Janet Evanovich - Foul Play

To Kenneth Wright
veterinarian extraordinaire
and the best friend a beagle ever had.

Dear Reader:

In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote twelve short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. Nine of these stories were originally published by the Loveswept line btween the years 1988 and 1992. Sandwiched between these books were three originally published under the Second Chance at Love banner. All twelve went out-of-print immediately and could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales.

I'm excited to tell you that those stories are now being re-released by HarperCollins. Foul Play is the ninth in the lineup, and it's presented here in close to the original form. I've done some editing to corrrect some embarrassing bloopers missed the first time around.

When I was writing romance and my kids were little, we had a beloved beagle named Kathy, aka Beans. She was the world's sweetest dog but she ate everything ... lint off the carpet, underwear, loose change, houseplants, whole hams stolen off the table. You get the picture. And it wasn't as if we were negligent pet owners. This dog was a genius at finding trouble. Fortunately, we had a fabulous vet who extracted socks from her intestines, agonized over strange, mysterious objects in her stomach via X-ray, and patched her liver together after she got into chemical run-off from my neighbor's lawn service. This book was inspired by and dedicated to him.

The story itself is pure fiction and tells a tale of love at first sight and a woman's struggle to overcome losing her job to a chicken.

Enjoy!

Janet Evanovich

Jacob Elliott flipped his left-turn signal on and patiently waited for Mrs. Moyer to pull out of her parking space. He knew it was Mrs. Moyer because her dog, Harold, was frantically clawing at the back window of her station wagon. Jacob Elliott was not especially good at remembering people, but he never forgot a dog. He was debating the merits of this peculiarity when a gleaming, cherry-red sports car zipped around the corner and beat him out of Mrs. Moyers spot.

The red car door instantly flew open. Two shapely legs extended themselves from the drivers side, and a delicate blonde emerged. She threw her hands into the air in a gesture of furious exasperation and gave the door a thunderous slam, catching the hem of her swirly pink skirt in the jaws of the powerful machine. She glared at the skirt contemptuously, gave a yank, and tore herself looseleaving half a yard of pink material held hostage by the car. Without even so much as a backward glance she flounced off to the supermarket, fists clenched, eyes narrowed, nose defiantly tipped upward.

Jacob Elliott sat wide-eyed and slack jawed in disbelief as the glossy blond curls disappeared behind the automatic glass doors. He felt a smile creep into the corners of his mouth and a disturbing rush of heat burn across his belly. He was in love.

Life, Amy Klasse fumed, was not fair. You do all the right things, and bam! You get kicked in the teeth. It made her furious, especially since innocent children were going to be among the hapless victims.

Wrenching a wire cart out of the cart stack, she viciously pushed it toward the vegetables. She glared at her shredded skirt. Of all the lousy luck; now, on top of everything else, shed ruined her favorite outfit. Darn that car. And it wasnt as if she could afford to buy another pink skirt: She was unemployed. Shed been unemployed for twenty minutes. She looked at her watch. No, make that thirty-five minutes. All because of a chicken. A chicken, for crying out loud! She muttered a well-chosen expletive and indiscriminately grabbed a grapefruit from a huge display. A chicken! she exclaimed, thunking her fist against her forehead.

Jake watched in absolute astonishment as his newfound love flung a grapefruit into her cart and took off in a blind rage. The remaining grapefruits hesitated for a moment in precarious limbo, and then hurled themselves onto the floor like so many lemmings making the final, fatal, migration. Jake stopped a grapefruit with the side of his foot and flipped it into the air, like a soccer ball. He scooped up several more and carefully lined them up in their bin.

From the corner of his eye he caught the infuriated blonde heading for the fresh eggs. Oh, no, he said, groaning, not the eggs.

In silent horror, he watched as she chose a carton and in some magical way managed to grasp only the top lid, spilling the entire dozen eggs into the immaculate glass case. The eggs instantly exploded on their companions, oozing across gleaming shelves, sliming into pristine crevices.

The blonde stared at the eggs as if they were aliens. She shook her head and muttered something indiscernible while Jake doubled over his own cart in an attempt to abort the laughter that was rising in his throat.

In his entire life hed never come across a female who was that outraged, that clumsy, and that sexy. She wasnt sexy by centerfold standards, but there was definitely something about her that increased his heart rate. He liked the way her short blond curls bounced when she walked. He liked her peaches-and-cream coloring and her wide cornflower blue eyes, and the way she carried her slight frame. And most of all, Jake was intrigued by the intensity of her fury, the way she could muster her pride and walk away from disaster. She was not a woman whose life would be ruined by a broken fingernail.

A stockboy appeared with a mop and sponge. Dont worry about it, he told Amy. Happens all the time.

Amy nodded numbly. Lord, what a mess. Those eggs were like her lifescrambled. She decided she didnt want eggs anyway. Eggs reminded her of chickens; and you know what chickens dothey steal peoples jobs!

She proceeded down the aisles at a much more cautious pace, selecting fixings for a spaghetti dinner. She intended to go home, brew up some of her fantastic spaghetti sauce, and eat until she burst. Then she would sit in front of the TV and make the most of feeling sorry for herself. She hefted a bag of cat litter into her cart and continued on.

Jake saw the tear in the bottom of the litter bag. He could have told her. He could have introduced himself and explained that she was leaving a trail of cat litter that wound its way through the bulk-food section and staunchly marched through sanitary products, but he didnt. It was much more fun to observe her at a distance and follow the granules.

Besides, he knew when he would make his move. Calamity Jane didnt have a purse, and there were no pockets that he could see in her bedraggled skirt. His guess was that shed gone off in such a huff that shed left her money behind. He pursued her at a leisurely pace, selecting a bottle of burgundy to accompany her spaghetti dinner and adding a frozen pie for dessert.

He lined up behind his quarry at the checkout, feeling an unsettling surge of affection for her while his anxiety ran amok. What if his plan didnt work? What if she was married? She didnt have a ring on her finger, but that was no guarantee. Maybe she lost her ring this morning when she was bathing the baby.

He peered over her shoulder and warily watched the fresh mushrooms and sweet peppers glide along the belt. Shed probably burned down three kitchens and poisoned countless men. Could that be why she wasnt wearing a ring? Most likely shed killed her husbandaccidentally run him over with her flashy red car. Maybe he should reconsider Nah.