Evan

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

DIANA PALMER

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

Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com.

Evan

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my very special friend Suzanne Hewstone

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

It wasn’t that he minded the dinner so much, or the business talk that followed it. What bothered Evan Tremayne was the way Anna sat and watched him.

She was nineteen, blond, buxom and blue-eyed, a statuesque young woman with long tanned legs that looked incredible in shorts. Evan had tried for the past year not to notice her, despite the fact that he and her mother did a lot of business together. At thirty-four, he was the eldest of four brothers, and he had almost total responsibility for their mother. The family business was mostly under his control and his life was one long tangle of cattle, personnel problems and financial headaches. Anna was the last damned straw.

Especially, he thought, in that pale blue dress that showed too much of her golden tan and her full breasts. Surely her mother should have said something about that. He wondered if Polly Cochran noticed how fast her daughter was growing up. Polly was never home, though. She seemed always to be busy with some new facet of her real estate business. Anna’s father was an airline pilot, but he and Polly had separated years ago. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia, while they lived in Texas. In fact, Anna had been given most of her upbringing by Lori, the family housekeeper. Nobody seemed to have had much time for her.

Polly had excused herself to take a phone call, and Evan was left uncomfortably alone with Anna.

“Why have you been glowering at me for the past ten minutes?” Anna asked softly. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head, and she looked sophisticated and very mature for a change.

“Because that dress shows too much of you,” Evan replied with customary bluntness. His dark eyes glanced from her face to the swell of her breasts. “Polly shouldn’t have bought it for you.”

“She didn’t,” Anna said with a grin. “It’s one of hers. I borrowed it when she wasn’t looking. She hasn’t even noticed that I’m wearing it. You know how unobservant she is. Everything with Mama is business.”

“Your mother’s dresses are too old for you,” he replied, softening the words a little with a smile. He tended to be more abrasive with Anna than with anyone else in his life because of his unwanted attraction to her. “You should wear something more appropriate for your own age.”

She took a slow breath and her eyes gently worshipped him before they dropped to the table. “Do I really seem so young to you, Evan?”

“I’m thirty-four, little one,” he said, his voice deep and slow in the silence of the dining room. “Yes, you seem young.”

Her blue eyes settled on her folded hands. “Mama’s giving a party Friday night to celebrate the opening of that new mall in Jacobsville that she sold the property for,” she said. “Are you coming?”

“Harden and Miranda might,” he murmured. “I stay busy.”

She looked up, her eyes searching his dark, broad face relentlessly. “You could dance one dance with me. It wouldn’t kill you.”

“Wouldn’t it?” he asked with graveyard humor. He touched his linen napkin to his wide, chiseled mouth and laid it down beside his plate. He got to his feet, towering over her. He was a giant of a man, all muscle and streamlined, from the broad wedge of his chest to his narrow hips and long, powerful legs. “I have to go.”

She stood up. “Not yet,” she pleaded.

“I’ve got things to do,” he said.

“No, you haven’t,” she said, pouting. “You just don’t want to be alone with me. What are you afraid of, Evan, that I’ll assault you on the table?”

He lifted an eyebrow over twinkling brown eyes. “And get mashed potatoes all over my back?”

She let out an irritated breath. “You won’t take me seriously.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, fending her off with the ease of years of practice. “Tell Polly I’ll see her tomorrow at the office.”

“I could be dying of love for you,” she said quietly. “And you don’t even care that you’re breaking my heart.”

He grinned. “Hearts don’t break, especially at your age.”

“Yes, they do.” Her eyes ran up and down his big body, lingering on his broad chest. “You might at least kiss me goodbye.”

“Let Randall do that,” he replied. “He’s still at the experimenting age, like you.”

“And you’re over the hill, I guess?”

He chuckled. “Feels like it sometimes,” he confessed. “Good night, little girl.”

She colored delicately, which heightened the blue of her eyes. “I’m not a child!”

“You are to me.” He picked up his Stetson from the sideboard without looking at her. “Give my apologies to your mother. I can’t wait for her. Thanks for dinner.”

Before she could come up with a reply, he was out the door and gone, without even seeming to hurry.

The hell of it was that he was fiercely attracted to her. In fact he could probably fall head over heels in love with her. But she was much too young for a serious relationship. At her age she was likely to fall in and out of love weekly. Besides, she was almost certainly a virgin. Evan was six-four and weighed over two hundred and thirty pounds. A brief love affair had ended in near tragedy because, in his desire for the woman he loved—an innocent woman, like Anna—he hadn’t been able to control his great strength. Louisa had run from him, terrified. It had scarred him, made him hopelessly wary of innocents like Anna. His size had been a sore spot with him ever since childhood, when he was forever coming to the defense of his three brothers. He’d always had to pull his punches. He’d even put a man in the hospital once when he’d underestimated his strength. The risk with a sheltered girl like Anna was just too great. No, he couldn’t afford another episode like that, he couldn’t take the chance. Better to stick to experienced women who weren’t afraid of him.

Back at the brick mansion, Anna was raging over the things Evan had said. He was treating her like a teen with a crush, when she was dying of unrequited love for him!

“Where’s Evan?” her mother asked, pausing in the doorway. She was tall and thin and fiftyish, dark, where Anna was fair like her father.

“He left,” Anna said curtly. “He was afraid I might bend him over the table and seduce him in the green beans and mashed potatoes.”

“What?” Polly asked, laughing.

“He’s afraid to be alone with me,” Anna muttered. “I suppose he thinks I’ll get him pregnant.”

“Child, do watch your language,” Polly chided. “Never mind Evan. You’ve already got a beau, much closer to your own age.”

Anna sighed. “Good old Randall,” she mused. “With the wandering eyes. I like him a lot, but he flirts with every woman he sees. I can’t believe he’s serious about me.”

“He’s only in his twenties,” Polly said. “Plenty of time to get serious when you’re older. Marriage is for the birds, honey.”

Anna glared at her. “Just because you and Daddy weren’t happy together doesn’t mean that I can’t have a good marriage.”

Polly’s eyes darkened and she turned away to light a cigarette, ignoring Anna’s disapproving glance as she reached for an ashtray. “Your father and I were very happy at first,” her mother corrected. “Then he started flying overseas routes and I got into the real estate business. We never saw each other.” She shrugged. “Just one of those things.”

“Do you still love him?”

The older woman cocked a perfect dark eyebrow. “Love is a myth.”

“Oh, Mama.” Anna sighed.

Polly just laughed. “Dream your dreams, child. I’ll settle for CDs in the bank and plenty of stocks and bonds in my safety deposit box. Where did you get that dress?”

The younger woman grinned. “It’s yours.”

Her mother gave her a mock glare. “How many times have I told you to stay out of my closet?”

“Only twenty. You won’t buy me anything this sexy.”

“I suppose you wore it to tempt Evan,” Polly mused. “Well, you might as well give up. Evan’s too old for you, and he knows it, even if you don’t. Go and change. I’ll treat you to a movie.”

“Okay.”

It was nice to have a mother who was also a good friend, Anna thought as she complied with the request. But nobody seemed inclined to take her feelings for Evan seriously. Especially Evan himself.

Sometimes Anna thought it would be nice if she had a job that would put her in constant contact with Evan. But she couldn’t work cattle and she knew nothing about bookkeeping or finance. The best she’d been able to manage was secretarial work at her mother’s real estate office. That did bring her into fairly frequent contact with Evan, because the Tremayne brothers were always looking for investment properties. Since Evan was the eldest and headed the company, he was the one her mother saw most frequently. That meant Anna got to see him. She was working on the premise of water dripping on stone. If he was around her enough, he might notice her more.

There were, of course, better ways than just sitting around hoping. Anna had the pursuit of Evan down to a science. She could wrangle invitations to parties he’d attend, she found ways to track him down at lunch and accidentally run into him. She occasionally waylaid him at the post office or the feed store. Most people found her relentless chase amusing, but more and more she sensed that it was affecting Evan. If only he’d just look at her!

It was a well-known fact that Evan hated alcohol. He had an intense aversion to it for reasons nobody understood. So all Anna had to do to attract his interest at her mother’s office the next day was to sit two bottles of unopened whiskey on her desk before he was due at the realty company.

He stopped dead when he saw them, his dark brows knitting over deep-set brown eyes shaded by the brim of the Stetson pulled low over his forehead.

“What the hell is that for?” he demanded, gesturing toward the bottles.

“Medicinal purposes,” Anna said smugly. She was wearing a white linen suit with a pink blouse, her hair in a plait, and she looked both businesslike and feminine.

He glared at her. “Try again.”

She glanced around to make sure none of the other women in the office were listening, and she leaned forward. “It’s to treat snakebite.”

The scowl got worse. “There aren’t any rattlers in here.”

She grinned. “Yes, there are.” She pulled open her bottom drawer to reveal two huge plastic snakes with realistic fangs.

Evan’s eyes widened. “Good God!”

“These are for people who need an excuse to drink the whiskey.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“If I was, how could I be using it to talk to you?”

He gave up and went past her, shaking his head. Anna watched him, her blue eyes lazily adoring on his tall, powerful body. He was perfectly built, with broad shoulders tapering to slender hips and long legs. He had a rodeo rider’s physique, except for his great size. Evan had hands the size of plates. He was even intimidating to some of the women in the office, who made innuendoes that Anna was too sheltered to understand. But Anna found nothing frightening about him at all. She loved him.

He was aware of that silent stare, but he didn’t react to it. She was playing games again, he knew it. She had to be aware that the whiskey would draw his attention. It had worked. He had to be more careful from now on, not to fall into her little traps.

But it wasn’t that easy. When he came out of Polly’s office, Anna wasn’t at her desk. He found her outside near his car, on her hands and knees beside the small white Porsche her mother had bought her, looking through a small toolbox.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

“Yes. For my left-handed Johnson wrench.”

He sighed impatiently. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is so. Johnson is the local mechanic and he’s left-handed. I borrowed his wrench and now I’ve lost it.”

He threw up his hands. “What’s gotten into you today?”

“Maddened passion,” she said, standing up, her eyes wide and theatrical, like her audible breathing. “I’m dying for you!” She threw her arms wide and sprawled against the side of the car. “Go ahead, ravish me!”

He was having to choke back laughter. “Where?” he asked, glancing around the big car park.

“On the hood of the car, in the trunk, I don’t care!” She was still holding the pose, her eyes closed.

“The hood would break under your weight, never mind mine, and I don’t think I could get my head and shoulders in that tiny trunk.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him. “On the pavement?”

He shook his head. “Too hard.”

“The grass.”

“Chiggers and fire ants.” He folded his arms over his chest, and his eyes ran down her body slowly and without his usual detachment. In fact, the bold gaze unnerved her. No one, not even Randall, had ever looked at her in that particular glittery way, as if he knew what she looked like with her clothes off.

Defensively, she folded her arms across her jacket. “Don’t do that,” she said softly.

“You started it, honey,” he reminded her, and moved deliberately closer, threatening her with his size and strength. She looked nervous now, which was what he intended. Playing games with grown men could be dangerous. Someone needed to prove it to her.

“Evan…” she said uneasily.

The car park was deserted, and Anna’s bravado was quickly disappearing. Flirting was one thing, but she still wasn’t quite sure of herself in any intimate situation. She could handle Randall, but Evan had an untamed look about him. He might seem like a big teddy bear at times, but the Tremayne brothers were a fiery bunch and he was the eldest. Probably Connal, Harden and Donald had learned all they knew from his example.

“What’s the matter?” he asked with a mocking smile when she backed against the car like a kitten at bay. “Not as safe as you thought?”

She didn’t know what she thought anymore. He smelled of cologne and soap, and his height and size were intimidating.

“It’s broad daylight,” she pointed out.

“I know that.” He pursed his wide lips and smiled down at her, but it wasn’t any kind of smile she’d ever seen on his lips before. Or on any other man’s, come to think of it. It was sensuous and masculine and very arrogant, as if he knew that her knees were weak and her heart was beating her to death.

“I really have to go, Evan,” she said, sounding frantic.

He could have pushed it. He almost did. Her very vulnerability attracted him as her blatant flirting never had. His eyes fell to her high, full breasts and narrowed. She was voluptuous in the very best way, well-endowed enough to almost fill hands even the size of his. He started at the direction his thoughts were taking. Anna was a virgin. He reminded himself of that silently and forced his eyes back up to her flushed, stunned face.

“I thought you wanted to get ravished,” he said softly, the velvety depth of his voice a threat in itself. “Running away before we even get started?”

She swallowed down her fear and eased away from him, laughing nervously. He made her feel young and totally green. “I’ll need to take a lot of vitamins first, to get in shape,” she said, glancing at him as she opened the door of her car and climbed in. “Hold that thought, though.”

He laughed gently at her grit. She had courage, and she bounced back fast. If she’d been a few years older, anything might happen. “Okay, rabbit, hit the road. But next time, be sure you know what you’re asking for,” he added, and his eyes were serious. “A man won’t usually turn down a blatant invitation, even if it’s against his better judgment.”

“You’ve been turning me down for years,” she reminded him, catching her breath. “You’re experienced.”

His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Yes, I am,” he said quietly. “Keep that in mind. You’re still at the stage where you think a man’s appetite can be satisfied by a few soft kisses. Mine can’t.”

She glared at him. “I wasn’t offering…!”

“Weren’t you?”

She averted her gaze to her fingers on the key in the ignition. “No, I wasn’t,” she said curtly. “I was only teasing.”

“That kind of teasing can be dangerous. Practice on Randall. He’s safer than I am.”

“At least he wants me,” she muttered, and she abruptly started the car.

“Good for him,” he replied. “Don’t speed in that toy car.”

She moved the toolbox from the passenger seat to the floorboard. “I never speed,” she lied.

He watched her fasten her seat belt. “Through for the day already?” he taunted softly.

“I’m having lunch with my best friend,” she said evasively.

He lifted his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you had one.”

She didn’t answer him. She backed out of the parking spot and managed to take off without stripping the gears. Tears glittered in her eyes, but he wouldn’t see them.

She stopped at a nearby restaurant and had a hamburger, all by herself. She had no girlfriends. She liked Randall very well. He was a resident at the hospital, the son of the local doctor, and not bad looking. Of course, he did have a wandering eye, but Anna got along with him and didn’t feel threatened by him. Her heart was Evan’s, sadly enough. How terrible, to love a man who treated you like a child and made fun of you when you offered yourself to him. She could have bawled. Actually, everything was bravado with her, where Evan was concerned. She’d teased him just to get his attention. But having gotten it, she didn’t know what to do with it. He was experienced, and she wasn’t. She didn’t know how to handle a man like that. She’d just been shown graphically that she was totally out of her element with Evan.

She went back to the office late, and her heart wasn’t in her work for the rest of the day. Polly didn’t even notice. Anna wondered sometimes if her mother paid much attention to anything that she didn’t want to see.

The party her mother gave to celebrate the opening of the new Jacobsville mall gave Anna an excuse to dress to the back teeth. Not, she told herself, that Evan was going to notice. He’d already said he probably wouldn’t come. Randall would be there, though. She could certainly dress up for him.

She wore a witchy, silver, crystal-pleated dress that fell in layers to just below her knees. She let her blond hair waft loosely around her shoulders, straight and heavy, and she wore sexy little high-heeled sandals on her feet. She knew she looked good, but the evening felt flat. She added a hint of pastel lipstick to her full lips and brushed her hair, but her heart wasn’t in her preparations. Without Evan, her whole life was flat and uninteresting.

Downstairs Randall was waiting for her, looking very trendy in his sports coat and neatly pressed slacks. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and he was very dignified. Not a hair out of place, although what he had was thinning above his forehead. He wasn’t handsome. But women loved him. He had a gentle, caring demeanor and he was good company, even if he did have the worst kind of wandering eye. Anna liked him, and the feeling was mutual.

“You look very nice,” he told her, glancing around at the very elegant crowd Polly was entertaining. “Your mother knows everybody, doesn’t she?”

“Everyone who moves in her circles,” Anna replied. Randall’s interest in the wealthy set disturbed her. Anna had never mixed with people simply because of their wealth or social status. Neither did the Tremaynes. Randall was thinking ahead to the time when he would be in practice, she was sure. His preference for an uptown medical practice was something he made no secret of.

He took Anna’s arm and guided her through to the canapé table, where ruby punch and savories were being offered to the guests. “I’m starved. I had to forego lunch for exams. I wish this was a sit-down affair.”

“Lori did honey chicken and salmon croquettes,” she told him, gesturing toward platters of food. “And there are little blueberry muffins, too. If you load enough on your plate, you’ll get full.”

He smiled at her. “I guess so.”

She noticed the couples moving to the soft music of the live band. She loved to dance, but Randall couldn’t. He had no desire to learn, even though she’d offered to teach him.

“You wouldn’t like to shuffle around the floor?” she tried yet once more.

He shook his head. “Sorry. I’m tired. I want to get off my feet, not on them!”

She lifted her shoulders as if she didn’t care. She got a cup of punch, looking around for familiar faces. When she spotted Harden and Miranda Tremayne, her eyes went helplessly past them, hoping for a glimpse of Evan. But he wasn’t there. Her face fell, even as she smiled a greeting at the couple.

Miranda was wearing a black maternity dress with flowing lace, and she had a radiant Harden beside her. Anna had always felt a little sorry for Harden, because he’d seemed so alone. But these days, he smiled a lot, and the old coldness was gone from his blue eyes.

He had a possessive arm around Miranda’s swollen waist, and he looked devastating in a dinner jacket. Almost, Anna thought, as good as Evan looked similarly clothed.

“Nice turnout,” Harden murmured dryly. “Your mother outdid herself.”

“Indeed she did,” Anna said, grinning. “Do I get introduced? I’ve seen Miranda, but I’ve never actually gotten to meet her.”