Leslie Kelly - Trick Me, Treat Me

The stranger smiled, his teeth glittering brilliantly white in the half darkness, making her heart trip. “Not a ghost,” he said, stepping closer. “I think you’ll find I’m very real.”

Gwen didn’t move away, couldn’t move away.

“Want me to prove it?” the man continued.

Before Gwen could answer, she felt him grasp her fingers, bringing them up and pressing them against his cheek. “Aren’t ghosts supposed to be cold?”

She nodded weakly, gauging the rough warmth of his skin. He was definitely not cold. In fact he was just the opposite. Hot. Magnetic. Seductive. Her fingertips scraped across the stubble on his cheek in a helpless, subtle caress.

Gwen had never felt so exposed—or so excited. At this moment she honestly didn’t know if she’d make one sound of protest if this total stranger took her in his arms.

And it looked as if she was about to find out….

Dear Reader,

I am a Halloween junkie. I love being scared, and I love scaring other people. At my place we go all out—big haunted house, graveyard in the front yard, guillotine on the driveway. I have as many boxes of Halloween stuff in my attic as I do Christmas decorations.

So when Harlequin gave me the green light for a Halloween-themed Temptation novel, you can bet I was excited. But if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it right…meaning it had to have everything I love about Halloween and romance all mixed up in one tempting little package. And that’s just what Trick Me, Treat Me is. There are costumes and quirky characters, a haunted inn, mistaken identity, amnesia, secret agents, gangster molls, arms dealers and even a few ghosts. Not to mention a lot of heat…

So grab your pointy hats, hold tight to those broomsticks and be prepared for a lot of fun. You’re about to go on a wild ride….

Happy reading—and happy Halloween!

Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s dedicated to all the talented writers

who’ve helped me so often along the weary writing road.

To Marilyn, Mia and Laurie, who’ve been there since day one.

To Camille and Jill, who are always willing to

drop everything and give me a quick read.

And to Julie, Janelle and Karen,

who helped me shape this idea from the start.

Long live the Plot Monkeys!

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

October, this year

FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Rosario Sanchez was destined to be the worst maid in the world. She hated washing floors, loathed vacuuming and would rather stick a spike in her eye than clean other people’s toilets. She’d long dreamed of being a hairstylist. “I’d love to take some bleach to Angel Fuentes’s head, so she’ll look like the puta she is,” she muttered.

But no. No classy hair salon job for Rosario. After high school, she would take her place in the family cleaning business, like a rich girl would take her place at a debutante ball. Rich she wasn’t.

Generally, life sucked. Still, sometimes her after-school job had perks. Like now. She sat in a Chicago penthouse owned by a writer who’d spent the last year overseas researching horrible murders for his next bestseller. She peeked at his photo on the back of his latest book. “Mr. Winchester you are muy delicioso.”

He was hot, even if he was old—at least thirty. He had dark hair, chocolaty eyes. Tall and mysterious, he was a man to sweep a maid off her feet, like in that Jennifer Lopez movie.

She’d like to help him write a new kind of book. “Romance,” she said. Fantasizing, she reached into a giant bag of potato chips. Crumbling a handful of greasy chips on to the front of her sweater, she moaned, “Come and feast on me you big, sexy man.”

Rosario eventually picked the crumbs off, popping each one into her mouth with her fingertip. They were Lay’s, after all.

Grabbing the remote, she glanced around and cringed. The penthouse looked like it had been the scene of a huge party. Probably because it had. Last month. The night Manuel Diaz had dumped her for that bitch Angel. “Puta,” she said aloud this time.

She’d have to clean the place eventually. But not for a while. Her mother trusted her enough never to check anymore to make sure Rosario was performing her after-school dusting, watering and mail sorting duties at the penthouse. It wasn’t like it needed real cleaning with it having been empty so long. The owner wasn’t due back until late January—three months. She had time.

Grabbing the remote, she settled in for an hour of soap watching. Before she could even turn on her favorite show, however, she heard the door open. And nearly wet her pants.

Mr. Winchester is home early!

“Rosario?”

Worse. “Mama?” She groaned, a long, low sound holding both terror and dismay. This was definitely worse than the owner coming home. He, at least, wouldn’t smack her in the head with a purse the size of a suitcase, like the one Mama carried.

A long stream of invective—all in Spanish—spewed from her mother’s mouth. Rosario knew enough of the language to pick out several words, the kindest of which were lazy and useless.

Then the door opened again and her grandmother walked in. From worse to catastrophic.

“Mr. Winchester comes home tomorrow! What do we do?” Her mother sobbed in what Rosario considered pure melodrama.

Grandmama glared. “We get to work now.”

Rosario did. Thankfully, her mother soon got too wrapped in getting beer stains out of the living room carpet to yell at her anymore. She’d escaped, at least temporarily, into another room.

It was while halfheartedly scrubbing the office floor that Rosario found a pile of dusty-looking envelopes against a wall. Several pieces of unopened mail had fallen from the desk. Mail Rosario was supposed to deliver to Mr. Winchester’s secretarial company. She’d forgotten. For…uh…weeks…surely no more.

The postmarks said the items were a year old.

As she rifled through them, she thought quickly, fighting back panic. “Sales circulars…that’s okay…oh no, bills. Paid now,” she muttered and thrust them into a garbage bag. That left a few personal-looking items, including a thick manila envelope with a jack-o’-lantern sticker on it. “Maybe he’ll think it’s for this Halloween.” Her voice held a pathetic note of hope.

“What you are doing?”

Caught! “Some mail fell back here,” she whispered.

Grandmama muttered a wicked-sounding curse that would likely result in black hairs sprouting out of Rosario’s back. Or warts on her chin. Again. Then she stalked over and seized the mail. Sighing, she shook her head and raised her eyes heavenward, a picture of visual piety. “We leave it in God’s hands.”

Grandmama, however, apparently thought God’s hands were full enough with piddling issues like world peace, the stock market and the prayers of hopeful lottery players. She seemed to want to help him out. Reaching into the bucket Rosario had been using to wash the floor, she retrieved a sponge full of dirty water. Rosario watched, shocked, as her grandmother smeared the sponge over the exterior of the remaining envelopes.

“No telling when they came,” the old woman said. “Lost. Ruined by bad weather. He throws them out himself. No blame.”