Harlequin Next
7 total works
Teddi usually ignored Drew Scoones's warnings to stay out of his cases...
After all, who in her right mind would give up steamy post-arrest debriefing sessions with Detective "Swoons"? But when Drew's partner is accused of murdering Peaches Lipschitz-aka the "Hooker Housewife"-the department promptly takes Drew off the case. Now he's looking at a major lifestyle change and finally doing the one thing that really rattles Teddi... proposing marriage!
So "Long Island's Most Dangerous Decorator" is doing the impossible: "breaking up" with Drew to investigate on her own...and making her snobbish mother happy for the first time ever. And she's finding that slipping Drew clues undercover is as hot-and dangerous-as revealing Peaches' secret clientele. But Drew isn't going to stay sidelined for long-or let one irresistible interior decorator get away scot-free....
My life hasn't been what you'd call easy lately...
Last year I, Teddi Bayer Gallo, nearly killed my husband. This year he's nearly my ex. Last year money grew on trees. This year if my three delicious children and I don't eat, my new interior decorating business might survive. Last year I'd never seen a dead person up close. But this year I've just discovered one. And it's my first paying client....
Can things get worse? Well, the police could suspect my partner, Bobbie, and me of doing the woman in. Then there's my mother, June, who even through all her newly acquired plastic surgery can still give me "the look." And I could fall for sexy detective Drew Scoones, who has fingered Bobbie as his prime suspect.
I mean, really, can you say no to the police?
Literally, he's had it for every hour of the day for as long as Teddi's known him.
So it's no coincidence that minutes after Teddi stumbles accidentally on a corpse in the deep freeze at King Kullen, Detective Dreamboat is back on the scene. Her supermarket snob (among other things) of a mother will never let her hear the end of it. Nor will Drew, who has told Teddi time and again she's got to stop messing with murder scenes.
Until Teddi goes from material witness to potential next victim… But the woman whose smarmy ex dubbed her "Long Island's Most Dangerous Decorator" isn't going down without a fight. Or going down alone. Not when she's got an oh-so-irritating, way-too-irresistible cop watching her every move…
"What is it with you and murder victims?"
When Drew Scoones asks the questions, Teddi Bayer listens. Her latest decorating job for a restaurant spoiled by a murder, Ms. Bayer might just have to submit to the detective's line of interrogation. After all, her life depends on it.
With a mafia don who's a little too interested in our crazed housewife, it seems as if everyone's got their eye on the Long Island spitfire. Observe the Botoxed mother who can still wound at thirty feet with just a look and a daughter whose bat mitzvah is a disaster in the making.
If Teddi can't save herself, then the dreamy detective slowly putting the screws to her is the next best thing. But she's got questions of her own. Like, where are the handcuffs, anyway?