Blind Promises by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

could feel the strength of him under her hand, the hard beat of his heart. It had been a long time since any man had held her, but never had it made her feel like this. She was vulnerable all at once, womanly, feminine in a totally new way.
    “You smell of wildflowers,” he said, his voice deep and quiet in the semidarkness. “And your thinness frightens me. You aren’t hardy; you’re very fragile.”
    She tried to breathe normally. “I’m not fragile,” she protested weakly. Her hands pressed palm down over the warm muscles of his chest, half in protest. “Mr. van der Vere…”
    “Isn’t it ethical, little moralist?” he mused. “I thought comfort was your stock-in-trade.”
    “Comfort?”
    His cheek nuzzled against hers. “I’ve been alone a long time,” he said in a low whisper. “Without touching, or being touched. Sometimes just the scent of a woman is enough to drive me half mad….”
    She jerked away from him all at once, frightened of the sensuality she could hear in his voice, feel in his warm hands on her back. She put herself a safe distance away and tried to stop shaking.
    “It’s getting cold out here,” she murmured.
    “Ice cold,” he said harshly. “Little Nun, why don’t you join a convent?”
    “I’m not on offer as a woman, Mr. van der Vere!” she burst out, furious at his casual approach. “I’m a nurse; it’s my job, it’s why I’m here! If you’re thinking
     
    of adding anything personal to my duties, you’d better start running ads fast: I quit!”
    “Wait!”
    She froze a step above him, listening as he felt for the banister and started up the steps behind her, stopping when he felt her body was just ahead of him.
    “All right, I’m sorry,” he said shortly. “I only meant to tease, not to run you off. I’m…getting used to you. Don’t leave me.”
    The stiff pride got through to her when nothing else would have. She turned around and looked at his set features with softening eyes. It must indeed be hard for such a man, used to such a life-style, to endure the loneliness of this isolated beach house. Could she blame him for reacting to the first young woman he’d been near in months?
    She drew in a slow breath. “I won’t leave you,” she said quietly. “But you’ve got to stop making dead sets at me if I stay. I won’t be treated like a temporary amusement, especially by a patient. I take my nursing seriously: It isn’t a game to me; neither is it an opportunity for a little holiday romancing on the side.”
    “You speak bluntly,” he replied. “May I?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I have been without a woman for many months, and I’m not suited to the life of a hermit.” His shoulders lifted and fell. “I had no intention-have no intention,” he rephrased, “of treating you like an amusement. I simply wanted a woman in my arms, for a moment. I wanted to feel like a man again.” He shifted restlessly. “Lead me up, will you? I’m tired.”
    He seemed to slump, and tears burned her eyes. She hadn’t thought of how barren his emotional life would be because of the blindness, and she felt cold at her
     
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    Blind Promises
     
    Diana Palmer
     
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    harsh rejection of him. She’d misunderstood; now she felt guilty.
    “I’m sorry I snapped,” she said, taking him by the arm. “I…I didn’t understand. I’m a little afraid of men, I think. My fear makes me overreact.”
    “Afraid?” he asked curiously,
    “I’ve led a sheltered life,” she confessed. “I don’t even know how to protect myself. Men are very strong….”
    “You make me sound like a potential mugger,” he ground out. “I wouldn’t attack you!”
    “How reassuring; I was worried to death about that,” she said with a teasing laugh.
    All his bad humor disappeared at once. “I’ll bet you were,” he muttered. He found her hand and clasped it in his, and she felt a strange little shock of pleasure at the warm strength of it. “Nothing personal, Nurse; I