by Flora Kidd
"Would you marry me?" Adam asked softly
Lenore was spellbound. The words, Yes, I would marry you, formed in her mind, but instead she said defensively, "I've only just met you. "
"What l meant was would any woman in her right mind wantto marry a halfblind man?”
She was unexpectedly swamped by disappointment because his question had not been a proposal.
"On the other hand," he went on, "I wouldn't mind having a woman to share my bed and match passion with passion.'' He paused dramatically. "A woman like you."
"You're crazy!" Lenore stuttered as her body played traitor to her will.
"Ever since I found you outside in the snow this afternoon, I’ve tried to protect you against me," he whispered, "but I cant any more. I want you, and I’m going to have you," he promised as his mouth swooped to hers.
Desperate Desire
Harlequin Presents first edition October 1984
ISBN 0-373-10729-3
Original hardcover edition published in 1984 by Mills & Boon Limited
Copyright © 1984 by Flora Kidd. All rights reserved.
Philippine copyright 1984. Australian copyright 1984.
Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
The Harlequin trademarks, consisting of the words HARLEQUIN PRESENTS and the portrayal of a Harlequin, are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and are registered in the Canada Trade Marks Office; the portrayal of a Harlequin is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Pnnted in U.S.A.
CHAPTER ONE
COMING out of Northport’s small supermarket, her arms full of brown paper grocery bags, Lenore Parini didn’t see the man who was approaching the entrance to the store, and she walked right into him.
Knocked off balance, clutching the loaded heavy bags tightly to her chest, afraid she might drop the one containing the eggs, she went staggering back against the door that had closed behind her, bounced off it and fell forward against the man.
He swore viciously and descriptively, leaving her in no doubt about his opinion of her, while his hands grasped her arms bruisingly. Managing somehow to keep his balance, he held her upright until she was once more on an even keel.
Breathless and indignant, she glared up at him. Below fronds of untidy, untrimmed longish ash-blond hair falling across his broad forehead dark frameless glasses glinted down at her instead of eyes. His well-shaped lips curved back from his white teeth in a snarl.
‘Why the hell don’t you look where you’re going?’ he grated.
‘Why don’t you?’ Lenore retorted acidly, and turning away from him she marched along the narrow sidewalk towards the junction of Bay Street and Main Street, her long slim legs in their tight-fitting jeans and high brown leather boots seeming to express her irritation with every stride they made.
‘Arrogant, chauvinistic pig!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Who does he think he is? Built like a tank too. I’m probably bruised all over after walking into him!’
Still muttering she turned right up the hill of Main Street, slowing down her pace as she realised the gradient was much more steep than she had anticipated and the bags she was carrying were not only heavy but awkward to hold.
Pale spring sunlight gleamed on the white clapboard of old houses and tall elms striped the roadway with black shadows. Halfway up the street Lenore reached the Northport Inn, an elegant late eighteenth-century building, gable-ended with black shutters edging its long windows, set back from the roadway with a small courtyard in front of it which now served as a car park for guests.
Following a flagged pathway along the side of the house, she went round to the back door. Since her arms were full she couldn’t open the door, nor could she ring the bell, so she kicked at it with one foot. It was opened at last by a blackhaired, brown-eyed woman of about thirty years of age, Blythe Parini, her elder sister and the owner-manager of the Northport Inn.
‘I told you to take the car,’ said Blythe, taking some of the bags of groceries and turning away into the wide well lit, well equipped kitchen which was her pride and joy and which she had had remodelled soon after taking over the inn the previous spring. ‘I knew there’d be too much for you to carry easily.’
‘I got here with them, didn’t I?’ replied Lenore, setting down the bags she was still carrying beside the others on one of the long wooden counters. She began to unpack one of the bags, taking out the long packages of eggs and opening each one of them and checking for breakages. ‘If one of these eggs has so much as a hairline crack, I’ll sue him!’ she muttered.
‘Him?’ queried Blythe, raising her eyebrows as she gave her sister an amused but affectionate glance. ‘Who’s him?’
‘The guy I walked into as I was leaving the store. God, was he rude! Tall, a lot of blondish straight hair, hardbitten—know him?’
‘Adam Jonson,’ said Blythe promptly, also unpacking groceries. From under her lashes she slated a curious glance at her sister. Lenore’s thin cheeks, so pale when she had arrived at the inn two days ago, were flushed pink and her big, dark-lashed amber eyes were glittering. Blythe’s generously full lips curved in a knowing grin. It seemed there was life left in Lenore yet, in spite of the debilitating illness she had suffered lately. ‘So he’s notorious,’ remarked Lenore dryly. ‘For his abrupt manners? Yes.’
‘For his lack of manners, I’d say. And his abuse of the English language. To say nothing of his opinion of women. Where does he live?’
‘In the Jonson house at Pickering Point,’ replied Blythe, putting the last of the groceries away and closing the door of the big walk-in fridge.
‘Oh.’ Lenore looked up. ‘One of those Jonsons. I didn’t know there were any of them left. Last time I was on holiday here with Mum and Dad, Martin Jonson died and the house was boarded up. Rumour had it that there weren’t any heirs.’ ‘Rumour was wrong,’ said Blythe, filling a cooking pan with water at the sink. ‘Adam Jonson is, apparently, the grandson of Martin’s younger brother, who left Northport years ago to seek his fortune somewhere. Adam inherited the property when Martin died. He just didn’t come to see it or live in it, and Albert Smith looked after it for him.’ She put the pan on one of the rings of the electric cooking range. ‘Like some coffee and a doughnut before we start preparing dinner for tonight’s guests?’ she asked.
‘Sounds great,’ said Lenore, slipping off her quilted down-filled parka and hanging it up behind the kitchen door. She pushed her silky dark brown hair back from her face and sat down at the round maple table that was set before a window.
‘He’s half blind,’ announced Blythe suddenly as she took coffee mugs from a cupboard. ‘He was in some sort of accident that left him blind and lame, and he came here to recuperate. Now he can walk pretty well, but he still doesn’t see too well. That’s probably why he didn’t see you coming out of the store and avoid you.’
‘Oh, no!’ Lenore groaned. ‘Oh, what have I done?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘When we collided he snarled at me and asked me why the hell I didn’t look where I was going, so I retaliated with “Why don’t you?” Now I fee
l awful. I wouldn’t have snarled back if I’d known he’s partially blind.’
‘Not like you to snarl, either,’ commented Blythe.
‘Well, he swore at me and made me mad,’ said Lenore defensively. ‘He was so arrogant!’
‘Mmm, I know what you mean,’ murmured Blythe, spooning instant coffee into the two pottery mugs. ‘Adam is a tough customer. He’s had to be, to live alone out on that point in that old house right through the winter we’ve just had.’
‘Alone? You mean there’s been no one else living with him? No one to ... to, well, help him? I guess he needed help when he first came,’ said Lenore, her vivid imagination enabling her to empathise with the man she didn’t know and with whom her one contact had been brief and rather violent. ‘Not to be able to see, not to be able to walk properly when you’re young and vital must be one of the worst punishments,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, how I wish I hadn’t said what I did to him!’ ‘You’re the same as ever,’ said Blythe. ‘Softhearted and far too sensitive. There was someone living with Adam at first—a woman,’ she added. ‘His wife?’
‘No. At least, she didn’t wear a wedding ring. She used to do the shopping for him, but she didn’t talk to anyone much, so we all drew our own conclusions as to what her relationship to him was,’ said Blythe dryly. ‘But she left just before Christmas. Couldn’t stand living in that godforsaken place, I guess.’
‘Or couldn’t stand living with him,’ said Lenore with a sigh. ‘But I still wish I hadn’t said what I did to him now that I know he can’t see too well. Shouldn’t he have had a white stick or something?’
‘Would you have seen it if he had?’ queried Blythe mockingly.
‘No, I suppose I wouldn’t. I could hardly see over the tops of the bags. Oh, he was right—I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ Lenore pushed away from the table and went over to the door to take down her jacket and pull it on. ‘I’ll go right now to find him and apologise,’ she said impulsively, zipping up the jacket.
‘Lenore, leave it be,’ said Blythe, speaking more sharply than she did as a rule. ‘Adam Jonson is some proud man, and you’ll only make matters worse by rushing up to him in the street and explaining and apologising. You weren’t to know that his eyesight is less than perfect, and your retort was perfectly justified. He had no right to be so rude to you.’
Lenore hovered by the back door, hesitating, her fingers curling round the doorknob.
‘Besides, he’s probably on his way back to Pickering Point by now,’ Blythe went on. ‘Come and sit down and have this coffee, then you can get to work on preparing the fruit for the dessert I want to make this afternoon. If you’re going to stay here for a while you’re going to have to work. You’re going to have no time for running after strange men.’
‘Oh, okay. I’ll leave it be.’ Lenore turned back into the room, took off her jacket and hung it up again.
They sat together at the round maplewood table that was set in the embrasure of the bowshaped window overlooking the garden at the back of the inn. Not long free of the heaps of snow that had been dumped on that corner of the state of Maine during the winter, the grass was still brown and lifeless-looking, but in the flowerbeds spears of yellow and purple crocuses were showing, harbingers of spring.
‘The wind is still cold,’ said Lenore. ‘That bright sunshine is deceptive. How many guests are you expecting this weekend?’
‘Three double rooms are booked, but we might have some others, especially if the sun keeps shining. It’s Easter, remember, and lots of the townspeople like to drive down here at this time to visit the boatyard to check up on their boats after the winter and maybe even to start work on them. Here, have another doughnut. You’re so thin you look as if you’re suffering from anorexia nervosa.’ Blythe frowned anxiously. ‘I hope you’re not. Mother wouldn’t approve of the way you look at all.’
‘Well, she isn’t here to disapprove, is she?’ retorted Lenore lightly. ‘Have you heard from her lately?’
‘I had a letter last week. She’s coming here later in the year, maybe in July. Does she know about you and Herzel breaking up?’
‘No, I haven’t told her. I ... I, oh, heck, I didn’t want her telling me she told me so when I first started going with him.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said it wouldn’t last.’
‘Did she give any reasons?’
‘Several.’ Lenore grimaced. ‘The two most important were right.’
‘What were they?’
‘She said Herzel’s religion would eventually come between us. He’s an orthodox Jew and his parents apparently didn’t approve of him going about with me, told him that if he married me he’d be cut off from his family. He asked me to convert. I refused, and so we agreed to part.’ ‘What was the other reason?’ asked her sister. ‘Mom said it isn’t a good thing to marry or have a romance with someone in the same line of business or career, because there’s always a danger of one becoming jealous of the other’s success.’ Lenore sighed. ‘She was right again. Towards the end of the tour the orchestra did, the music director began to give me most of the clarinet solos to play, and Herzel was furious! When we got back to New York he quit the orchestra and went off to Israel. And I . . . well, you know the rest. I caught ’flu, it developed into pneumonia and I had to quit my job too.’
‘And that’s why you’re here, to get better,’ said Blythe comfortingly. ‘More coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Then another doughnut.’ Blythe pushed the plate of gold-brown sugared rings towards her sister. ‘So your great love affair has ended,’ she remarked with a touch of mockery. ‘Hardly a good reason for starving yourself or to go into a decline, you know.’
‘But you don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand how much it hurts to be rejected after . . . after you’ve put your trust in someone, believed in him when he’s said he loves you, when you’ve given him your heart . . . given him everything,’ sighed Lenore. ‘You can’t possibly understand, because you’ve never been in love.’ ‘Haven’t I?’ Blythe’s round dark brown eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘How do you know I haven’t?’
‘Well, you never seem to have been. You’ve never gone steady with a man, to my knowledge, and you’ve always been more interested in your career, in working hard to save up to buy your own hotel.’
‘That’s true,’ conceded Blythe. ‘Learning to be a good chef and a good manager has always been more important to me than any man has, and I guess I’ve never known one I wanted to go steady with. How long have you been going with Herzel?’
‘Nearly four years,’ said Lenore, and groaned. ‘When I think of it I could spit!’ she went on. ‘Four years of my life wasted, thinking he loved me and would one day marry me. Four years of being faithful to him, ever since I was twenty-two. It wouldn’t be so bad if ... if I could have walked out on him. It’s being rejected after giving so much that hurts, Blythe.’
‘Forget him. No man is worth getting into the state you’ve got into. Put him right out of your mind.’
‘I’m trying—I’m trying very hard,’ whispered Lenore, looking quickly out of the window. ‘Oh, look, there’s a robin!’ She watched the redbreasted bird tilt its head towards the soggy grass and listen intently, then start to poke fiercely at the turf with its long beak. ‘That means no matter how cold the wind is spring is really on its way, doesn’t it?’
‘Spring and the promise of new life, the message of Easter,’ murmured Blythe softly, her brown eyes soft as they considered the finely chiselled profile of her sister. ‘A message for you, Lenore,’ she added comfortingly. ‘You’ll get over it, and before you know where you are you’ll be in love again, head over heels, because you’re like that. You can’t help loving.’ Her manner changing, the brisk businesslike yet thoroughly charming hotel owner-manager taking over from the kindly elder sister, as she got to her feet. ‘Now come on, time is going by and I want to make the desserts.’
‘W
hat are you going to give them tonight?’ asked Lenore, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and picking up the empty coffee mugs, banishing sentiment.
‘Well, blueberry pie and fresh cream is always popular and I still have some of last year’s blueberries in the freezer, but I also like to provide something a little exotic at this time of the year, something expressive of warm sunshine, of summer, so I’ll make my own fruit cheesecake. We’ll use those strawberries from Florida and canteloupe melon balls—you can make the balls with the special scoop I have—and something else with a warm colour, peaches, I think. Unfortunately they’ll have to come out of a can. We’ll decorate the centre with kiwi fruit. How does that sound?’
‘Delicious,’ said Lenore admiringly. ‘You really are an artist, Blythe.’
‘Well, so are you,’ retorted Blythe, bending to take out cooking utensils from the cupboard. ‘And that reminds me—on Sunday, at the brunch we serve, I’ll introduce one of Northport’s most respected celebrities, Isaac Goldstein. Ever heard of him?’
‘You don’t mean Isaac Goldstein the violinist?’ gasped Lenore. ‘What’s he doing in Northport?’
‘Living here. He retired a year ago and came to live in one of the historic houses on Bay Street East. There are a number of professional musicians living in the area, some of them teaching school music in Ellsworth and Bangor, and Isaac already has them meeting regularly at his house to practise and perform together. In fact he’s thinking of putting on a concert soon, if he can find a suitable hall. When he meets you he might invite you to join his music group.’
‘I guess they’re all string players,’ said Lenore. ‘No. Jack Kanata plays the piano.’
‘Kanata—sounds Japanese.’
‘It is, but Jack was bom in the States, in California. And Willa Caplan plays the viola. She’s from England by way of Canada and is the wife of Fred Caplan who owns the local antique store and art gallery. And I believe there’s a member who plays the bassoon.’ Blythe smiled at Lenore. ‘I’m willing to bet you’ll fit right in with that crowd. Now, let me show you how to make the melon balls.’
