The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor

She burst out laughing. “You animal!” she gasped.

“You know I’m right. He’s not a bad dude, all the same.”

“Neither are you, once in a while.”

“Get what you needed?”

She nodded. “No thanks to you,” she said.

He shrugged indifferently. “It’s no bad thing to teach you to be self-sufficient. I won’t always be around.”

The way he said that worried her. “Nick…” she began.

“I’m not dying of something,” he said when he saw her expression, and he smiled. “I mean I’m getting restless. I may be moving on sometime soon.”

“Wanderlust again?” she asked gently.

He nodded. “I get bored in the same place.”

“Go home,” she said. “Take a vacation. Relax.”

“In Washington?” His eyes widened. “Funny girl!”

“You’ll find a way. It’s a quiet street. No drug dealers, no shoot-outs. Just peace and quiet.”

“And your friend Tabby right next door,” he said icily.

“Tabby’s dating a very nice historian at her college,” she told him, enjoying the way his eyelids flickered. “I think it may be serious. So you won’t have to hide from her while you’re there.”

“She wasn’t dating anybody when we were there earlier in the year,” he said. He sounded as if he thought she’d betrayed him.

“That was then,” she reminded him. “A lot can happen in a few months. Tabby’s twenty-five. It’s time she married and had kids. She’s settled and has a good job.”

He didn’t answer her. He looked hunted. He felt hunted. So he changed the subject without appearing to be evasive. “Did you get your information from Adams?” he asked her again.

“Yes. I had to have it to finish my case,” she said. “Dane was just asking me how far I’d gotten earlier. The client needs the background information. He hopes it may help him avert a court case.”

“I see.” His fingers traced a teasing line down her nose. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I might have a damned good reason for not wanting to talk to people I used to know at the agency?”

Her dark eyes searched his curiously. Her handsome brother had bone structure an artist would love—from his high cheekbones to his straight nose and perfectly chiseled masculine mouth.

“You’re staring. And you haven’t answered me,” he said.

“I was just thinking what a dish you are,” she said with a grin. “You look just like Dad. No wonder women threaten to leap off buildings when you throw them over. You never talk about the time you spent with the FBI, and I never knew why. I thought maybe you missed it.”

“Sometimes I do,” he confessed. “Not often. But it’s never a good idea to open up old wounds. Sometimes they bleed.”

“Yes,” she said absently, “I suppose so.”

“All right. Have a sandwich with me and we’ll talk about what we’re going to do with the house. I’m tired of renting it out. Too much hassle. I want to talk to you about selling it.”

“Sell our legacy?” she burst out.

He sighed. “I figured you’d react that way. Come on. Let’s eat. We can fight over dessert.”

He took her to a nice seafood restaurant. She’d been expecting a hamburger, and she paused self-consciously at the door, nervous in her old black skirt and black-and-white checked blouse, her hair loose and unkempt.

“Now what’s the matter?” he asked impatiently.

“Nick, I’m not dressed for a place like this,” she said earnestly. “Can’t we go someplace less expensive?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A fast-food place,” she explained. “Plastic cartons? Paper sacks? Foam cups?”

“Nonbiodegradable litter.” He frowned. “No way. Come on.” He took her arm and forcibly led her inside. He chuckled as he seated her, very elegantly, at a table. “I hope you aren’t really that mad for pizza. They don’t serve it here.”

She smiled. “Harold and I are sort of tired of it, if you want the truth,” she confessed as he sat down across from her. The table had a burning red candle in a glass chimney. The lighting was cozy, like the atmosphere with its classical music playing unobtrusively overhead.

“I like service,” he said. “Old-fashioned service, and good food. They have both here.”

Even as he spoke, a slender blonde paused beside the table and presented them with menus. Her eyes lingered on Nick’s face while he ordered coffee, to give them time to decide on a choice of entrée.

“Thanks, Jean,” he said warmly.

The woman smiled back and with an envious glance at Helen, went on her way.

“She likes you,” she said.

“I know. I like her, too. But that’s all it is,” he added, his face very serious as he met Helen’s curious stare. “Stop trying to play matchmaker. You only complicate lives.”

He sounded incredibly bitter. “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked quietly.

“You threw me together with Tabby at that New Year’s Eve party the last time we were home. You didn’t mention that you’d told her I flew all the way from Houston just to take her out.”

He hadn’t talked about this before. She felt guilty and apprehensive at his tone. “I didn’t think it would hurt,” she began.

He cut her off. “She had some crazy idea that my feelings had changed and I wanted a relationship with her,” he said curtly, his eyes accusing. “I wasn’t expecting it and I overreacted. She cried.” His face went harder. “In all the years we’ve known Tabby, I’ve never seen her cry. It really got to me.”

Helen knew Nick well enough to guess what happened next. “You lost your temper,” she guessed.

“I told you, I wasn’t expecting it. One minute she was telling me about some new find they were studying in the anthropology department, the next she was off on a tangent about the future.”

“The punch was spiked,” she said. “I didn’t know. I poured her two cups of it.”

“I finally figured out for myself that she was three sheets to the wind, but that sudden burst of affection knocked me off balance,” he replied. He rammed his hands into his pockets and looked uncomfortable. “I panicked. Tabby’s a sweet woman, but she’s not my type.”

“Who is?” she challenged. “You make confirmed bachelors look like old married men. You could do a lot worse than Tabby.”