Fit for a King Read Free

bet, old man."
    He looked
stunned, as if no one had ever dared speak to him in such a manner. "I'm thirty-nine,"
he said absently.

20
    Diana
Palmer
    Fit for a
King
    21

"You
look more like forty-five," she sighed, studying his hard, care-creased face.
“I’ll bet you take five-hour vacations and
count your money every night. You
have that look, you know." His eyebrows shot up, and she wiggled hers. "Rich and misera ble?"
    "I'm filthy rich, but I'm not miserable."
    "Yes,
you are," she told him. "You just don't re alize it. But don't
worry. Now that I'm around, I'll save you from yourself. In no time you'll be
a new man."
    "I
like me fine the way I am," he said tersely, glaring down at her.
"So don't pester me. I don't care to be remodeled,
least of all by some bored textile worker."
    "I'm
a designer," she shot back.
    "You
can't possibly be old enough." He patted her on the head, the
first glimpse of real humor she'd seen in him. "Go to bed, child."
    "Mind you don't trip over
your long beard, Grandpa," she called
after him.
    He didn't
look back or say another word. He just kept walking.
    And that
had been the beginning of an odd friendship. In the months that followed,
Elissa had learned precious few actual facts about her taciturn neighbor,
but she'd gleaned a great deal about his temperament. His full name was
Kingston
, and no one
called him King. Except Elissa. He spent most of his waking
    hours on
business. Although he traveled extensively, his home base was
Jamaica
because
few people except those who really needed to, knew
how to get in touch with him there. He liked his privacy and avoided
the social gatherings that seemed de rigueur for the Americans in
their exclusive part of
Montego Bay
. He kept to
himself and spent his rare free time walking on the beach, alone and apparently
liking it. He might have gone on for years that way. But Elissa had saved
him from himself.
    Although
she didn't trust most men, she instinc tively trusted King.
He seemed totally uninterested in her as a woman, and when weeks went by
without his making a suggestive remark or a pass, she began to feel
totally safe with him. That allowed her to in dulge her fantasy of
being the sophisticated, worldly kind of woman she liked to read about in
novels. It was an illusion, of course, but King didn't seem to mind her
outrageous flirting and sometimes sugges tive remarks. He
treated her much like a young girl, alternately indulging and teasing her.
And that was fine with Elissa. She'd long since learned that she wouldn't
fit easily into the modern world. She couldn't bring herself to sleep with
a man just because it was the fashion. And since most men she dated expected
that courtesy, she simply withdrew. She never took a date
home—not anymore, at least. There had been a nice man when she was twenty. A real

22
    Diana
Palmer
    Fit for a
King
    23

jewel , she'd
thought—until she took him home to meet Mom and Dad. She'd never seen him
again.
    For all
her religious outlook on life, her parents were characters. Her
father collected lizards, and her mother was a special deputy with the sheriffs department. Odd people. Lovely but very odd. Since she'd given up on expecting tolerance
from the opposite sex, she couldn't imagine a male friend really understanding her delightful family. So it was a
good thing she'd decided to die a
virgin.
    Fortunately,
King had no designs on her whatso ever, so he was good company and a
hedge against other men when she was on the island. He was the perfect
safe harbor. Not only that, but he needed a little attention to
keep him from becoming a hermit. And who better to draw him out than Elissa,
given her somewhat evangelical background?
    At first
she contented herself with leaving little notes for him to
find, exhorting pithy things like "Too much loneliness makes
a man odd" or "Sunstroke can be hazardous to your health." She put the notes on his front door, on the windshield of his car,
even under the rock where he