Bending the Rules. Susan Andersen

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      Also by Susan Andersen

      CUTTING LOOSE

      COMING UNDONE

      JUST FOR KICKS

      HOT & BOTHERED

      SKINTIGHT

      To

      The Last Thursday of the Month Bunco Babes both past and present

      For

      good friends, great food and make-your-cheeks-hurt laughs

      You guys rock!

      ~Susie

      Dear Reader,

      I love ‘opposites attract’ stories. And if they punch your buttons as well, have I got a hero and heroine for you!

      Poppy Calloway was raised by hippie parents in a home full of love, artistic expression and the belief that one gives back to the community whenever possible. Far from a material girl, she’s perfectly happy scraping a living out of designing menu boards and making greeting cards. She feeds her soul by bringing art to at-risk kids.

      Jase de Sanges comes from a long line of career criminals. He was on the verge of joining the family tradition himself when a cop named Murphy intervened to show him there was more than one direction in which to steer his life. Now he, too, is on the job—a detective who’s made by the book his personal mantra.

      So when Jase and Poppy are charged with guiding three teenagers caught defacing property through the clean-up process, you can bet they approach the task from different angles. The free-spirited artist who sees the best in people and the bend-no-rules cop who expects the worst have nothing in common. Well, except for that pesky attraction that’s sunk its hooks deep and refuses to turn loose. And it turns out that’s just for starters.

      As always, I hope you enjoy!

      Happy reading.

       Susan

      Prologue

      Dear Diary,

      I will never understand why people paint their walls white. If it were up to me I’d color the world.

       June 13, 1992

      “SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

      Anchoring herself against the ladder she stood on to paint the Wolcott mansion’s morning room wall, thirteen-year-old Poppy Calloway looked at her friend Jane, who had asked the question. All but swallowed up by a man’s paint smock, her slippery brown hair falling out of the banana clip she was using to hold it off her face, Jane gazed back at her from the west wall where she had painstakingly painted the woodwork around the bank of mullioned windows. Through the panes behind her, rain clouds blew across the sky over the Sound. The Space Needle, however, had a halo of pure azure above it.

      “It looks wonderful, Janie,” she said, admiring the velvety cream-colored wood against the deep melon wall. “Doing trim is the hardest.” Blowing a blond curl out of her eyes, she flashed Jane a grin. “Which is why I gave the job to you.”

      A wry smile lightened Jane’s solemn expression. “So I’m the chump of the Sisterhood?”

      “Nah. I just knew you’d do it right.” Then she turned to their redheaded friend, who was eating a Milky Way and dancing to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” over by the boom box they’d brought with them to Miss Agnes’s mansion. “You planning on actually giving us a hand sometime today?”

      Generous hips swiveling, arms moving in rhythmic counterpart, Ava met Poppy’s gaze across the room. “In a minute. I’m communing with Kurt Cobain.”

      “You’ve been communing with him since you bought the Nevermind tape—what?—six months ago? Do it with a roller in your hand.”

      “Aw, Pop. You know I’m not good at the physical stuff.”

      “Hello!” She eyed the fluid movement of Ava’s body. “Aren’t you the one who dances good enough to star on an MTV video?”

      Dimples punched deep in Ava’s cheeks as she smiled in delight. But almost immediately she made a scoffing sound. “Yeah, right. Like they’d ever put my fat ass on one of those vids. Those are for skinny girls like you and Jane.”

      “Well, lose the candy bar and pick up a paintbrush—maybe you’ll burn a few calories.”

      “Poppy,” Jane remonstrated.

      She merely shrugged and turned back to her own painting, feeling both guilty and impatient. She knew that was mean, but sometimes it was just hard to dredge up the proper sympathy. Ava’s weight was a constant source of unhappiness for her friend. Yet she never did anything about it.

      Still, she felt bad and watched from the corner of her eye as Ava trudged over to an empty paint tray and squatted to pour paint into it.

      “Dancing burns calories,” Ava muttered as she brought the tray over to start rolling color onto the lower part of the wall where Poppy’s roller hadn’t reached.

      “That’s true. It just doesn’t help paint the walls.” Still, Ava had a point and she offered the first olive branch that popped to mind. “That Courtney Love is all wrong for Cobain.”

      “I know!” Ava rubbed her cheek against a plump shoulder, dislodging the bright strand of hair that had swung forward to stick to the corner of her mouth. Dimples peeped again in her round cheek when she flashed a look up at Poppy. “I think he’s just killing time with her until I’m old enough to marry him instead.” She nodded sagely. “Men need sex, you know?”

      “I’m sure that’s the reason.”

      “Without a doubt,” Jane agreed.

      “But you can have Cobain,” Poppy added. “I’m holding out for the Sheik.”

      Ava and Jane howled, because that was the fantasy man