RAVE REVIEWS FOR CHRISTIE CRAIG!
GOTCHA!
“The mystery and romance plots fit seamlessly into a witty and fast-paced novel that’s easy to read and satisfying to the heart.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Filled with plenty of action, delightfully quirky characters, a mean villain and a rocky road to romance, Craig’s novel is an entertaining tale that holds the interest from the first sentence to the final word.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Funny, fast-paced, and full of suspense, Craig’s latest will delight her fans as well as fans of Janet Evanovich and Harley Jane Kozak.”
—Booklist
DIVORCED, DESPERATE AND DATING
“This sequel to Craig’s Divorced, Desperate and Delicious is another delightfully entertaining novel with an intriguing mystery. Peopled with interesting new characters and familiar old ones, it also has its share of animal friends that add a lot of humor and warmth to the story.”
—RT Book Reviews
“I was simply delighted by this breezy, snappy, good-time story…This book is sure to brighten your day.”
—Beyond Her Book Blog, Publishers Weekly
“Christie Craig has penned a humorous tale that is one part suspense and all parts fun.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Christie Craig is the jewel of my finds when it comes to new authors to add to my favorites list. Her characters draw you in immediately, make you care about them in no time flat, and her humor is to die for.”
—The Good, The Bad, and The Unread
WEDDINGS CAN BE MURDER
“Although the plot is threaded with sassy humor, a lighthearted touch, and misaligned lovers hinting strongly of Shakespeare, a deranged psychopath, a trail of murdered brides, and threats of real danger keep the story on the suspenseful side.”
—Library Journal
“A story that twines emotions and feelings with sizzle and steam, all wrapped around bits of humor…Weddings Can Be Murder combines passionate and intense characters with a plot that’s well-balanced and fast-moving. It’s edgy and fun.”
—Once Upon a Romance
DIVORCED, DESPERATE AND DELICIOUS
“Christie Craig delivers humor, heat, and suspense in addictive doses. She’s the newest addition to my list of have-to-read authors…Funny, hot, and suspenseful. Christie Craig’s writing has it all. Warning: definitely addictive.”
—New York Times Bestselling Author Nina Bangs
“Readers who enjoy Jenny Crusie and Janet Evanovich will fall head over heels for Divorced, Desperate and Delicious, a witty romantic adventure…with humorous wit, sexy romance and just enough danger to keep you up long past midnight.”
—New York Times Bestselling Author Dianna Love Snell
“This is an entertaining, fast-moving mystery and romance with interesting, likable characters…The main romance, as well as the secondary ones, are delightful, and the suspense is well done. This is an all-around enticing and fun story…”
—RT Book Reviews
“Divorced, Desperate and Delicious is funny, witty, suspenseful, and very entertaining…The characters are charming, and there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. Christie Craig has a winner.”
—Romance Reviews Today
GOTCHA!
“Pull over right now! I don’t know what’s going on here, but I want you far, far away from me.” She put some punch in her voice. Or at least she tried.
“I really wish I could do that,” Stan replied.
“You can do that. Look. There’s a nice spot right there.” She leaned close and wrapped her hand around the steering wheel. “Just turn here and—”
He put his hand on her wrist and tightened his hold on the wheel. “I can’t do that, Kathy. I can’t let you go now.”
She kept her eyes fixed on his face, on his swollen eye, so he wouldn’t know what she intended to do next. Truth was, she wasn’t sure when it had become the plan. Not that it was a good plan, but it was the only plan she had. And she was going for it.
She released the steering wheel and, lickety-split, her hand shot straight for his crotch. It wasn’t the prize behind the zipper she was going for, either—not that she hadn’t once entertained the idea—but the prize that lay in his lap. The gun. Unfortunately, with her eyes still on his face, she found the behind-the-zipper object first.
Other Love Spell books by Christie Craig:
GOTCHA!
DIVORCED, DESPERATE AND DATING
WEDDINGS CAN BE MURDER
DIVORCED, DESPERATE AND DELICIOUS
Divorced,
Desperate
and
Deceived
Christie Craig
LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY
To my dad, Pete Hunt, plumber extraordinaire, and to Ginger
Curtis, proud mama, whose approach to life taught me that
if you can laugh at it, you can live with it. The message resonates
in all of my books. And to Faye Hughes, who is as crazy
as I am, and as supportive as an underwire bra.
Acknowledgments
To my guardian angels, who swear they aren’t angels, but I love them, clipped wings, bent halos and all: Jody Payne, Teri Thackston, and Suzan Harden. You girls rock! To my hubby and son who understand that deadlines mean scrambled eggs and frozen dinners for supper. To all the readers who take the time to e-mail me and say I made them laugh. Never stop laughing, guys. To my editor, Chris Keeslar, and my agent, Kim Lionetti, who took a chance on a quirky writer with quirkier stories and made her dreams come true.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Praise
Gotcha!
Other Books By
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Epilogue
Copyright
Chapter One
Kathy Callahan needed a man, but Hell would be renting ice skates and serving bubblegum-flavored snow cones before she chose one of the three specimens presently being offered to her.
She looked at Sue and Lacy, at their expressions of sheer anticipation, then back at the pictures. All three were photos of buddies of her friends’ husbands, men Kathy had met at one or more of Lacy’s get-togethers. And all three men were cops.
Kathy placed her index finger on picture number one. “No.” Picture number two. “No.” Picture number three. “No.”
Lacy waved her hand across the photographs. “Pleeease. What lame excuses do you have to reject these men?”
Kathy pointed to Danny’s picture. “Too nice.” She pointed to Cary’s. “Too egot
istical.” She pointed to Turner. “Too much of a player.”
There was truth to each statement. The fact that there was a deeper reason for her rejections didn’t matter; Kathy never showed all her cards. Which probably explained why she always felt a bit like an outsider, even with her two best friends.
“You’re just chickening out,” Sue accused. “Bawk, bawk, bawk.” She flapped her arms like a demented chicken.
“I’m not chickening out. I just haven’t found the right…rooster yet.” Well, actually she had, but it seemed like she’d put all her eggs in the wrong basket. For close to three years, she’d had her eye on Stan Bradley, plumber extraordinaire. How many times had she turned him down? Now that she was finally emotionally ready to crack a few eggs, he seemed to have lost interest in breakfast in bed.
“But you’ve wasted a week of your month without Tommy,” Lacy pointed out.
The point—not necessarily the one Lacy wanted to make—went straight to Kathy’s heart. She forgot all about men and thought about her little man. A week. A whole week that she hadn’t seen her seven-year-old son’s freckle-faced smile, or felt those little boy arms wrap around her neck as he said, “Love you more than dirt, Mom.” And to her son, dirt rocked.
As the memory whispered over her heart, the pain of missing him yanked the oxygen right out of her lungs. Everything else was irrelevant. “I should have never let him go,” she muttered.
“Your ex?” Sue asked.
“No!” Kathy said, and damn if she didn’t feel like crying. “Tommy.” She stiffened her backbone. How many times had she sworn she wouldn’t turn into one of those moms whose whole world revolved around her child? But to stop that from happening, she needed to get her own life. She knew that.
Maternal understanding filled both her friends’ expressions.
“He’s with his dad. He’s fine,” Lacy said.
Sue reached over and touched Kathy’s hand. “She’s right.”
“It will be a great education for him,” Lacy continued. “How many seven-year-olds get a chance to visit Europe?”
“Yeah, he’ll get to see all those naked statues.” Sue grinned. When Kathy didn’t respond, she added, “His dad will take care of him.”
Kathy wanted to argue that her ex was about as trustworthy as a cockroach, with bad hygiene and a prison record to boot—not that she wanted to insult roaches, or the average everyday criminal who needed a bath. Still, she had to admit that while Tom had failed miserably as a husband, so far the man hadn’t let down their son. Like it or not—and for the record, she didn’t like it one iota—she had to give him that.
She sighed. “I know. It’s just…a whole month is too long.”
“A month you swore you were going to use to get your life back on track,” Lacy reminded her. “You’ve refused to join a dating service, refused our offer to go barhopping with you, and now you’re saying no to all our suggestions.”
“Cruising bars with two pregnant women?” Kathy said, eyeing the rounded bellies of her friends. And while she should have been proud of her flat abdomen and size-five jeans, it wasn’t pride shooting through her earlier when she placed her hand on Sue’s tummy to feel the baby kick. “I’m sure the men would be all over us. Besides, I’m going to do it. I’m going to find a man to date if it kills me. Though, for the record, it just might.”
“Did he bring her with him when he picked up Tommy?” Sue asked.
Kathy wished she could pretend she didn’t understand the question. Wished she’d never told them that Tom had married the TOW, “The Other Woman.” But during the last Jack Daniel’s night—at which, quite unfairly, neither Sue nor Lacy could imbibe—Kathy had accidentally spilled her guts. Or at least she’d spilled a bit of them. The big secrets were still in the bag. And they could stay bagged. It would take more than a couple shots of Jack for her to hang out her dirty laundry. Even to her two closest friends.
The pause hung heavy in the air, and Kathy realized they were waiting for a response. “The TOW was in the car but didn’t get out.”
“I’ll bet she’s twenty-one, has fake boobs and more tattoos than her IQ quotient,” Sue suggested.
Her friends had no idea how much Kathy wished that was so.
The clatter of heavy machinery shot across Lacy’s patio, interrupting the soft sounds of a spring day. Lacy looked over her shoulder. “The lot next door sold, and they’re starting—Hot damn!” Her head whipped back around. “Guess whose truck is next door?”
“Whose?” Kathy and Sue both shifted to see.
Lacy giggled. “Mr. Lost-My-Screwdriver the Plumber.”
“You mean Mr. I-Wanna-Clean-Out-Kathy’s-Pipes?” Sue added.
Kathy’s gaze shot from the truck parked at the curb to the nearby group of men. A fluttery feeling hit her stomach. Not the fluttery feeling that required Beano.
“This is a sign,” Sue said.
Even across the distance, Kathy could pick Stan out. He stood taller than the others, and no doubt had the sexiest smile. He was probably the only one who smelled like freshly cut grass with a hint of mint. From the first time she’d laid eyes (and nose) on Mr. Bradley, he’d taken over all her fantasies.
Normally Kathy selected her leading men from movies. They were Matthew McConaughey types, and a tad more white-collar. Who knew she’d go weak-kneed over a tall, dark and fine-looking man wielding a pipe wrench? But no matter how hard she worked at bringing in a new star, Stan pushed his way into her bedroom fantasies, shoved Matthew off the mattress and crawled in beside her.
“Why don’t you go say hello?” Sue wiggled in her chair like a kid who had to pee.
“He’s not alone,” Kathy replied, feeling her pulse race.
“So?” Lacy said. “If he gives you the cold shoulder like he did on the phone, turn your charm on his buddies. That’ll teach him.” Lacy looked again. “One or two of them might even be worth smiling at.”
“It would teach him, wouldn’t it?”
Kathy remembered the hollow feeling she’d gotten last week when she’d called and he told her he didn’t have time to come check her leaky faucet. He’d always made time before. He’d even found a way to make things like changing toilet rings into a three-day job, without charging for his time, of course. She’d known what he was doing, finding a reason to hang around. The man knew how to flirt. She’d enjoyed every moment of it, too, even if at the end of each day she’d refused all his advances. He had no idea how much he and he alone had repaired her mangled self-esteem. How his heated glances had added a bounce to her step and fueled her fantasies…
The question was: Had Stan just gotten tired of getting nowhere, or had he found some other lady with more exciting plumbing? Someone who didn’t look away when he leaned in a little close, someone who claimed to have time for memorable nights. Maybe he was roostering it up somewhere else. Kathy took a deep breath. Maybe it was time for her to stop questioning and go find out.
Damn right it is. “I need lipstick.” She sniffed her right underarm. “And a squirt of perfume.”
“And how about a lower-cut blouse?” Lacy jiggled her breasts, which were a cup size larger now that she was pregnant. “One that lets the girls breathe a little.”
Kathy glanced down at her Don’t mess with Texas T-shirt. True, she hadn’t dressed today with seduction in mind. “The girls do like breathing,” she admitted.
Her friends shot up from the table and herded her off to get dolled up. Outsider or not, she loved her two divorced-and-remarried best friends. And they were right. It was high time she started having a little fun.
“Look, Stan, I just want—”
“I gave you my bid,” said Luke Hunter, aka Stan Bradley, shooting the contractor a disgruntled look. “I’m not lowering it.” He focused his gaze and his bad mood on James Johnson, the asshole plumber here to underbid him. Something about Johnson and his men reminded Luke of lowlife scum. One might say it took one to know one, and that wouldn’t be too far off. Luke ha
d played the part and brushed shoulders with enough; some of their bad habits were bound to have rubbed off.
He considered just leaving, making the decision easy for the contractor. In truth, he didn’t want the job, didn’t know if he’d be around to see it through. Stan Bradley the plumber was about to fall off the face of the earth. And about damn time, too. Luke wanted his life back. Never mind that his life sucked. What was supposed to be only a nine-month stay in this tiny Texas town had stretched into almost three years. But something about letting Johnson think he’d walked because he couldn’t handle the heat of a little competition was about as appealing as a case of third-degree jock itch.
“You’ve seen my work,” he told the contractor, whose company worked in about six of the minuscule towns clustered in the area.
“That’s why he’s gonna go with me,” Johnson quipped.
Luke ignored that. “You either know I’m worth it, or—”
“Come to papa!” one of Johnson’s men said, interrupting Luke.
Johnson spoke up, “This one’s mine. I got dibs.”
“You had dibs on the last one,” another man complained.
Luke looked over at his competitors, trying to figure out what they were talking about, but before his gaze found the lowlifes, his gaze found…heaven. His gaze found Kathy Callahan. Her long, red hair bounced off her shoulders, her jeans fit her even longer legs like a glove, and that scooped-neck green tank top hugged her breasts. Her saucy steps had everything beneath the tank top moving in a way that…moved a man. No doubt about it, the sight of her scored a direct hit. A hit, so to speak, below the belt.
“Shit,” he muttered. In the three years he’d been stowed away here, there was only one thing he was going to miss when he finally left. And that something was walking right toward him.
Her gaze was on him. Her smile brightened, and then she seemed to notice he wasn’t smiling back. Just like that, her attention shifted to the group of men to Luke’s right, the group of lowlifes who, odds were, had already mentally stripped her naked. Sure, he’d done the same a thousand times, but the thought of other men doing it chapped his ass.
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