Bedeviled Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  About the Author

  “One of the stars in the ascendant . . .

  poised for the next big step.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for the Novels

  of Maureen Child

  A Fiend in Need

  “Amusing chick lit romantic fantasy . . . an entertaining tale.”

  —The Best Reviews

  More than Fiends

  “Maureen Child . . . has a sharp, witty voice that will leave readers begging for more.”

  —Katie MacAlister,

  New York Times bestselling author

  of Playing with Fire

  “Fun, sexy, and incredibly entertaining . . . guaranteed to delight. Readers will love this fast-paced winner. . . . It’s simply exceptional.”

  —Allie Mackay, author of

  Highlander in Her Dreams

  “A sizzling story . . . fun and fresh reading.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A witty romp.”

  —Fallen Angel Reviews

  “Fresh, witty, sexy, and sure to please fans.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “The dialogue is smart and sassy.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  Praise for Maureen Child’s

  Other Novels

  “Sassy repartee . . . humor and warmth . . . a frothy delight.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Maureen Child infuses her writing with the perfect blend of laughter, tears, and romance . . . well-crafted characters. . . . Her novels [are] a treat to be savored.”

  —Jill Marie Landis, New York Times

  bestselling author of Homecoming

  “Absolutely wonderful . . . a delightful blend of humor and emotion . . . . This sexy love story will definitely keep readers turning the pages.”

  —Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

  of Firefly Lane

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, January 2009

  Copyright © Maureen Child, 2009

  All rights reserved

  SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-01394-6

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my mom, Sallye Carberry

  Thanks for all the trips to the libraries and bookstores.

  You gave me a love of reading and you taught me to dream.

  I love you.

  Prologue

  “ ‘Fifty ways to leave your lover’ my ass,” Maggie Donovan muttered, and turned off the stereo. “Not one decent example of how to dump a guy you know needs dumping.”

  Well, since she was getting no help from the universe, she’d have to go with her standard Sorry, this just isn’t working out when she had a little we-have-to-talk conversation with her soon-to-be-ex, Joe. Unoriginal but to the point. “And so ends another sad chapter in the Maggie Donovan love chronicles. Pitiful, Mags. Simply pitiful.”

  Decision made, she stood up and walked across the living room, stepping over her always-sleeping dog on her way to the front door. She’d just take a little walk to the Quick Mart a couple of blocks away for a pint of Häagen-Dazs Caramel Cone ice cream. Always a good plan.

  Outside, a cold wind blew in off the ocean, rattling the leaves in the trees until it sounded like hundreds of whispers from an invisible crowd. Lights blazed from neighborhood windows, a game-show host shouted from her next-door neighbor’s TV and the soft whine of traffic from the nearby highway hummed in the background.

  Maggie took the porch steps in two long strides, hit the lawn, then stopped dead.

  A man stood in the shadows at the edge of her yard.

  “Whoa.” Where the hell had he come from? And why did he seem . . . familiar somehow? It wasn’t likely she’d have forgotten meeting someone like this before.

  He was tall, with shoulder-length black hair that whipped around his head in the wind. His green eyes were so pale, so clear, they shone like a cat’s eyes in the darkness. He was big and looked tough and just a little scary. And, she told herself helplessly, so sexy he should be illegal.

  Oh, good one. Be attracted to a lurking stranger.

  “Who are you?” Maggie asked, taking one slow, tiny step backward toward the safety of her house.

  “Who I am doesn’t matter,” he said. His voice was so deep, it seemed to rumble through the air like a freight train. “Who you are is all that matters.”

  “Okay, well, I already know who I am.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, his clear, powerful gaze locked on her. “Not yet. But you will. Soon.”

  “Okeydokey.”

  He frowned, and Maggie swallowed hard, figured she could liv
e without Häagen-Dazs for one night and took another step closer to home. “Look, it’s been fun, but I’m going inside and—”

  She didn’t see him move, but suddenly he was standing right in front of her. How? What? Maggie took a shaky breath and told herself that this was not happening. People don’t move like that. Can’t move like that.

  Then his gaze caught hers and she thought she saw the pale green color of his eyes swirl silver. But of course she didn’t. That would have been nuts.

  Heat from his body seemed to reach out for her, and Maggie came really close to leaning in toward him. What was up with that? A gorgeous stranger stares at her with his amazing eyes and she turns all hot and trembly?

  He smiled as if he knew what she was thinking—and approved.

  “You are . . . more than I imagined,” he said, his voice whispering up and down her spine like the soft touch of fingertips.

  “Uh . . . uh . . .” God, she couldn’t even think let alone talk. Then it hit her. More than he imagined? “You know me?”

  “Not as well as I will.”

  “Oh boy.” She really should be screaming right about now. Or running. Or throwing herself into his arms. No, scratch that.

  “Your time’s coming,” he told her, his voice so low that it was almost lost in the sigh of the wind.

  “Time? Time for what? No. You know what? Never mind.” She shook her head, held up one hand and warned, “Back off, buddy, or I’ll scream so loud it’ll shatter glass.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  He smiled then, and she thought that he probably meant it to be reassuring. But it wasn’t. His expression was too wicked and too . . . confident for that.

  “Just as you won’t remember this meeting.”

  Right. Like she could forget a guy who looked like him. Maggie opened her mouth to deafen him with a scream the likes of which he’d never heard before. But before she could pull in the breath to manage it, he disappeared.

  One minute, he was there.

  The next, poof.

  Frowning, she glanced idly around the yard, her mind wandering back to thoughts of ice cream. Right. That’s why she’d come outside. To satisfy her need for something cold and drenched in chocolate.

  Mrs. Hardy, her neighbor, who had to be at least 150 years old, opened her door and shouted, “Maggie? Who was that young man?”

  “Huh? What man?” She looked at the older woman, whose gray hair was snug to her scalp, held down in tight pin curls by a thousand bobby pins.

  “That man you were talking to.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. Mrs. Hardy was always seeing burglars and aliens and imaginary FBI agents skulking in the neighborhood. Now, apparently, she was spotting them having chats with Maggie.

  “Uh, he’s nobody,” Maggie assured her. Just a figment of your imagination, you nosy old lady.

  Honestly. Some people were just nuts.

  Chapter One

  With a little 20/20 hindsight, Maggie Donovan never would have gone to see her ex-almost-fiancé that morning. Unfortunately, just like anybody else in the world, Maggie didn’t know something hideous was going to happen until she was in the middle of the freaking nightmare.

  Dressed for work in her faded blue jeans, paint-spattered tennis shoes and a T-shirt that read DO IT IN PAINT, Maggie had had a simple enough plan: Take a box of Joe Ericson’s left-behind junk—including ABBA CDs, for God’s sake—to his office, drop it off and put him out of her life for good.

  He wasn’t a bad guy, really. But she’d finally had enough. She just hadn’t been able to deal with the idea of spending one more night watching his DVD collection of the original Star Trek TV show and discussing over and over again how Kirk was a much better captain of the Enterprise than Picard.

  So anyway, her plan was simple—until she walked into Joe’s office and found him being eaten. Not in a sexual way, either.

  “Holy shit!” Maggie staggered back, eyes wide and locked on the icky scene in front of her.

  The naked female sitting astride Joe wasn’t human— the long tail whipping around in the air was a dead giveaway, not to mention that she was currently devouring Joe. Wearing only a huge round gold-and-crystal pendant that glittered and sparkled with a weird inner light, the naked creature was so busy gulping her food, she didn’t even hear Maggie’s shriek.

  Eyes bugging out of her head, Maggie dropped Joe’s box o’ crap and, with some delusional idea of somehow saving her ex-honey, grabbed hold of the tote bag slung across her shoulder with both hands. Her purse was always heavy. But today it carried an extra punch, what with the five new jars of tempera paint she’d just picked up at the art-supply store.

  What the hell was happening? Was that really a tail? She’d heard of man-eating women, but she hadn’t really thought they actually ate the man!

  The creature still hadn’t even glanced at her, and Maggie knew she should be turning around and running for her life. After all, once the beast finished off Joe, what was to stop her from having Maggie for dessert? But how could she leave Joe to be gulped down like a Hostess Ding Dong? Sure, she’d broken up with him, but only because he was boring. That didn’t mean she thought he qualified as Creature Chow.

  She supposed she should have been more scared than she was, but freaked-out and furious won the day. Racing toward the desk and what little was left of Joe, Maggie swung her purse in a wide arc, smacking it into the creature’s head hard enough to interrupt her “meal.”

  Instantly the naked diner turned on her with a snarl that displayed rows and rows of what looked like very sharp teeth. Her dark red eyes burned, and the pendant hanging between her high, perky breasts seemed to glow even brighter.

  The creature swung one arm out at Maggie, knocking her ass-over-teakettle, toppling the single chair drawn up in front of Joe’s desk to fall on the floor. She landed on her butt, though, which, sadly, had plenty of padding. Still clutching the purse that contained her life, Maggie jolted to her feet in time to see the naked whatever push away from Joe and head toward her.

  It took only a very quick look to let Maggie know that there was no saving Joe. By this time he was barely more than a stain on his faux-leather desk chair. The nondescript office seemed to shrink around her as the creature smiled—which was somehow even more terrifying—and leaped at her.

  “Yow!” Maggie scrambled out of the way, still swinging her purse, but this time the naked snacker avoided getting smacked, and the momentum of the swinging bag pulled Maggie off balance until she stumbled right into the whatever-she-was.

  “Isn’t this nice?” the thing crooned with its mouth full. “Someone ordered food delivered.”

  Up close and personal, the female looked even scarier. Those red eyes were like uncovered manholes into hell, and when she grabbed hold of Maggie and threw her to the desk, Maggie knew she was in trouble. Not only did the thing have some serious chomping power, but she was strong, too.

  “Back off,” Maggie shouted, knowing it was no use. No way was this thing going to quit.

  “You have to die; you’ve seen too much.” She smiled, displaying those shiny, sharp teeth to excellent advantage.

  “Don’t remember a thing,” Maggie assured her, struggling for all she was worth. “Honest. Can’t see without my glasses, anyway.” She blinked furiously, pretending to need glasses, trying to convince the hideous female that she was one step up from Mr. Magoo.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, laughing as blood ran down her chin to her neck.

  Oh, God. Maggie swallowed hard and struggled to find something on the creature to grab. But she’d never been much of a hair puller, and since the damn thing was naked, there weren’t a lot of other choices she was willing to make. Boobs or tail? No, thank you. “You don’t have to kill me,” she argued frantically. “Honestly, I won’t say a thing. Who would believe me if I did?”

  “Idiot human.”

  “No reason to be insulting,” Maggie said, her mind racing in tandem with the rapid be
at of her heart. How was she going to get out of this? That shining pendant the creature wore swung down close to her, and Maggie curled her fingers around it and yanked. It took a couple of tries, while the female on top of her was screaming and howling and trying to pry herself loose, but Maggie hung on and finally wrenched the gold chain the pendant hung from strongly enough to snap one of the links.

  “Nooo!” The howl coming from that “woman” lifted every hair on Maggie’s body straight up and brought goose bumps to every square inch of her skin.