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Elliot sneered.  “Should-a hit ya harder, King.”
                  Laurent turned a furious glare on Cartridge.  “You bastard.”
                  Spot snarled, and Cartridge yelped and picked up his pace.  The poachers bound to him scrambled to keep up.  He threw a terrified glance back at Spot, who bared his fangs.
                  Tabitha fell into pace between Laurent and Spot.  She gently smoothed Spot’s raised hackles down, then touched Laurent’s arm.  He looked down into her face.  “My heroes.”
                  Later, after the authorities had taken Elliot Cartridge and the poachers away, Laurent laid sprawled on Tabitha’s bunk.  She smiled and climbed into bed with him. 
                  “So you came out here to fire me?” Laurent teased.
                  Her face heated.  So Cartridge had told him.  Embarrassed as she was, it was bound to come out with the fact that her boss had deliberately mismarked Mine Twelve as defunct so he could pillage it.  He’d set Laurent up for the fall, thinking him an easy target because of his free-wheeling reputation.  And he’d supplied the poachers with weapons so that they could eliminate Laurent if he got in their way.  What Cartridge hadn’t counted on was Tabitha taking it upon herself to make this personal visit.  “Guilty, but, in my defense, Fox, it did look like you were goofing off.”
                  “And now?” he asked, nuzzling her neck in a very distracting way.
                  “Now you’re right where I want you to be.  In my bed and in my life.  For good this time, if I have my say.  What’s your say, Laurent?”
                  He chuckled, rolling her over him.  “You took the words right out of my mouth, Tabby Cat.” 
     

Coming Soon
     
     
     
     
     
     
    A Kiss Under The Mistletoe
     
    by
     
    Julia Brandywine
     
     

 
    Chapter One
     
     
                   Jessie Barnes crunched through the snow as quietly as she could, creeping along the prickly juniper bushes surrounding Nick Maxwell’s hideaway cabin, looking for the easiest way in.  Not being a burglar by profession, she was making this up as she went along.  Three days before Christmas, she was on a mission to rescue her brother. 
                  She’d left her rental car tucked discreetly in a fire lane a country block away and trudged through snowdrifts up to her knees at times to get to her goal.  Her feet felt like blocks of ice, her hands were frostbitten, and she was plastered with snow from falling down twice.  But she couldn’t let anything divert her.  She had to get this done and beat the blizzard—and the last ferry back to the mainland.  Otherwise, it meant an evening hunkered down in her rental car at the dock, a prospect that didn’t fill her with joy.  But all her discomfort was worth it if she came away with a clue to her brother’s fate.
                  Her mission was clear—slip inside the cabin while Maxwell was in town for supplies and look for clues.  The rumors about West Tec, the computer software design business Maxwell and Michael had founded, floundering a few weeks before, had worried her.  When she’d mentioned them to her brother, he’d told her not to worry, not to believe all she read in the trade papers.  Now she knew it’d all been an effort on his part to keep her from worrying.  Now that he was missing, she felt sure Maxwell was responsible. 
                  Her older sibling’s loss had left a void in her life that nothing would fill.  Throughout their childhood, they’d relied on each for emotional support.  Their mother, a jetsetter who’d left them in the care of a series of nannies, had taught them to turn to each other in times of need.
                  Nick Maxwell was dead meat if he’d dared to touch a hair on