A Waiting Game ; A Loving Arrangement Read online

  New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer delivers two classic tales of unexpected love

  A Waiting Game

  After getting her heart broken seven years ago, Keena Whitman fled town. Now she’s back, and a successful designer at last. But when she sees Nicholas Coleman again, all the feelings she’d tried so hard to forget come rushing back. Letting Keena go was the biggest mistake Nicholas ever made. This time he’s ready to prove he’s her perfect match—in love and business.

  A Loving Arrangement

  As Greyson McCallum’s longtime assistant, Abby is used to his irascibility. But when a dangerous figure from her past reappears, Greyson offers to protect her in an unexpected way and Abby can’t resist. As desire ignites and danger looms, can Greyson and Abby find their happily-ever-after?

  Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DIANA PALMER

  “The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

  —Booklist on Lawman

  “The story follows a complicated tale of tangled relationships full of angst, love, friendship, kindness, loss and betrayal. It takes time, but eventually leads to a happy ending.... Wyoming Winter has some terrific characters.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Readers will be moved by this tale of revenge and justice, grief and healing.”

  —Booklist on Dangerous

  “Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books are always enjoyable. She throws in romance, suspense and a good story line.”

  —The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise

  “Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense... Protector is a top-notch read!”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A delightful romance with interesting new characters and many familiar faces. It’s nice to have a hero who is not picture-perfect in looks or instincts, and a heroine who accepts her privileged life yet is willing to work for the future she wants.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Tough

  “Palmer proves that love and passion can be found even in the most dangerous situations.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Untamed

  Books by Diana Palmer

  Long, Tall Texans

  Fearless

  Heartless

  Dangerous

  Merciless

  Courageous

  Protector

  Invincible

  Untamed

  Defender

  Undaunted

  Unbridled

  Wyoming Men

  Wyoming Tough

  Wyoming Fierce

  Wyoming Bold

  Wyoming Strong

  Wyoming Rugged

  Wyoming Brave

  The Morcai Battalion

  The Morcai Battalion

  The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

  The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

  The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Diana Palmer

  Any Man of Mine

  Table of Contents

  A Waiting Game

  A Loving Arrangement

  Excerpt from Unbridled by Diana Palmer

  A Waiting Game

  To Mary and Georgia, with love

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  KEENA WHITMAN’S DAY had gone backward from the moment she got out of bed. Two of her best sketches had been destroyed when Faye turned a cup of hot coffee over on them. Naturally, the sample-room staff had been livid when they had to wait for Keena to redo the sketches so that they could make up the rush samples for the salesman. Like all salesmen, he was impatient and made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. She’d missed her lunch, the seamstresses had missed theirs and to top it all off, she’d gotten the specifications wrong on a whole cut of blouses, and they had had to be redone with the buyers incensed at the holdup. By the time Keena was through for the day and back home in her Manhattan apartment, she was smoldering.

  She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and threw herself down on the long, plush, blue-velvet couch with a heavy sigh. How long ago it seemed that she’d worked at textile design and dreamed of someday working for a big fashion design house. And now she had her own house and was one of the most famous designers of casual wear in the country. But the pleasure she should have been feeling simply wasn’t there. Something was missing from her life. Something vital. But she didn’t even know what. Perhaps it was just the winter weather making her morose. She longed for the freedom and warmth of spring to get her blood flowing again.

  She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She was slender with short black hair and eyes as green as spring leaves. Her complexion was peachy, her mouth as perfect as a bow. At twenty-seven, she retained the fresh look of innocence, despite her sophistication. At least Nicholas said she did.

  Nicholas. She closed her eyes and smiled. How long ago had it been when Nicholas Coleman had offered her the chance to work as an assistant designer in his textile empire? It was well over six years ago.

  She’d been utterly green at twenty-one. Fresh out of fashion design school in Atlanta and afraid of the big, dark man behind the desk of Coleman Textiles in his Atlanta skyscraper.

  It had taken her a week to get up enough nerve to approach him, but she’d been told that he was receptive to new talent, and that he was a sucker for stray animals and stray people.

  Even now she could remember how frightened she’d been, looking across the massive desk at that broad leonine face that looked as if it had never smiled.

  “Well, show me what you can do, honey,” he’d dared with a cynical smile. “I don’t bite.”

  She’d spread her drawings out on the glass surface of the cluttered desk, her hands trembling, and watched for his reaction. But nothing had shown in his dark face, nor in his dark brown, deep-set eyes. He’d nodded, but that was all. Then he’d leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at her.

  “Training?” he’d shot at her.

  “The—the fashion design school, here in town,” she’d managed to get out. “I...that is, I worked on the third shift at the cotton mill to pay my way through. My father works for a textile mill back home—”

  “Where is back home?” he interrupted.

  “Ashton,” she replied.

  He nodded, and waited for her to continue, giving every impression of being interested in her muddled speech.

  “So I know a little about it,” she murmured. “And I’ve always wanted to design things. Oh, Mr. Coleman, I know I can do it if someone will just give me the chance. I know I can.” Her eyes lit up and she put her whole heart and all her youthful enthusiasm into her words. “I realize there’s a lot of competition for design jobs, but if you’ll give me a chance, I promise I won’t let you down. I’ll design the sharpest clothes for the lowest cost you’ve ever seen. I’ll work weekends and holidays, I’ll—”

  “One month,” he said, cutting into her sentence.

  He leaned forward and pinned her with his level gaze. “That’s how much time you’ve got to prove to me that you can stand the pace.” He threw out a salary that staggered her, and then
dismissed her with a curt gesture and went back to his paperwork.

  He’d been married then, but his wife of ten years had died shortly thereafter of a massive heart attack. Rumors had flown all over the main plant, where Keena worked, but she ignored them. She didn’t believe that an argument had provoked the heart attack, and she told one of the women so. Mr. Coleman, she assured her tersely, wasn’t that kind of man. He had too much compassion and, besides, why would he keep a picture of his wife on his desk if he didn’t love her?

  Somehow the innocent little speech had gotten back to him and the next week, he’d sought her out in the canteen on the pretense of asking how everything was going.

  “I’m well on my way to making you fabulously wealthy,” she assured him with an impish grin as she held her plastic coffee cup between her hands.

  “I’m already fabulously wealthy,” he replied.

  She sighed. “In that case, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

  He’d smiled at that—the first time she’d seen him smile since his wife’s death. The late Mrs. Coleman had been a beauty—blond and delicate, a perfect foil for his size and darkness. Since her death he’d been strangely lost, and his temper had become legendary. He spent more time at the plant than at his office, and threw himself into the accumulation of other plants to complement it. His holdings and his wealth had mushroomed in the months between, and the pressure was telling on him. His hair was growing silver at the temples; his eyes were boasting dark shadows. His tireless business dealings were becoming the talk of the plant. Mr. Coleman was out to become a billionaire, some said. Mr. Coleman was after a business rival, others said. Mr. Coleman was going to make his empire the biggest in America, if he lived, others commented. But only Keena seemed to see through the relentless businessman to the lonely, grief-stricken man underneath. The other employees might think Mr. Coleman was indestructible, but Keena was certain that he wasn’t. She would run into him occasionally in the elevator or in the cafeteria. She recalled one time in particular when his eyes had seemed to seek her out. With his coffee in hand, he strolled over to her table and sat down beside Keena and her friend Margaret as naturally and easily as if the three met for a coffee break every day.

  “How’s it going, Miss Future Famous Designer?” he asked Keena with an amused glance.

  Keena had laughed and given him a flip reply, something about an interview in Women’s Wear Daily. Hadn’t he seen it? Margaret finished her coffee and excused herself quickly.

  “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” Nicholas asked, staring after the young woman.

  “The company brass makes most employees want to run for cover,” Keena explained in a dry tone.

  “You aren’t running,” he observed.

  “Ah, yes,” she agreed. “But then, I’ve never had much sense.”

  He chuckled into his coffee, taking a long sip of it. “The patternmakers sing your praises, by the way. They told me your specs were the first they’d had in five years that were written in English.”

  “High praise, indeed, and I hope I’m going to get a ten thousand dollar a year raise as an inducement to keep them in a good mood?” She grinned.

  “Cheeky, aren’t you?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

  “It’s my dimple,” she replied in all seriousness.

  He shook his head in mock despair. “Incorrigible.”

  She looked at him—so businesslike and somber in the vested gray business suit that strained against his massive, muscular frame—and dropped her eyes almost at once.

  After that day he’d made a point of having coffee with her once in a while. Infrequently, he’d invited her out for a meal, and they’d talk a great deal. She’d asked him once if he had any family, and he’d replied stiffly that what there was of it wasn’t to his liking.

  “It still hurts, doesn’t it?” she had asked quietly then.

  He stared at her, his face closed up. “I beg your pardon?”

  She met his eyes with compassion and utter fearlessness. “You miss her.”

  He seemed to see right into her mind in the long minute that followed, and the hauteur slowly drained out of him.

  “I miss her like hell,” he admitted finally and with a faint, fleeting smile. “She was the loveliest creature I ever knew, inside and out. Generous to a fault, shy.” He sighed heavily, his face darkening. “Some women can tear a man down with every word. But Misty made me feel every inch a man every time she looked at me. We married because it was necessary to keep the businesses in the family. But we grew to love each other desperately.” He glanced at her. “Yes, I miss her.”

  She smiled at him. “You were lucky.”

  He scowled. “Lucky?”

  “Some people go through life without ever touching or being touched emotionally by another human being. To love and be loved in return must be magic,” she finished gently. “And you had that for ten years.”

  His eyes had searched hers before they fell. “I never thought of it that way,” he said simply.

  “Shouldn’t you?” Her voice had been gentle and low. And while he was still thinking about it, she changed the subject completely, telling him about some ridiculous mix-up that had occurred in the cutting room that afternoon.

  It was sad that he and Misty hadn’t been able to have children, she had always thought. They would have made him less lonely. But she could see that he seemed to find solace in her company, and they had worlds of things in common, from a mutual love of ballet and the theater to classical music and art. She found in him a mentor as much as a friend, a tutor and a protector. Nicholas never made a pass at her himself and was fiercely protective. He scrutinized the few suitors she had over the years and gave her his advice, welcome or not, on the men she went out with. If she had to work late, he escorted her home himself. And when he felt that she was ready, he’d found her a job as an apprentice designer in one of New York’s grandest fashion houses. He’d encouraged her, pushed her, bullied and chided her, until she climbed straight to the top, which was quite a climb for the only child of a poor, widowed textile worker in the small Georgia town of Ashton. She didn’t like to remember her childhood at all. In fact, Nicholas was the only person she’d ever told about it. But then, Nicholas was like no one else. In a real sense he was the only true friend she’d ever had since she left Ashton. And shortly after she’d come to New York, she was relieved to know that Nicholas maintained an apartment in the city.

  The phone rang, and she barely heard it, so deeply was she immersed in memory. She was used to Mandy getting the phone, making coffee, serving meals, but this was Mandy’s day off, and it took her five rings to realize it. She dragged herself to the end table and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” she murmured, stifling a yawn.

  “That kind of day, was it?” came a deeply amused voice from the other end of the line. “Get on something pretty and I’ll treat you to dinner at The Palace.” She felt her spirits revive. “Oh, Nicholas, we haven’t gone there in months! And they make the most marvelous chocolate mousse.”

  “Can you make it in half an hour?” he asked impatiently. “I’ve got to catch the eleven o’clock plane to Paris, and we won’t have much time.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that people who don’t slow down get ulcers?” she asked, exasperated.

  “They would have to catch up with me first,” he told her. “Half an hour.”

  She stared at the dead receiver. “Nicholas is an enigma,” she muttered as she slipped into a long green velvet gown with a deep V neckline and a side slit. He was every inch the high-powered executive, and he had millions, but he wouldn’t delegate any responsibilities. If a deal had to be closed, he’d close it. If there was a labor relations problem at one of his plants, he’d negotiate it. If there was an innovative process being presented, he’d go to see it. He pushed himself relentlessly even now, a habit le
ft over from those first horrible weeks after Misty’s death. He wouldn’t slow down; he wouldn’t take time off. It was as if he was afraid to stop, because if he did, he’d have to think and that wouldn’t please him. He had too much that he wanted to forget.

  Keena was dressed and waiting when the doorbell rang. She opened the door and mentally caught her breath at the sight of Nicholas in evening clothes, as she always did. With his dark hair and eyes, his bronzed complexion in that leonine face, his towering, wrestler’s physique, he was the stuff of which feminine dreams were made. And perhaps if Keena hadn’t been so wary of men, so unforgetting of that humiliating adolescent romance and the humiliating incident that had followed it, she might have fallen head over heels in love with him. But she’d seen Nicholas in action, and she knew the effect his dark charm had on women. She’d seen his occasional conquest swoon, fall, succumb and be heartlessly discarded too many times to risk joining that queue herself. Nicholas had found safety in numbers since Misty’s death, and he was apparently risking no emotional involvement by confining himself to one woman. Keena preferred the position of being just Nicholas’s friend and confidante. It was much safer than being added to the notches on his bedpost.

  His own eyes were busy, sliding up and down her body with his usual careless appraisal.

  “Delightful,” he said with a cool smile. “Shall we go?”

  “I’m starved,” she told him as they got into the empty elevator and Nicholas pressed the main floor button. “I feel as if I haven’t eaten for days.”

  “You look it, too,” he growled, eyeing her from his lounging position against the rail. “Why the hell don’t you give up that diet and put some meat on your bones?”

  “Look who’s talking!” She glared. “It would take a forklift to get you up a hill!”

  He moved toward her with a dark look in his eyes under that jutting brow. “Think it’s fat, do you?” he taunted. He caught her hands and dragged them to his shoulders. “Feel. Show me any flab.”