Alan Handley - Kiss Your Elbow

Dear Reader,

Harlequin is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary in 2009 with an entire year’s worth of special programs showcasing the talent and variety that have made us the world’s leading romance publisher.

With this collection of vintage novels, we are thrilled to be able to journey with you to the roots of our success: six books that hark back to the very earliest days of our history, when the fare was decidedly adventurous, often mysterious and full of passion—1950s-style!

It is such fun to be able to present these works with their original text and cover art, which we hope both current readers and collectors of popular fiction will find entertaining.

Thank you for helping us to achieve and celebrate this milestone!

Warmly,

Donna Hayes,

Publisher and CEO

To millions of readers around the world, Harlequin and romance fiction are synonymous. With a publishing record of 120 titles a month in 29 languages in 107 international markets on 6 continents, there is no question of Harlequin’s success.

But like all good stories, Harlequin’s has had some twists and turns.

In 1949, Harlequin was founded in Winnipeg, Canada. In the beginning, the company published a wide range of books—including the likes of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Hadley Chase and Somerset Maugham—all for the low price of twenty-five cents.

By the mid 1950s, Richard Bonnycastle was in complete control of the company, and at the urging of his wife—and chief editor—began publishing the romances of British firm Mills & Boon. The books sold so well that Harlequin eventually bought Mills & Boon outright in 1971.

In 1970, Harlequin expanded its distribution into the U.S. and contracted its first American author so that it could offer the first truly American romances. By 1980, that concept became a full-fledged series called Harlequin Superromance, the first romance line to originate outside the U.K.

The 1980s saw continued growth into global markets as well as the purchase of American publisher, Silhouette Books. By 1992, Harlequin dominated the genre, and ten years later was publishing more than half of all romances released in North America.

Now in our sixtieth anniversary year, Harlequin remains true to its history of being the romance publisher, while constantly creating innovative ways to deliver variety in what women want to read. And as we forge ahead into other types of fiction and nonfiction, we are always mindful of the hallmark of our success over the past six decades—guaranteed entertainment!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Emmy ®Award-winning director Alan Handley had a celebrated career on stage and in television that spanned thirty years. He started off as a stage actor in the 1930s before moving into directing and producing shows such as The Dinah Shore Show. He won an Emmy ®for directing a Julie Andrews special in 1965. He passed away in January 1990 at the age of 77.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I WAS IN BED—WHICH IS WHERE I usually am at ten o’clock in the morning—when the phone rang.

“What’s with you? This is Nellie.” As though it was necessary to tell me who it was with that croak for a voice, even if she did wake me up. I lit a cigarette because she liked to talk for a long time and so do I and she was paying for the call and I didn’t have anything else to do.

“I’m still in bed.”

“Well, do you think you could get that long lean brownness the hell out of that bed for a job?”

“How much? It’s a nice bed.”

“Twenty-five a day for maybe three days or more. Of course, if you’re not interested, I got a book full of youth and beauty right here at my elbow.”

“If it’s more of those smoker pictures, the answer is no.”

“Now, Timmy, darling, you know that wasn’t my fault. They told me that short was only for advertising purposes. Besides, the money was good.”

“Well, I don’t need that kind of advertising yet. What’s the gag this time?”

“Can you be in my office in an hour?”

“Tell me now.”

“I tell you nothing till you sign Nellie’s little receipt book. Do you or don’t you?”

“Make it an hour and a half?”

“Who’s there with you?”

“Nobody,” I said. “And besides, what’s it to you?”

“If there’s nobody there, you can make it in an hour. Eleven sharp. Those are my last words.” And she banged up the receiver.

Twenty-five bucks a day for three days…that must be a picture…maybe I can get a close-up…be nice to the cameraman and the assistant director…one good close-up…who knows what might happen? Once more into the breach, dear friends…

So I got up, showered and started to get dressed. Thank God I had a clean shirt and my suit had just been pressed, because for twenty-five bucks a day, no matter what tricks Nellie was cooking up for me, I had to be good. I got into my gray double-breasted, which is one of my two answers to a couple of my more unkind friends that I have got another suit besides a dinner jacket. I did look through the pockets of my evening clothes to see how much money I had. There was nine dollars and some change together with match folders from the Barberry Room, the Stork and the Ruban Bleu. Diana, the woman I’d been out with last night, and I had certainly been on the town. I had to get this job of Nellie’s or I was going to be very, very hungry in a couple of days.

I put the money in my pocket and the folders in the bureau drawer where I save the ones from the tonier places. It sometimes impresses people when you’re trying to get a job if you pull out one from the Stork or “21.” I finished dressing and put on my coat and hat and went out.

The rooming house where I live was nicknamed the Casbah by one of the inmates after seeing that Boyer movie a long time ago and the name stuck. It’s just off, but not quite far enough off, Sheridan Square and on Saturday nights when the visiting firemen make a tour of Greenwich Village—which usually means Jimmy Kelly’s or a couple of the joints on Fourth Street—we get the usual drunks being sick in the vestibule or ringing the bell and asking for Marge. The Casbah like most rooming houses usually has a couple of transient Marges in spite of the professional jealousy of Helga who runs it, but on a Saturday night the Marges can pick their own drunks.