The Great American Bachelor Read online

  The Great American Bachelor is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  2013 Loveswept eBook Edition

  Copyright © 1989 by Adrienne Staff and Sally Goldenbaum.

  Excerpt from Accidental Cowgirl by Maggie McGinnis copyright © 2013 by Maggie McGinnis

  Excerpt from After the Kiss by Lauren Layne copyright © 2013 by Lauren LeDonne

  Excerpt from The Notorious Lady Anne by Sharon Cullen copyright © 2013 by Sharon Cullen

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-307-79896-1

  Cover design: Susan Schultz

  Cover photograph: © artfotoss/Masterfile

  Originally published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House Company, New York, in 1989.

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  To our family and friends—

  as always,

  with love!

  Adrienne and Sally

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Maggie McGinnis’s Accidental Cowgirl

  Excerpt from Lauren Layne’s After the Kiss

  Excerpt from Sharon Cullen’s The Notorious Lady Anne

  One

  Michael Winters stood with one hip resting against the bar, a scotch waiting near his hand. Across the room the dining area was filled with casually dressed diners. But here at the bar he was alone. He was glad for the solitude, glad to be watching instead of watched for a change. These few stolen minutes of privacy were more valuable than hard currency. All this recent publicity was grating, and he had had enough media attention to last him a long time. But after tonight it would be over. Or at least would be eased. Tomorrow he would get back to business, making decisions, issuing orders. So he stood there, grateful for the respite, letting his eyes roam the room, distanced, alone. He was not curious, or even interested in the people around him, just silent and watching. Then the attractive girl he had noticed earlier smiled.

  Damn! he thought. There was a smile to knock your legs out from under you! He tossed down a mouthful of scotch and stared at her. She was pretty but not stunning. Slim, more coltish than willowy. Nice legs. Lovely shoulders. Age? He took another sip and let it burn its way down his throat. Maybe mid-twenties. But there was something else. What? Something. Narrowing his dark eyes, he studied her with an expert gaze. What was it?

  Cathy Stephenson felt the hairs lifting along her arms. The air-conditioning, she wondered. She hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe this boring date was beginning to affect her physically. With a little shrug she glanced around the room. Stopped. Glanced back to the bar. A little click happened in her head. She knew that man … but how? She frowned, drawing her brows down over her wide brown eyes. She had caught him watching her and for a second had the oddest feeling that she knew him, recognized him. But no. A man like that she would not forget. And yet…

  He put down his drink and met her eyes. Click.

  Thump. Her heart made a strange noise. She took a quick look at Rod, her awful blind date, to see if he had heard it. But, typical of the evening, her date did not notice anything but himself. He continued to babble at her while tossing down drinks. She smiled reassuringly at him, nodded, then she looked back at the bar and the blood raced to her cheeks. The man had caught her staring.

  Quickly she turned her attention back across the table to Rod. But all the little nerve endings at the nape of her neck were sending SOS’s a mile a minute. Goodness, who was that, she wondered.

  “Hey, doll, aren’t ya’ll impressed?” Rod demanded. “Tonight I wanted to bring you over here to the beach, give ya a sample of some real Florida cookin’. But I’ll show you around Orlando sometime. Bet it’s nothin’ like Iowa—”

  “Indiana,” she corrected him. “I’m from Bloomington, Indiana.”

  “Well, I bet Indiana hasn’t got anything to compare with Orlando. I mean, this town’s booming! And have We got places to have fun: Church Street Station and Rosie O’Grady’s, and some great bars down on South Orange Blossom Trail. I can even show you places that were here before all the tourists and you Yankees came bargin’ in. Hey, don’t feel bad. Not everyone can have life’s advantages like me.”

  Cathy nodded and pasted a smile on her mouth.

  “Native, that’s me! You’ll be glad you moved on down. As long as you don’t let them work you to death at Tower Publishing; I mean, that sister of mine is one tough boss!”

  Which was how Cathy had ended up here in the first place.

  A blind date! Cathy had not been on one in years. But it was hard to say no when the VP who had just hired her as an assistant editor said she had a charming brother. Hard to say no when she suggested they double-date. Hard to say no when she called the night before with the flu, but said Rod was really looking forward to it.

  For Cathy, under those circumstances, no was impossible.

  So here she was, sitting in a crowded restaurant in Florida. She should have been excited, she knew, since this was her first night out since she moved south; instead, she was annoyed and uncomfortable, having doubts not just about tonight, but about her boss, her new job, her whole move south. What if her boss was anything like Rod?

  Rod rambled on again, and Cathy nodded in reply at the appropriate moments. She had the feeling he was happier with an audience—a captive audience—than he would have been if she actually tried to say something.

  So she nibbled on oyster crackers, sipped a glass of white wine, prayed for the evening to come to a quick conclusion, shyly keeping her eyes away from the bar.

  Shyness was not a problem for the man at the bar. Not shyness, or reticence, or timidity. No. He had always believed you nail your colors to the mast and you fight to keep them there! Of course, for the magazine interview he had said something far more subtle and sophisticated. But the truth was the same. And he was bold as brass. So he stared at the girl. What the hell was she doing with that loser, he wondered as he nursed his scotch in silence.

  At the table Rod was getting louder and more obnoxious by the moment. “Try some ’gator tail!” he ordered. “Try the turtle soup. And loosen up. Relax.” When he ordered his third drink, Cathy finally objected.

  “Rod, two’s enough. We have that long drive back to Orlando—”

  “No problem. I’m not even feeling them.”

  “That’s what worries me. How about if I drive back?” This was it. She would never accept a blind date again, not even for a boss.

  “I said I’m fine. Lighten up.”

  “I don’t want to lighten up. I either want to drive home or I want you to stop drinking.”

  “Hey, I—” Then he bit off his words and grinned at her, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Sure, you drive. Fine with me. I alway
s wanted a chauffeur.”

  Dinner arrived at that moment. Cathy entertained a fleeting wish that he’d choke on his ’gator, but she pushed it away, determined to finish the evening on a positive note. She nibbled on her salad, carefully avoided looking at her entree, and strained for a glimpse of the ocean outside the windows.

  That had been something, that first glimpse of the ocean! When she had stepped from the car, all she could see was ocean. It was dark as slate, and the rising moon had poured light over its surface like spilt milk. Or molten silver. Or a moth’s pale, phosphorescent wing. Oh, and how it changed! Each second it was new, different, as the water heaved and rose and curled and crashed down on itself in spray and glory. Truly, that was something to write about someday, when she could do what she really wanted to do! She smiled, imagining it.

  The man at the bar followed her gaze, wondering what she was thinking. What had made her smile like that? It couldn’t have been her date.

  “Off in dreamland again?” Rod smirked. He polished off his last drink and paid the check. Then he headed toward the door, not bothering to pull her chair out or hand her her sweater.

  She followed, hesitating just once on the way to the door, almost unwillingly, near the bar. She glanced at the man. He was watching her, just as she knew he would be, with those intense blue, somehow familiar eyes, and an insane little smile leapt to her lips before she could bite it back. Get hold of yourself! she swore silently. Then she hurried, blushing, onto the porch.

  The ocean was gone. A fat, thick fog had rolled in and all that was left of the Atlantic was its deep, disembodied roar. This evening was turning out to be a flop on all counts. With a sigh and a shrug she turned to Rod.

  “Okay,” she said, determined to carry this off with style. “How about the keys?”

  He just looked at her.

  “Rod,” she said, trying to joke, “go ahead, toss me the keys. Here”—she was scooting backward, hands out like a receiver waiting for the football—“watch this catch! Come on, I’m ready.”

  “Forget it. I don’t need you to drive me home.” His voice was surly.

  Anger made her gasp. She dug her heels in. “Rod, you said I could drive—”

  “Now I’m saying you can’t.”

  “But—”

  “I’m fine, I told you. I had three little drinks. Hell, you want me to walk a straight line? Touch my finger to my nose?” He demonstrated as he spoke, every move and gesture dripping with sarcasm. “Want me to count backward from one hundred? Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-six, ninety—”

  “Seven,” she snapped, eyes flashing.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Forget it. I’ll get a ride.”

  “From Cocoa Beach to Orlando? At night? Who you gonna ask, huh, some guy inside?”

  “That’s not your problem,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll call a cab.”

  “Sure. That should cost only about a hundred bucks, hundred and fifty—”

  She tossed her head, eyes pricking with tears of frustration. “I don’t care.”

  She heard the pounding of his footsteps, then felt his hand on her shoulder. “Okay, fine. Here’re the keys. I don’t want you telling some sob story to my sister. Shoot …” he drawled, “you certainly know how to kill an evening.”

  Cathy took the keys and marched to the car without looking back. She didn’t care if he came along or not!

  She did not see the man watching from the doorway.

  That’s better, he thought as he stepped outside and leaned back against the door, arms crossed loosely over his broad chest. He had followed them out, poised to rescue her if she needed help. Not that he wanted to get mixed up in anything. Hell, the magazine would just love that! Talk about poised and ready—there they were out there, not three hundred yards away on the company yacht.

  He squinted into the fog. It was time to be getting back. He stretched his broad shoulders beneath the heavy cotton of his shirt. And he strode down toward the dock and the fourteen-foot Boston Whaler he had left tied up there. Tonight’s party would be starting soon. And he had promised a few more pictures, a few more answers to a few more questions. All of this seemed trivial to him, but somehow most of his quotes became headlines.

  A short distance away Cathy waited for Rod to climb into the passenger seat. “Buckle up,” she ordered. He ignored her.

  They pulled onto A1A, heading slowly north through the fog toward the turn that would lead back onto the highway and to Orlando. Cathy was nervous, and Rod was not helping.

  “Move it, will ya? You’ve gone all of twenty yards. At this speed we’ll get home next Tuesday!”

  From behind, a car honked and Cathy jumped.

  “Hey, get back in the right lane,” Rod barked, reaching for the wheel.

  She slapped his hand away. “I thought it was a left turn—”

  “I’m taking you a different way. Here, I’ll get the map.…” He flicked on the inside light. “See, ya go up to the end of the block. Slow down. Right here … no, next one … no wait, not here … give it a little speed, will ya!”

  He pulled on the wheel and stepped on the gas, trapping her foot between his and the pedal as the car leapt forward, out of control.

  “Let me drive!” she yelled, struggling to push him off her.

  “Here’s the bridge! I remember—” he muttered drunkenly.

  “Rod, no!”

  He spun the wheel hard to the right and left the lights and traffic of A1A behind them. The car bumped and bucked down a dirt road she could not even see, but she could hear the gravel kick up around them. He was leaning across her, hanging on to the wheel, blinded by the light inside and the total darkness outside. And she was shoved down against the door, arms crossed in front of her face, begging, “Stop, please stop, oh—”

  Suddenly the car jumped a step up onto something wooden. There was the rat-a-tat-tat of wheels racing along wooden planks and then flashes of movement, and the startled faces of fishermen, like photographs, flipped by the moving windows of the car.

  “Watch out for the people!” Cathy screamed, fighting for the steering wheel.

  “People?”

  “Oh, God—!”

  The fishermen leapt back out of the way and watched in stunned surprise as the car, still doing forty, neared the end of the pier, smashed the rail into splinters, and sailed through the air, hanging motionless for a moment before it dove straight down into the black, indifferent ocean.

  Two

  Shouts. The rumble of a car. The high, tremulous wall of Cathy’s scream.

  Michael heard all three through the muffling blanket of the fog. Gunning the outboard, he raced the Boston Whaler through the murky blackness toward the noise.

  “Move, move!” he urged the little boat, but soon he had to cut the engine to idle, afraid of getting too close, afraid of running right into them. Into her. He knew it was her: the brown-haired, smiling girl from the restaurant. It was almost as if he had been waiting, listening to know she was safe, waiting and listening for the first sign of trouble if she were not. Every muscle in his body was tense. He peered through the fog, scanning the rolling gray surface of the water. Straining, he leaned over the side of the boat, listening for a shout, a cry. He took shallow breaths, fighting the adrenaline that flooded through his muscles. “Come on, come on,” he said under his breath, “I’ll find you.”

  Suddenly off to his left he heard a commotion and shouting, and then the fishing pier floated into sight. A crowd had gathered at its end, and he saw a wet, suddenly sober young man half climbing, half lifted out of the water. “We’ve got the driver! We’ve got him!” came a disembodied shout.

  About to turn the little boat back out toward open water and gun the throttle, Michael stopped. Him? He cast about slowly, again peering through the fog. “Come on …” And then he spotted the girl. She was gasping and struggling, barely keeping her head above water.

  Michael cut the engine, stood up, and
dove in. He sliced through the waves, his arms pulling against the current, straining for a glimpse of that dark head. Come on. Come on … Gulping a chestful of air, he dove under, eyes burning with the sting of salt, the tide yanking the loafers right off his feet. It seemed an eternity before he found her. Limp, half conscious, she was being tossed about by the undertow like a little rag doll. Three powerful strokes and he had an arm around her and was aiming for the surface, for air.

  They came up choking, fighting for air, saltwater streaming into their eyes and mouths. “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he sputtered, but Cathy was totally panicked, gulping air and water together, crying, batting wildly at him, at the water. She didn’t feel his arms or hear his voice. He held her tight against him, but she was slippery as a fish, and all her struggles pulled them down under the whitecaps.

  “Damn!” he swore. “Take it easy; you’ll drown both of us! Easy, easy …” Kicking hard to stay afloat, he tucked her under one arm and freed the other for swimming. Still fighting, she gave him a good hard kick in the shin. He yelped. “Now, where’s the damn boat?” His eyes combed the waves; the little Boston Whaler was bobbing crest to crest just a few yards away. “Okay, darlin’, here we go.”

  He pulled her through the water, the muscles in his legs, thighs, and arms burning in protest. Then his fingers closed over the wooden side of the little boat, and he pulled it closer, took a searing breath, and tossed her up into it. For one second he leaned his forehead against the side, lights dancing behind his eyelids, his lungs aflame. Then he pulled himself up and over.

  She lay still, eyes closed, breathing weakly, a mermaid flung onto the dry wooden deck.

  Crouching down, he checked her breathing, her color. He brushed the wet hair from her face. With the touch came a strange, unexpected feeling, a rush of tenderness that made him want to protect her against all dangers, battle dragons, tilt at windmills … at the very least, kiss the saltwater off her pale lips. But, as always, the practical won out over the romantic in Michael Winters.

  He cushioned her head on a pillow made from his wet clothes, and then steered swiftly and expertly out to the yacht for help.