Diana Palmer - The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor

Dear Reader,

I really can’t express how flattered I am and also how grateful I am to Harlequin Books for releasing this collection of my published works. It came as a great surprise. I never think of myself as writing books that are collectible. In fact, there are days when I forget that writing is work at all. What I do for a living is so much fun that it never seems like a job. And since I reside in a small community, and my daily life is confined to such mundane things as feeding the wild birds and looking after my herb patch in the backyard, I feel rather unconnected from what many would think of as a glamorous profession.

But when I read my email, or when I get letters from readers, or when I go on signing trips to bookstores to meet all of you, I feel truly blessed. Over the past thirty years, I have made lasting friendships with many of you. And quite frankly, most of you are like part of my family. You can’t imagine how much you enrich my life. Thank you so much.

I also need to extend thanks to my family (my husband, James, son, Blayne, daughter-in-law, Christina, and granddaughter, Selena Marie), to my best friend, Ann, to my readers, booksellers and the wonderful people at Harlequin Books—from my editor of many years, Tara, to all the other fine and talented people who make up our publishing house. Thanks to all of you for making this job and my private life so worth living.

Thank you for this tribute, Harlequin, and for putting up with me for thirty long years! Love to all of you.

Diana Palmer

The prolific author of more than one hundred books, Diana Palmer got her start as a newspaper reporter. A multi–New York Times bestselling author and one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Diane, Sydney and my Roz

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

It was a lazy day in late spring. Nick Reed was feeling restless again. Working for Dane Lassiter’s Houston detective agency had been exciting at first, and he’d enjoyed the work. But wanderlust called to him through the open window from the park across the way.

He watched a particularly trim young woman strolling along with a small furry dog and he smiled, because her pert figure reminded him of Tabby.

Tabitha Harvey. Shades of the past, he mused, leaning back in his chair. He’d deliberately avoided thinking about her over the past few months, because of what had happened when he and his sister, Helen, had flown back to their childhood home in Washington, D.C., on business. The trip had been right before New Year’s, and Tabby had been around. That was natural, because she and Helen had been friends forever. They’d all been invited to a party together.

Nick had noticed that Tabby was watching him with unusual interest that night. She’d gone back to the punch bowl several times, as he had himself. But the punch had been spiked and Tabby hadn’t known. She’d cornered Nick in a deserted room and started kissing him.

He could still feel her fervent, if untutored, mouth trembling under his lips. For a few seconds, he’d returned her kisses with everything in him. But he’d stopped her then, and demanded an explanation.

Fuzzily she’d explained that she knew he’d come all that way just to see her, that she knew he was finally ready to settle down. They’d be so happy, she said dreamily, smiling through an alcoholic haze.

Nick had no idea where she’d come up with those wild statements. If he’d ever thought of Tabby romantically, it had been years ago. Her remarks had come right out of the blue, and he’d reacted with shocked anger. He’d said some cutting and sarcastic things about her confession, which had sent her running. He’d gone back to the house with Helen and packed to leave D.C. He’d never told Helen exactly what happened, but he imagined Tabby had. He and Tabby hadn’t had any contact since. Not that he wasn’t sorry for the things he’d said; apologies were just hard for him.

He was scowling over the memories when Helen tapped at his office door and let herself in.

“Have you thought it over?” she asked eagerly.

He glowered at her, swinging his chair back around with a long, powerful leg. His blond hair gleamed like gold in the light from the window. His eyes, as dark as her own, had a hard glitter. “Yes.”

“You’ll do it?” she asked with a grin, pushing her long hair back from her elfin face.

“Yes, I’ve thought about it, and no, I won’t do it,” he clarified.

Her face fell. “Nick! Please!”

“I won’t,” Nick said firmly. “You’ll have to get your information some other way.”

“Blood is thicker than water, remember,” Helen Reed persisted hopefully. “I’m the only sister you have. There’s only the two of us. Oh, Nick, you’ve got to!”

“Not really,” he said with maddening indifference and a grin.

There were times, she thought, when he’d look really good hanging from a long rope. But then she’d be alone in the world except for Harold, to whom she was engaged.

“You’re the only ex-FBI agent we’ve got at the Lassiter Detective Agency,” she reminded him. “You’ve got contacts in all the right places. All you have to do is make one little-bitty telephone call,” she persisted.

And she fixed her big brown eyes on him in their thin elfin face in its frame of long, straight brown hair. Except for his blond hair, they looked very much alike. Same stubborn chin, same elegant nose, same spirited dark eyes. But Nick was much more introverted and secretive than she was. He’d been that way all their lives, since they’d grown up in Washington, D.C.—where she attended college and he worked for the FBI.

Over the years, he’d done a lot of traveling, and she hadn’t seen him for months, sometimes years at a time, until he’d received the offer of work from Richard Dane Lassiter. He’d met Dane on a case just before the Texas Ranger had been shot to pieces. When Lassiter began his own private detective agency, he coaxed Nick away from the FBI and Nick volunteered Helen as a paralegal, with her two years of business college giving her an edge over the competition. She’d come hotfoot from Washington to be with her brother. Their parents had been dead for some time, and she’d liked the idea of being near the last of her kin.

She did miss Tabitha Harvey very much at first, because she and Tabby had been friends since they were children. They still corresponded, although Tabby was very careful not to ask how Nick was. Obviously her memories of Helen’s brother were painful ones.

“No,” he said again. “I won’t call the FBI for you.”

She grinned at him, her slender hands together. “I’ll tell.”

“You’ll tell what?”

“That you were out with that gorgeous blonde when you were supposed to be on stakeout for Dane,” she said.

“Go ahead and tell him. She was my contact. I don’t play around on the job.”

“You do play around, though,” Helen said, suddenly serious. “You never take women seriously.”

He shrugged. “I don’t dare. I’m not made for a pipe and slippers and kids. I like traveling and dangerous work, and the occasional pretty blonde when I’m not on stakeout.”