Santa Baby by Jennifer Crusie, Lori Foster, and Carly Phillips
In Christmas Bonus by Lori Foster, Maggie Carmichael finds herself in charge of her father’s company after his death. Eric Bragg is in love with Maggie even though she’s ten years his junior and the president of the company, but he ignores her because he doesn’t want her to think he’s only after her for the money. Now it’s up to Maggie to make the first move and a sprig of Mistletoe might be just the answer she’s looking for.
In Naughty Under the Mistletoe by Carly Phillips, Antonia Larson decides to go after the hunky partner in the law firm where she works and arranges to meet him under the mistletoe. Maxwell Corbin shows up at the Christmas party because his father and brother insisted, but when a mysterious stranger gives him the kiss of the lifetime, he can’t help but wonder if the kiss was intended for his brother. Now that Toni knows that Maxwell isn’t the guy she wanted to seduce, will she let herself be whisked away on the basis of a single kiss?
I can’t believe that Jennifer managed to pack such a powerful story into such a short space, while Lori’s and Carly’s stories manage to pump the heat up as high as you can get. If you’re looking for a set of three intense short stories, bump this book to the top of your stack. You won’t be disappointed.
Details: St. Martins, November 2006
can’t believe that Jennifer managed to pack such a powerful story into such a short space, while Lori’s and Carly’s stories manage to pump the heat up as high as you can get. If you’re looking for a set of three intense short stories, bump this book to the top of your stack. You won’t be disappointed.
Gillian McCormick just witnessed a murder and the murderer has ties to the mafia. Her friend Cora hatches a plan to give her a complete makeover and send her on a cruise for nerds in order to escape the mob. Cora also hired a private investigator, Lex Manchester to go along to help protect her. Once on the cruise, Gillian – aka Norma Jean – first finds herself the victim of a burglary and then almost ends up dead after an apparent accident. But worse of all, she finds herself falling in love with Lex. Now can Gillian leave Lex and go into hiding to stay alive or will Lex follow her to the bitter end? 
Stephanie Plum is fed up with chasing fugitives, so she quits her job as a bounty hunter and applies for a more sensible job as the button factory. Unfortunately, trouble has a way of following Stephanie as she finds someone has beaten her car with a baseball bat, shot holes though her car, set the backseat on fire and finally blows up her car yet again. Not only that, but she manages to get fired from one job after another - often with spectacular results. And the competition between Joe Morelli and Ranger ratchets up a notch as they both fight to make sure she stays alive. Now Stephanie is definitely in trouble, and the only way for her to stay alive is to use her bounty hunting skills to track down the person who wants her dead before they succeed in killing her. 
Maggie Farnsworth has a secret - a big secret. Fourteen years ago, her boyfrend, Carl Lee Stanton, was sentenced to jail for the murder of an FBI agent during an armored car robbery. Unknown to both Maggie and Carl Lee at that time, Maggie was pregnant with Carl Lee’s child. Forced to raise her daughter by herself, Maggie studied to become a pediatrician and is struggling to start her medical practice in her home town of Beaumont, South Carolina. When Carl Lee escapes from prison, the FBI assigns Zack Madden to protect Maggie, despite the fact that Zack’s father was the FBI agent gunned down by Stanton. While Maggie feels a strong attraction to Zack, which is the first time she has thought about a man since Carl Lee, she must find a way to stay alive long enough to act on her feelings. 
A year after the saucer incident, Rip Cantrell and Charlotte “Charley” Pine are trying to get their lives back on track. Rip is confused and doesn’t know what to do, while Charley decided to take a job flying a space shuttle to the moon as part of a French project to establish a viable lunar base. Unfortunately, the lunar base is merely a ruse for a madman’s plan to rule Earth. Now Charley and Rip are the only ones in a position to stop the madman and save the earth. 
While working in a Middle Eastern desert, Rip Cantrell sees a flash of light reflected from a piece of metal. When Rip investigates the reflection, it turns out to be a flying saucer buried underground. A US satellite spots the saucer and the government dispatches a team of Air Force personnel, including former Air Force test pilot Charlotte “Charley” Pine. When attacked by several military groups representing both government and private interests, Rip and Charley manage to escape and fly the 140,000-year-old saucer away from the desert in the nick of time. They return to the US only to come face-to-face with a billionaire who plans to auction the saucer to the highest bidder. Now Rip and Charley must dodge bullets and mayhem while they search for a way that insures that all mankind will benefit from this incredible discovery. 
How does a Magna Cum Laude electrical engineer talk to a brilliant self-taught inventor? Nerdy, of course. Especially if the engineer is hot-bodied Charlie Shepherd and the inventor is the sexy fashion model Eve Dupree. Eve has just moved to the small town where Charlie lives, to work on her inventions, while Charlie is looking for a job outside the small town that challenges his engineering skills.