Love Can Be Murder

looked for you. And I wouldn't have stopped looking until I found you."
    Tears welled in her eyes—he couldn't possibly know what those words meant to her. She didn't know what to say, didn't want him to think she thought it meant he was in love with her. "Thank you."
    He cleared his throat and looked out over the garden again, this time gesturing. "This isn't going to work."
    Proud of her garden, she bristled. "Why not?"
    "Because I was just asked to lead the task force the governor is sending to the museum to try to solve open missing persons cases."
    She gasped, uncaring if her feelings for him were too obvious. "You'll be working in Mojo?"
    "And living." He grinned sheepishly. "I realize I have to be near you."
    Her heart took flight, but she reeled it back in. "What does that have to do with my garden?"
    "I don't plan to walk all the way around every time I want to see you," he said, pointing toward the fence. "So I was thinking if we put in a gate right about there, it would make life easier." Then he shrugged. "If you want."
    She leaped into his arms and kissed him with all the pent-up energy of missing him, wanting him, and needing him. When they pulled back, they were both flushed, and she was anticipating being in his arms tonight.
    "I love you, Penny." His voice was full of awe, as if he himself were surprised. "I think you worked some voodoo on me."
    She freed the restraints on her heart, allowing it to balloon in her chest. "I love you, too, Baron Jeffrey." At his surprised expression, she laughed. "You're not the only one who can investigate."
    His eyes danced with mischief. "I guess we have time now to get to know each other."
    She pressed her face into his shirt, so happy she was afraid to move. What happened next?
    "Say," he said, pulling back, "did you know if you crumble up bacon into tofu, it's not half bad?"
    She made a face. "That kind of defeats the purpose."
    "Hey, I'm trying to learn to compromise. But that means you have to eat a bag of potato chips once in a while."
    She thought of the replenished stash in her desk drawer and nodded. "I can do that."
    They walked over the garden holding hands. And Penny...she was showing a lot of gum.

    The End

Book 3: Got Your Number

    a humorous romantic mystery
    by
    Stephanie Bond

    You can run, but your past will always catch up with you...

Chapter One

    ROXANN BEADLEMAN’S scalp roasted, and she realized with a start that she was still wearing the red wig. Puffing out her cheeks at her carelessness, she yanked off the remainder of her disguise as she wedged her van Goldie into a parking space at Rigby's Diner, home of the Big Daddy Crab Plate. Rigby would fire her for sure. Waiting tables had never been her favorite gig, but the job had great benefits (Rigby's brother-in-law sold health insurance), and the schedule was flexible enough to accommodate her obligations to the Rescue program. Until this morning.
    She jumped out and bent at the waist to give her real hair—short and dark and plastered to her head—a lick and a promise with a vented brush. Biloxi, Mississippi, was celebrated for its sweltering heat, but she'd sort of expected a break by the twelfth day into the month of October. She slammed Goldie's door twice before it caught, then sprinted to the employee entrance of the diner.
    Shuttling the Lindberg family to the bus station had taken longer than she'd expected, mostly because the twin five-year-old boys had stripped down to their skivvies and tossed their clothes out the van windows. Twice. According to her travel watch (two faces to accommodate dual time zones), she was exactly one hour late.
    "You're an hour late,” Helen, the head waitress, confirmed when Roxann slid into the kitchen.
    "Car trouble." Not the first lie she'd told for a good cause.
    Helen clucked and balanced a third plate on her arm. "Imagine that, a twenty-five-year-old van giving you trouble." Helen was sixty, with the wit and legs of a coed.
    "Is Rigby angry?"
    "Yeah, but I covered for you. Still, you'd better get shakin'. I need a couple of étoufée platters." Helen disappeared, then stuck her head back in, winking a mascara-laden eye. "And I almost forgot—there's a Steve McQueen type at table nine waiting to see you. Been here goin' on a half hour."
    Anxiety twinged low in her stomach. She peeked around the divider between the blistering kitchen and the crowded dining room, but her view was obstructed by the weekly gathering of the Morning Glory Ladies,