Undercover Passion

He looked at her, a mixture of emotions flashing across his features. “Forget it, Abby. You don't want to go kissing a guy like me. There's no future in it.”

Future! “Guys like you are the only kind worth kissing,” she said lightly, hoping he didn't detect her disappointment at his words. She refused to believe he didn't feel any attraction toward her. After all, he did kiss her earlier that evening. Thinking of that made her breath come a little faster. No one had ever kissed her that way.

“Abby, you deserve a man who will treat you right. A man who can provide you with a future, someone you have things in common with.”

“Maybe you're right. Maybe I do deserve some mythical paragon of excellence. But I don't want that, Daniel.” She touched his cheek and smiled.

“I want you. Now, why don't you just shut up and kiss me?”

And finally, that's exactly what he did.

Be a part of

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

An undercover detective wants to find the reason for strange behavior in the hospital. Can he keep his mission secret as he falls for a woman closely involved in his work?

Daniel O'Callahan:
While unraveling the mystery behind Dr. Richie, this detective investigated his attraction to the doctor's PR representative, Abby Edwards. Her sparkling smile and sweet demeanor enchanted him and made his assignment even harder!

Abby Edwards:
She'd never given much thought to mind-numbing romance because her career seemed more rewarding. But the thunderbolt hit her when she met Daniel and he made her dream of those once unreachable goals, such as family and love.

A Man Exposed

Once his past was revealed, Dr. Richie ran off to parts unknown. Could his long-lost wife's forgiveness redeem this broken man?

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Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

AVAILABLE JUNE 2010

1.)
To Love and Protect
by Susan Mallery

2.)
Secrets & Seductions
by Pamela Toth

3.)
Royal Affair
by Laurie Paige

4.)
For Love and Family
by Victoria Pade

AVAILABLE JULY 2010

5.)
The Bachelor
by Marie Ferrarella

6.)
A Precious Gift
by Karen Rose Smith

7.)
Child of Her Heart
by Cheryl St. John

8.)
Intimate Surrender
by RaeAnne Thayne

AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010

9.)
The Secret Heir
by Gina Wilkins

10.)
The Newlyweds
by Elizabeth Bevarly

11.)
Right by Her Side
by Christie Ridgway

12.)
The Homecoming
by Anne Marie Winston

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010

13.)
The Greatest Risk
by Cara Colter

14.)
What a Man Needs
by Patricia Thayer

15.)
Undercover Passion
by Raye Morgan

16.)
Royal Seduction
by Donna Clayton

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

D
aniel O'Callahan had eyes as cold and clear as the emeralds they resembled. He also had the mind typical of a hard-headed detective and a natural instinct for trouble.

“There's something fishy going on here,” he muttered to himself, giving his grandmother a hello kiss on the cheek as she lay back in her hospital bed. He turned to stare coolly at the cute little redheaded nurse giving him the eye from the doorway.

“Oh, no, dear,” his grandmother responded
cheerfully. “That's just the remnants of my tuna sandwich. It made a lovely lunch.”

“Right,” he said, not bothering to explain what he'd meant.

Instead, he took a few steps into the doorway and glanced up and down the corridor. Three pairs of eyes turned to stare at him from the nurses' station. Giggling could be heard. Then, from the other direction, a low wolf whistle. He turned quickly but only caught the tail end of a candy striper's skirt as she disappeared into another room. The giggling got louder.

He pulled back into the room, frowning. A tall man in top physical condition, with a steely gaze and a chiseled chin, Daniel was used to getting a reaction. Shifty characters tended to draw back into the shadows as he passed, hoping he wouldn't notice them. Women pulled children a bit closer. Men stepped aside to give him room. When he spoke, others listened as though for instructions on what to do next. All that was routine—at least to Daniel.

But this was different. This was something out of step, unbalanced, completely whacked. He'd never caused women to peer at him and giggle be
fore in his life. It wasn't normal, and that, along with the weird behavior he'd noticed around the hospital lately since his elderly relative had checked in, needed investigating.

He was a cop, wasn't he? It was high time he did his job—even if he was on temporary administrative leave from the department while he waited to be cleared of charges of theft during an arrest.

Daniel gazed down at his pretty little gray-haired grandmother, thinking the situation over.

“Listen, Gram, have you told anyone here what I do for a living?”

“That you're a regular old gumshoe? No, I don't think so.” Phoebe O'Callahan's eyes brightened and she dropped into a loud whisper. “What's up? Are you on a case? Can I help?”

Daniel gazed at the grandmother who had often been more mother to him than anything else and felt a bit of his tension melt away. You couldn't look at Phoebe and not want to smile.

“Not a case exactly. But I've got something I want to look into and it might help if people didn't know I was a police detective.”

“Oh, goodie.” She pulled herself up against the pillows, her blue eyes sparkling. “What can I do?”

Daniel sighed and half laughed. He took his grandmother's blue-veined hand in his larger paw and looked at her lovingly. She'd had a very scary fall the day before and he'd brought her in for observation. The doctors had found some problems and since she'd had numerous problems that required hospitalization lately, including a major threat to her hip, she was staying indefinitely while they ran tests and gave her time to recuperate.

“Your job—should you choose to accept it—is to heal those bruises and get yourself well again. That's what you should be concentrating on.”

“Oh, Danny, come on,” she fretted. “I want to help. Give me a hint. What's this all about?”

Daniel shook his head. He loved his grandmother, but he was beginning to sense the parameters of a conundrum looming, and when he was working he didn't usually brook much frivolity. The trouble was, a certain type of frivolity was exactly what seemed to be going on here.

To put it bluntly, the place seemed to have been infected by a love virus—and a pretty nasty one at that. Everywhere you looked, people were billing and cooing. It was pretty disturbing—enough to put you off romance for life.

Just that morning, when he'd dropped by to see how his grandmother had made it through the night, a very angular and heavily made-up occupational therapist had asked him with much batting of eyes if he'd like to share a doughnut she'd saved for him. The cute redheaded nurse had told him he was too handsome to be running around loose, and a tiny little volunteer had offered to give him a neck rub. Women didn't do that to him. He wasn't the type. It was just plain weird.

He'd been asking around, trying to find what had changed to bring on this wave of everyone acting like dopey survivors from a sixties love-in. No one admitted to knowing what he was talking about. But the one thing he did know was that a new center had been opened on the hospital campus. He'd been at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, just by accident. Called the Healthy Living Clinic, it seemed to be a fitness center and it was definitely the subject of most of the buzz he heard around the halls. Something told him there was a connection. It might be time to give the clinic a visit.

“Let's just say I've got a professionally open mind,” he said to Phoebe. “But suspicion is lurking in the corners of it.”

 

Abby Edwards closed her eyes and took a very deep breath. She had to get hold of herself. This was no time to panic. Just because she'd locked herself in the supply closet on the first full day in her new office at the Healthy Living Clinic didn't mean she was going to prove to the world what a dunderheaded incompetent she was.

“It could have happened to anyone,” she murmured gloomily, trying to convince herself. “Anyone at all.”

Anyone with a disabled attention span and a brand-new inferiority complex that was growing like an overeating teenager.

“Oh!” she cried, rejecting the defeatism with all her might. “Never mind that. What I need is a plan.”

A plan. A plan.

She looked around at the shelves of paper, the boxes of paper clips, the stack of shiny brochures touting the benefits of the Healthy Living Clinic and Dr. Richie's approach to total health and well-being. You'd think someone would have thought to stock a few tools along with the office supplies. If she could just find a screwdriver, she could go to work on the door hinges and make her escape.

This was so infuriating! She'd arrived this morning so full of excitement, determined to show Dr. Richie that he'd made a good move when he'd decided to take her up on her proposal to revamp his entire public relations operation. It had taken all the nerve she had to put together that presentation and approach the doctor on her own, much less demand larger office space to work in. She wasn't used to fighting for that sort of thing. Success had always come easily to her in the past.

That was until she'd opened her own public relations firm. Somehow, as though she'd come under some sort of evil spell, she hadn't managed to do one thing right and her business had failed.

Failed! The word made her gasp, even just thinking it. Failure just wasn't possible. If her parents had any inkling…

No, she told herself fiercely. You cannot cry just because you've messed up again.

Still, she had to wonder. If there was no one there to see you cry, did it really matter?

Yes, it did, she decided. Tears were a sign of weakness. The first step toward that very failure
she was so scared of. And she could not afford to fail at this job.

She shook away that nightmare thought. Her luck was supposed to have changed. Developing this new campaign for Dr. Richie was going to fix everything. If she ever got out of the supply closet.

“Hello. Anybody here?”

She froze, listening. Someone had come into the office. Decision time. Was she ready to reveal her pathetic mistake?

“Gone to lunch, I guess,” a male voice muttered.

She smiled her relief. She didn't recognize the voice. There would be no problem if a stranger rescued her. Saved at last!

“Hello,” she called out. “I'm in here.”

After a pause, the voice spoke again. “In where?”

“In the supply closet. I'm locked in, actually. There's no handle on this side. If you could just open the doors…”

A sharp click was followed by one of the doors opening slowly. Looking up, she found herself face to face with a very large, steel-jawed man with a suspicious look in his green eyes.

“What are you doing in there?” he asked abruptly.

Abby stiffened and her eyes narrowed. She'd been ready to be grateful. Honest she had. She'd been ready to smile and thank her rescuer with all her heart.

But there was something about the way he looked at her and the suspicious tone in his voice that set her off. She'd been through a lot in the last fifteen minutes, even if it was mostly in her own head. A little sympathetic treatment would have been just the thing. Instead, she got skepticism. Frustrated, and feeling awfully defensive, she reacted a little hastily to his obvious distrust.

“Who, me?” she said, knowing she sounded flippant but not caring very much. “Checking for termites, of course. I always lock myself in closets so I can catch the little buggers unaware.”

“Really.” He wasn't moving aside and he filled the opening. His icy green eyes had a penetrating intensity. She felt, for a second or two, as if she was being X-rayed. “Find any?”

Her chin rose. “Not yet.” She knew she should smile right now. It was time to make friends, not war.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Abby
. The phrase in her mother's voice echoed in her head, but there was something so annoying about the way this man had jumped to the conclusion that she was up to no good, she just couldn't make use of it.

“I
have
found evidence of other pests, however,” she said pointedly, flashing him a look. “I'm hoping I won't have to call an exterminator.”

To his credit, one corner of his wide mouth quirked with the tiniest sign of amusement at her jibe.

“So you actually belong here?” he asked, still looking skeptical.

“You thought I was looting the place and got caught in the closet?” She resisted rolling her eyes, though she felt like doing it. “Sorry to disappoint you. I work here.”

“Do you?” He paused just long enough to increase her fury. “I was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony last month. Dr. Richie was there. Along with all the counselors and administrators of the clinic and even a few from the hospital.” He raised one dark, sleek eyebrow. “I didn't see you there.”

She pursed her lips, wondering what he'd do
if she just let go and launched herself at his throat. “It would have been pretty strange if you'd seen me there. I didn't attend. I was out of town.”

“Ah.”

He didn't believe her? What was he, a security guard she hadn't run across in her few weeks working here? If so, maybe they needed a seminar on employee-to-employee relations.

“So now you've decided I'm a burglar?”

“I don't know what you are. I'm just wondering why you're in this closet.”

She'd had enough of this. If he wasn't going to move, she was going to have to scrunch past him. Setting her jaw, she did just that and looked up defiantly.

“I'm not in it anymore. Happy?”

He turned, following her progress across the office, and she had second thoughts. Didn't security guards usually wear uniforms, or at least a badge of some sort? He didn't have either. And if he worked here, he should know about her. Shouldn't he?

Reaching out, she grabbed the brass nameplate from her desk and held it up for him to see.

“This is me. Abby Edwards. Public Relations.
And this is my office.” She set the plate back down and fixed him with a stare, folding her arms across her chest. “Can I help you with something?”

He shrugged, jamming his hands down into the pockets of his jacket and looking her over in a way she found particularly insolent.

“What exactly
were
you doing in there?” he asked, giving the closet a quick scan before looking back at her. “Besides the termites, I mean.”

She met his gaze levelly, but she had a moment of unease. Could he possibly be someone in the chain of command here at the clinic—someone she should be treating like a boss? But no. It seemed unlikely. He just didn't have the right look. She could relax and give as good as she got.

“Hmm. Just what was I doing in that supply closet?” She pretended to think it over for half a second. “I'd say it was pretty obvious to anyone who was paying attention. Dealing with supplies would have been my first choice. Still, others may differ.”

“These supplies?” He indicated the piles stacked around the edge of the office. “That's a lot of stuff to move.” He looked at her assessingly. “Tell you what. I'll help you.”

She frowned. What the heck was this guy's game, anyway? He'd come out of nowhere and now he wanted to help. If he was so suspicious of her, maybe she ought to return the favor.

“Wait a minute. Who are you exactly?”

He hesitated, then held out his hand. “Name's Daniel O'Callahan,” he said shortly. “Nice to meet you, Abby Edwards.”

She glanced at his hand. It looked strong and tanned, the fingers long and tapered, the nails neat and even. For a split second, she considered refusing to shake hands with him. But she knew immediately that would be a mistake. Hey, she was supposed to be spreading good feeling, not making enemies. Gritting her teeth, she put her slender hand in his and felt a jolt as his warmth enveloped her.

She pulled her hand back a little too quickly and immediately regretted it when she saw the glint of humor in his eyes. Now he was laughing at her. This was possibly the most infuriating man she'd ever dealt with in her life.

“You still haven't explained what
you
are doing here,” she said sharply.

“Haven't I?” He grinned at her, going into a ca
sual slouch that showed how very relaxed he was. By now his body language was telling her that he was completely at home and obviously feeling in control of things.