Tinted Chapstick, The San Francisco Mystery Series, Book 4 , livre ebook

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179 pages

English

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From Amazon Bestselling Author Alexi VeniceA suspenseful romance nestled in The San Francisco Mystery Series.Temporarily living with Detective Tommy Vietti, Dr. Jen Dawson is frustrated with her love life. Shes interested in someone at the CrossFit box, but wonders why she keeps thinking about her ex-lover, District Attorney Amanda Hawthorne, while cultivating a relationship with the CrossFit goddess. As Jen works through her conflicted feelings, she also must manage the expectations of her irritated bossDr. Melissa Cohenand the daily drama served up by angry patients, wild animals and confidential information made public at the Cohen Clinic. Even worse, Jen is asked by Amandas campaign manager to defend Amanda after her HEAhellish ending to an affairwith Roxy. Jen will be damned before shell turn into the abused political wife, standing by her woman after Amanda fooled around on her. Yet, with just a short TV interview, Jen could clear up a mischaracterization of Amanda....And, why wont Roxy MacNeil, the Scottish MI-6 agent, leave San Francisco? Why must she continue working at the Hall of Justice, so close to Amanda? To make matters worse, Tommy expresses his true feelings to Jen late one night, upsetting the emotional equilibrium in their co-parenting relationship. Jen has been patient with Tommy, Amanda and Roxys dangerous jobsand the way they bleed into her clinic and home lifebut when all hell breaks loose, shes forced to make some tough choices.

Sujets

Thriller

Romance

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	05 février 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456630591
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2018 Alexi Venice. All rights reserved.

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3059-1

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, corporations, countries, medicines and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Professionally edited by Rob Bignell at Inventing Reality Editing Service. inventingrealityediting.wordpress.com/home

Books by Alexi Venice

The San Francisco Mystery Series
Bourbon Chase, Book 1
Amanda’s Dragonfly, Book 2
Stabscotch, Book 3

The Pepper McCallan Series
Ebola Vaccine Wars
Svea’s Sins (No longer available)
Victus – Margaret River Winery (Part I)
Margaret River Winery (Part II)
Loch Na Pollach – (Coming Soon)

The Starr Series
Australia’s Starr

Venice also writes a blog called Empty Nest Does Not Mean Naked Nest

Dedicated to My Creative Team for The San Francisco Mystery Series
Table of Con tents
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33

Chapter 1
North Beach
San Francisco

Jen looked through the peephole in the front door, and her heart exploded with rage. Roxy was standing on Tommy’s front stoop.
That fucking bitch. How dare she show her face here after stealing Amanda!
Jen unbolted the door with frantic hands, an adrenaline surge coursing through her veins. She swung it wide and stood face-to-face with her nemesis.
“I’m sorry—” Roxy said, her trademark shock of blonde hair falling across her smoky blue eyes, making Jen want to rip it out by the roots.
Jen’s fury and hatred coalesced into a vindictive force as she drove her shoulder into Roxy’s chest, slamming her against the wall of the covered porch. A whoosh of air rushed from Roxy’s lungs—the sound so satisfying to Jen.
“Fuck you!” Jen hissed, straightening to full height, so she could pummel the evil pussy poacher who seduced Amanda. Fueled by betrayal and humiliation, Jen landed a punch with her right fist into Roxy’s rib cage.
Roxy doubled over in pain, gasping for air.
A fraction of the pain you caused me, Jen thought .
Jen’s initial dominance gave the impression this would be a very quick fight, even though Roxy had bragged at Delores Park only a week ago that she was a government spy . Ha! Laughable!
“Stand up and fight like the CIA agent you supposedly are!” Jen snarled, raising her fists.
Roxy held up a hand, signaling for mercy while gulping air. After several breaths, she straightened in time to see Jen’s fist coming toward her face. At the last second, Roxy parried then ducked, resulting in Jen’s fist slamming into the wall.
“Fuuuuuuck!” Jen screamed in pain. She felt the sting of a broken knuckle, cradling her right hand in her left. As she registered the extent of her injury, she felt the sharp blow of a sucker punch to her right lower back delivered by Roxy’s right elbow. Roxy quickly scooted behind Jen to gain a tactical position. The punch, combined with the broken knuckle, sent Jen to her knees.
Roxy capitalized on Jen’s injury, clenching her arm around Jen’s neck from behind, trapping her in a headlock. “I came here in peace with a message from Amanda.”
God, I detest that Scottish accent, Jen thought, but rasped through her pain, “That’s your fucking problem.” She pictured them together, laughing, kissing, making love, and her desire to maim returned.
“I don’t want to fight you, and you don’t want to engage me,” Roxy warned. “I’m professionally trained.”
Just hearing professional trained from Roxy’s mouth made Jen want to puke. Even though her back was spasming from the sharp blow—and she was on her knees—she channeled what she had learned in self-defense class, turning her head to the right and dropping her chin to weasel out of the headlock. She simultaneously delivered blows to Roxy’s legs with her elbows, finally connecting with Roxy’s knee, causing Roxy to lose her grip.
Marshaling her athleticism and strength, Jen surged up like she was squatting 200 pounds and turned on Roxy again. Throwing a wide punch with left fist, Jen connected with Roxy’s nose, feeling, as well as hearing, the bridge crunch. The sound both repulsed and liberated her. As a physician, she was sworn to help, not hurt. On the other hand, this wormy, lying bitch had stolen Amanda, so deserved every bit of whoop-ass Jen could unleash on her.
Roxy raised her boot to kick Jen in the side but flailed in her last-ditch attempt to regain position, a trickle of blood oozing from her nose.
Professionally trained my ass! Using an open hand, Jen thwacked Roxy on her ear, sending her to the ground in a heap, blood pouring from her nose.
As Roxy lay at her feet, Jen heard a car door slam. She looked down at the street to see Tommy running up the steps.
“Jen, stop!” he yelled.
She was thinking the same thing—that she needed to stop before her revenge turned into cruelty. Moreover, she saw Kristin in the back seat of Tommy’s unmarked cruiser, and there was no way Jen was going to fight in front of her daughter.
“Jen, what the fuck?!” Tommy asked when he landed on the top step, kneeling to assess Roxy.
“That snake showed up here, so I gave her a taste of how I felt when she stole Amanda,” Jen said, still catching her breath from the physical exertion.
“You broke her nose?!”
“Yeah, and it felt kinda good.” She examined the back of her right hand, watching the broken pinky knuckle swell in front of her eyes. The pain was temporarily obscured by her endorphin release from the fight. “What are you doing back home, anyway?”
“I forgot my cell phone,” he said. “Watch Kristin for a sec while I deal with Roxy.”
Jen gingerly walked down the steps, babying her broken hand and sore back. She opened the back door of Tommy’s car and slid into the seat next to Kristin, trying to come down from the adrenaline rush of pummeling Roxy. Calming breaths. It’s over. Refocus my mind. Let go of the anger.
“Hi, Mama,” Kristin said, reaching out her hand.
“Hi, Baby,” Jen said. The innocence of Kristin ripped open Jen’s heart. She never wanted Kristin to see her this angry—unglued even—so she drew on her kindness and love, willing herself to recalibrate. Going from a jealous rage to an adoring mother stretched her emotional ability, her sense of civility and compassion pinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. She was sure that Kristin’s observant eyes picked up the war raging across her face.
She had actually embraced the satisfaction of hurting another human being, but seeing Kristin restored her sanity. She suddenly felt shameful over breaking Roxy’s nose. Even though she had enjoyed it—the sound, the feel—she told herself it was a once-in-a-lifetime loss of control that would never, ever, happen again.
Jen turned and looked up the steps to see Tommy helping Roxy to her feet. Roxy staggered, crumpling despite Tommy’s help, the blood from her nose now running down her T-shirt. Tommy ran inside the house while Roxy leaned against the wall, pinching the bridge of her nose in an unsuccessful effort to stem the bleeding. A second later, he returned with his cell phone and a towel. Jen couldn’t hear what he was saying to Roxy but saw Roxy nod. He helped Roxy down the steps and around to the other side of his car. He opened the front passenger door for her.
“What’s going on?” Jen asked from the back seat.
“We’re going to the hospital, that’s what,” Tommy said.
“You have to take Kristin to daycare. We can call an ambulance for Roxy,” Jen said.
“Stop it, Jen. I’m taking her to the ER. You should come, too. It looks like you busted up your hand pretty good.” He pulled the seatbelt across Roxy and closed the door. On his way around the back of the car, he stopped at Jen’s open door and looked at her hand. “You have a boxer’s fracture,” he said, eyeing the displaced bone above her pinky knuckle. He stretched the seatbelt across her and latched it, giving her a peck on the cheek as he closed her door.
“Shit,” she muttered, not knowing how to extricate herself from the humiliation of going to the hospital with Roxy, knowing she would see her former colleagues there. She held her hand while they drove in silence to San Francisco Community Hospital, her old stomping ground. The only thing that tempered her pain was watching Roxy suffer in the front seat, her head tilted back against the headrest, blood oozing from her nose. You deserve every bit of that for stealing Amanda.
Tommy parked in a spot reserved for emergencies and removed Kristin from her car seat while the women got themselves out of the car. He made sure to walk between them as they entered the ER, even though the intense rage had been replaced by a temporary truce. He correctly assumed that Jen would control herself in front of Kristin and her colleagues. The only female talking was Kristin, who was jabbering rapidly in 18-month-old-speak about the bloody towel Roxy was holding to her face.
Each of the women registered at the front desk, and Roxy was immediately placed in a wheelchair and whisked away by a nurse. Tommy remained standing by Jen since he was holding Kristin, loved Jen, and didn’t want to incur her wrath.
“I’ll swing in and check on you in a few minutes,” he yelled after Roxy. She waved over her shoulder as she went through the double doors.
After Roxy disappeared, a nurse collected Jen, and Tommy and Kristin trailed behind her. He was delayed slightly by having to set aside his gun and show his I.D. when they we