Sugarplums and Scandal [Anthology]

220 Pages·2016·1.44 MB·English

by  Avocato Lori

Contents
Lori Avocato - All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Dana Cameron - The Lords of Misrule

Mary Daheim - The Ghost of Christmas Passed

Cait London - Partners in Crime

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Suzanne Macpherson - Holly Go Lightly
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Kerrelyn Sparks - A Very Vampy Christmas

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Epilogue
MIRACLES AND MAYHEM
Lori Avocato
When nurse-turned-investigator Pauline Sokol decides to bring a bit of
Christmas cheer to a helpless old man, she unwittingly discovers misdeeds of a
Scrooge-like local dentist.
Dana Cameron
Modern detection techniques are called for on Christmas Eve in an elegant
eighteenth-century English manor when murder and grand theft get thrown in
amidst the Christmas cheer.
Mary Daheim
All the wacky relatives are together for the holidays at Judith McMonigle
Flynn’s bed-and-breakfast—but a murderous, uninvited “ghost” may dampen the
Christmas spirit.
Cait London
When a well-meaning do-gooder lets a mysterious man into her life, she must
discover if he’s protecting her—or stalking her.
Suzanne Macpherson
A handsome hero’s plucky late fiancée won’t leave him be until he completes
her unfinished mission on Earth.
Kerrelyn Sparks
Coming home for the holidays takes on new meaning when a newly turned
vampire discovers his own Christmas miracle.

This is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022-5299
“All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” copyright © 2006 by Lori
Avocato “The Lords of Misrule” copyright © 2006 by Dana Cameron “The
Ghost of Christmas Passed” copyright © 2006 by Mary Daheim “Partners in
Crime” copyright © 2006 by Lois Kleinsasser “Holly Go Lightly” copyright ©
2006 by Suzanne Macpherson “A Very Vampy Christmas” copyright © 2006 by
Kerrelyn Sparks
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-113695-5
ISBN-10: 0-06-113695-6
www.avonmystery.com
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.

Chapter 1
According to the druids, mistletoe was traditionally considered to be the semen
of the gods.
I looked at the Hope Valley Sentinel article and wondered if the editor of our
local newspaper had gone nuts. “Semen of the gods”? They had the nerve to
print such sexual innuendoes in this ethnic, moral, homespun, Wonder Bread
suburban Connecticut town?
With my jaw down to my chest (a very common occurrence when I am
stunned), I read on that the liquid of the berries looked and had the texture of
semen. Geez. They actually printed that in a newspaper where folks like Mrs.
Kaminski, the local gossip, Mr. Gansecki, the local over-eighty stud, and Miss
Nawrocki, the local moral majority would read it? Yikes.
Slowly I looked up to see the ball of mistletoe hanging from my mother’s
foyer ceiling. Then I scrunched up the newspaper (only the semen/berry article)
and stuck it into the pocket of my jeans.
Stella Sokol would rather die than hang those kinds of berries from her
nineteen sixties ceiling.
And to think I’d kissed Jagger, The Delicious, under it last Christmas Eve.
He was my sometimes partner in solving crimes, my all-the-time fantasy man.
Yum.
I gulped.
“Pauline? Pauline Sokol, what is taking so long?” my mother yelled from the
kitchen.
Even as a nurse, a thirty-something, and as her only single adult child, I
couldn’t tell her the truth. “Just reading the paper, Mom.”
“What is so darned, excuse my language, important that you can’t come help
your mother make pierogies?”
I blew out a breath. For one thing, I hate making the little pillows of Polish
dough, and each year put in my vote to buy ready-made ones, much to Stella
Sokol’s horror. And each year I end up taking time off from work to stuff the
suckers with cabbage, mashed potatoes or cottage cheese, a process which takes
about twenty hours since my married siblings have toys to buy for their kids and