Her Lucky Catch

by Amie Denman

  Her Lucky Catch

  By Amie Denman

  Recently divorced kindergarten teacher Jazz Shepherd is starting a new life in the quaint lakeside town of Bluegill. After taking a summer job at the local marina to help make ends meet, she’s stunned when the chief of police enlists her help in solving a crime.

  Money has been disappearing from the city coffers, and a trail leads from Bluegill’s mayor to Damien Cerberus, a rich boat owner—and possible killer. The police chief is short-staffed and in need of someone to keep tabs on the suspect. Jazz’s job at the marina puts her in the perfect position to help—and puts her in the path of Kurt Reynolds, the hottie who mans the fireboat.

  When things with Kurt start heating up, how can Jazz keep her investigation undercover while enjoying time under the covers with her summer flame?

  67,000 words

  Dear reader,

  It’s not that I love winter, but I love some of the things that come with winter. Here in the States, February brings some of the coldest temperatures of the winter, but it also brings the promise of spring right around the corner. So I don’t mind hunkering down in my living room next to the fire with a blanket, a kid or a dog on my feet, and a mug of hot chocolate or hot tea (or even a hot toddy) beside me. And, of course, my digital reading device of choice in hand.

  There’s something permissive about cold weather that makes it easy to laze away hours at a time reading a great book without feeling guilty, which makes February one of my favorite months. I know I can always indulge in plenty of guilt-free reading time!

  This month, Carina Press offers a new selection of releases across the genres to aid you in your own reading-time indulgence. Romantic suspense favorite Marie Force is back with a new installment in her Fatal series, Fatal Flaw. Newlyweds Sam and Nick discover that they won’t get the normalcy they were looking for post-wedding…because someone has other plans for them. Also look for author Dee J. Adams to follow up her adrenaline-packed romantic suspense debut with her sophomore book, Danger Zone, which delivers thrills and action.

  Two steampunk titles will get your gears whirling in February. Look for Prehistoric Clock by Robert Appleton and Under Her Brass Corset by Brenda Williamson to take you back to a time altered by steam and clockwork. Also in the science fiction and fantasy realm, author Nico Rosso offers up The Last Night, a post-apocalyptic tale of romance, while Kim Knox takes us into the future with her futuristic science fiction romance, Synthetic Dreams.

  And for those of you with a yen for the paranormal, we have several authors joining us for their Carina Press debuts. Blood of the Pride by Sheryl Nantus and Pack and Coven by Jody Wallace hit the virtual shelves in mid-February.

  Portia Da Costa will heat up your day with Intimate Exposure, a sexy and intense look into the world of BDSM.

  Rounding out our amazing and genre-packed February lineup are books from Claire Robyns, Charlie Cochrane, Debra Kayn, Shelley Munro, Amie Denman, Crista McHugh and Susan Edwards, with everything from historical and contemporary romance to m/m romance to a fun romantic caper. February offers a little something for everyone’s reading pleasure.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to generalinquiries@carinapress.com. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

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  Dedication

  To my husband. The luckiest thing I’ve ever done is falling in love with you.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my sister and writing partner, May Williams, for her creative and constructive help, and my editor, Gina Bernal, for her excellent guidance.

  Contents

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The school safety fair turned out to be the most dangerous thing I’d done all year. I should have known better than to play with fire.

  The heat was mostly to blame for what happened. If it hadn’t been so damned hot, I might have kept my nice teacher cardigan on. Little Timmy might not have been so tempted by that fire hose. And I might have been able to keep my cool when I met the sexiest public safety official ever.

  As usual, though, the Fates were against me. A victim of heat, circumstances and a lifetime of bad luck, I couldn’t help myself.

  I lined up my twenty-three kindergarteners on the edge of the parking lot with the other classes and watched the fire trucks and patrol cars drive onto the hot blacktop. The wailing sirens reverberated against the brick walls of St. Peter Catholic Elementary. The kids were ready to burst and my flesh rippled with excitement.

  “Dear Lord, I love this.” Sister Mary Doris leaned down nearly a foot to speak close to my ear. “Wish they’d let me drive one of those trucks.”

  One look at the fire in her eyes explained how the six-foot-tall gym and religion teacher had earned the nickname Sister Intimidoris from some of the more clever eighth graders.

  The sirens and air horns silenced, and Sister Mary Alice popped around her other side. Mary Alice and I shared the bond of women everywhere who hoped to reach five feet tall someday. Our height was the end of our resemblance. She was pleasantly plump and round all over under her black dress. I was pleasantly plump and round only under my blouse—a set of DDs I’d been trying to manage since puberty.

  “She’s an adrenaline hound,” Sister Mary Alice said, rolling her eyes in the direction of the overgrown nun. She whispered so the kids standing in groups near us couldn’t hear. “Same reason she’s addicted to NASCAR and professional wrestling.”

  “It’s good for the children to learn about safety.” Mary Doris grinned. “I’m thinking of them.”

  “We used to have a whole week of fire safety at my former elementary school,” I said. “Poster contests, drills, the whole deal.”

  “It’s usually a bigger affair here, but it’s all out of kilter this year,” Mary Alice said. “It got bumped out of April because of Holy Week. The mayor usually judges a coloring contest and takes the lucky winner out to lunch.”

  “He couldn’t do that this week?” I asked.

  “Tied up with a family problem,” she explained. “His daughter’s best friend was killed in a terrible crash. The funeral was yesterday.”

  I’d read about that in the newspaper. A young woman who worked as a clerk in the city office had been out late with the mayor’s daughter, Mary Margaret. They lost control somehow and went off the road. Miraculously, Mary escaped without a scratch, but the poor other girl’s body was burned almost beyond recognition. I shuddered just thinking about it.

  Burning up in the heat radiating from the black asphalt, I took off my conservative cardi
gan and looped it over a nearby railing. I hoped the principal wouldn’t notice. Old Lady Clark always looked at me like she thought I was looking for trouble. I blamed the boobs.

  Old Lady Clark’s major preoccupation was making sure everyone stayed in line. Teachers, students, nuns. When she decisively zipped her vinyl raincoat for recess, even the raindrops fell into formation. She stood in the shade of the building with the police chief. Wally Balcheski looked like a man who woke up every day hoping there wouldn’t be too much excitement. He probably worried about his blood pressure. Judging from his overall pear shape, he should.

  Even though Clark was talking to the chief, she was watching me. Damn, I should have kept the cardigan on no matter how hot it was. Chief Balcheski glanced in my direction too. I had the uncomfortable feeling they were talking about me.

  Sisters Mary Doris and Mary Alice moved on to supervise the fourth and fifth graders waiting to sit in the police cars. The firefighters finished hooking up long, thick hoses and filled a few of them with water. I hoped they would set up a sprinkler and let us all run through it. My red short-sleeved sweater would probably hold up under the excitement. But it was risky.

  A sprinkler was too much to hope for in a Catholic school more buttoned up than a shirt catalog. Instead it seemed the firemen planned to demonstrate how they could put out a small fire on a tarp in the parking lot. A respectable-looking fifty-something man with gray hair and a neat mustache was delivering a lecture to the little kids lined up in the heat listening. He told them his name was Captain Carl. He had his back to the hoses and the attention of all the kindergarteners.

  Except for Timmy.

  All I had to do was look for trouble and I’d find him.

  Timmy crawled out from under the fire truck behind Captain Carl and picked up the end of the water-filled hose. The whole world went into slow motion and I knew what would happen before it all went down. Typical of my life—I’m great at recognizing disasters, just not so good at preventing them.

  I opened my mouth to yell “stop” and even made it about five steps toward Timmy. Right then he must have figured out how to open the valve on the hose. And promptly got shoved on his little can by the force of the water. The water smashed the lecturing fire captain smack-dab in the ass and knocked him down. The hose flailed wildly with no one in control.

  A wall of water barreled toward me and hit me right in the chest.

  It took my breath away and landed me on my butt.

  Somehow, I whacked my head on the ground when I hit. Surrounded by a blur of children screaming and teachers yelling, the face of an absolute angel hovered over me. Maybe I was dead and the heavenly welcoming committee was even better than I’d ever hoped. My twenty-five years of intermittent Catholicism were going to pay off.

  The angel had dark hair, blue eyes and wore a navy blue fire department uniform. His face floated alternately with Sister Mary Doris’s, and I was in a blissful dream. In my dream, the sexy angel brushed back my hair and acted as if I was the only woman in the universe.

  The angel helped me sit up. I could see Timmy crying and Old Lady Clark stalking in our direction. Holy Fireman, I had to get a grip. I wasn’t dead. I was soaking wet and sprawled on the asphalt. The shit was going to hit the fan unless I pulled it together. When my vision cleared and I could think again, I realized that a man who looked that good was probably no angel.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Shepherd,” Timmy blubbered, probably half crying because he felt bad and half crying because he figured he was in trouble big time. His little keister might be hurting too, from hitting the pavement.

  “It’s all right, Timmy,” I said. “You just wanted to see how that thing worked, didn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh. My mom says I’m too curious and it’s going to be the death of me someday.”

  Fine thing to tell a child. “I understand, honey. Sometimes I’m a little too curious too.” This was actually true.

  Right now I was curious about the man squatting in front of me. Curious about how those thighs would feel if I ran my hand over his fireman pants. Quite curious about what else was in those pants at my eye level. And curious to see what I could get away with without shocking Sister Mary Doris, whose cheeks were pink with heat and excitement. The pink in my cheeks was due to the fact that a man who ought to be featured in the hot fireman calendar—for at least several months in a row—had his hands all over me.

  Well, not all over. Not as much as I would have liked. But the whole school was watching.

  “Miss Shepherd? Are you all right? Does your head hurt?” he asked. I even liked his voice. Deep. Masculine. Concerned.

  “Only a little.” I tried to look brave and tough for Timmy’s sake.

  “How’s your vision? How many fingers am I holding up? Do I look all right to you?”

  He’d look all right if I had one eye hanging out of the socket and a patch over the other.

  “I’m fine.” I sat up and brushed wet hair out of my face. Clark had Timmy by the collar as she hauled him into the building. Poor kid. Sister Mary Doris tried to restore order to my kindergarteners, leaving me alone in a puddle on the hot blacktop with Mr. June, July and August.

  He stood, reached down a large hand and pulled me up. Just touching him made me think he’d better take September too.

  “Okay, Miss Shepherd?” he asked again, still holding my hand and standing much too close. He was easily six feet tall.

  “Yep,” I said in what I hoped was a cheerful voice. “It’s Jasmine, but everyone calls me Jazz.”

  “Kurt Reynolds,” he said. “Everyone calls me Kurt. If I’m lucky. Jasmine is a beautiful name.”

  I decided there could be a future for us despite the height difference. “My parents own a greenhouse. They cultivate exotic flowers,” I explained, babbling under pressure. “Jasmine was a hot seller the year I was born.”

  Kurt took a long, slow glance over my drenched hair, across my soaking wet sweater and down to the water running off my bare feet in their conservative teacher sandals. I thought he might be wondering if I was a hot seller. And hoped he’d make me an offer to find out.

  “My brothers and sisters weren’t all so lucky with their names,” I said. “You can only imagine.”

  Kurt grinned. If any one thing could have made him more handsome, that was it. I was staring. And probably panting.

  “If you’re sure you’re okay,” he said, “I’d better get back to the hoses before anything else happens.”

  I’ll bet he can handle a hose just fine. Anyone with biceps like his should have no problem.

  “I’ll just go dry off.”

  Sisters Mary Doris and Mary Alice appeared out of nowhere as soon as Kurt turned around.

  “Come inside, dear,” Mary Doris said. “We’ll find you some dry clothes.”

  “I might have something that will fit you,” Mary Alice said. “I’m a little more…” She looked perplexed about how to put it as she gestured with her hands.

  “My height?” I tried to let her off the hook.

  “Forget it, Mary Alice,” Mary Doris said. “I have a wonderful Dale Earnhardt T-shirt my nephew sent me for Christmas. It’s long enough to be a dress on you, Jazz.”

  The school was dark and cool as the sisters and I took a shortcut to the house the nuns shared on the other side of the building. We entered the long hall that led past the principal’s office. We weren’t alone. Wally Balcheski exited the office and walked away, his back to us.

  “Wonder what the police chief was doing in Clark’s office?” Mary Alice asked.

  “Poor Timmy,” Mary Doris said, “I hope Clark wasn’t trying to talk Balcheski into arresting the little guy.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” I whispered.

  There was a moment of silence as we passed the office.

  “Would she?”

  “Of course not,” Mary Alice said. “It was probably a social visit.”

  I remembered the way Balcheski and Clark had glanc
ed my way in the parking lot, but thought it must be the heat or the head-smacking talking. There was no reason to imagine the police chief was conspiring with my boss about me.

  Chapter Two

  The nuns never complained about the salary, but they didn’t have the advantage of being young, divorced, dependent upon their cousin for a home and nursing a small scrap of pride. I needed a part-time job if one day I hoped to possess a cell phone, a knock-off purse and a car that didn’t make people avert their eyes discreetly at traffic lights.

  Lucky for me, everybody figures teachers are trustworthy, organized, can do paperwork and are willing to work for a wage somewhere near the bottom line. That’s me. Smart, organized and desperate. So the Ripple Marina hired me to help one night a week all winter and full-time for the summer.

  Wednesday night, a day after the disastrous fire safety demonstration, I discovered my office job at Ripple might be more than just a paycheck. I watched through the large glass windows of the marina store as my summer’s entertainment motored neatly into a slip along the break wall and tied up. The muscular yellow boat gleamed in the evening light and demanded attention. I never knew Bluegill had a fireboat, but I did now.

  A man dressed in navy blue from head to toe swung off the boat and started down the dock toward the office. Most times in my life, if something seemed too good to be true, it was. Maybe my luck was changing. Because Kurt Reynolds was about to walk through the marina door. And I happened to be wearing something I liked, had fresh breath from the gum in my Kmart purse and it was the best hair day so far this week.

  I took a confidence-building lungful of air and then scuttled behind the counter so he wouldn’t catch me staring. No use. He didn’t waste time covering the distance on the dock with those hottie fireman calendar legs. He opened the door and set off the jingle bell that my somewhat eccentric employer had tied there. He reached up with one hand and silenced the silly bells without even looking at them. This man had style and coordination I only dreamed of possessing. In the second of silence that followed, I knew he had to hear my heart beating.