Jacqueline Diamond - The Doctor's Little Secret

He stopped.

Rachel waited for him to gather his thoughts. No hurry. Besides, she was enjoying the electricity in the air and the guy’s low-key yet unmistakable masculinity—a refreshing change from the macho specimens she knew.

“Lauren’s mother insists that she belongs in a family,” Russ explained. “She remembers me the way I was five years ago, not remotely ready for parenting.”

“How did you change her mind?” This ought to be interesting.

He cleared his throat. “I told her I was engaged.”

That was weird. “To who?”

“Well…you.”

Dear Reader,

The story of Russ and Rachel launches a new series about police officers and children. It actually began as two separate ideas.

First I pictured a woman who had survived a terrible car crash and was finally getting her life on track ten years later. She and her two closest friends volunteered at a homework center and became involved in the lives of needy children. At age thirty, they’d almost given up on love.

The second idea concerned three police officers (originally all male) who were reassessing their lives after narrowly escaping death. Each had to tackle an issue concerning children—perhaps a child given up for adoption, or a desire to have a child—now that life had given him a second chance.

These two ideas mingled in my mind until I realized that they belonged together. In the course of working out the stories, one of the officers became a woman—Rachel—and the man who’d given up a child for adoption became a doctor.

Subsequent stories concern Rachel’s friend Connie and her next-door nemesis, Hale; and Marta—the accident survivor—and the department’s Romeo, Derek. I hope you enjoy them!

Best,

Jacqueline Diamond

The Doctor’s Little Secret

Jacqueline Diamond

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A former Associated Press reporter, Jacqueline Diamond has written more than sixty novels and received a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. Jackie lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons and two cats. You can e-mail her at jdiamondfriends@aol.comor visit her Web site at www.jacquelinediamond.com.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

913—THE IMPROPERLY PREGNANT PRINCESS

962—DIAGNOSIS: EXPECTING BOSS’S BABY

971—PRESCRIPTION: MARRY HER IMMEDIATELY

978—PROGNOSIS: A BABY? MAYBE

1046—THE BABY’S BODYGUARD

1075—THE BABY SCHEME

1094—THE POLICE CHIEF’S LADY * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1101—NINE-MONTH SURPRISE * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1109—A FAMILY AT LAST * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1118—DAD BY DEFAULT * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1130—THE DOCTOR + FOUR * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

As always, for Kurt

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

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Under other circumstances, Rachel Byers might have enjoyed being invited to a party by a couple of guys. Especially great-looking guys with guns.

Unfortunately, her buddies at the Villazon, California, police department thought of her as one of the boys, with maybe a few minor differences.

Take this request from Detective Hale Crandall, the beer-bash host: “Yo, Rache, how about bringing a DVD tomorrow night? A chick flick would be fine. Like the kind with mud wrestling.”

Fine. As long as he didn’t expect her to do the mud wrestling. Speaking of wrestling, she could pin Hale as often as not, and he knew it.

That might be, she supposed, part of her problem.

“Bring a couple of girlfriends, too,” suggested Officer Derek Reed, a Brad Pitt clone whose womanizing reputation had earned him the nickname Sergeant Hit and Run from the nurses at the local hospital. “You know my type. Big blond hair, big—” he made a descriptive gesture with his hands “—you get the picture.”

“If I had girlfriends like that, I wouldn’t let them anywhere near you clowns,” Rachel returned. “Excuse me. Some of us have to patrol. We can’t all work sissy desk jobs.”

Hale snorted. Derek, who seemed less than thrilled about his recent assignment as head of community relations and public information, scowled.

Rachel would hate flying a desk. She loved wearing a uniform and a gun, and enjoyed a little physical action now and then to set the juices flowing.

Too bad she wasn’t getting any physical action in her personal life. At five foot eleven, she either intimidated men or inspired them…to invite her to join their softball team. If she ever met Mr. Right, she’d have to arrest him to reach first base.

Wait. Scratch the reference to first base.

“I wish you wouldn’t encourage them,” muttered Elise Masterson, the other woman on the swing shift. “They’re sexist enough as it is.” She fell into step beside Rachel as they walked toward the back of the building.

“Were they being sexist?” Rachel had difficulty figuring out the finer points of political correctness.

She sympathized with Elise, whose efforts to skin back her blond hair in a bun did little to discourage the masculine attention she considered so annoying. Men had an amazing ability to detect curves even beneath a Kevlar vest.

“Never mind,” Elise answered. “We have more important things to focus on. Finding that lost kid, for instance.”

They’d been advised during briefing to watch for a three-year-old girl named Nina Franco who’d wandered away from her parents a few hours earlier. An intensive search was in progress around the park where she’d vanished.

With luck, some well-meaning civilian would bring Nina in before dark. The disappearance of a child was unusual in the Los Angeles suburb of Villazon. Although it had its share of burglaries and domestic assaults, by and large residents felt safe.

Outside, Elise strode off across the rain-dampened parking lot. A couple of male colleagues paused en route to their cars to study the sway of her butt, graceful despite the heavy lace-up boots.

In high school, Rachel had submitted to dance classes in an attempt to refine her own clunky strut. After she accidentally kicked a classmate and pulled the barre loose from the wall, the teacher had advised her to try the wrestling team. Good suggestion.

Glamour still evaded Rachel with a vengeance. A few months earlier, hoping to update her style, she’d dyed her brown hair to what was supposed to be auburn. It had emerged a brassy red that was still growing out.

Well, she had the right build and temperament for her dream job. What more could a girl ask?

The air smelled of wet asphalt, a testament to the February rains that had soaked Southern California for the past few weeks. Rachel tried not to think about the sodden slope behind her condominium or the risk of its collapsing. Out of her control, so why worry?

Her assigned car was a different matter. Rachel took nothing for granted. Before getting in, she checked the gas level and the tires, tested the lights and oil level, made a survey for any unreported dents and poked around the backseat to make sure some arrestee on an earlier shift hadn’t stashed contraband.

Satisfied, she stowed a gear-filled bag in the trunk and, beside her, secured a metal box containing paperwork and forms. She didn’t want stuff sent flying during a pursuit.

Then, strapping herself into the driver’s seat and switching on the two-way radio and the small computer screen known as a mobile data terminal, she called dispatch to report that she was in service.

Rolling out on patrol provided the usual burst of energy. Rachel treasured the independence and the challenge. On the street, she became her own boss.