Dear Reader,
One of the most exciting rewards of being an author is getting to know other writers whose work youâve read and admired. Iâm sure in every profession itâs a treat to meet people who do your job with a skill and finesse you dream about acquiring, and in the writing world, thereâs also a bit of fan-girl enthusiasm attached to that admiration. So itâs been a real privilege to work on the Lose Yourselfâ¦miniseries with the very talented Debbi Rawlins and Jo Leigh. Iâm so glad we were able to develop this miniseries as a team.
In addition to the fun of great colleagues for this project, I had the added pleasure of writing my first full-length holiday Harlequin Blaze with Under Wraps. Although Iâd tackled a holiday novella two years ago (A Blazing Little Christmas, an anthology with the fantastic Jacquie DâAlessandro and Kathleen OâReilly), I was really excited to revisit a snowy Christmas setting for this story. Thereâs something about being snowbound for the holidays that seems just right for a Harlequin Blaze!
I hope you enjoy Under Wraps, and please do visit me at http://joannerock.com for the scoop on my upcoming releases in the new year!
Happy holidays,
Joanne Rock
NORMALLY, THE LAST PLACE Jake Brennan would want to be the week before Christmas was sitting on a stakeout.
Heâd promised his mom heâd come home for the holidays this year, a pledge which made him a liar three years running. Instead, he sat in his SUV across the street from a suspectâs business in downtown Miami, where neon palmetto trees made a tropical substitute for white lights in the snow back in Illinois.
But when the stakeout involved Marnie Wainwright, there were perks involved. Enough perks that Jake didnât mind watching the storefront for her business, Lose Yourself, from inside his vehicle on a Friday night. It didnât matter that the rest of the world went to holiday parties right now. He had Marnie for entertainment, and two months of surveillance on the entrepreneur behind Lose Yourself had taught him that was more than enough.
His hand hovered over the screen of his BlackBerry where an internet connection allowed him access to the camera heâd installed in her place eight weeks ago. Soft holiday music and Marnieâs warm, sexy laugh greeted his ears even before the picture on the video feed came into focus.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, he could sit two car lengths up the street and still see exactly what went on inside her high-end adventure company that specialized in exotic fantasy escapes.
And as long as Marnie was there, he always got an eyeful.
âIf youâll just give me your credit card, you can pay the balance on the trip and Iâll mail you a detailed itinerary next week,â she was currently saying to an attractive middle-aged couple in front of her desk.
Marnie had a pen tucked in the swoop of cinnamon-colored hair piled at the back of her head. He knew from hours of watching her that she sometimes stuck as many as three pens back there at a time, occasionally losing all writing implements to her hairdo. His camera was hidden inside a bookcase heâd built for her two months back, when heâd posed as a carpenter and helped remodel the front office. The carpentry skills, a long-ago gift from his dad, had been fun to brush off after his years in the military and the Miami P.D., and theyâd certainly come in handy for concealing the surveillance camera at Marnieâs business.
At that time, sheâd been a prime suspect in a white-collar crime at Premiere Properties, her former employer. Vincent Galway, the CEO of Premiere, had fired her right after discovering embezzlement that had cost the company $2.5 million.