Love Can Be Murder

Renaldi. A posthumous gift from Gary, Jolie explained, to put toward Leann's treatment. She sealed the envelope with mixed feelings pulling at her—incredulity over the randomness of how people's lives crossed and changed each other, remorse that the same human dramas seemed to play out over and over—greed, ambition, love and hate—with unpredictable results.
    "Everything okay in here?" Beck asked from the doorway.
    Jolie looked up and felt a rush of love for this amazing man. She set the envelopes aside and crossed the room to slip into his embrace. Tilting her head she smiled up at him. "Everything is good."
    A little scoff escaped him and his eyes darkened with sudden desire before he lowered a kiss to her neck. "We have a few minutes before the truck gets here—what do you say we bypass good and shoot for spectacular?"
    Jolie arched into him. "Wow me."

    The End

Book 2: In Deep Voodoo

    a humorous romantic mystery
    by
    Stephanie Bond

    She didn’t mean for him to die...

Chapter One

    Start with a dangerous dose of curiosity…

    "I COULD kill Deke for this," Penny Francisco said, peering with a tiny pair of binoculars through the mini-blinds that covered a window of her health food store, The Charm Farm.
    The normally sleepy two-lane Charm Street bustled with early traffic for the annual Voodoo Festival. But in between the passing cars, Penny had managed to get a good look at the Victorian house heavy with ornate cast ironwork she had bought, refurbished, and lived in with Deke Black, attorney-at-law, until their explosive breakup a few months ago. A painting crew was methodically covering the rich color of Vanilla Milk, which she had lovingly chosen from thousands of paint chips, with what looked to be Pink Nightmare.
    She ground her teeth until her jaw ached. "Just look at what he's doing to my house!"
    "Let me guess," Marie, her quirky employee of six months, said from behind the juice bar, where she was refilling canisters of vitamin additives. "He's painting it."
    Penny looked at the woman suspiciously—many people in town had insinuated that eccentric Marie Gaston with the electric blue hair had a "third eye."
    "How did you know that?"
    "I saw Lou Hall's painting van pull up as I was coming in this morning."
    Penny frowned and looked back out the window. "Deke's not just painting my house—he's painting it Puke Pink."
    "But it's his house now."
    "Still. I can't believe the historical society would allow him to paint my house pink."
    "It helps that his mother is mayor," Marie offered dryly. "And it's his house now, boss."
    "But I have to look at it every day." Penny jammed her hand into her coarse auburn curls as frustration billowed in her chest. Moisture gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she quickly blinked it away—no more tears over Deke Black. "He did this just to annoy me."
    "Probably." Marie cleared her throat. "Although I heard down at the Hair Affair that, um, Sheena was planning to redecorate."
    Penny stiffened, pain knifing between her shoulder blades. Deke's mistress. Girlfriend. Tart. Practically everyone in the town of Mojo, Louisiana, knew about Deke's fooling around. The fact that he had moved litigious Sheena Linder into the home he and Penny had bought together was the ultimate humiliation. "I can't believe I have to live over the doughnut shop and that woman will be living in my house."
    "You live over a beignet shop. And it's his house, boss."
    "The bastard could have waited until the ink was dry on the divorce papers."
    "Uh-huh. Well, maybe Sheena will fall in the shower and sue him. Lord knows she's sued almost everyone else in town."
    "And Deke defended her the last few times she allegedly injured herself."
    "If it's any consolation, I heard she slipped on a spilled Yoohoo in the Quickie Mart last week and is laid up again."
    "As if the woman needed a reason to be on her back," Penny muttered, her blood boiling.
    The soaring pin oak tree that had first drawn her to the Victorian on Charm Street was ablaze with deep red foliage typical for early October. The glorious ruby color clashed horrifically with the vicious pink hue the painters were rolling onto the wood siding—another insult. The last time the leaves had been red—this time last year—she had been happy...mostly.
    Last summer had been fraught with stress as she had debated whether or not to clear the land they owned behind The Charm Farm to plant an organic vegetable garden. Deke had been vehemently