Jack Frost outside, Jacob Knight hot and hungry for her inside – it was everything she needed right now.
There was danger in both places, but this was the danger she chose.
Desire spiked through her, and she marvelled that her heart didn’t stop dead in her chest. But when he lifted his lips, she simply pulled him back down. “Don’t stop.”
Threads of thought were all she had left and, even with only half of her brain functioning, she managed to see his eyes go dark. And darker.
This wasn’t a new thing between them, just an old spark that never quite had a chance to ignite. Merry Christmas…
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Romana Grey – Former Cincinnati police officer marked for death by Warren Critch.
Jacob Knight – Cincinnati police detective. Red Christmas cards from Critch mark him for death, as well.
Anna Fitzgerald – Romana’s cousin. She has a police record and a nose for trouble.
Belinda Critch – Critch’s wife. She was murdered seven Christmases ago.
Warren Critch – He believes Jacob Knight killed his wife.
Dylan Hoag – Belinda Critch’s embittered brother. He and Romana attended the police academy together.
Michael “Mick” O’Keefe – Jacob’s former partner knew Belinda in the past and is in love with Romana now.
Patrick North – Friend and confidant, he worked closely with Belinda.
James Barret – A corporate executive. He’s enjoyed the company of many women, but was Belinda one of them?
Shera Barret – A jealous woman, she’ll do anything to keep her husband from cheating on her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenna Ryan loves creating dark-haired heroes, strong heroines and good murder mysteries. Ever since she was young, she has had an extremely active imagination. She considered various careers over the years and dabbled in several of them, until the day her sister Kathy suggested she put her imagination to work and write a book. She enjoys working with intriguing characters and feels she is at her best writing romantic suspense. When people ask her how she writes, she tells them by instinct. Clearly it’s worked, since she’s received numerous awards from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. She lives in Canada and travels as much as she can when she’s not writing.
Mistletoe and Murder
JENNA RYAN
To Rick and Mary for making this
and other stories happen.
Prologue
Lovely Romana…
I will think of you at Christmas
Until the day I’m free.
Will you stand beneath the mistletoe
And think as well of me?
Warren Critch wanted to write more, but he knew the card would be inspected before it left the facility.
Federal prison, that’s where the judge had sent him. Twelve years inside for attempting to shoot a police officer. There’d been no mention as to why a high school chemistry teacher had been holding a gun on the officer in question and only a fleeting reference to the woman said officer had murdered.
Warren pictured his wife’s face in death. Sweet Belinda. How beautiful she’d looked, even with a bullet hole the size of a pigeon’s egg in her chest.
Oh, yes, they’d let him see her. Someone said there’d been mistletoe leaves scattered around her. The police had murmured the usual platitudes. They’d shuffled their cop feet and cleared their collective throats. But not one of them had made eye contact with him. Not in the morgue, not in his jail cell and certainly not in the courtroom.
Jacob Knight was one of their own; Warren Critch was not. As for Warren’s wife, well, just because Jacob had been involved with Belinda once, had lunch with her two days before she’d died and argued with her in public, that didn’t mean he’d killed her. Cops didn’t shoot innocent people. Warren was wrong to believe that. Someone else had put that hole in her chest.
His lips thinned. Did they take him for a complete fool? Jacob Knight had threatened Belinda twice. Then he’d done the deed.
Warren could have stopped him, would have if Officer Romana Grey hadn’t slipped into the alley and pressed her own gun to the base of his neck. She’d warned him to back off, and he had. Dammit, he had. Because of that, Belinda was dead.
Warren’s fingers shook as he shoved the festive card into a bright red envelope. Red for Christmas; red for blood—Belinda’s blood, the blood Jacob Knight had spilled one year ago this Christmas season. Knight had stolen Belinda’s life, then had his own returned to him courtesy of Romana Grey. They would go on being cops while he moldered in prison and Belinda rotted in a coffin.
No justice there, Warren reflected. But there would be, in time. He would see to that.
He would be good, so very, very good. The years would pass, and he would trade these bars for freedom. Christmas would come again and again. And at length two more people would die.
Romana Grey first, then Jacob Knight. By the time their bodies were discovered, he’d be in South America, sequestered in the Amazon jungle, where he’d spent a large portion of his youth. An eye for an eye, the missionaries on the big river would say. A fitting Christmas present, was Warren Critch’s more cynical judgment.
A grim smile flitted across his lips as he opened a second card. Time to offer Jacob the same Christmas wishes he’d bestowed upon Romana.
“Enjoy the holidays while you can,” he whispered to them from a distance. “You have only a handful left.”
Chapter One
“It’s the perfect scent for you.” The woman behind the department store perfume counter gave one of her test bottles a spritz. “Mysterious and exotic, with a hint of Eastern spice.”
Romana Grey sniffed her wrist. “It’s lovely, but I’m not shopping for me.”
A finger in her spine preceded a cheerful, “Note to self, Ro, as females, we’re always shopping for ‘me,’ even in December.” Romana’s cousin, Anna Fitzgerald, picked up another bottle and sprayed the already pungent air. “This smells expensive.”
“Ten dollars a pump,” the saleswoman confirmed, then excused herself to intercept a group of excited teenage girls.
Fitz set her forearms on the glass case. “So, who are you shopping for today? Mom, Grandma Grey or one of your six sisters-in-law?”
“Five. Noah’s divorced.” Romana gave her wrist a shake. “This really is nice.” Then she glanced at her watch. “Why are you here at three in the afternoon?”
“Some wires fried in the main lab. The forensics team’s been evacuated until morning.” Out of the corner of her eye, Romana saw Fitz finger a tiny bottle. “I was bagging a hair sample when I smelled the smoke. Well, actually, Doc Patrick smelled it. You know him—tall, sexy dude who never remembers to get a haircut and whose socks don’t match.”
Romana swatted her cousin’s wandering fingers. “Stop doing that.”
“I’m