Lucky in Love (28 page)

Regardless, what if this was a set up? What if a bad guy lived here, one who lured hungry, slightly desperate, act-now-think-later women inside to do heinous things to them?

Okay, so maybe she’d been watching too many late-night marathons of
Criminal Minds
, but it could totally happen.

Then, from inside the depths of the house came a happy, high-pitched bark. And then another, which seemed to say: “
Hurry up, lady. I have to pee!
”

Ah, hell. In for a penny… Grace opened the front door and peered inside.

The living room was as stunning as the outside of the house. Wide open spaces, done in dark masculine wood and neutral colors. The furniture was oversized and sparse on the beautiful, scarred, hardwood floors. An entire wall of windows faced the Indian Summer sky and Pacific Ocean.

As Grace stepped inside, the barking increased in volume, intermingled now with hopeful whining. She followed the sounds to a huge, state-of-the-art kitchen that made her wish she knew how to cook beyond the basic soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Just past the kitchen was a laundry room, the doorway blocked by a toddler gate.

On the other side of the gate was a baby pig.

A baby pig who barked.

Okay, not a pig at all, but one of those dogs whose faces looked smashed in. The tiny body was mostly tan, the face black with crazy bugged-out eyes and a tongue that lolled out the side of its mouth. It looked like an animated cartoon as it twirled in excited circles, dancing for her, trying to impress her and charm its way out of lock up.

“Hi,” she said to him.
Her
? Hard to tell since its parts were so low as to scrape the ground along with its belly.

The thing snorted and huffed in joyous delirium, rolling over and over like a hotdog, then jumping up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.

“Oh, there’s no need for all that,” Grace said, and opened the gate.

Mistake number one.

The dog/pig/alien streaked past her with astounding speed and promptly raced out of the kitchen and out of sight.

“Hey,” she called. “Slow down.”

But it didn’t, and wow, those stumpy legs could really move. It snorted with sheer delight as it made its mad getaway and Grace was forced to rethink the pig theory. Also, the sex mystery was solved.

From behind, she’d caught a glimpse of dangly bits.

It—
he
—ran circles around the couch, barking with merry enthusiasm. She gave chase, wondering how it was that she had multiple advance degrees, and yet she hadn’t thought to ask the name of the damn dog. “Hey,” she said. “Hey you. We’re going outside to walk.”

The puppy dashed past her like lightning.

Dammit. Breathless, she changed direction and followed him back into the kitchen where he was chasing some imaginary threat around the gorgeous dark wood kitchen table that indeed had two twenty dollar bills lying on the smooth surface.

She was beginning to see why the job paid so much.

She retraced her steps to the laundry room and found a leash and collar hanging on the doorknob above the gate. Perfect. The collar was a manly blue and the tag said:
Tank
.

Grace laughed out loud, then searched for Tank. Turned out, Tank had worn off his excess energy and was up against the front door, panting.

“Good boy,” Grace cooed, and came at him with his collar. “What a good boy.”

He smiled at her.

Aw.
See?
she told herself.
Compared to account analysis and posing nude, this job was going to be a piece of cake.
She was still mentally patting herself on the back for accepting this job when right there on the foyer floor Tank squatted, hunched, and—

“No!” she cried. “Oh, no, not inside!” She fumbled with the front door, which scared Tank into stopping mid-poo. He ran a few feet away from the front door and hunched again. He was quicker this time. Grace was still standing there, mouth open in shock and horror as little Tank took a dainty step away from his
second
masterpiece, pawed his short back legs on the wood like a matador, and then, with his oversized head held up high, trotted right out the front door like royalty.

Grace staggered after him, eyes watering from the unholy smell. “Tank! Tank, wait!”

Tank didn’t wait. Apparently feeling ten pounds lighter, he raced across the front yard and street. He hit the beach, his little legs pumping with the speed of a gazelle as he practically flew across the sand, heading straight for the water.

“Oh, God,” she cried. “No, Tank,
no
!”

But Tank dove into the first wave and vanished.

Grace dropped the purse off her shoulder to the sand. “
Tank!
”

A wave hit her at hip level, knocking her back a step as she frantically searched for a bobbing head.

Nothing. The little guy had completely vanished, having committed suicide right before her eyes.

The next wave hit her at chest height. Again she staggered back, gasping at the shock of the water as she searched frantically for a little black head.

Wave number three washed right over the top of her. She came up sputtering, shook her head to clear it, then dove beneath the surface, desperate to find the puppy.

Nothing.

Finally, she was forced to crawl out of the water and admit defeat. She pulled her phone from her purse and swore because it’d turned itself off again. Probably because she kept dropping it.

Or tossing it to the rocky beach to look for drowning puppies.

She powered the phone on, gnawed on her lower lip, then called the man who’d trusted her to “be on time, responsible, and not a flake.” Heart pounding, throat tight, she waited until he picked up.

“Dr. Scott,” came the low, deep male voice.

Dr. Scott.
Dr. Scott?

“Hello?” he said. “Anyone there?”

Oh, God. This was bad. Very bad. Because she knew him.

Well, okay, not really. She’d seen him around because he was good friends with Mallory’s and Amy’s boyfriends. Dr. Joshua Scott was thirty-four—which she knew because Mallory had given him thirty-four chocolate cupcakes on his birthday last month, a joke because he was a health nut. He was a big guy, built for football more than the ER, but he’d chosen the latter. Even in his wrinkled scrubs after a long day at work, his dark hair tousled and his darker eyes lined with exhaustion, he was drop-dead sexy. The few times that their gazes had locked, the air had snapped, crackled, and popped with a tension she hadn’t felt with a man in far too long.

And she’d just killed his puppy.

“Um, hi,” she said. “This is Grace Brooks. Your…dog walker.” She choked down a horrified sob and forced herself to continue, to give him the rest. “I might have just lost your puppy.”

There was a single beat of stunned silence.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

More silence.

She dropped to her wobbly knees in the sand and shoved her wet hair out of her face with shaking fingers. “Dr. Scott? Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

She waited for the rest of his response, desperately gripping the phone.

“You
might
have lost Tank,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said softly, hating herself.

“You’re sure.”

Grace looked around the beach. The empty beach. “Yes.”

“Well then, I owe you a big, fat kiss.”

Grace pulled her phone from her ear and stared at it, then brought it back. “No,” she said, shaking her head as if he could see her. “I don’t think you understand, I
lost
Tank. In the water.”

He muttered something that she’d have sworn sounded like “I should be so lucky.”

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m two minutes away. I got a break in the ER and was coming home to make sure you showed.”

“Well, of course I showed—”

But he’d disconnected.

“Why wouldn’t I show?” she asked no one. She dropped her phone back in her purse and got up. Two minutes. She had two minutes to find Tank.

Where authors give you the inside scoop!

Dear Reader,

I’m so excited to tell you about my latest in the Children of the Mist series, CONQUERED BY A HIGHLANDER. I loved introducing you to Colin MacGregor in
Ravished by a Highlander
and then meeting up with him again in
Tamed by a Highlander
, but finally the youngest, battle-hungry MacGregor gets his own story. And let me tell you all, I enjoyed every page, every word.

Colin wasn’t a difficult hero to write. There were no mysteries complicating his character, no ghosts or regrets haunting him from his past. He was born with a passion to fight and to conquer. Nothing more. Nothing less. He was easy to write. He was a badass in
Ravished
and he’s a hardass now. My dilemma was what kind of woman would it take to win him? The painted birds fluttering about the many courts he’s visited barely held his attention. A warrior wouldn’t suit him any better than a wallflower would. I knew early on that the Lady who tried to take hold of this soldier’s heart had to possess the innate strength to face her fiercest foe… and the tenderness to recognize something more than a fighter in Colin’s confident gaze.

I found Gillian Dearly hidden away in the turrets of a castle overlooking the sea, her fingers busy strumming melodies on her beloved lute while her thoughts carried her to places far beyond her prison walls. She wasn’t waiting for a hero, deciding years ago that she would rescue herself. She was perfect for Colin. She also possessed one other thing, a weapon so powerful, even Colin found himself at the mercy of it.

A three-year-old little boy named Edmund.

Like Colin, I didn’t intend for Edmund Dearly or his mother to change the path of my story, but they brought out something in the warrior—whom I thought I knew so well—something warm and wonderful and infinitely sexier than any swagger. They brought out the man.

For me, nothing I’ve written before this book exemplifies the essence of a true hero more than watching Colin fall in love with Gillian
and
with her child. Not many things are more valiant than a battle-hardened warrior who puts down his practice sword so he can take
a kid fishing or
save him from bedtime monsters… except maybe a mother who defiantly goes into battle each day in order to give her child a better life. Gillian Dearly was Edmund’s hero and she quickly became mine. How could a man like Colin
not
fall in love with her?

Having to end the Children of the Mist series was bittersweet, but I’m thrilled to say there will be more MacGregors of Skye visiting the pages of future books. Camlochlin will live on for another generation at least. And not just in words but in art. Master painter James Lyman has immortalized the home of our beloved MacGregors in beautiful color and with an innate understanding of how the fortress should be represented. Visit PaulaQuinn.com to order a print of your own, signed and numbered by the artist.

Until we meet again, to you mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, and friends, who put yourselves aside for someone you love, I shout Huzzah! Camlochlin was built for people like you.

Find her at Facebook

Twitter @Paula_Quinn

Dear Reader,

From the very first moment I put Mysterious Cute Guy on
the page, I fell in love. There’s just something about a big,
bad, sexy guy whom you know nothing about that fires the
imagination. But I have to be honest: When he made a
cameo in
Head Over Heels
(literally a walk-on role only;
in fact I believe he only gets a mention or two), I knew
nothing
about him. Nothing. I never intended to, either. He was just one of life’s little (okay, big, bad, and sexy) mysteries.

Then my editor called me. Said the first three Lucky Harbor books had done so well that they’d like three more, please. And maybe one of the heroes could be Mysterious Cute Guy.

It was fun coming up with a story to go with this enigmatic figure, not to mention a name: Ty Garrison. More fun still to give this ex-Navy SEAL a rough, tortured, bad-boy past and a sweet, giving, good-girl heroine (Mallory Quinn, ER nurse). Oh, the fun I had with these two: a bad boy trying to go good, and a good girl looking for a walk on the wild side. Hope you have as much fun reading their story, LUCKY IN LOVE.

And then, stick around. Because Mallory’s two Chocoholics-in-crime partners, Amy and Grace, get their own love stories in July and August with
At Last
and then
Forever and a Day.

Happy Reading!

http://www.jillshalvis.com

http://www.facebook.com/jillshalvis

Dear Reader,

Ah ,June! Love is in the air, and it’s the time for weddings and romance. With KISS THE BRIDE, you get two romantic books in one,
There Goes the Bride
and
Once Smitten, Twice Shy.
Both stories are filled with brides, bouquets, and those devastatingly handsome grooms. But best friends Delaney and Tish go through a lot of ups and downs on their path to happily ever after.

For those of you hoping for a June wedding of your own, how do you tell if your guy is ready for commitment? He might be ready to pop the question if…

• Instead of saying “I” when making future plans, he starts saying “we.”
  
• He gives you his ATM pass code.
  
• He takes you on vacation with his family.
  
• Out of the blue, your best friend asks your ring size.
  
• He sells his sports car/motorcycle and says he’s outgrown that juvenile phase of his life.
  
• He opens a gold card to get a higher spending limit—say, to pay for a honeymoon.
  
• When you get a wedding invitation in the mail, he doesn’t groan but instead asks where the bride and groom got the invitations printed.
  
• He starts remembering to leave the toilet seat down.
  
• When poker night with the guys rolls around, he says he’d rather stay home and watch
  The Wedding Planner
  with you.
  
• He becomes your dad’s best golfing buddy
  

I hope you enjoy KISS THE BRIDE.

Happy reading,

loriwilde.com

Facebook
http://facebook.com/lori.wilde

Twitter @LoriWilde

Dear Reader,

When I was about eight years old, someone gave me a picture book called
Life in Victorian England.
I lost the book in a move years ago, but I still remember the gorgeous watercolor illustrations. Ladies in brightly colored hoopskirts and men in frock coats and top hats doing things like walking in the park, ice-skating at Christmas, and dancing in ballrooms. I was completely hooked on this magical world called “the Victorian Age” and couldn’t get enough of it! I read stuff like
Jane Eyre,
Little Women,
and
Bleak House,
watched every movie where there was the potential for bonnets, and drove my parents crazy by saying all the time, “Well, in the Victorian age it was like this…”

As I got older and started to study history in a more serious way, I found that beneath this pretty and proper facade was something far darker. Darker—and a lot more interesting. There was a flourishing underworld in Victorian England, all the more intense for being well hidden and suppressed. Prostitution, theft, and the drug trade expanded, and London was bursting at the seams thanks to changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The theater and the visual arts were taking on a new life. Even Queen Victoria was not exactly the prissy sourpuss everyone thinks she was. (She and Albert had nine children, after all—and enjoyed making them!)

I’ve always wanted to set a story in these Victorian years, with the juxtaposition of what’s seen on the surface and what is really going on underneath. But I never came up with just the right characters for this complex setting. The inspiration came (as it so often does for me, don’t laugh) from clothes. I was watching my DVD of
Young Victoria
for about the fifth time, and when the coronation ball scene came on, I thought, “I really want a heroine who could wear a gown just like that…”

And Lily St. Claire popped into my head and brought along her whole family of Victorian underworld rakes. I had to run and get out my notebook to write down everything Lily had to tell me. I loved her from that first minute—a woman who created a glamorous life for herself from a childhood on the streets of the London slums. A tough, independent woman (with gorgeous clothes, of course) who thinks she doesn’t need anyone—until she meets this absolutely yummy son a duke. Too bad his family is the St. Claire family’s old enemy…

I hope you enjoy the adventures of Lily and Aidan as much as I have. It was so much fun to spend some time in Victorian London. Look for more St. Claire trouble to come.

In the meantime, visit my website at
http://laurelmckee.net
for more info on the characters and the history behind the book.