'Rubbish!' She turned her gaze towards the sea and frowned at nothing in particular. 'Flattery won't get you anywhere either.'
He took her hand then and pulled her to her feet. 'Very well, Kim, I shan't flatter you in future, but merely speak the truth.' He inclined his head towards her as though he were searching her face. 'The truth is that life has become bearable since I met you, and I wish—'
'Yes?' she prompted curiously.
'Nothing,' he replied bluntly, his lips once again drawn into that firm line which could mean disapproval, anger or bitterness, and Kim was curiously hurt. 'Let's get back to the cottage.'
The situation was becoming increasingly difficult for Kim. As she had feared, Adam had come to rely upon her and he did not hide the fact that he looked forward to her daily visits. In the interim her cottage had been sold, and the new owners were taking possession at the end of that month. That gave her less than three weeks at Heron's Bay, a realisation which caused her concern to grow for Adam Granger. He shunned the idea of going to his father, and seemed strangely reluctant to come to any decision concerning his immediate future. Kim had decided not to force the issue, but now, with so little time left, she would have to make an effort to talk some sense into him.
Adam had not been in a specially good mood lately and his attitude did not exactly offer her much encouragement. Strangely enough it was Adam who brought matters to a head one morning. He accidentally sent his cup of tea crashing to the floor and, after cleaning it up, she calmly poured him another.
'I don't want any,' he said angrily, his lips tightly compressed.
'Now don't be childish,' she snapped back at him. 'Anyone can have an accident.'
He rose to his feet, knocked over a small table, and towered frighteningly above her. 'Stop lecturing me, Kim. I won't have it!'
'Would you prefer it if I pampered your every whim?'
'You know damn well I wouldn't!'
'Well, for goodness' sake, what do you want?' she asked despairingly.
The silence grew inordinately long and uncomfortable as she stared up at him. He appeared to be struggling with himself, not quite sure whether he should be angry or remorseful. To Kim's relief his features relaxed, but his whole appearance seemed to droop as he moved about with uncertainty. 'Kim, I'm sorry. I'm bad-tempered lately, but that's no reason why I should take it out on you.'
'If you can't take it out on me, then on who else can you?'
He pushed his fingers through hair that looked as though his fingers had sought refuge there many times before her arrival. 'Now you make me feel a heel.'
'Oh, stop being such a martyr!' she exclaimed, adopting a ruthless attitude. 'Sit down and let's talk sensibly.'
Adam obeyed reluctantly. 'Kim, I shall miss you when you're gone.' The corners of his mouth curled slightly. 'Who is going to put me in my place when you're not here?'
'That's what I've been wanting to talk to you about,' Kim said determinedly as she left her chair to sit beside him on the couch. 'Have you decided yet what you're going to do?'
'No. I've thought about it constantly, but I still haven't found a satisfactory solution.' He took his time lighting his pipe and Kim let him be as she inhaled the fragrant aroma of the imported tobacco. 'It's time Solomon returned to the farm as well. He's hankering for his wife and kids, and I can't say that I blame him.'
'Have you heard from your father recently?'
Adam nodded, clenching his pipe between his teeth as he spoke. 'He telephoned the other evening, and insisted that I should return to the farm. Libby has apparently been doing some rearranging so that I would have a set of rooms to myself.'
Kim leaned towards him urgently. 'Then why don't you accept, Adam?'
'No!'
There was a desperate finality in his voice that made her flinch with concern. 'But you can't stay here alone. I shall be leaving in a little over two weeks, and you said yourself that Solomon will have to return to the farm shortly.'
'There is, of course, a very simple solution to my problem.'
'And that is?' she asked warily.
He suddenly encountered difficulties with his pipe and laid it aside. 'You could marry me and remain here at Heron's Bay with me.'
Kim's heart leapt into her throat. 'Adam, be serious!'
'But I am!' He turned towards her then with some urgency. 'Look, Kim, think of it as a business arrangement. If at any time you should want your freedom to marry someone else, then I shall give it to you without delay. It is, after all, the only way you can stay here with me without having the entire village in an uproar.'
'And what if you should want to marry someone else?'
'Then the same applies.' He hesitated a moment before continuing. 'Kim, you're the only person I can bear to have around at the moment.'
Kim made a determined effort to gather her scattered wits. 'Marriage isn't something one should contemplate for the sake of convenience,' she stated bluntly, her heart not quite behaving in the usual manner.
'Yes, I know,' he nodded ruefully, but with a hint of mockery. 'A woman wants all the trimmings that go with a marriage, like love and romance.'
Kim stiffened, her temper rising sharply. 'There's no need to sound so pompous about it!'
'Don't tell me you're a romantic at heart?' he asked, surprise and amusement written all over his thin face.
'Yes, I am, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.' Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dr Adam Granger! she thought angrily.
'There's nothing to stop you from having what you want—eventually—with someone else.'
'With someone else, but not with you,' she thought wildly, and surprisingly his careless remark hurt. What did he care about her hopes and desires as long as his wishes were complied with? With his clever scientific brain he most probably did not believe in love, but that was no reason why she should discard her views on the subject. Love was something real and wonderful, her father had always told her, and she had seen no reason why she ought not to believe him. She should reject Adam's suggestion outright, she decided firmly, but one look at his anxious face had the power to weaken her resolve.
'But you've only known me for a few weeks, and you don't even know what I look like,' she protested desperately.
Adam smiled openly now. 'I know that you have auburn hair that shines red in the sunlight, and that you were often called Rusty as a child. You have green eyes that darken when you're angry, and sparkle when you're happy. Your voice is pleasant, even when you're bossy, and your laughter reminds me of water rippling down a stream.'
'For goodness' sake—!'
'You're modest and casual, and seldom wear anything other than slacks,' he continued smoothly, ignoring her interruption. 'You stood by your father right up to his death, and after that you did the same for your aunt. You're essentially a giving person, Kim, and the villagers speak highly of you.'
'How—how do you know all this?' she asked with some confusion.
'Some of it you told me yourself, some of it I discovered for myself, and the rest I made it my business to find out.' A flicker of amusement crossed his face. 'You're twenty-two, so I can't be accused of cradle-snatching, and you also blush easily. You're blushing at this moment.'
Her hands flew guiltily to her hot cheeks. 'How do you know?'
'Call it extra-sensory perception if you like,' he laughed, reaching out and removing her hands from her flaming face with alarming accuracy before placing the palms of his own hands against her cheeks. 'You are blushing; your cheeks are hot,' he teased, and suddenly his fingers were moving through her hair with some urgency. 'Marry me, Kim. I need you.'
For some moments Kim could not speak or think straight as the touch of his hands sent disturbing sensations racing through her. The absurd desire to feel his lips against her own made her pulse rate quicken, and she crushed the thought instantly. 'Will you… give me a little time to consider your proposal?' she asked.
His hands stilled in her hair. 'How much time do yo
u want?'
'I'll give you your answer tomorrow,' she replied shakily as she removed his hands from her hair and escaped to the kitchen to start the dinner.
For the first time, since her Aunt Freda's death, Kim found the loneliness and silence of her cottage oppressive. In the lounge stood a crate, packed and ready for her departure, and beside it stood another, only half full. She stared about her wistfully and allowed the memories to drift back slowly, memories of her father spending many a winter evening sitting by the fireside while she read to him, or merely talked to him quietly. Aunt Freda was always there, hovering unpretentiously in the background, taking care of their every need. Kim still wondered why her father's only sister had never married. She had questioned her aunt about this several times, but never received a satisfactory reply. Freda Harvey had been more than a mother to her; she had been a friend. She had been warm and loving and giving, making it so easy to give in return, but never expecting anything.
Kim sighed and moved about restlessly. It was past midnight and still she could not sleep. In many respects this had been the most disturbing day of her life. Adam Granger had asked her to marry him. 'I need you,' he had said, and she had promised him an answer the following day. No, that very day, she corrected herself anxiously as she caught sight of the time. With sleep evading her and ample time to think, she still could not make up her mind. What should she do?
It would be a marriage of convenience. A marriage which could be dissolved at the request of either of them, but was this what she really wanted? She recalled the touch of Adam's hands against her cheeks and in her hair, and his face, no longer so painfully thin, barely a few inches from her own. She had wanted him to kiss her, and the recollection brought the familiar heat rushing swiftly into her cheeks, quickening her pulse.
Everything had acquired a quality of unreality after his unexpected proposal that morning. Lunch had been a silent affair as they faced each other across the small table in the kitchen. Afterwards she had read to him for a time from one of his scientific manuals, but when she stumbled over a particularly difficult word for the third time, he had suggested irritably that they should go for a walk. This, too, had not been a success, for their conversation had been stilted and she was, not for the first time, acutely conscious of him as a man, virile and muscular despite his lean appearance.
Kim set aside these disturbing thoughts and went through to the kitchen to warm herself a glass of milk. It was dark and silent outside except for the ever-present sound of the sea lashing the shore. She could not be sure, but it appeared as though there was a light on in Adam's cottage on the crest of the hill. Was he, too, finding it difficult to sleep? She tightened the cord of her gown and turned just in time to prevent the milk from boiling over on to the stove. With trembling hands she filled a glass and took it upstairs with her, turning out the lights as she went.
Sitting up in bed sipping the warm milk, she seriously considered Adam's proposal once more. 'Marry me, Kim. I need you,' his words kept winding their way through her thoughts, and she felt again the stirring of her emotions when his hands had moved so gently through her hair.
'What is love? How shall I know it if I should encounter it?' she had once asked her father. 'You will know without being told,' he had replied, smiling gently as if recalling his own experiences. 'When strange things start happening to you at a certain look, or the touch of a hand, then you'll know that you've come face to face with love.' Kim had not quite believed this at the time, but now?
She gulped down the rest of her milk and reached out to snap off the light before she snuggled down beneath the blankets. Adam Granger! What was there about the man that disturbed her so? He was tall and lean, and since she had seen to it that he had regular, nourishing meals, his clothes no longer hung limply on his frame. His short dark hair was unruly and always fell untidily across his broad forehead, and there was strength in his hands as well as gentleness. Had she not experienced their gentleness as they touched her face, her hair?
Kim's breath came rapidly over parted lips. This was absurd, she told herself sternly as she struggled to still the heavy beating of her heart. She had looked into his eyes only once, her relentless thoughts continued, and even then she had experienced a drowning sensation and an electrifying magnetism in their startling blue depths. He needed her, he had said. Was it only because of his blindness? If, by some miracle, he regained his sight, would he still need her, or would he discard her like some object which had served its purpose?
Kim moaned softly into the darkness and buried her face in the pillow. It was useless trying to escape the truth. She loved Adam Granger, and would do anything to make him happy. What did it matter that he scoffed at love? She loved him! Perhaps, in time, he might learn to care for her in his own peculiar fashion, but until then it was sufficient to know that he needed her. Marriage to Adam, she decided eventually, was something worth risking. It was a risk that would require endless patience if she wanted their marriage to be a success, but it could also very easily break her heart.
Kim stopped for a moment to catch her breath before attempting the last few yards to Adam's cottage. There was nothing elaborate about his temporary home, which had originally been bought with the intention of only spending week-ends and holidays there. The garden was small and neat, the lawn beautifully green after the recent rain, with a splash of colour from the roses ranking up the one wall. Geraniums flowered in the window-boxes and the birds seemed to find this quite intriguing. Adam's cottage was not very large. It had a lounge, kitchen and dining-room downstairs, but Adam preferred eating in the kitchen. It was less trouble and more cosy, he had remarked once. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bathroom, and a smaller room which he used as a store-room. In the back yard stood a rondavel which Solomon had cleaned out to use as his sleeping quarters. She supposed that Solomon would return to the farm as soon as she and Adam were married. Kim blushed profusely at her own presumptuous thoughts. They were not married yet, and besides that, it was really none of her business.
To her surprise it was Solomon who met her at the gate, and his expression relayed relief as well as concern. 'I'm glad the madam has come,' he stated promptly.
'Is there something the matter?' she asked, fear clutching at her heart.
'Nothing serious, madam.' He shook his head. 'The madam must be careful this morning. Dr Adam has got the devil on his back.'
'Has he, indeed?' Relief bubbled into laughter which she swallowed swiftly as she adopted a serious attitude to match his own. 'What's troubling him?'
'I don't know, madam. All I know is that he wouldn't eat his breakfast this morning, and he is throwing the furniture about in the lounge.'
'Oh, dear!'
'If anyone can calm him down, then the madam can,' Solomon continued with a confidence that was touching. 'I'll be here in the garden if the madam should want me.'
Kim could not suppress the nervous little shiver that went through her as she entered the cottage. Adam was pacing the lounge floor and, by the sight of the small tables lying scattered across the room, having a wonderful time kicking everything out of his way. A smile lurked in the green depths of her eyes and lifted the corners of her mouth. So Adam had a temper, it seemed.
'Good morning, Adam.'
He turned on her and without the dark lenses which normally shaded his eyes, he looked anything but blind as his gaze appeared to burn through her scornfully. 'Well, you certainly took your time getting here this morning,' he snapped harshly, and quite obviously in a filthy temper.
'Don't be silly, it's only just after eight,' she retaliated as she approached him, 'and I would say good morning first, if I were you.'
'What's good about it?' he demanded irritably, not attempting to move about in her presence. 'For all I know it could be snowing outside.'
Kim flung her handbag into a chair and removed her jacket. In her neatly pressed beige slacks and white woollen jersey she looked as innocent as a child with her hair han
ging straight down on to her shoulders, and her cheeks still flushed from the exertion of trudging up the hill. 'It isn't snowing,' she told him briskly, 'the sun is shining.'
'The wind is blowing.'
'It's just a light south-easterly breeze,' she contradicted.
'It howled all night long and I hardly slept a wink,' he continued stubbornly.
'It never howled all night and, for your information, neither did I have a very good night, but I'm not complaining.'
Kim hated having to talk to him so sharply, but to sympathise with him at a time like this would only serve to increase his agitation. There was only one way to get him out of this mood, and that was to bully him verbally; to match his temper with her own. The proof of her success was in the glimmer of a smile that lurked in his eyes; eyes that had a great deal to do with the peculiar weakness in her knees.
'I've a feeling that if I told you the devil was standing in that doorway, you would argue and say that it was an angel with horns on its head.'
'But the devil was an angel of God,' she replied swiftly.
'Oh, Kim, I can't win, can I?'
He seemed so pathetically helpless, and so very dear, that she almost weakened. 'Not when you're deliberately trying to be difficult.'
'Difficult?' he demanded as a last gesture of defiance. 'Who's being difficult?'
'You are.'
'Now see here—'
He got no further, for Kim's helpless laughter rang in his ears and banished any further desire of displaying temperament. 'You're laughing at me,' he accused.
'Not at you,' she corrected, making an effort to control herself. 'At us.'
'What's so funny?' he demanded suspiciously.
'You are. I am,' she told him promptly, taking his hands and pulling him down beside her on the couch. 'You asked me to marry you yesterday and as a result neither of us slept very well last night.'
'I'm glad to hear that you at least remembered that I'd proposed to you,' he remarked sullenly.
'A proposal isn't something a girl forgets easily,' she admitted freely. 'It took time, though, coming to some sort of decision.'
Where Seagulls Cry Page 3