
an
I
told you so
look. “Keep going smarty-
pants,
give it to us in plain
English.”

“Stop
that,” Jules snipped, “my brain just works like that and you know it.”

Touchy, touchy, Dani thought, taking it all
in.
Little Miss
Brainiac
here has a tender spot and Dani
found it intriguing that Jules would be self-conscious of being exceptionally
smart, when she sat here feeling the same about being stupid.

“Yes,
yes,” Linnie responded with a roll of the eyes. “Now plain English please.”

Jules
talked as she prepped the meat. “Okay, using Gestalt’s Theory of Learning, it
comes down to Dani being either a visual-spatial learner, or an
auditory-sequential one?”

Huh?
Whatever that was, Dani thought.
If you asked her, she
would say she was a fly by the seat of your pants, do whatever it takes to
survive, learner. Dani went back to looking at Linnie, feeling like she was
watching a tennis match.

Linnie
kept at it. “Aha, do you know, or have any ideas of how we can find out which
one she is?”

Washing
her hands in the sink, Jules turned off the water and dried her hands on a
towel before turning to them. “Dani, when you were in school, did they teach
phonics?”

Damned
if she knew. It seemed like they’d tried everything. “
Ahhh
,
if that’s where you break up words into chunks and learn their sounds, yes.”

“How’d
that work for you? Were you able to get the hang of it?”

Hell
no, she wanted to holler, that’s why she was so stupid. It sucked and she hated
it. “I,
ahh
, tried, but it was so damn hard I’d get a
headache. I mean why can’t they just tell you the word? All I wanted was for
them to tell me the word.”

“I
thought so,” Jules responded smugly. “She’s visual-spatial.”

“Meaning
what?” Dani asked in alarm. Then feeling leery, asked, “Is that bad?”

“
Noooo
, not at all,” Jules assured her, as she shook her
head. “It’s just not where the emphasis of reading instruction is right now.
The push is for students to learn phonics, because the theory is that by
knowing how to break and decode words by knowing sounds, you would always be
able to figure out how to say or spell a word you weren’t familiar with. But
visual spatial learners such as
yourself
, find it
easier to learn using whole word learning systems. Many generations of people
learned to read this way before phonics took hold. We’ll get you Dick and Jane
books,
then
go from there, you can learn phonics later
when you have more confidence and understanding.”

Wait
a minute
here,
did she say whole word learning…really?
“You mean you’ll just tell me the word and I won’t have to use my dictionary?”

“What
dictionary?”

Walking
to her desk in the other room, she pulled out her electronic dictionary and
showed it to them. “When I have something I need to read, I match the letters
of the words up to the letters on here, and then press the speak button and it
tells me the word. The problem is
,
it doesn’t work if
the writer uses that fancy writing. I can only do it if the print matches up to
what’s here.”

Jules
smiled upon hearing this. “You’re definitely a visual-spatial learner. Yes, we’ll
just tell you the words. We’ll get you flashcards and you’ll commit it all to
memory. It will be easy for you because your neural pathways are already primed
for rote memorization as a result of your genetics, and coping strategies
learned from years of living in a literate society. You can, and will, learn to
read.”

Dani
couldn’t explain it, but somehow, deep down inside, this felt right. Her eyes
began to water. It was like her insides just let out a big sigh and said,
finally, someone who knows what to do. Looking at the two of them she didn’t
know what to say, so she just said, “Thank you.”

“Told
you, didn’t I,” Linnie said, wrapping an arm around Dani, giving her a squeeze
from the side. “We’ve got you, and as you are the only serious relationship for
Kris other than Vannie, and as he’s as happy as a meadowlark in the springtime,
we need to bring you into the fold, because we all like you and Junie.”

A
squall came over Dani in an instant. Whoa, hold up, there’s a wasp in the bee’s
nest, and she didn’t like it one bit. “Just who in the hell is Vannie?” she
growled, her temper racing to forefront. “I’ve got a rope and I damn well know
how to use it! He’s going to get it!”

Both
Jules and Linnie’s eyes popped open wide,
then
they
busted out laughing.

Dani
threw her hands in the air. “Not this again!” Turning, she started for the
door.

“Stop!
Dani wait,”
Linnie said sharply. Holding her stomach down low, she limped in Dani’s
direction. “It’s not what you think.
Seriously, my goodness,
when it’s time to go into labor, I’m coming over here, all this laughing should
do the trick.
Come back, please, let me tell you about Vannie.”

Stomping
her way back over to them, none too pleased, she crossed her arms over her
chest and stood looking at Linnie. “Okay, spit. I’ll decide if I’m going to
hurt him after. For his sake, this better be good,” she snapped, tapping her
foot impatiently.

Starting
to laugh again, Linnie said, “Please, you have got to stop, because it hurts
when I laugh.
My gosh
, the two of you are a match made
in heaven.
Holy moly.
Okay, here we go. Vanessa was
Kris’s high school sweetheart. He was a year ahead of her and it was pretty
serious between them, then she went off to college. She was coming home for the
Thanksgiving holiday after having been gone almost three months and Kris was so
excited to see her, missed her something awful, bought a ring, put on a suit
and tie, flowers, the whole nine yards.

“She’d
told him to come over because she wanted to see him, and when he did, she broke
up with, told him it was the “freshman turkey drop,”
then
proceeded to prance down the porch stairs and into the waiting car of her new
stud of a boyfriend. All in front of Kris’s eyes. He was crushed.”

Pulling
out a bottle of water and taking a quick drink, Linnie continued. “It was a
horrible, terrible thing she did, and he’s never truly recovered from it until
now. There have been women, but we’ve never seen them and they’ve never lasted
long. Ever since that happened with Vannie, he’s always proclaimed he was going
to be a bachelor and never have kids. So seeing how he is with you and Junie is
very heartening for all of us.”

Linnie
shrugged as she smiled thinking back on things. “It’s like he’s young again.
He’s been so intense, aloof, and brooding for so long now, we’d all forgotten
what he used to be like. He’s a good man, and I really mean that, I’m not just
saying that because I’m his sister. When he loves, he loves deeply, and as a
result he was hurt to the core by Vanessa. Honestly, we’re all hoping your
developing
an affection
for him, because we know he
has for you.”

Thinking
about it for a few moments, Dani dropped her hands and put them in the back
pockets of her jeans. Responding as she shifted on her feet and looked to the
floor, she said, “I,
ahh
…he’s,
ahh
…he’s
very important to me.”

“Is
everything going okay?” Linnie asked softly, searching for more. “I mean, he
hasn’t been coming home at night, and we assume he’s been here.”

“Yes,”
Dani answered quickly, as she looked at them. “He’s been here. It’s,
ahhh
, going...fine.”

Jules
cleared her throat. “I’m sorry if this is too much information, but for
whatever its worth, I remember being really nervous when Jake and I were first
getting to know one another. I’d never had a boyfriend before him and had never
had sex before, and well, sometimes
us
girls need to
talk to someone. I know I did. If you need to talk, we’re here.”

Dani
was on the move, pacing nervously. She was pacing back and forth, back and
forth, back and forth.
Deep breath, in out, more pacing.
Great, she was pacing, her heart was racing, and her mind was spinning.

“Dani,”
Jules said worriedly. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

Stopping,
she looked at them with intensity,
then
started pacing
again.
Back and forth…

Grasping
her hand, Linnie stopped her. “Can you tell us what it is, or do you need
help?”

“Help,”
she said, freaking out a little.

“Okay,
it’s going to be alright” Linnie said calmly. “Do you want me to ask you
questions and you answer, or do something else?”

She
was so calm, how could she be so calm? “Questions.” she squeaked.

“Alright,
let’s take a deep breath. Here we go. Have you and Kris slept together?”

The
words tumbled out quick. “We’ve been in the same bed.”

Linnie,
pondered that.
“Okay, have you and Kris made love?”

She
shook her head rapidly.

“Alright,
are you scared to make love?”

Dani
nodded frantically.

“Are
you scared Kris will hurt you in some way?”

Damn,
she had to answer this one. Snap. Oh God. “Not on purpose.” She knew, she knew!
She was a professional for heaven’s sake. Nothing was a secret from these
people.

“Has
someone hurt you or forced you into having sex in the past?”

Stopping,
Dani put her hands out against the counter, bracing
herself
,
then closed her eyes as she tipped her head downward and nodded.

“Do
you need to see a doctor or get crisis counseling?”

She
shook her head. “No,” she answered with a rasped voice. “I spent many months in
a women’s shelter and two years in counseling.”

“Have
you been intimate with anyone since it happened?”

She
nodded as she closed her eyes fighting back tears.

“Was
it a positive experience or were there problems?”

“Problems,”
Dani responded weakly. Damn, she really was a professional, confident and
skilled in getting to the bottom of things.

“Like?”

“I
disassociate.”

“Does
Kris know?”

“Yes.”

“Do
you want to make love with him?”

“Yes.”

“What
are you afraid of?”

“Flashbacks.”

“Tell
Kris if you can, he’ll help you through this.”

Dani
nodded. “I know he
will
, I’m not worried about that,
I’m worried about Junie.”

“Tell
me more, help me to understand.”

“I’m
afraid I might start screaming, or crying, or fighting back, waking Junie in
the process and scaring her. I’m afraid she’ll think Kris is hurting me.”

Linnie’s
smile was carried through in her voice. “So you need some date nights with just
the two of you. I think we could make arrangements. It won’t be long until Nate
and I will need date nights too. It’ll help once our house is finished being
built, but still, date night is nice. Would she sleep at the farm or would she
need to be here?”

“I
think she’d be alright with you at the farm, but we are just down the road if
there’s a problem. We can
come
get her if need be. She
must be near one of you at all times though, in case she should wake and not
know where she is and become frightened as a result.”

Looking
at Jules, Linnie said grinning, “I think it’s time for a girl’s night with Miss
Junebug
. We’ll sit around and watch Disney movies, do
our hair, and paint our nails.”

“Oh,
she’d love
that,
she does Kris’s and my hair all the
time.”

“Excuse
me,” Jules said, standing tall and arching a brow, “did you say she does Kris’s
hair? Like with girls stuff?”

“
Mmhmm
, barrettes, bows, clips, stuff like that.”