Steal of a Deal (The Shop-Til-U-Drop Collection Book #2) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Ginny Aiken

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115 pages

English

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When gemologist Andrea Adams gets a chance to go to the Kashmir region of Pakistan for a mission trip, she jumps at it. But her boss at the S.T.U.D. home shopping network wants to turn the trip into another on-location shoot for the station. That means Andrea's co-host Max is part of the deal, and she isn't happy about it. When their guide turns up dead and a famous sapphire turns up in Max's possession, Andrea thinks all her worst fears are confirmed. Is this her chance to get rid of this know-nothing pretty boy? Or is Max innocent after all?Fast-paced and full of exciting action and exotic locales, A Steal of a Deal is the perfect escape for readers looking for a thrill.

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 avril 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781585587674
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A Steal of a Deal
A NOVEL
Ginny Aiken
2008 by Ginny Aiken
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aiken, Ginny A steal of a deal / Ginny Aiken p. cm. - (The shop-til-u-drop collection ; bk. 2) ISBN 978-0-8007-3228-8 (pbk.) 1. Home shopping television programs-Fiction. 2. Television personalities- Fiction. 3. Gemologists-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.I339S74 2008 813'.54-dc22 2007047491
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, 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.
Scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him. Malachi 3:17
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LO UISVILLE, KENTUCKY
I m not feeling the love here. Of all the potential cohosts a girl can get stuck with, why did I wind up with a California surfer-boy gem-dunce? What s a California surfer-boy gem-dunce, you ask? Well, he s blond, blue-eyed, and gorgeous, but he knows nothing about . . . well, what really matters here-gems!
My boss, Miss Mona Latimer, who s known me since I was a tiny bulge in my mama s belly, should ve known better. She should ve known a co-anchoring gig would never work between a gemological dud and me in front of millions of money-waving, bling-bling crazed women wanting to know about the gemstones they buy.
The by-women, for-women, all-women Shop-Til-U-Drop television shopping channel was doing just fine without the issues testosterone poisoning brings. If Miss Mona, owner and genius extraordinaire behind the S.T.U.D.-what most people call our shopping channel-really felt we needed a male to spice things up, don t you think she should ve gone to the GIA (that s the Gemological Institute of America) to find herself said male? We re talking a gem and jewelry show here.
Fine, fine, fine! Max did ask me to share my knowledge. And I have been trying my best to work with him, but it s slow going. You d think Miss Mona would be at least a little concerned about the situation.
What situation? Oh, the one where Max and I have . . . umm . . . disagreements while the cameras roll. Miss Mona calls it Chemistry! Electricity! She should be horrified to have that happening on her channel. Then again, I suppose I shouldn t expect her to be logical or reasonable. She is, after all, the queen of the Huh? factor.
What is the Huh? factor, you ask? That s when someone comes up with something so out of whack that your only possible response is, well, Huh?
My response exactly.
All right, I admit Max does have the rare redeeming quality. Like his killer great looks don t hurt the feminine eye. And he does think the world of Miss Mona and her best friend, my own great-aunt Weeby. But then again, everyone does, so that s no big deal.
Oh. You want to know who I am? Well. I really should introduce myself. I do it every single day at the start of my show. I m Andrea Autumn Adams, master gemologist and host of the S.T.U.D. s gem and jewelry shows.
My uninformed cohost is Max Matthews, a former Ohio State Buckeye football player. You know, he majored in football and minored in whatever. In Max s case, the whatever was meteorology. So after a stint as a weatherman at a Middle America TV station, he s supposedly a pro at the on-camera thing. Which is how he wound up here.
And yeah, he knows nothing about gemstones.
Oh, okay. There was that moment when he did bring the cavalry to help me out of a tight spot a couple of months ago. And I am truly grateful. But, c mon! That s as far as I m going to let it go. After all, a fly knows as much as he does about gemstones and jewelry.
So now that you know all the details, please tell me why I m such a patsy. Why, after everything I ve just told you, am I sitting in my kitchen, the table spread far and wide with my treasured collection of rocks-some precious, some semi, and some plain old rocks-trying to get Max to understand and appreciate the beauty of God s genius?
Maybe it s got more to do with those killer blue eyes than with the show. How could I say no?
Yeah, I m in trouble.
But he did ask for my help. Who am I to turn down someone in need? Plus Miss Mona, our boss, told me to play nice.
I m sure you ve figured out that playing nice with Max scares me. He has that oozing masculine appeal you can t ignore. At least I can t, no matter how hard I try.
And then he pulls out that endearing gentleness toward the Daunting Duo-Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona. Plus he hasn t been snarky about my faith-a major positive for any guy I meet. If I have to be squeaky-clean honest, Max has expressed interest in Aunt Weeby s and my approach to living out our love for Christ. Oh, he hasn t come out and said much of anything about it, but I can feel these things. I think he s told me he s a churchgoer, so maybe he s got that Christ-shaped hole in his heart ready for filling.
But I digress. We re in the Adams family home kitchen, engaged in one of my fave pastimes: playing with gems.
Max loops a magnificent three-carat kunzite. It s very clean, he says, his voice rich and intent. And the cut seems excellent. At least, it is according to the pictures you had me study. Then he looks up. But give me a break, Andie. Who s going to know the difference between one of these and a super-washed-out orchid amethyst?
See what I m dealing with here?
I blow out a frustrated breath. A gemologist is going to know. And care. A gem collector s going to care too. I raise a hand to stop his objection. And any potential customer on our program is really going to care, especially since the price of gemmy kunzite is so many times higher than that of any amethyst.
He drops his tweezers on the Selvyt cloth I d spread on the well-used pine farm table, kunzite still clamped between the steel prongs, then leans back in his Windsor chair. So tell me, oh ye of massive gemological wisdom. Is there a lot of this kind of fraud going on?
I m not taking the bait, folks! Amethyst for kunzite?
He nods.
Not much. How many gem geeks are out there who know kunzite exists? How many gem geeks d you think would buy some from someone who s not up to speed on her gems?
His iced tea must be warm by now, but he takes another swig. I guess that s a good thing. But if no one really knows what this stuff is -he gestures toward the gem still jailed by the tweezers- then why is it so expensive? You know, the if-the-tree-falls-in-the-deserted-woods deal.
I sigh-again. I find myself sighing a lot around Max. Hmm . . . same thing as around Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona, my two most favorite people in the whole world. I m not ready to nose around that random connection between the three most challenging humans I know.
Because, I say, instead, those who know their gems know how incredibly rare good spodumene really is. Let s face it, when anyone can get a top-quality amethyst for no more than fifty-sixty dollars per carat, you know you can find those anywhere. Well, sort of. But, to get a decent kunzite, you re going to have to pop about three hundred dollars a carat.
He scratches his blond head. I ll stick to Titleist and cheap little wooden tees.
How bout them pigskins?
A good football won t set you back a small fortune.
It won t last practically forever, either.
Nothing does.
I run my index finger over the garnet cross pendant I recently bought and haven t taken off yet. That s where you re wrong. God lasts forever, and his creation does as long as he wills it to.
Max turns serious. I ve never known anyone who can flip the switch from dirt-covered rocks to heavenly heights so fast.
That catches me. I think about what he s said. Maybe it s because I don t separate God or my faith from everything else. Or at least, I try not to.
He narrows his eyes. Are you sure you re not just saying that? You know, la Andie the Super-Duper Christian Girl who wears her faith on her sleeve.
Gross! Is that how you see me? Boy, do I have a lot of work to do if that s the case.
As the minutes tick by without an answer on his part, I begin to squirm. Then I itch. Aw, c mon, Max! You can t see me like that. Not really. I m just me. I mess up just like everyone else.
Yeah, but there s something different about you.
Gee, that sounds almost as nice as Oh, look! There s black gunk growing in your grout. Isn t that different?
He laughs, chokes, then clunks his not-so-iced-tea glass down on the tabletop, and that finally dislodges the kunzite from the clamp that held it in the tweezer s prongs. He ignores the bouncing gem as he recovers from my semi-lame crack.
I don t ignore it. I pick it up and place it back in its own little plastic gem jar.
Max says, If that doesn t prove you re not like any other woman out there, then I don t know what does. He stands. Anyway, I spent the afternoon working on my new old car. You ve got to admit, Andie-that vintage Triumph is sweet.
Dunno, Max. Ancient English sports car wrecks aren t my thing.
Unenlightened! He winks. Anyway, I m kind of tired, and I have an earl