Sugarplums and Scandal by Dana Cameron

Author:Dana Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

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In the morning Joe Berenger emerged from his camper, which was parked in Cecilia Lattimer’s driveway. He yawned and stretched and noted her neighbors checking him out from behind their window blinds; he wanted everyone who might be interested in harming Ms. Cecilia Lattimer to know that she was now under his protection. Playing bodyguard to her wasn’t what he had planned for his holiday vacation away from the St. Louis undercover division, but since Monroe had asked for his help with the thefts occurring in Dewdrop, Berenger had complied.

The cousins had grown up together, and Joe had unexpectedly found the person Monroe thought had the most access to what happened in town, Cecilia. She’d grown up there, married and divorced there, and from what Joe had already learned, Cecilia was appreciated, loved, but according to Monroe she could be a real pain in the butt when she started organizing. As a professional, she had access to homes, offices, and stores and the flow of Dewdrop’s hot gossip.

Berenger leaned against the camper, hitched up his collar against the wind’s chill, and adjusted his sunglasses against the blinding glare of the snow and thought about Cecilia. She just reached his shoulder, had big green eyes that were either filled with fear—or flashed with anger. A few strands of reddish hair had escaped her knitted cap, and the rest of her had been too bundled in that coat to judge her figure.

In his experience, a woman who could bake and cook like Cecilia probably was curved. Berenger’s curiosity deepened; he really wanted to see her out of that coat.

She was complex—more than the female-usual—a woman who preferred sweltering beneath a winter coat rather than removing it. And she hadn’t reported the break-ins. Why?

Like others in town, Cecilia’s presents had been taken. Someone was out to get Cecilia, and they knew exactly how to unnerve her—that said, it was someone familiar with her; someone with a grudge that ran deep and personal. Joe had checked beneath her car’s hood and noted the pulled wires; someone had wanted her to be walking last night and they knew the route she was apt to take. And for some reason, Cecilia did not want to report her encounter with the three men, the theft of her presents, or the entry into her home.

Apparently, Cecilia knew everyone in town, and she hadn’t used the three men’s names. Berenger had decided to let them go; he was after whoever had the brains to put together that potentially dangerous incident.

Monroe had said she’d been acting “spooky” lately; she virtually ran when she saw him coming. Oh, yes, Cecilia definitely knew something, and Berenger was going to stick close to her.

At her house window, she was furiously motioning for him to go away. Berenger reached inside his camper, retrieved her thermal bag and dishes, and walked to her house. She answered the front door on his third try, jerked it open and scowled up to him. She had

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