Excerpt from:

Seeking Miss Scarlet
By Natalie Stenzel
Harlequin Flipside
April 2005
ISBN: 0-373-44212-2

From Chapter One
 

"Hello, Jack." Val flashed him a dazzler of a grin. Sure, it was intended to provoke. Jack was fun to provoke. Mild annoyance never looked sexier on a guy than it did on Jack. She resisted a sigh. "You were just wonderful in there with my guests. I think you're truly gifted."

"Wonderful. Don't get any ideas." He opened his mouth as though to pursue the subject further, then closed it with an air of distraction. "I didn't think you acted in the mysteries."

"I usually don't, but we needed someone to fill in at the last minute, and I fit the costume. Reasonably." She braced her hands on her hips and inhaled deeply, expanding her chest upward to ease the binding around her ribcage. Stupid dress had been suffocating her all evening. She looked up and caught him staring, brows raised, at her generously bared chest-level.

When his eyes glazed over, she bit back a chuckle and flashed him another dazzling smile. "Like the dress? It's borrowed."

"Huh?" The gaze, reluctantly, rose to meet hers. "Oh. It didn't look like your usual . . ." He scowled, the glazed look fading as he refocused. "Forget the dress. You and I need to get a few things straight. Sure, I cooperated tonight, but that was strictly a one-time deal. So you can save your strategies and fiction for your guests. They're wasted on me."

"My strategies and my fiction? You're losing me, Jack." Val gave him a baffled look.

"I'm saying, damn it, that I will not be your trained monkey." He scowled. "No matter how hard you try to sell it."

"Well all you have to do is say so. Sure, I've tried to talk you into participating in our productions, but I certainly didn't think I was giving you a hard sell."

"Oh, no? Why the note, then?" Jack sounded baffled, even harassed. "If that's not a hard sell, I don't know what is. Whether it was for the consulting job you've been trying to ram down my throat or for more personal reasons--" He shook his head, obviously disgusted. "Damn it, Val, I thought you had more class than that."

"And from here we degenerate into argument." Lillian spoke over him. "So I'll just leave you two alone to get it out of your systems while I tend to our guests."

"Hmm? Oh, thanks, Lillian." Val gave her a distracted nod. Lillian slipped into the war room and shut the door.

Val turned back to Jack. "So I've been tacky, hmm? Suppose you try explaining this one more time, but without the monkeys and the damn-its. Just what are you accusing me of?"

"This." He held up a parchment-colored envelope. "I found it under my door this afternoon."

She glanced at it with only mild curiosity before its significance registered. "Oh. A note note. Someone sent you one, too? Like the kind I've been getting? The goofy stalker threats?"

"Don't give me this 'someone' crap. You slid it under my door in some juvenile ploy to get me out here." He looked honestly baffled. "Geez, Val. Aren't there easier ways to get a guy's attention?"

"Excuse me?" She raised her nose in mock hauteur. "Do I look like I need to use stupid ploys to attract a man?"

"No. That's what's throwing me off."

"Oh. Well, thank you. I think." No, huh? Interesting. Tabling the note discussion in favor of one dearer to her heart and libido, she eyed him appraisingly. "So tell me, then. What exactly would it take to get you to go out with me?"

"You could try asking."

"Really?" She smiled and lowered her lashes for seductive punch. It was a good look for her, she knew. One of the few expressions she'd truly perfected for the small screen. Tearful angst hadn't worked for her -- but sexy smiles she could do. "Okay. Jack Harrison, will you go out with me?"

"No."

"No?" She blinked at his vehemence. He hadn't even hesitated. But he was the one who suggested-- "Well, why not?"

"Lots of reasons, but I'm thinking it's mostly your psycho potential." His eyebrows lowered. "What kind of woman sends threatening notes just to get a guy's attention?"

"I didn’t send you the note."

"Well somebody did."

She rolled her eyes. "So naturally it had to be me, right? Good grief. Let me see this note. What, is somebody threatening to do you in? Smash your magnifying glass? Burn all your pleated khakis?" Jeans. For purely salacious reasons, she'd love to see the man in jeans for a change.

Looking truly harassed now, Jack handed her the opened envelope. A familiar little crease marred the top of it, just above the seal.

Plucking it out of his fingers, Valerie opened it to find something different than the sender's usual collage-inspired message comprised of cutout magazine and newsprint words. This time the envelope contained a printed invitation to a funeral.

In memory of the late Valerie Longstreet.

Mildly taken aback, Val stared at it for a moment. "So I'm still the one getting knocked off."

"Sure you are." He threw her a derisive look.

"Oh, come on. I swear I didn't have anything to do with this note. I didn't plan it, I didn't write it, I didn't have it printed up and I didn't send it to you. It's not my style." Valerie gave the note a contemptuous little flick with her nail. "I mean, talk about lame." She continued in a mockingly macabre tone. "'You're invited to a funeral for the late Valerie Longstreet, at a place and time to be determined.' What, like when my dead body shows up? What kind of stupidity is that? Not to mention lazy. Any decent stalker would at least glance at the calendar and take a whack at a real date."

Jack was shaking his head, his expression still watchful. "No, a date would amount to a commitment. This leaves things conveniently open-ended. So now, as a man of ethics, I understand I'm supposed to ride off to your 'rescue'?"

Mostly fed up now, Val folded her arms and met his eyes squarely. "Obviously you doubt my ethics, so let’s try for logic and efficiency, shall we? Think about it. If I were so utterly desperate for your body -- not to mention underhanded and completely devoid of flair -- I'd just show up at your door naked." She gestured with casual confidence. "Nine out of ten guys would simply take me up on my offer."

"True enough. Except it's not just my body you're after."

"No, darling. It’s your mind, your wit, your sense of humor. You slay me with your charm and easy smiles." Valerie lowered her lashes in a flirtatious display that was entirely disingenuous.

She watched his eyes narrow, the tiny quirk of his lips. Exactly what she was going for. It meant she was finally getting through to him. She had more class than to use fake threats to snare a guy's attention. Aside from their current disagreement, however, she generally moved heaven and earth to invite those little lip curls and quirks of his. Not only did they kick up a sexy dent in his right cheek, but seeing one of them was like scoring a hard-won point against the man's romantic defenses.

And the man had some damn imposing defenses. Calling Jack "reserved" didn't do the situation justice.

Over the past weeks, she'd come to realize, though, that Jack wasn't as solemn and negative as he pretended. No, he had a sense of humor, if a dark one, and she had yet to see him truly smile at her, but those infrequent little lip twitches of his were dead giveaways from an otherwise mysterious man.

So it was a subtle, sexy game they played -- at least in her mind. He tried his damnedest not to give anything away, and she gave her all trying to break through despite his reserve. He wasn't as immune to her as he'd like her to think.

"Seriously, Val. You and I both know you have other motives for directing a note like that to me. Besides your unexplainable infatuation--"

"Gee, is this my cue to swoon or to blush?" She widened her eyes like the dizziest of ditzes, and watched his eyes glint in reluctant amusement. Byplay. They had terrific byplay. That was the attraction for her, and -- she'd swear -- for him, too.

"--you've also been nagging me to cooperate with you professionally."

"Well, that's true enough." She lifted a shoulder and met his gaze unflinchingly. "It could be lucrative for both of us. Think about it, Jack. A licensed detective and a mystery dinner theater . . . it just begs for conjunctive business efforts. You could be my consultant, doing just what you did tonight with my guests. Helping them with their cases. I'd include you in my advertising, which would gain you free publicity and even a modest, supplementary income from me--"

"And it would do worlds of good for your bottom line."

"Naturally." She smiled. "It's all win-win for both of us."

"So you did send the note."

"No. Sheesh. Who's nagging whom around here? I didn't send the stupid note. I don't operate that way. Honestly, Jack, when have I ever been anything but shamelessly upfront with you?"

He pondered for a moment, then shoved his hands in his pockets with a disgusted sigh. "I'll give you that much. You're nothing if not shameless and upfront. Maybe you didn't do it."

"Gosh, you're perceptive." She marveled facetiously. "Must be that P.I. training."

He ignored her comment. "Who did send it, then?"

From the book: Seeking Miss Scarlet
By Natalie Stenzel
Imprint and Series: Harlequin Flipside
Publication Date: 4/05
ISBN: 0-373-44212-2
Copyright: © 2005 By: Natale Nogosek Stenzel
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher.
The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books, S.A.
For more romance information surf to: http://www.eHarlequin.com

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