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“I think you’re reaching a little.”
Ruby got that stubborn look on her face. The one that said she’d made up her mind and wouldn’t let it go until she’d made up everyone else’s, too.
“I hear that Mayor Applebaum is bringing in a detective to solve the case,” Ruby added, her tone triumphant. As if that proved her right for worrying.
“A cop? For this?” Jade laughed. “And not for the pumpkin-smashing spree from a few months ago? Or the spate of dirty phone calls everyone was getting last summer? I mean, talk about sexual harassment.”
“Or Persephone’s holiday-property destruction binges?” Beryl said as she returned with another green bin.
“Hey, now,” Jade chided with a laugh. “Leave my cat out of this.”
“Well, you have to admit, she is a nuisance,” Beryl pointed out, setting the bin on the floor by the others.
“But she only breaks into holiday displays and drags decorations around town,” Ruby defended tightly, clearly upset that her sisters—who, unlike her, still lived in this town—weren’t taking the situation seriously. “The pumpkins were tossed by kids on a dare. And those dirty phone calls, didn’t someone trace them to an out-of-town number?”
“And this is someone with a panty fetish,” Beryl said, laying out the cookie press and accessories. “No big deal. It’s not like he’s keeping them and doing pervy things.”
“That we know of,” Ruby snapped.
Beryl’s chin lifted, her posture echoing Ruby’s angry one. Time to change the subject.
“Let’s switch jobs for a while,” Jade suggested to Beryl, waving her hand toward the table full of deliciously tempting edible decorations. “I’ll press spritz cookies, you dress Santa.”
“You sure?” Beryl said with a frown as she glanced from the cookie disks she’d spread across the counter to the decorations. “You’re usually so territorial about making the cookies look just right.”
“Yep, I’m sure.” She glanced at Ruby, then asked, “We have two weeks until the open house. What else do you want to make today besides cookies?”
While her sisters debated fudge or pumpkin rolls, she filled the press. She needed the distraction. Not because she was worried about a creep with a panty fetish. But all this talk about panties, dating and sexual droughts was making her crazy.
If she wasn’t careful, she’d start eating to numb the sexual frustration. She’d done that after Eric had left, putting on twenty pounds as she tried to deal with the emotional blow. For a girl who topped out at five-four, that’d been a quick wake-up call in how fast things could get out of control if she wasn’t careful.
Still, it was a better option than finding herself a real Horny-for-Hire.
As Jade pressed out the first dozen starshaped cookies, she pretended they were flying across the sky and made a Christmas wish.
Please, let a sexy, gorgeous man sweep into her life just long enough to fulfill her every sexual fantasy. Give her enough good loving to last until she’d sorted out the rest of her life, then scootch on out without any hard feelings, leaving things simple and complication free.
And if she couldn’t have the latter two parts of the wish, she’d settle on having a few of those sexual fantasies come true.
After all, she’d been a really good girl.
Wasn’t it time she had a chance to be a little bad?
3
HER MIND FILLED with images of sexy guys all wrapped in bright red ribbons and nothing else, Jade strolled past the twinkling lights and animated Santa’s workshop scene in Diablo Glen’s version of winter wonderland, better known the rest of the year as Readers Park. One of the few perks of living in a small town was being able to walk everywhere. The library was only two blocks from her cottage, her mother’s house a block to the east and the shopping district—if a dozen buildings could be considered a district—a block to the west.
The houses surrounding the park were dressed in their Christmas best, trees sparkling with festive decorations and eves strung with lights. Nobody did the holidays like people in a tight community.
But tonight, the quaint appeal and homespun warmth couldn’t keep her attention. Jade couldn’t get her sister’s words out of her head. Was she only paying lip service to being empowered? Eighteen months was a really long time to go without sex. Well, it was if it was good sex. Maybe that was the problem. All the sex she’d had was pretty much mediocre. She scrunched her nose, remembering her ex-fiancé’s fumbling fiver, as she’d nicknamed his lovemaking style.
She was only twenty-five. Too young to accept a sexless life. Not that she’d admit it to anyone—especially since it’d put a major dent in her tough, empowered image—but she wanted the kind of sex she read in those books so hot their covers were a blazing red. Just once, she wanted to experience that headlong rush of desire. To be overcome by passion. To need someone so badly, she could forget everything.
But unless star cookies had the power to make Christmas wishes come true, all that passion was going to stay between the pages of a book.
A little dejected and a lot frustrated, she crossed the street that ran between the park and her cottage. Left to her by her paternal grandmother, it was cozy, comfortable and cute. She’d just opened the latch on the white picket fence when a blur of black fur shot across her feet.
Yelping, Jade jumped back. Her book bag hit the ground, paperbacks sliding across the sidewalk like a colorful rainbow. Heart racing, she pressed her hand to her chest and tried to catch a breath.
“Persephone?” Jade’s confused gaze slid from the now-smug cat pushing her way into the book bag to the front door of the cottage. It was closed tight. Glancing right, then left at the multipaned windows, she noted the sheers were still, indicating the windows were closed, too.
“How’d you get out?”
Thanks to her habit of viewing the neighbors’ holiday decorations as enemies to be destroyed, Persephone was forced to be an indoor cat in December. Last week she’d escaped when Jade was hauling out the trash. Ten minutes later she’d found the cat batting foam presents at the tin soldiers on Mr. Turner’s front lawn.
Kneeling to scoop books back into the cat-filled bag, Jade took a second to scratch Persephone’s purring head. Brow furrowed, she craned her neck to get a glimpse of the side of the house. There, from her open bedroom window, fluttered a sheer white curtain.
“Uh-oh.”
Her heart pounded so loud that her head throbbed with every beat. Forgetting the bag, the cat and books, Jade reached for her purse instead. Straightening slowly, she sucked in a shaky breath, telling herself there was nothing to be scared of. Yes, the town had experienced a rash of break-ins. But they were petty thefts. Not assaults. Despite Ruby’s paranoia, there was nothing to be afraid of.
Still, she’d watched too many horror movies to be stupid enough to walk in there alone. With fingers that were only trembling a little bit, she fished her phone out of her purse.
It took her three tries to dial the mayor’s office. It took the phone seven rings to go to voice mail.
“This is Jade Carson, and I think I’ve had a break-in. Can someone call me right back, please.”
Applebaum was a hands-on kind of mayor, proud of always being available to the townspeople. His voice mail would forward to both his and his secretary’s cell phones. Sure she’d hear back within five minutes, Jade took a deep breath and debated. She couldn’t go inside. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t look around. Sweeping the books into her bag, she set it on the porch steps, but kept her purse—and cell phone—with her.
Careful