Mistletoe Mischief (Love and Laughter)

  She was dressed like one of Santa’s helpers.

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  A funny thing happened...

  Also by

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Copyright

  She was dressed like one of Santa’s helpers.

  Amanda stood just inside the doorway of Josh Larkland’s messy, high-tech office. He examined her as if he’d never seen a woman before.

  Since he was being so rude about it, Amanda didn’t feel guilty scrutinizing him. Josh Larkland was one of the most gorgeous men she’d ever seen.

  His gaze met hers. “I’m staring, aren’t I? It’s a natural reaction, you know. After all, I’ve never seen an elf before.” He looked a little puzzled by that, as if he couldn’t understand why dozens of Santa’s helpers weren’t lurking about.

  “I’m not really an elf, you know. I—”

  “Oh, I know. They don’t exist.” His eyes gleamed with admiration. “But if they did, they would look exactly like you.”

  Amanda’s stomach fluttered. Don’t get involved with the clients. “Look, Mr. Larkland...”

  “No one around here calls me Mr. Larkland, not even my secretary. It’s probably a sign of disrespect.” He smiled that charming smile.

  Don’t get involved, she reminded herself.

  Josh took a step toward her. “Shall we begin with who’s been naughty or nice...?” His smile was both naughty and nice.

  Don’t get involved, she recited.

  Too late!

  Dear Reader,

  Ho, ho, ho! ‘Tis the season for jolly St. Nick, chestnuts roasting over an open fire and mistletoe carefully hung in strategic doorways (kissing, after all, is a very serious matter). It’s also a great season for LOVE & LAUGHTER. We’re celebrating with two wonderfully funny, always entertaining and very romantic holiday books.

  Temptation favorite Alyssa Dean spins a tale of mischief, family and the true meaning of Christmas in Mistletoe Mischief. As Josh professes frequently, he doesn’t mind the yuletide season, he just doesn’t have time for it! I think you’ll be just as delighted with Josh Larkland’s Christmas turnaround as he is!

  Debbi Rawlins writes about a different type of Santa, a Santa undercover. Santa is really Jill Tanner, a woman on the run for her life who ends up hiding out in the last place she would expect—a suburban home that’s missing a very crucial element, a mother. Try getting out of that conundrum and baking Christmas cookies at the same time! Debbi continues to delight her fans with stories for Harlequin American Romance.

  Wishing you all the joys of the holiday season (and lots of good presents!).

  Malle Vallik

  Associate Senior Editor

  MISTLETOE MISCHIEF

  Alyssa Dean

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  A funny thing happened...

  A lot of unexpected and funny things have happened to me while celebrating Christmas, but I fondly recall the year my boss went away for the holidays. (This was before my full-time writing career began.) While he was gone, we walled up the door to his office with nice wooden paneling. When we were finished, you couldn’t tell there had ever been an office there. (I’ve got great pictures of this.) He was so surprised when he came back to work and discovered that his office was missing. I don’t think it was the Christmas present he’d been expecting.

  But it is just the sort of present my hero, Josh Larkland, would be receiving from his employees if he hadn’t found his very own Christmas elf. I hope you enjoy Mistletoe Mischief and the holiday season!

  —Alyssa Dean

  Books by Alyssa Dean

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  524—MAD ABOUT YOU

  551—THE LAST HERO

  636—RESCUING CHRISTINE

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  For

  my mother, Phyllis

  and my Grandma King.

  Two people who taught me

  the real meaning of Christmas.

  1

  “CHRISTMAS ELVES!” Brandy snorted.

  She indignantly marched into the vestibule of Amanda’s apartment and stomped the snow off her boots onto the welcome mat. “Whose brilliant idea was it to advertise ourselves as Christmas elves?”

  Amanda took a sip of coffee while considering the question. “Mine, I suppose. I thought it might attract attention.” She picked up one of their flyers from the coffee table and read it out loud. “‘Problems coping with Christmas? Call the Christmas Elves at A&B Executive Services. We provide everything the busy executive needs to have a Merry Christmas.’”

  “I think it needs a disclaimer!” Brandy kicked off her boots, stormed into the living room, and flopped down onto the couch beside Amanda.

  “What’s wrong with it? It’s lively and different, and...and we both do sort of look like elves.” At least they were both on the short side, although Amanda thought Brandy’s curly brown hair, green eyes and cuddly-looking figure was more elf-like than her own shoulder-length blond hair and slender build. She studied Brandy’s face. “Although right now you look more like a wee cranky leprechaun. What’s wrong?”

  “Mr. Denton is what’s wrong.”

  “Mr. Denton?” Amanda watched Brandy tug off her jacket and toss it over a chair. “From Denton Accounting?”

  “That’s him.” Brandy curled her legs under her. “You would not believe what that busy executive thought he needed to have a Merry Christmas!”

  “Oh, no,” said Amanda. “He didn’t...”

  “He did.” Brandy shuddered. “Right there in his office. I asked him what I could do to make his Christmas merrier and he...lunged at me.”

  “Lunged at you?” Amanda looked over at her friend with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No.” Brandy rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I don’t know. Is there any more coffee?”

  “Sure.” Amanda stood and went into the kitchen to pour Brandy a mug and carried it into the living room. “Now tell me everything that happened.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” Brandy took a couple of sips and settled back into the cushiony back of the floral couch. “I arrived, Mr. Denton ushered me into his office, poured me a cup of coffee, and the next thing I knew, he had his hands all over me.”

  “That’s... dreadful!”

  “That’s what I thought!” Brandy made a face. “I mean, at nine o’clock in the morning! If it had been an afternoon appointment I might have been expecting it, but in the morning? Most men are hardly awake, and this chunky little bald guy is all ready to rock and roll?”

  Amanda almost giggled at Brandy’s outraged expression. “That’s peculiar, all right,” she agreed. “Go on. What did you do?”

  Brandy’s lips twitched into a smile. “Well, actually it was kind of funny, Amanda. Mr. Denton is as short and chubby as I am. He touched, I shoved... it was sort of like being a participant in a midget sumo wrestling contest.”

  Amanda smiled at the image,
then almost immediately sobered. “Who won?”

  “I did, of course. I have three older brothers who are a lot tougher than Mr. Denton.” Brandy raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Besides, as soon as I smacked him, he got the message and backed off.” She sighed. “I don’t want to be pessimistic here, but I’d say we aren’t going to get a whole lot of business from Denton Accounting—especially after Mr. Denton explains his bruise to Mrs. Denton...and all the little Dentonites.”

  Amanda had almost forgotten what this meant to their business in her concern for Brandy. “That’s fine with me,” she said firmly. “We don’t need that kind of business.”

  “I suppose not,” said Brandy. “Although some business would be nice.” She took another sip of coffee. “You know the real scary thing, Amanda? For a moment I was actually tempted to go along with Mr. Denton.”

  Amanda’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “I was.” Brandy actually blushed. “He lunged and this thought flashed through my mind that if that was what it was going to take to get our business off the ground, maybe I should do it.”

  Amanda was horrified. “Brandy!”

  “Then I realized that if Mr. Denton touched me I’d throw up, and that wouldn’t do one thing for our business, either. So I just smacked him and left.”

  “Good,” said Amanda. “We aren’t that desperate.”

  Brandy raised an eyebrow. “We’re pretty close. We’ve been in the executive services business for three months, and you can count our clients on my ring finger.”

  Amanda squirmed. That was pretty close to true. Business hadn’t been anywhere near what they’d projected. “We’ve had more than that,” she reminded them both. “We did that thing for the Claire Foundation.”

  “You didn’t charge them anything more than cost!”

  Amanda winced. “They’re a charitable organization. It didn’t seem right...”

  “We’re not a charitable organization.” Brandy took another gulp of coffee. “And then there was that Bernard Trucking thing. You raced all over town lining up corporate gifts for him to hand out—and we ended up paying for them.”

  Amanda winced again. “He was such a nice man. And he really couldn’t afford...”

  “We couldn’t afford it! And Mr. Bernard might have been a nice man but his son sure wasn’t. You ended up dating Eddy Bernard! He borrowed a couple of hundred dollars from you and hasn’t called you since.”

  Amanda squirmed and bent her head. She didn’t like thinking about Eddy. “I’m sure he’ll pay me back when he gets his feet on the ground,” she murmured, although she’d be surprised if that happened.

  “And what about that Higgins Stainless Steel thing?” Brandy continued. “They almost begged us to take their business and you refused.”

  “I don’t feel one bit guilty about that,” Amanda announced, narrowing her eyes. “Lenny Higgins was pond scum. Besides arranging the Higgins’s Christmas party, he wanted me to buy his mistress a Christmas present so his wife wouldn’t find out. That isn’t right, Brandy. For one thing, he shouldn’t have had a mistress. And for another, if he wanted to buy her a present he should have picked it out himself.”

  “I suppose you’ve got a point,” Brandy admitted. “But you can’t keep getting personally involved with the clients, or we’ll never make any money.” She sank even deeper into the cushions, then sighed. “Maybe we aren’t cut out for this business. You’re too soft-hearted and I just seem to attract weirdos.”

  “You don’t...”

  “Yes, I do. Look at the business I’ve brought in. First there was that fellow who wanted us to arrange the ‘Welcome Winter’ frolic in the park.” She snorted. “Remember how his little group wanted to welcome winter? If we hadn’t caught on in time, we’d have ended up in jail!”

  “True, but...”

  “Then there was that group of insurance adjusters whose idea of a Christmas party was having me pop out of a Christmas cake. Me, for heaven’s sake! Do you know how much icing it would take just to cover me up?”

  Amanda pictured her partner covered in white gooey icing and giggled.

  “Now I get Mr. Denton,” Brandy continued. “What is it about me, anyway? Aren’t men supposed to prefer tall, leggy blondes, not short, dumpy brunettes?”

  Amanda shook her head at that. Brandy might not be classically beautiful but there was a come-hither sparkle in her green eyes and her ample-bosomed figure had always attracted male attention. “You might be short, but you aren’t dumpy,” Amanda decided. “There’s something kind of...earthy about you, I think. Men just look at you and think naughty thoughts.”

  “That’s for sure,” Brandy groaned. “Every man I meet wants to drag me into a bedroom.”

  “And every man I meet thinks I’m a sucker,” Amanda complained. That did seem to be the way her relationships went. She lent men money, did their laundry, got all involved in their problems...and then they’d decide they didn’t need her.

  Brandy was instantly sympathetic. “You’re not a sucker, Amanda. You just...pick the wrong men and get too involved with people. And it’s a good thing for me you’re like that. I don’t know what I would have done without you after Charlie and I split up. Starting this business gave me something else to think about,” she said, sighing sadly. “I just wish it was going to work.”

  “Of course it’s going to work,” Amanda insisted with a lot more confidence than she felt. “It has to, Brandy. I don’t have many other alternatives.”

  “We could always go back to the temp agency.”

  Amanda shuddered at the thought. “No thanks. I’ve had enough of spending days at copy machines or filing papers—and so have you. We were both full-time secretaries before the world got into this downsizing kick. We’re great at arranging things.”

  “We could try to get permanent jobs.”

  “I don’t want to do that, either,” Amanda objected. “Even if we could find jobs, which is pretty doubtful these days, we’d just get terminated in the next downsizing. We’re always the first to go.”

  “It’s because we’re short,” Brandy complained. “When someone says down, people think of us. It always makes me feel like one of those ducks in the shooting gallery.”

  “I don’t want to do it again! I don’t want to work for anyone else. I want to work for myself.”

  “So do I, but I’d like an income while I do it.” Brandy pushed aside a few strands of hair that were tickling her face. “I never thought we’d have this problem. After all, there aren’t that many executive services companies in Calgary.”

  “It’s probably because we aren’t known,” Amanda suggested. “When people want someone to handle office parties, and seminars, or to arrange a tasteful little business luncheon, they don’t think of A&B Executive Services. If we could just get our foot in the door...”

  “We’ll find some weirdo or moocher on the other side?” Brandy guessed.

  Amanda frowned at her. “No, we won’t. There has to be some nice, normal, busy executive who is awful at dealing with Christmas. All we have to do is find him.”

  JOSH LARKLAND was dealing with Christmas in his own way—he was trying to ignore it.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t ignoring him.

  “Christmas!” he grunted.

  He dropped the phone receiver into the cradle and gave it the scowl it deserved. That did it. If one more person said the C-word to him any time within the next ten years, he was going to scream.

  He massaged his temples and looked longingly at his computer. That’s what he should be doing today—working on the design for his voice response unit. That’s what his computer hardware company—Larkland Technology Development—did, and that’s what Josh wanted to be doing. Instead, he’d spent a good portion of the morning talking to people about unimportant things that all had something to do with Christmas!

  It had started with a phone call from his aunt Mimi at nine o’clock this morning. “It’s not a Christmas party, Josh.
We’re just having a few people over tonight, under the umbrella of a Christmas theme. You will come, won’t you? The whole family will be here, along with some of your uncle Reg’s business friends and a few neighbors. Oh, and Marple Stevens is coming. She’s got such a lovely daughter. You really should meet her.”

  That had been followed by a call from his stepsister, Charmaine. “It’s my annual Universal Christmas Grandiola. You should come. My friend Stacey is going to be in from Detroit. You really should meet her.”

  Then there had been his aunt Louise. “We haven’t seen you for such a long time. Do come. Frank’s partner’s friend’s husband’s cousin is going to be here. You really should meet her.”

  If it wasn’t relatives calling, it was business acquaintances—potential investors who wanted him to make an appearance at their Christmas party, or to ensure that they were invited to his. Current investors who wanted much the same thing.

  And to top it all off, his mother!

  Now he really wanted to scream.

  Josh thought for a second, then decided to do it. “Ma-aa-bb-bl-ee!” he bellowed.

  He waited for a moment, and when no one showed up he did it again. “Mable!”

  There was silence, followed by a huge, dramatic sigh and the squeak of a chair. Finally Mable appeared in his doorway, her large, square figure blocking most of the light from the reception area. “Do you want something or are you just trying to annoy me?”