For the Love of Pete
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Nancy M. Finney
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Melody Cassen
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First eBook Edition: January 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-54355-2
Contents
“No one’s looking for Pete.”
“We’re looking,” Dante said quietly.
Zoey bit her lip and dropped her gaze to her hands as if she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Are we? You’re not going to give up, then?”
He caught one of her hands and tugged gently until she looked up again. “I’m going to keep looking for Pete until we find her and bring her home.”
He watched those blue eyes search his own. Zoey must’ve found whatever she was looking for in his face. For a moment, she closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
He tugged at her hand, gently, so she could pull away if she wanted to. But she didn’t. Instead, she opened her eyes and leaned toward him. He watched her blue eyes come closer and then he closed his own eyes.
Kissing Zoey was a revelation. She kissed him open-mouthed, no hesitation, her lips soft and warm . . .
JULIA HARPER IS JUST TOO
HOT
TO HANDLE
“A refreshing, funny, tug-your-heartstrings read that deserves a Perfect 10 . . . If you like HOT stories, this is just the book you need.”
—RomRevToday.com
“[A] delightful crime caper . . . the story line is fast-paced and jocular . . . Filled with terrific twists, fans will appreciate Julia Harper’s HOT thriller.”
—
Midwest Book Review
“A fantastically written story filled with suspense, adventure, and—as the title suggests—steamy scenes. Julia Harper . . . has a flair for creating lovable and interesting characters who are hard to forget.”
—Bookloons.com
“One of those books that is so good that it, unfortunately, is over long before the reader wants it to be . . . with unforgettable characters, slick dialogue, and a story that is both romantic and suspenseful. Julia Harper writes hot, sexy characters in fast-moving situations with searing realism.”
—RomanceReaderatHeart.com
“A fabulous story! A truly exciting and intriguing book, this was one that could not be put down until the end.”
—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com
“A rousing romantic adventure that is certain to bring Julia Harper a large fan base. Wonderfully witty dialogue, vivid sense of time and place, a hero and heroine like no other; all of these add up to a stellar debut.”
—SingleTitles.com
“A funny, romantic comedy with a bit of action-adventure thrown in . . . will appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich.”
—
Parkersburg News and Sentinel
(WV)
“This one is cute with a likeable heroine.”
—BellaOnline
“A creative and even suspenseful story and a cast of quirky, small-town characters,
HOT
makes for a light and entertaining read.”
—NightsandWeekends.com
A
LSO BY
J
ULIA
H
ARPER
Hot
For DOROTHY SINHA, librarian extraordinaire, talented baker of lamby cakes, and the very best of friends.
Thank you to Mili Priyanka for her help with Indian culture and cooking—any mistakes are my own—to Susannah Taylor, the most patient of agents, to Melanie Murray and Amy Pierpont, wonderful and wise editors, to Anne Twomey and Claire Brown in the Grand Central Publishing art department for a lovely cover, to Tanisha Christie and Melissa Bullock for their outstanding publicity efforts, and, last but not least, to my copyeditor, Angela Buckley, for making me look good.
Thank you.
H
ad Charlie Hessler known the chain of events his stroke would set off, he would never have run that last lap around the Quantico track. If nothing else, stroking out was counter-productive to what he’d hoped to achieve by hauling his sorry middle-aged ass out every night at seven p.m. But Charlie had no knowledge of future events. As he closed in on the final mile a blood clot hit his brain with catastrophic effect and Charlie collapsed to the grass beside the track.
He wouldn’t be found for another fifteen minutes.
Halfway across the country and fourteen hours later, an email was opened on a government computer. The email said that Charlie Hessler was down. The recipient stared for a minute at his lit screen, slowly tapping a finger on his desk. Then a slight smile curved one side of his face and he hit the
delete
button. If Hessler was out of action, then Dante Torelli was without backup and wide open.
Time to take him out.
Thursday, 4:16 p.m.
T
hings finally came to a head between Zoey Addler and Lips of Sin the afternoon he tried to steal her parking space.
Okay,
technically,
her upstairs neighbor’s name wasn’t really Lips of Sin. She knew the guy’s occupation but not his name. Since the man was drop-dead gorgeous, Zoey had taken to calling him “Lips of Sin” in her mind. And yes,
technically,
the parking spot in question might not legally have been hers—she hadn’t paid for it or anything—but she
had
shoveled it. This was January in Chicago. In Chicago in winter, shoveling out a parking spot made it yours. Everyone knew that.
Everyone but Lips of Sin, that is.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zoey screamed at him. She body slammed the hood of his black Beemer convertible, which was sitting in her stolen parking spot.
Lips of Sin, behind the wheel of said Beemer, mouthed something she couldn’t hear. He rolled down his window. “Are you insane? I could’ve hit you. Never get in front of a moving vehicle.”
Oh, like he had the right to lecture
her.
Zoey straightened, planted both Sorel-booted feet firmly, and crossed her arms. “I shoveled this parking spot. This is
my
parking spot. You can’t take it.”
Her words emerged in white puffs into the frosty late-afternoon air. They’d already had eight inches of snow the night before, and it looked like it might very well snow again. All the more reason to keep this spot.
The Beemer was at an angle, half in, half out of the parking place, which was almost directly in front of their apartment building. Every other parking space on the block was filled. There was a yellow Humvee, hulking in front of the Beemer, and a red Jeep to the back. Her own little blue Prius was double-parked next to the red Jeep. It was a sweet parking spot. Zoey had gotten up at five freaking a.m. to shovel it before she went to work at the co-op grocery. She’d marked the spot with two lawn chairs and a broken plastic milk crate in time-honored Chicago tradition. Now, returning after a long day of work, it was too much to find Lips in the act of stealing her space.
“Jesus,” Lips said. “Look, I’m running a little late here. I promise to shovel you another parking place tonight. Just get out of my way. Please?”
Obviously he wasn’t used to begging. Gorgeous guys didn’t beg. He had smooth, tea-with-milk brown skin, curly black hair, and bitter-chocolate eyes, framed by lush girly eyelashes. Except the girly eyelashes helped emphasize the hard masculine edges of his face. In fact, the only soft things on his face were the eyelashes and his lips of sin. Deep lines bracketed those lips, framing the cynical corners and the little indent on the bottom lip that made a woman wonder what, exactly, the man could do with that mouth.
Perfect.
He was perfectly perfect in his masculine beauty, and Zoey had hated him on sight. Gorgeous guys were always so damn full of themselves. They strutted around like they were God’s gift to women.
Please
. Add to that the fact that the man was always dressed for corporate raiding in suit and tie and black leather trench coat, and he just was not her type.
Lips was getting out of the car now, looking pretty pissed, his black trench coat swirling dramatically around his legs.
Zoey leaned forward, about to give him what-for, when the front doors to their apartment building burst open and a middle-aged guy in a red puffy jacket came running out. He had a baby under his left arm like a football. Zoey froze, her heart paralyzed at the sight. In his right fist was a gun. His bald head swiveled as he caught sight of them, and his gun hand swiveled with it. Zoey’s eyes widened, and then a ton of bricks hit her from the side. She went down into the frozen gray slush on the street, and the ton of bricks landed on top of her. An expensive black leather sleeve shielded her face.
BANG!
The shot sounded like it was right in her ear. Zoey contracted her body in animal reaction, trying to make herself smaller beneath the heavy bulk of the man on top of her.
“Get behind the car,” Lips breathed in her ear, and she had the incongruous thought that his breath smelled like fresh mint.
Then a flurry of shots rang out, one right after the other, in a wall of sound that scared her witless. The weight lifted from her body, and she felt Lips grab the back of her jacket and haul. She was on hands and knees, but she barely touched the ground before she was behind the Beemer on the driver’s side. She looked up and saw Lips crouched over her, a black gun in his hand.
“Don’t shoot,” she gasped. “He’s got the baby!”
“I know.” His gaze was fixed over the roof of the car. “Shit.”
The word was drowned out by the sound of a revving engine. Zoey looked around in time to see the yellow Hummer accelerate away from the curb, the bald man at the wheel.
“Come on!” She grabbed the door handle of the Beemer and pulled, scrambling ungracefully inside. There was a moment when she thought she might be seriously tangled in the console between the seats, and then she was on the other side, pulling out the passenger-side seat belt. She looked back, and Lips was still standing outside the car, staring at her. “What’re you waiting for? We’ll lose him.”
He narrowed his eyes at her but thankfully didn’t argue. Instead he threw back his coat and suit jacket, holstered his gun in a graceful movement Jack Bauer would’ve envied, and got in the car. He released the emergency brake and shifted into first.