Wish You Were Here by Christie Ridgeway (Avon, 2000)

If you’re looking for a take charge hero who’s sexy, funny, and tender, you’ve found him in the form of a 6’3, black-haired, blue-eyed NASA pilot who just happens to have gone blind. Like heroine Zoe Cash, you’ll be blown away by your first sighting of hero Yeager Gates as he steps onto Christie Ridgway’s Abrigo Island.

THE LOOK:

“[H]is cocky posture made her think of the pirates who’d hidden their plunder in the island’s bay two hundred years before….Snared in the dual lenses of his dark glasses, the sun blazed from his face. Yet it was still reflected off the water too, washing up and over his muscled body and tanned skin, tangling in the golden brown disorder of his hair….There was no other way to describe it. The man glowed.“

STATS:

NASA astronaut, pilot and “all-around daredevil.” Lost most of his eyesight after being involved in a car accident with a “sweet little grandma on her way to play Bingo.” Recuperating with his friend Deke on Abrigo Island

Defining Characteristic/Flaw: Inability to accept that he may never fly again.

LEADING LADY:

Early on, Yeager senses that for all her sunshiny charm, Zoe Cash is hiding something, and he vows to discover what it is. Zoe is a matchmaker who finds she’d rather keep Yeager for herself. Problem is, while his stay on her island is temporary, she’s been unable to leave its perceived safety for over three years—something she doesn’t intend to change.

Just one of many things that will make you laugh:

Yeager receives a package from his buddies and asks Zoe to open it for him. Little does he know that it’s a blow up doll (“a full-sized naked rubber woman,” AKA “Inflatable Girl,” AKA “Dolly”) that emits squeals of delight.

When he realizes that Zoe thinks he’s in love with his friend Deke, Yeager tells her, “While I can’t see,…I’m delighted to say I can have sex.”…”And Dolly here,” Yeager continued, “is much closer to my taste than Deke.”

Just one of the many things that will make you cry:

When Yeager and Deke stumble upon a girl’s night out with Zoe and her sister, they realize they are celebrating the fifth year that Lyssa has been cancer free. Yeager learns that Zoe moved back to the island at age 21 to be her sister’s sole caretaker, and that when she thought her little sister was dying, she shaved her head as an act of solidarity.

Proof that he takes charge in the bedroom:

“Zoe squeaked again. ‘What are you doing?’

He lifted his face. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, but his eyes were just dark mysteries. He smiled, and his teeth gleamed whitely in the dim room. ‘I’m proving that you don’t want to be alone.’

And then he ran his hands down the inside of her legs, stretching her even wider. His head ducked, and she felt a whisper of hot breath against her—there.”

Proof that he takes charge in life:

When Destiny doesn’t give him the answer he wants, he turns on “the pilot override.”

BOTTOM LINE:

This is a sexy, funny, and heart-warming book about a take-charge man who slowly learns he has more to live for than just his job.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Have you ever forced yourself to do something, even though you were scared, for the sake of someone you loved?