THE CUPID CAPER Harlequin Duets May 2001 EXCERPT With sweat beading his brow, Sam Creighton flicked the credit card up and down through the narrow opening between the door and the wall for the umpteenth time. Nothing. Up and down. Up and down. Up and freaking down. He was just about to swish the card again when a smooth, long-fingered hand took it from him. The barrel of a gun pressed against his backbone. Hell. A lady cop. It had to be a lady cop. How was he going to explain this one to the long, smooth arm of the law? “You have about ten seconds,” a throaty voice hissed near his ear, “to explain what you’re doing breaking into this office.”

“Trying to break in,” Sam corrected dryly. “As you can see, I haven’t managed it yet.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Buster. Start talking.” She punctuated the command by jabbing the gun deeper into his back. But something about the gun didn’t feel right. Either it had an ultra-thin barrel or...

Sam whirled and took a look for himself.

Or it was a tube of lipstick.

“Hey, that’s not a gun,” he exclaimed.

“Don’t get self-righteous with me, especially because you’re not Jake Creighton.”

His eyes lifted from the lipstick-masquerading-as-a-gun to the heart-shaped face of a woman in her mid-twenties who was definitely not a cop. Unless, of course, she was a cop under deep cover as...

He squinted and stared at her, not quite sure what she was supposed to be. A wig of bouncy red curls covered her hair. Fake freckles, which looked like they had been applied with that lipstick, dotted her face. Her voluminous trench coat fell nearly to the floor, but wasn’t quite long enough to cover white bobby socks worn with a pair of Mary Janes.

She looked like Susie Q meets the X-Files.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked in a tough-girl voice at odds with her appearance.

She had moxie, he had to give her that. She was alone in a seedy office building with a stranger, but she seemed completely unintimidated. It was probably because she knew karate. She shifted and her trench coat parted, giving him a glimpse of long, luscious legs. Kickboxing, he corrected. With those gams, she was probably an expert kickboxer.

“I’m embarking on a life of crime---”

“Exactly what I thought,” she interrupted, thrusting the lipstick at the air like it was a sword and she was giving him a warning. He stifled a smile.

“---fighting,” he finished. “Crime fighting. Not crime.”

“And why should I believe that? How do I know you haven’t offed Jake and stashed him somewhere?”

“Because I’m his brother,” he said and held out a hand. “Sam Creighton’s the name.”

“Jake’s brother?” She gaped at him, her mouth a perfect 0 as she ran a calculating gaze over him. Considering how much he liked her eyes on him, he was eager to feel her hand in his, but she pointedly ignored it. Finally, he dropped his hand.

“Jake’s brother wouldn’t need to break into his office,” she said. “Let’s see some ID.”

She might not be a cop, but she had the lingo down. He handed over his credit card, but she looked so dubious that he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open, removing his driver’s license.

“Eeeouwww,” she exclaimed as she examined the license. “If this is you, it’s a really bad photo.”

He leaned over and took a look. “I do look like Rocky Raccoon, don’t I? Wonder how they get that eye-black effect?”

“Hey, back up, Buster.” The tough-girl voice was back, which wasn’t so much intimidating him as it was turning him on. Finally, after all these years, he understood why some men stayed home to watch Xena, Warrior Princess.

She looked back and forth between Sam and the driver’s license, as though deciding whether or not to believe him. Her eyes were the color of grass in the summertime, rimmed by a deeper green and dotted with gold. They couldn’t have been more bewitching.

“If you’re Jake’s brother,” she asked, giving him back the license, “how come you’re breaking into his office?”

“You’ve heard of kleptomania, right?” he asked, deciding to have a little fun. “I have breaktomania.”

“Breaktomania?”

“The obsessive need to break into locked places.”

She narrowed her pretty eyes. “Then how come you haven’t managed it?”

She had him there, especially if she’d spent any time at all watching him fumble with the credit card. He shrugged. Time to swallow some pride. “Because Jake forgot to leave me a key.”

Evidently, that answer convinced her he was telling the truth. “Mallory Jamison,” she said, holding out her hand. Finally, at long last, he got to touch her.

The connection was electrifying, like a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky. A sizzle went up his arm and through his body, traveling to all kinds of interesting places. He breathed in her essence. She smelled like sunshine and orange blossoms, scents that somehow suited her.

He smiled at her long and slow, noting she was tall enough that he didn’t have to bend too far to look into her eyes. Hers widened, as though she felt the sizzle too.

She pulled her warm hand out of his grasp much too soon. His instinct was to grab it back but he squelched it. He didn’t want her to point that lethal lipstick at him again.

“Jake probably didn’t think you needed a key,” she said, snatching the credit card out of his hand. She stepped in front of him and inserted the card once again in the skinny space beside the unyielding door. “All you do is give the card a little jiggle. Like this.”

The latch immediately popped, and the door swung open. A satisfied smile graced her painted red lips when she turned and held the credit card out to him. “I thought all good private eyes knew how to do that.”

“I’m in the early stages of the breaktomania.” Sam repocketed the card. “I have the urge to break in, but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.”

“You are a private eye, aren’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” Sam said. Granted, he was angry at his brother for getting him into this situation but he didn’t want to scare away a potential client. Jake was bound to come home soon. From the looks of things, he desperately needed some business. “Just call me Sherlock Creighton.”

She walked deeper into the office, putting distance between them as she pulled off her coat. “So, Sherlock, where’s Jake?”

“He left a note saying...”

Her coat was completely off now, making him completely forget what he’d been about to say. Her curvaceous figure was squeezed into a cherry-red dress a couple sizes too small and more than a couple inches too short. Her legs, bare but for the bobby socks, seemed to go on forever.

But it wasn’t the kind of dress meant for seduction. Instead, it was a child’s dress, with a white collar and matching belt. Come to think of it, nothing about her computed. From the curly red wig to the faux freckles to the patent leather shoes.

“Go on,” she said, waving a hand in a circular motion. He tried, but he still couldn’t speak. A “wow” was lodged in his throat. “You were telling me about the note that you have in your hand--the one Jake left. What does it say?”

His voicebox finally managed a rusty-sounding question. “What did who say?”

“Not who. What. The note.” She put her hands on her hips. The motion emphasized how nicely that too-tight dress outlined her generous curves. “What did the note say?”

“Wow,” he said, the word finally making its escape.

“Wow?” Her brows shot up. “Jake wrote you a note that said wow?”

“No. Of course not,” Sam said, valiantly recovering some of his equilibrium. How best to explain his verbal slip? “It said ‘How.’ As in, ‘How the hell you doin’, Sam?”

“Very friendly,” she commented, leaning against a wall and crossing one long leg over the other. She was killing him here. “But did it say anything informative? Like where he is?”

With a concerted effort, Sam switched his focal point from her legs to her face. What had that note said? “He didn’t say where he was going,” Sam finally answered triumphantly, because he’d managed to answer at all. “He only said that he’d gone and wants me to run the business until he comes back.”

“Oh, no,” she exclaimed.

Unaccountably, her comment stung. “Look. I’m no whiz at breaking and entering, but I’m sure I’d get the hang of it if I practiced.”

He wasn’t prepared for the way she rushed across the room and laid a hand on his black-jacketed arm. Or for the way he felt heat even through the leather.

“You’ve got to help me find him. You’ve just got to.”

He tried not to get lost in the green depths of her eyes and made his lips form words. “First I think you better tell me who you are.”

“I already told you. I’m Mallory Jamison,” she said. “Jake’s fiancée.”