Romantic Suspense
THIGH HIGH by Christina Dodd
Free Excerpt
On August 27, 2005, I had a plane reservation for New Orleans. There I intended to do research for the book I was writing, a book filled with the eccentricities, the joy, the larceny, the pleasures and the madness of the Big Easy.
The flight was cancelled. On August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall, changing the face of the city forever.
This is my book, a little later than planned, but dedicated with affection and admiration to the resilient people of New Orleans and to the city itself.
Here’s to the Big Easy. Long may she reign!
THIGH HIGH is the third in the Fortune Hunter series, following TROUBLE IN HIGH HEELS and TONGUE IN CHIC, a classic romantic suspense laced with family problems like “Arsenic and Old Lace” and the steamy sensuality of “The Big Easy.”
The door of the bank opened. A man stepped just inside, a big man, blocking the intense New Orleans sunshine.
Nessa glanced up, then did a double-take.
Wow.
She would have sworn she only mouthed the word, but Julia gave it voice. “Wow.”
He was tall. Very tall. His broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist, and his hands were big. One gripped a bulging leather briefcase. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt and a red tie that should have fixed the eye, but didn’t. It was his face that riveted her … his handsome, battered, broken face. He reminded Nessa of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, broken and rising like a phoenix from the ashes of his life.
He exemplified tragedy. He exuded power.
He looked at the small group of stunned tellers, his gaze moving from face to face, memorizing each feature, his face impassive … until he reached Nessa. There his gaze lingered, a slow interest kindling in his green eyes.
Nessa took a small, involuntary step back.
Then, with the fluid grace of an athlete, long strides and swinging arms, he continued on his way into his newly arranged office and shut the door behind him.
“I just came,” Julia whispered.
“Sh!” Donna whispered and nudged her. “You horny old broad!”
“Oh, like you didn’t,” Julia said.
“Yeah, but I don’t talk about it.”
“Whew!” Mrs. Fasset’s open mouth snapped shut, and she sagged against the countertop.
Carol, who was waiting on her, nodded. “That was spectacular. Miss Dahl, who do you suppose he is? The guy who’s going to give you your raise … so to speak?”
Laughter swept the small group.
“I don’t get it. What are you women talking about?” Mr. Broussard was a bank customer, and owned a bar, and he looked disgusted at the women’s reaction. “He looked like the kind of guy it takes five of us to toss out of the bar, and we’re lucky if he doesn’t come roaring back for more.”
“Yeah, that guy’s not good-looking,” their security guard agreed.
“He sure isn’t,” Julia said with enthusiasm. “He’s more than good-looking.”
Jeffrey let out a long sigh of pleasure. “He’s a god.”
“Well, he scared the hell out of me.” Lisa stood with her hand pressed against her flat chest. “I wanted to tell Eric to take out his gun and shoot him.”
Nessa smiled, a raw twist to her lips. “He’s the insurance investigator who’s going to solve what the police cannot — the mystery of the Mardi Gras robberies.”
TROUBLE IN HIGH HEELS by Christina Dodd
Free Excerpt
TROUBLE IN HIGH HEELS is the start of the exciting contemporary series, the Fortune Hunter series -- and a romantic suspense about a crazy family, a wild affair … and the jewel heist of the century.
If Brandi's caller ID had been working, she would never have picked up the phone.
But it wasn't, and she did, and that just figured, because it had been one hell of a week.
Not that Brandi hadn't expected it. Anybody with a lick of sense could predict that moving from Nashville to Chicago in the dead of winter would be difficult, and Brandi prided herself on her good sense.
But she'd picked the coldest weather Chicago had seen for a century, which made the pipes in her apartment building freeze, which meant that her movers had had nothing to drink, not that that had stopped them from using her toilet, which for the lack of water didn't flush, and using it with such typical male abandon that she didn't dare sit on it even in the most dire circumstances because there was no way to clean the seat. And one guy caught her talking to herself while she tried to wipe the seat with a wadded-up Kleenex out of her purse, and the son-of-a-bitch had the gall to inch away as if she were crazy.
She didn't know anybody in this town except Alan and Mr. McGrath -- for years now she'd called him by the honorary title of Uncle Charles -- but where were they while she crammed her entire life into a one-bedroom apartment?
In a lovely piece of irony, the icy roads had sent the truck carrying her new oversized sofa and armchair careening into an empty Marble Slab Ice Cream Shop. The delivery men wrestled the oversized furniture up to her four floor apartment by tilting it sideways in the freight elevator, a maneuver that made her cover her eyes and pray to the gods of furniture placement.
Her entreaties must have worked, because they planted the sofa and the chair in front of the small propane fireplace, put the ottoman between them, and moved her end tables into place. The sofa wasn't damaged. The colors and fabrics were the way she ordered them. It was only later that night when she stopped unpacking long enough to drop into the chair, put her feet up on the ottoman and look, really look at the furniture, that she realized the sofa was eighteen inches too short.
She'd received the love seat, not the full-sized sofa she'd ordered. Now she had to wait another six weeks until the furniture she had actually ordered arrived, and for a few minutes it seemed as if that sucked more than anything else that had happened in this horrific, endless week.
Until the phone call she picked up because she thought, honestly thought, Alan was calling to tell her he was coming over at last.
Instead, it was her mother. "Well? How did the move go?" As always, Mother sounded like a cheerleader bolstering her team's spirits before the big game.
Brandi stared around at the endless parade of boxes. Empty boxes piled catawampus against the wall. Flattened boxes stacked by the door. Boxes, far too many boxes, still taped shut and scratched with black magic marker. An endless supply of boxes, no stereo system in sight, and pizza for dinner again. "I've been unpacking for a day and a half and I haven't seen Alan. Not once."
"Now, sweetheart, I'm sure he's busy. After all, he is a physician." Mother's Tennessee accent sounded soft and tender.
Brandi didn't know why she'd bothered to complain. It was pure exhaustion and loneliness that made her give into her irritation and criticism her fiancé to, of all people, her mother. "He's not a physician. He's a resident."
"That poor boy. I saw on Sixty Minutes how those hospital administrators work their residents ninety-six hours at a time."
For once, Brandi wished her mother would take her side. About anything. "He hasn't called, either. He may have emailed, but I don't get connected to the internet until next week."
"I hope you didn't call him. A nagging woman is an unpleasant creature." Tiffany was the personification of nineteen-fifty's Southern womanhood.
"Yes, Mother, I know, although if he'd remember me, I wouldn't be seized by this overwhelming desire to nag him." Brandi scratched her nails against the grain of the fabric on the couch, watched as the brocade rose in four welts, and wondered which one of them she wanted to scratch -- her mother or her fiancé. "But I'd like to point out that I'm a lawyer who relocated from a lovely, soft,
warm city to be close to my fiancé. I'm about to start my first full-time job at a major Chicago law firm and
I'm going to be working all the time. He could at least call to see if I've frozen to the side of the dumpster taking out my trash."
Mother's voice took on that pious tone that made Brandi want to shriek. "To keep her man, a woman always has to give one hundred and ten percent."
"How did that work out for you?"
The sound of her mother's shocked inhalation brought Brandi to her senses. She loved her mother, she really did, but Mother had been Daddy's first trophy wife and he'd left her and the quietly anguished eleven-year-old Brandi for his twenty-three year old secretary and a new baby, a son guaranteed to give him what he needed -- a football-uniformed mirror image of his youthful self.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I'm a bitch."
"No, you're not."
"I'm pretty sure I am." Not always a bad thing, in Brandi's opinion. "Let's face it, Daddy has proved he doesn't know what he wants. Not in a wife. Not in his kids."
"Your father is a good man." No matter how much Daddy screwed Tiffany over, she never said a nasty word about him.
That was why Brandi had gotten engaged to Alan. He might not be a man of fire and passion, but he was steady and dependable -- or he had been until she needed him.
And Mother was right about that, too. He probably had a whopper of an excuse. But Brandi -- who'd broken a fingernail down to the quick, whose deodorant had failed hours ago, who was dehydrated and didn't dare drink her bottled water because she couldn't flush -- wasn't in the mood to hear it right now.
"Alan'll be by soon." Mother used a conciliatory tone. "Maybe he'll come tonight to take you out to dinner."
"I don't want him to take me out. I want him to help me unpack." Yep. Definitely bitchy.
"No, go out! You should seize every chance for a good time right now while you're young." About this, Tiffany sounded fierce.
And that made Brandi squirm with guilt. The reason Tiffany hadn't been out there kicking up her heels was because she'd been trying -- not succeeding, but trying -- to make a living for Brandi. "Mother, you're not exactly old. You're not even fifty.
You could get out there and have a good time."
"Men my age want women your age, and men who want women my age are too old to have a good time. In every way." Tiffany's voice was droll. "But actually, I've been thinking …"
"What?"
Tiffany hesitated.
"What?" It wasn't like her mother to be coy. Quite the opposite.
"I wish
I could be there to help you!" Tiffany burst out. "I miss you!"
Brandi would have sworn that wasn't what Tiffany intended to say. But she was too tired, too dirty, too disheveled to dig for the truth. "I haven't lived at home for seven years. You can't miss me that much."
"I know, but it's different with you so far away. When you were at Vanderbilt you were right across town. Now …"
"I'm okay, Mother. Really. I'm good at taking care of myself."
A lot better than you are at taking care of yourself.
"I know. You are capable. I'm proud of you." But Tiffany sounded fretful. "I just wish Alan was there. He's so reliable."
Except now. "Tomorrow night, he's going to take me to a party at Uncle Charles's." And if he did this disappearing act and didn't show for that, she didn't care what excuse he came up with, she was going to kill him.
"A party?" Tiffany inhaled with excitement. "At Charles's home? Oh, that is a showcase. He recently had the foyer remodeled. I wish I could see it! Do you like Charles?"
Her mother's leaps from one subject to another made Brandi blink. "Sure. I've liked Uncle Charles since he used his legal expertise to wring child support out of Daddy."
"Your father was confused by that woman he married."
"So we're hoping he's pussy whipped instead of morally corrupt?"
"Don't use that term, Brandi. It's not at all attractive in a young woman."
"Yes, ma'am." Interesting that when Tiffany got motherly, Brandi felt more secure.
"Tell me all about the party."
"It's a charity ball to raise money for the museum. There'll be a silent auction and I'm sitting at the McGrath and Lindoberth corporate table." Of course she was. She might be new, but she'd earned straight A's out of Vanderbilt Law and that was no small feat. She'd won this job fair and square.
"What are you wearing?" Tiffany asked.
Uh-oh. "That black sheath I bought for parties at the law school."
Tiffany didn't say
Oh, but you bought it at Ann Taylor or
, But that's two years old. Instead she said, "Darling, black? That's so New York. Show those Chicago lawyers how good a Southern girl can look! Wear red. Men adore red."
"I don't care what men adore," Brandi snapped, then took a long breath. Tiffany had never changed her mind. She'd lived through fourteen years of miserable existence and she still thought a man was a woman's best friend -- a man and the gifts she could get from him.
"But the sheath doesn't show off your figure."
"Thank God. Do you know how hard it is to dress for business with a chest like mine?"
"Women pay good money every day for a chest like yours. Marilyn Monroe made a fortune with a chest like yours. With a figure like yours!" Tiffany laughed, that kind of throaty purr that said she knew a lot about how men and women played.
Unwillingly, Brandi laughed, too. It was true. If she hadn't become a lawyer, she could have been a Las Vegas showgirl. She was all hourglass figure. During interviews, she'd mashed down her bosom so the women wouldn't immediately hate her and the guys would look at her face. "I can't afford a new dress right now. I bought furniture" -- furniture that was the wrong damned size -- "and paid first and last month's rent on the apartment. And starting this month I'm paying Daddy back for my student loans." Before Tiffany could object again, Brandi added, "Besides, with Alan there I don't need to worry about catching a man."
"No, but you need to make sure his gaze is riveted to you and he never leaves your side for fear that the other men will whisk you off!"
Brandi laughed again, but wryly. "Alan's stable. He's professional. He knows he can depend on me. He's just not the jealous type."
"Given the right incentive, every man is that type."
No use arguing. Tiffany did know her men. "But I don't want that type. I consider marriage a meshing of equals, a … a calm in the midst of the storm of modern life." Brandi's modern life -- a life whose touchstones are good sense, moderation in all things, and a logical progression toward her goals of not being like her mother, proving her father wrong, paying back her debt, and being a model citizen. She wanted nothing about Desperate Housewives to taint her.
"Good heavens," Mother said blankly. "You don't mean that you and Alan are calm in bed?"
"No, don't be ridiculous." Although since Alan had entered medical school he was brief and businesslike and lately, on the infrequent weekends he managed to get off, too tired to perform at all. "We have our moments. But there's no shrieking fights or huge dramas."
"You're annoyed with him now, but you're not going to shriek at him?"
"How often have you seen me shriek?"
"Never." In a tone that indicated total cluelessness, Mother said, "You were almost frighteningly calm, even as a child."
Because her parents were playing out the big dramas. "When I see Alan I'm going to explain that he needs to be more sensitive to my needs." Brandi injected humor into her voice. "You can't have it both ways, Mother. I can't be sensible enough to know that he probably is too busy to remember that I moved this week
and cherish such a huge passion for him I can't survive without his very presence."
"No, I … no, I suppose not. It's just that those first few years when your father and I got together in bed we erupted into flames --"
Brandi pulled the phone away from her ear. "Euw, Mother, don't tell me that!"
"It seems so early in your relationship to be so cavalier." Tiffany's voice brightened. "And that's why you need a new dress!"
Brandi sighed deeply. "I'll think about it." For about three seconds.
"Get your hair highlighted, too, honey. You've gone a kind of mousy brown."
"I'd call it dishwater blonde." Brandi fingered the split ends -- Tiffany would have a spasm.
"Dishwater blonde is just as attractive as it sounds. Get highlights."
Then, for once in his life, Alan came to the rescue. He beeped in and Brandi got to say, "Let me take this call, Mother. This could be him!" She cut Tiffany off in the middle of her goodbyes and said to Alan, "Where have you been? I've been worried about you!" Which sounded better than
I've been irritated at you.
"I'm in Las Vegas." His normally flat Massachusetts accent vibrated some violent emotion.
"Las Vegas?" She was so dumb. She didn't suspect a thing. "What happened? Is someone sick or something?"
"Sick? Is that your best guess?" So much for the calm in the storm. Alan was shouting. "My girlfriend's pregnant. I just got married. And this is
all your fault."
TONGUE IN CHIC by Christina Dodd
Free Excerpt
What are you looking for in a romance? A rich, powerful man? A smart, witty woman? The clash of cultures amid the meeting of two minds?
Amnesia?
Yeah, me, too. I’m a sucker for an amnesia book, and while I love the traditional version, I also love to twist the story to give it that Christina Dodd touch. Read this excerpt and you’ll see what I mean.
The Present Day
Midnight
On the South Carolina Coast
Lightning flashed. Shadows of bare limbs clawed the tangled path, and the lithe, black-clad trespasser stumbled. Paused. Shuddered. Then continued toward the Victorian house set high above the ocean. The roar of thunder shook the ground, and the next flash of lightning followed hard on its heels, blistering the massive structure with harsh white light. The spires on the fourth-story cupola stabbed at the roiling clouds, the wind gauge spun wildly, and on the beach, the waves growled and pounded. The posts on second story balcony stretched and twisted, and a hard gust of wind drove the first burst of rain up on the porch.
The figure ran lightly up the steps and toward the imposing double doors. The large silver key slid neatly into the lock. It turned easily and was once again pocketed. One black glove-encased hand rested on the beveled glass, then pressed and without a sound, the door swung open.
No lamp lit the interior, but the intruder confidently strode into the foyer.
The lightning struck again, blasting away the shadows. Thunder boomed. The figure halted and spun in a circle.
The wide hall soared two stories above the floor. Gold blazed off every picture frame, every finial, off the coved ceiling. Stern eyes watched from nineteenth century portraits and wide stairs stretched up and out of sight. The blast of thunder made the crystal chandelier shiver and the prisms sent colored light shivering across the walls.
Then the lightning was gone. Silence settled like dust in the house.
Shoulders hunched, the intruder crept toward the second entrance on the left. The beam of a tiny flashlight slid around the room, touching briefly on shelves crowded with leather-bound books. In an alcove in one corner of the room, two overstuffed chairs faced a tall fireplace faced with marble and flanked by two snarling stone lions.
The flashlight blinked out, but stayed in the intruder’s hand. Each step fell soft and sure on the wide, custom-woven rug, headed in a straight line for the cozy sitting area.
The figure halted behind one of the chairs and stared up at the painting over the fireplace. The flashlight flicked on again and scanned the wall, once, twice. The picture there, that of a stodgy twentieth century businessman and his dog, drove the intruder to cast the light around the room in an increasing frenzy. “Oh, Grandmother. You promised. You
promised. Where …?”
The overhead light flared.
A man’s deep, Southern voice demanded, “What are you doing here?”
The intruder half-turned. One gloved hand flew up to protect against the brightness.
A tall, dark-haired man stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, his face craggy, tanned, and harsh.
He was the most striking, arrogant, handsome man Natalie Meadow Szarvas had ever seen.
The lightning flashed so fiercely static electricity skittered across the floor. In the yard, something broke with a loud crack. The thundered roared and the windows shook.
She’d descended into hell.
She tried to run. Her feet tangled in the fringe of the rug. She tripped, grabbed for support, missed. Hit the floor — hard. Her head and the lion’s head collided.
The lion won.
When the stars had ceased sparking behind her closed eyelids, she took a long, trembling breath. Her bones ached from hitting the floor. The fringed rug smelled good, like citrus and sandalwood. Her head … her head really hurt. She lifted her hand to touch the pain at her temple.
Someone caught her wrist. “Don’t. It’s bleeding.”
The man. The one with the contemptuous brown eyes. How had he managed to get from the door to her side?
The explanation was easy. She’d been unconscious. But she didn’t remember being unconscious. She only remembered … she remembered seeing
him.
“Sir, should I call the police?” Another man. Eager. Quiet. Efficient.
“Call the doctor,” Mr. Arrogant said.
“Then the police?”
“Just the doctor.”
“Yes, sir.” The Other sounded disapproving. His footsteps retreated.
Mr. Arrogant pressed something soft to her forehead.
She winced and tried to flinch away.
“Leave it,” he instructed. “You’re bleeding on the rug.”
“Okay,” she muttered.
Wouldn’t want to bleed on the freaking expensive rug.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
She must be mistaken. This couldn’t be the handsome one. A guy who used a tone that rude to a girl sprawled bleeding on his floor couldn’t be attractive.
She opened her eyes. She looked up at him.
He looked back at her, a cool, assessing stare.
Her heart stopped. Her breath stopped. She was immobile.
Because she was right about one thing. He wasn’t handsome — he was harsh, breathtaking, his glance striking like lightning and leaving her dead.
And what a way to go. If this was her punishment for trying to steal a priceless painting, then burglary had just become her way of life. “Wow,” she said again.
Mr. Arrogant sat on his heels beside her. He wore a rumpled, white starched shirt with the cuffs rolled up.
Nice arms.
And a pair of blue jeans that caressed his thighs.
Obviously the jeans were female.
He held Meadow’s wrist in one hand, and pressed a swathe of white to her forehead with the other, framing her in his arms, sheltering her with his shoulders.
Her heart jumped into a frenzy of action.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Um …”
Apparently she wasn’t fast enough with a reply because he shot a second question at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Here?” She lifted her head and tried to look around. The instantaneous headache and nausea made her relax back against the floor, close her eyes and mutter, “I’m going to barf.”
Gently he placed her hand on the cloth on her head. She heard sounds — him standing, moving away, coming back. “If you must, here’s a basin.”
She opened her eyes the smallest chink and looked.
He held a etched glass vase with gold decoration, absolutely exquisite, done in the regeletto design.
Aghast, she asked, “Are you insane? That’s a Honesdale vase, an original. I can’t barf in that!”
For a second, the merest twitch of an eye, she thought she saw amusement.
But no. Mr. Arrogant was as forbidding as ever when he said, “Of course. Pardon me. I lost my head.” He glanced around him. “Can you barf in a Limoges bowl?”
“No problem. But” — she took long breaths — “I think I’m okay now. I just have to be careful and not sit up.”
“You have a concussion.”
His certainty made her faintly belligerent. “You’re no doctor.”
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t have sent for one if I was.”
“Ha.” She’d met way too many doctors lately and while he acted superior enough to be a physician, he was too intense to fit the medical profile.
He continued, “But it doesn’t take a surgeon to see that you hit the lion hard enough to break his tooth.”
Cautiously she checked out the lion. He still snarled, but lop-sidedly. “I hope that’s not an omen.”
The other guy, tall, bulky, with Asian eyes and a dark-brown complexion, returned and hovered. “The doctor’s on her way.” Without a glance or any acknowledgement of her, Sam left, shutting the door behind him.
“So who are you?” Mr. Arrogant slid the dark cap off her head — and smiled as her hair tumbled free.
People, especially men, tended to smile when they saw the fall of shining copper curls. In fact, people, especially men, tended to smile at her all the time no matter what.
Not this stern-faced, hawk-nosed interrogator. His smile vanished at once, like a mistake he wished to call back.
She had more composure now, no desire to explain her mission, and a few questions of her own. “Who are
you?”
“I’m Devlin Fitzwilliam.”
Which told her absolutely nothing. “And you’re here because …?”
“I live here. I own this house. The one you broke into. The one with the Honesdale vase and the now snaggle-toothed lion.”
“You own Waldemar?” She struggled to comprehend the incomprehensible. “What about the other guy…? The one who used to own it?”
“Bradley Benjamin? Is that who you’re asking about?” Devlin picked up her wrist again. He stripped off her black leather glove. He kissed … oh, my. He kissed her fingertips. “Which Bradley Benjamin? The third or the fourth?”
“I, um, don’t know.” She hadn’t prepared for this conversation. She had planned to break in, grab the painting and depart, not talk to a guy whose ruthless eyes demanded the truth and whose lips carried on a dialogue all of their own.
“Bradley Benjamin the third sold me the house,” Devlin said. “Bradley Benjamin the fourth likes to visit and whine.”
“Oh.” Grandmother was wrong. So wrong. Bradley Benjamin
had sold the house. This stranger
did live here. The painting was
not in its place. And Meadow was in deep, deep trouble.
“Now, who are you?”
“I’m … Meadow.” Not Natalie Szarvas. That was her professional name and if he knew that, she didn’t stand a chance of getting out of this mess. “I don’t … I can’t ….” How stupid was this? She should have considered that she might get caught. Prepared some kind of story.
But Grandmother had been so sure … and now some guy with cold eyes and warm lips kissed her fingers and cross-examined her, and soon she’d find herself on the way to jail. And how was she going to explain that to her parents living just outside the small town of Blythe in Washington state, when they thought she was teaching a glass-blowing seminar in Atlanta?
“You don’t remember?” Devlin kissed her wrist.
Nice. Very nice.
His lips, not his questions.
“That’s right. I don’t remember. Because I … I … I have amnesia!”
Good one, Meadow! That’s thinking on your feet!
Lightning struck nearby. Thunder boomed.
Meadow jumped. It was as if God Himself called her a liar.
And Devlin’s mouth twisted. He didn’t believe her.
Hastily she added, “I don’t remember what I’m doing here. I’ve probably had some kind of mental break.” A pretty clever lie, because what was the worst that could happen? The police would send her to an asylum for a few days evaluation, then she’d be out on her own and she could try again.
Or perhaps the Almighty would send a bolt of lightning to strike her dead.
“When you didn’t recognize me at once, I was afraid of this.” Devlin gazed into her eyes so soulfully she didn’t dare blink. “My darling, somehow you managed to find your way back.”
“Huh?” She had a bad feeling about this.
Tenderly he gathered her into his arms. “I know you don’t remember — but you’re my wife.”
DANGER IN A RED DRESS by Christina Dodd
Free Excerpt
As soon as I came up with the idea for the Fortune Hunter series (TROUBLE IN HIGH HEELS, TONGUE IN CHIC, and THIGH HIGH -- you can find a booklist at http://christinadodd.com/booklist_print.pdf ), I knew what the story for DANGER IN A RED DRESS would be. I wanted to wrap up the mystery of Nathan Manly and his stolen fortune with a family epic drama that included a gothic mansion on the wild Maine coast, a villain that slid farther and farther into wickedness, a long-anticipated hero (you originally met Gabriel in the Lost Texas Hearts series) and a heroine who starts out impoverished, downtrodden and star-crossed, and by the end of the book has become ... well. That would be telling.
Enjoy!
Hannah sat in the small coffee shop, her hands wrapped around her warm cup of French Roast, stared at the screen of her laptop, and moaned softly.
Behind her, Sophia was cleaning the tables in the quiet neighborhood coffee shop. "Another rejection?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement.
"If I don't get a job pretty soon, I'm going to have to change my name, hitch-hike to New York, and become a musical star."
"You can't sing or dance." Sophia was the kid sister of Hannah's best high school friend, and she knew all too well how Hannah sounded with a karaoke machine.
"Stop crushing my dreams."
Sophia glanced toward the counter and lowered her voice. "How about a cheese pierogi? We made extras this morning and Mr. Nowak has been bitching because you're here every morning, buy one cup of coffee without any add-ins, and use his free internet for two hours. Then you do it again in the afternoon. You know what a grump he is."
"So he's been listening to Jeff Dresser." Five months ago, she'd been gainfully employed as a home care nurse to old Mr. Donald Dresser. Then he'd died and left her fifty thousand dollars. His family had been enraged and indignant. Jeff Dresser had accused her of sexual misconduct -- as if old Mr. Dresser could even perform -- and they had sued to have her nursing certificate rescinded.
Now, even with frugal living, the legal bills to fight for her nursing certificate and the lack of income had reduced her fifty thousand dollars to twenty-two thousand. And with Jeff Dresser using his influence to slow the investigation of misconduct, she was going to have to do something besides the work she knew and loved. Retail, probably, which she'd done in high school, and thoroughly hated.
So Hannah said loudly, "When you've got a minute, Sophia, could I get a cheese pierogi and coffee?" Because she couldn't afford the cheese pierogi, but she definitely couldn't afford internet hook-up.
Mr. Nowak looked up from his paper, his sharp, dark eyes fixed with hostile intent on Hannah. "Sophia, you keep cleaning. I'll do it."
She ordered, then waited patiently while he warmed the pierogi and fixed her coffee.
"Here's the pierogi," Mr. Nowak said. "I won't charge you for the coffee."
Maybe he wasn't so bad after all ...
Then he smiled at her in that knowing way.
"I insist on paying." She pushed the cup back toward him, because she'd seen that smile before, more times in the last months than she wanted to remember, and on more men's faces that she could bear to think about, and she was not giving this disgusting little troll of a man sex for a cup of coffee. Or for his free internet. Or for fifty thousand dollars, either.
His smile disappeared. "You come here every day --"
The door chimed as someone came in.
Mr. Nowak's voice swelled. "-- When everyone in this town knows you are a slut."
Hannah stiffened in humiliation and anger.
He continued, "Everyone in this
state knows you got money from poor old Mr. Dresser by --"
A strange man spoke beside her. "Is there a problem here?"
Mr. Nowak pointed a finger at Hannah. "She tried to steal from me. She tried to steal a ... a ..."
"I'd be very careful, Mr. Nowak," Hannah said steadily. "Very careful."
His gaze shifted to Sophia, then back to Hannah, then to the stranger. Hannah could almost see him thinking of the gossip if he brought charges, and he shriveled like a three-day old party balloon. "Go on. Take the food. Take the coffee. Get out and don't come back. You ... you ..."
"Wait." The stranger held up his hand. "If she was stealing from you, you should have her arrested. Shoplifting is a serious crime. But you can't just bandy that charge around. That's defamation of character. She could sue."
The last person to stand up for her had been old Mr. Dresser himself. Now, in astonishment, Hannah turned to look at the stranger.
He was a fine-looking piece of manflesh: over six foot, whipcord thin, broad shoulders, dark hair, distinctive green eyes, her age or a little older. And he dressed like a wealthy businessman, in a conservative black suit with a dull gold tie.
"She could sue, but she wouldn't win," Mr. Nowak blustered.
"She's a beautiful young woman," the stranger said. "Juries always sympathize with a beautiful young woman."
"You're a
lawyer," Mr. Nowak said in revulsion. He disappeared into the back room.
Sophia whipped around the counter and washed her hands, smiling brightly all the time. "What can I get you, sir?"
"I'll have a medium Earl Grey tea, hot, with a splash of milk." He looked down at Hannah. "I know it's ridiculous, but I learned to drink it that way when I was a kid. If you sit with me, I promise not to crook my pinkie." And he smiled.
Hannah stood there, awe-struck by his straight, white, teeth, his long, black lashes, the dimple in his cheek.
"Wow," Sophia said out loud.
He took the tea Sophia placed on the counter. "
Let me pay for Miss ...?" He looked an inquiry at Hannah.
"Grey. Hannah Grey."
"Let me pay for Miss Grey's order, also. I don't want the manager to come back when I'm gone and make trouble."
"He's the owner," Sophia said.
At the same time, Hannah said, "I can pay for it."
"He's the owner? All the more reason." He turned to Hannah. "Miss Grey, my mother is from one of the founding families in Maine. She lives in a hundred-and-fifty-year-old mansion on the coast, and she's never left the twentieth century. She would kick my rear if I let a lady buy her own coffee. So please spare my mother -- she has arthritis and simply getting around is an effort."
With indecent eagerness, Sophia said, "Really? Arthritis? What a coincidence. Hannah is a home care nurse who specializes in arthritis cases. She's the best!" She made eyes at Hannah, and used little shooing motions with her hands.
She was right. Hannah knew she was right. An arthritis patient? In a different state where perhaps her infamy hadn't followed her? It wasn't legal, but Hannah couldn't afford to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. She looked right into his eyes and said, "If you should ever need help with your mother, I
am the best, and I'm between cases."
"My mother won't hear of a nurse, but she's definitely getting to the point where I'm going to have to insist ..." He quirked an eyebrow, appealing to Hannah's understanding.
Hannah felt squeamish. She didn't lie well, not even lies of omission. Her nursing certificate had been suspended. She should tell him that, but if she didn't get a job soon ...
He sighed heavily. "One of us should be ashamed of ourselves."
She jumped. He already knew? "What? Who?"
"Me, of course. I'm leading you on." He shook his head as if disgusted by his own deception. "Mother has other problems, more serious than arthritis. She's diabetic, has a heart condition and she can't or won't control it or her weight. She's agoraphobic -- she hasn't stepped foot out of our house since my father walked out fifteen years ago. She's under investigation by the government, which has put a huge amount of pressure on her, and I'm afraid she's starting to crack. "
"Investigation?" Hannah said tentatively.
"My father is Nathan Manly." He spoke stoically.
"Oh." Everyone in New England knew the name and the disgrace attached to it. Fifteen years ago, Nathan Manly had destroyed his billion-dollar company, stolen the capital and fled to parts unknown, humiliating his wife and leaving his family without funds. His illegitimate sons (rumors claimed there were a dozen and the number climbed every time the story was told) were abandoned, too. Best of all, Nathan Manly and his money had never been found, lending the Manly scandal the status of legend.
"I knew I recognized you. From on TV!" Sophia almost leaped across the counter. "You're
Carrick Manly!"
He smiled at her excitement. "Don't hold it against me," he said wryly.
"I would never do that." Sophia backed up and leaned against the wall, her knees wobbling.
In the years since Nathan Manly had fled to parts unknown, his son -- this son, his legitimate son, his handsome, gifted and formerly wealthy son -- had assumed the status of a Greek tragedy.
"I'm still interested in the job." Hannah felt less guilty about keeping her own piddling little investigation quiet.
"Really?" He smiled at her, his tan perfect, his straight teeth dazzling and white.
Decision made, she said, "Perhaps we can make it work. Why don't we sit down and you can give me the details your mother's situation?"
This is a peek at my contemporary romance, titled “Smooth Talking Stranger.” 
"Blue-Eyed Devil" is the story of the charming, volatile and ambitious Hardy Cates, who is determined to carry out his private revenge against the Travis family. Haven is the rebellious Travis daughter who struggles against her overpowering attraction to the most dangerous man in town. But when Hardy crashes a Travis family wedding, the heiress and the bad boy uncover an explosive chemistry that neither of them can deny. Hardy Cates is an unscrupulous rascal, but now he's trying to clean up his act. He is looking for the perfect society wife, the kind of woman Haven Travis could never be. Having once been burned by a love affair gone wrong, Haven vows to stay far away from the sexy heartbreaker. However, Haven discovers that the temptation of a blue-eyed devil is hard to resist. And then when a menace from Haven's past appears, Hardy may be the only one to save her...
Excerpt from Sugar Daddy:
