Beyond Desire

Beyond Desire
Gwynne Forster

Amanda Ross is thrilled when she is appointed junior high school principal in Caution Point, N.C. But her promotion will only be a pipe dream if the board of education discovers that she's pregnant–and single.She never expected her baby's father to desert her, but explanations won't satisfy a small town's rumor mill. A husband is what she needs, and handsome music engineer Marcus Hickson looks like the answer to her problem.Embittered by his ex-wife's selfish and cruel behavior, Marcus told himself he'd never marry again. That is, until doctors inform him that his injured daughter needs immediate surgery, and Amanda–financially independent because of her inheritance–offers to pay the medical bills if he'll be her husband. Desperate, Marcus agrees, as long as their arrangement" is strictly business. But days and nights under the same roof soon ignite mutual desire. Now Marcus and Amanda's marriage of convenience has become an affair of the heart…and a deception that endangers everything they hold dear.

Beyond Desire

Beyond Desire

Gwynne Forster

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Contents

Acknowledgments

Sources of Quotations

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my stepson, Peter, who willingly uses his skills as an electronic engineer to keep me abreast of ever-changing computer lore; to my husband, who rescues me from day-to-day computer calamities, designs my promotional fliers, bookplates and bookmarks and whose love, encouragement and unfailing support sustain me; and in memory of my deceased friend, Phyllis M. Harewood, who knew the meaning of true friendship.

SOURCES OF QUOTATIONS

Most of the quotations that appear in this book were taken from the following sources: Evan Esar, ed., The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Dorset Press, New York, 1989; R.T. Tripp, The International Thesaurus of Quotations, Harper & Row, New York, 1970; Beatrice Rosenthal, Webster’s Dictionary of Familiar Quotations, Galahad Books, New York, 1974; and Elza Dinwiddie-Boyd, In Our Own Words, Avon Books, New York, 1996.

Chapter 1

Jacob Graham patted her arm affectionately, his smile sympathetic. “I’m afraid so. There’s no chance of error. Have a seat in the waiting room while I write a couple of prescriptions for you.” She dressed, walked back to the gray carpeted little room and sat in one of the red leather chairs. Not a chance, he’d said. She’d gone to Elizabeth City—forty miles north of her Caution Point, North Carolina, hometown—for the examination, because the old doctor had been her family’s physician for more than forty years; she trusted Jacob Graham. Her gaze captured the man who sat across from her beneath a painting of the perfect family gamboling in pristine snow. She wanted to turn her back to it. Engrossed in the Carolina Times, the man seemed oblivious to her presence. Would he also get bad news?

Dr. Graham appeared, saw the man and greeted him with a smile. “I see you’ve finished it ahead of time. My grandson is going to be one happy boy.” He opened the violin case, examined the instrument and exclaimed, his weathered white face wreathed in smiles, “It’s beautiful, just like new.”

“It’s as good as new, too,” the stranger said. “Ought to last Jason until he’s ready for a Stradivarius.” She shrugged off the tremor of excitement that shot through her when she heard the husky, sonorous voice.

Dr. Graham rubbed the wood gently, as though respectful of its value. “Now, tell me how things are going with you these days. Any better?”

“Nothing new; not a thing.” She reflected on the weariness apparent in the man’s voice and vowed not to let her circumstances whip her. She hated gloom, and she wasn’t going to let it cloud her life. Anxious to leave, she cleared her throat, and the doctor turned toward her.

“Are these my prescriptions?” she asked him as she stood preparing to leave, and pointed to the two sheets of paper that he held.

“Yes, sure.” The doctor looked from her to the tall, dark man beside him, rubbed his chin as though in deep thought and glanced back at her. “Have you two met?” Before she could respond, the big man shook his head more vigorously than she thought necessary. “You two ought to talk,” Jacob Graham declared.

“Why is that?” the man inquired with an exaggerated note of skepticism and without so much as a glance her way. Not that she cared, she told herself.

Her doctor seemed to like his idea better the more he thought of it. “I’ve known both of you for years.” He looked at her. “And you I’ve known all your life. If the two of you were prepared to act sensibly, you could solve each other’s problems.” He shook his almost snow-white head. “But sensibleness seems to be too much to expect of you young people these days.” He handed her the prescriptions and patted her on the back. The other man nodded, but seemed preoccupied and hardly glanced in her direction as she left them.

“Just a second,” Jacob Graham called after her. She waited until he reached the door where she stood. “Lorrianne’s having one of her barbecue brunches Sunday, and I know she’d love to have you come.”

Amanda diverted her gaze from the piercing blue eyes. “I don’t want her to know about this yet. I have to get used to it myself. You understand, Dr. Graham?”

He removed the pencil from behind his ear and made a note on his writing pad. “How will she know if you don’t tell her? I don’t give my wife an account of everything that goes on in this office. You come on over. The garden’s at its peak this time of year, and you know how she loves to show it off. Noon, Sunday. Don’t forget, now.”

Though anxiety boiled inside of her, she raised her head and squared her shoulders with an air of calm and walked out into the April morning, chilled by the Atlantic Ocean’s still wintry breeze.

Amanda plaited her long, thick and wooly hair in a single braid, twisted it into a knot, surveyed the result and made a face at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t bring herself to cut her hair, though she spent a good fifteen minutes every morning braiding it and wrapping the single braid around her head or making two French twists at the back of her head. It would be easier to manage if she straightened it but, as a teenager, she had decided to leave it as nature had ordained. She finished dressing, got into her car and drove to Elizabeth City, giving herself plenty of time to arrive before other guests; joining a crowd of cocktail-sipping strangers was not anything she relished on that particular day. Her concerns were too serious for light chatter. But in spite of her efforts, she arrived to find at least a dozen people milling around, chatting and drinking coffee. No cocktails. She had forgotten Lorrianne’s rule about not serving alcohol before six o’clock. Lorrianne claimed that Americans spent too much money and wasted too much energy on alcohol. Not that any of it mattered to her; a glass of wine was as much as she ever drank.

Her hostess introduced her to the other guests, but she couldn’t muster any interest in the things that concerned them—mostly local gossip and politics—and after a few polite exchanges she focused her attention on the garden. Lorrianne Graham had created a magnificent retreat for a troubled spirit, Amanda decided, as she strolled among the profusion of red, white and pink peonies, pansies, hyacinths, and flowering dogwood and fruit trees. What a pity the tulips had no perfume, she thought, gazing at their array of colors and the many shapes of their petals. Flowers from several fruit trees floated to the ground, leaving behind their tiny green treasures.

She leaned against a wrought-iron bench and inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh spring air and the fragrant hyacinths. But her weight toppled the three-legged bench and, to her amazement, she lay sprawled across a patch of purple and yellow pansies. Her cheeks burned in embarrassment as she looked around, hoping that she’d escaped notice.

“Here, let me give you a hand.” She had to quell the impulse to ask him to leave her to her own devices, summoned her dignity and smiled politely. Of all people: the man she’d seen that previous Thursday in the doctor’s office.

“Give me your hand,” he persisted. She raised her left hand, because her right one lay trapped beneath her side. “You’re lucky you missed that raspberry bush,” he said, friendlier than she thought necessary. She accepted his assistance with as much dignity as she could muster, thanked him and hoped he’d leave her and join the other guests. She couldn’t think of a way to dismiss him without appearing rude and ungrateful. So she strove to be her normally gentle, courteous self and to make conversation, but her personal problems bore so heavily on her that she couldn’t summon the will to friendliness. I’m in bad shape, she conceded, if I can’t focus well enough to carry on an impersonal conversation with such a man as this one.

“Your head is almost covered with pink and white petals,” he told her, evidently oblivious to her discomfort. That voice. Could he hear the melodies in his speech? Of course, she immediately concluded; enough women must have told him about it. She forced herself to turn slowly toward him, gaining time to restore her equilibrium.

“Oh? Flowers in my hair?” She hated that he disconcerted her to such an extent that she lost her poise.

“Yeah,” he answered, no doubt unperturbed by her aloofness. “Lots of them.” He picked off a few and showed them to her. She backed away, sensitive to the feel of his fingers on her scalp, and resisted the urge to remove her dark glasses. Remove them and get an unobstructed look at eyes she remembered as being the color of dark brown honey and at a flawless almond complexion. She breathed deeply in relief when a beautiful, sepia woman with a mannequin’s build and carriage claimed his attention and took him away. All I need right now is to lose my head over a guy like that one, she told herself, amused that the possibility existed.

She didn’t tolerate the medicine well and went back to her doctor two weeks later for a new prescription.