It Had to Be You Read online

  It Had to Be You

  By Delynn Royer

  New York City, 1924

  Determined to pursue her dream of becoming a crime reporter, heiress Trixie Frank believes she’s off to a running start when she lands a job at the most successful tabloid in Manhattan. Unfortunately, her high hopes fade fast when she’s assigned to the rewrite desk.

  Sean Costigan is a demoted homicide detective on the commissioner’s blacklist. The last thing he needs complicating his life is a perky debutante with delusions of becoming the next great American journalist. Too bad she happens to hold one of the keys to solving his latest case, the Central Park murder of a notorious gangster. The other key? Sean’s childhood sweetheart, the victim’s widow, who has gone missing.

  Sean soon has more trouble with dames than any good man deserves. But that’s the least of his worries. When he suspects deadly corruption within his own department, it’s not just his and Trixie’s careers that depend on finding the killer. It’s their lives.

  98,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I’m jumping right into it this month because New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey’s next book in the Kowalski series is out in both digital and print at the end of April. Taken with You is the story of girlie-girl librarian, Hailey. She’s easy to get along with, is a small-town girl who loves where she lives, but she also loves nice clothes and fine dining and is looking for a guy who will be there when she comes home at night, and who will dress up and take her out to something a little more upscale than the local diner. It’s also the story of Matt, a hunky forest ranger who loves the outdoors, loves his dog, and is looking for a woman who doesn’t mind his erratic hours, will take a muddy ride on an ATV and won’t kick him out of the house when he walks in covered in dirt. Needless to say, these two opposites attract when Matt moves in next door to Hailey, and their story will take you on a wonderful romantic rollercoaster that will leave you with that happy-book sigh at the end.

  If you love the TV show Scandal, have I got a new series for you. In Emma Barry’s Washington, D.C.-set, politically charged Special Interests, a shy labor organizer and an arrogant congressional aide clash over the federal budget but find love the more difficult negotiation.

  April also brings a week of sports-related romance releases at Carina Press and we have six fantastic, very different contemporary sports romances being added to our already fantastic sports romance lineup. Allison Parr’s Imaginary Lines continues her new adult series. Tamar fell hopelessly in love with Abraham Krasner at age twelve, but knew he’d never see her as more than the girl next door—until years later, she gets a sports journalist position covering the NFL team Abe plays for...

  Author Michele Mannon follows up Knock Out with Tap Out. Underwear model and playboy extraordinaire Caden Kelly will let nothing stop his come-back as an MMA fighter, especially a red-headed busy-bodied reporter hell bent on ruining his shot at a title. Meanwhile, Kat Latham writes the London Legends series about the world’s hottest rugby team. Book two, Playing It Close, features the team captain and a scandalous woman with whom he spent one passionate night and never thought he’d see again—until she turns out to be his team’s newest sponsor.

  Kate Willoughby brings the on-the-ice action when a hunky hockey player falls helmet over skates for a nurse, but has to convince her he’s not the typical different-puck-bunny-every-day athlete in On the Surface. In a much warmer-weather sport, professional tennis player Regan Hunter’s temper is as notorious as her unstoppable serve, but love and ambition will go head-to-head when she meets former player-turned-coach Ben Percy. Check out Love in Straight Sets by Rebecca Crowley.

  And because we can’t leave out America’s favorite sport, Rhonda Shaw’s The Ace brings us a sexy baseball romance in a follow-up to her debut, The Changeup. “Love ’em and leave ’em” is real estate agent Karen Bently’s motto—that is until her longtime crush, ace pitcher Jerry Smutton, sets her in his sights and offers her a proposal she can’t resist.

  But it’s not all contemporary romance all the time in April. We have an eclectic selection of books from a lineup of talented authors (as always, right?). R.L. Naquin is back with her popular Monster Haven series. If you haven’t checked out this fun, sometimes zany, but always adorable series, look for book one, Monster in My Closet, at all of our retail digital partners. This month’s installment, Golem in My Glovebox, finds crazy shenanigans mixed with a gruesome, cross-country trail of clues, as Zoey and Riley attempt to save the rest of the country’s Aegises—and ultimately, Zoey’s lost mother.

  PJ Schnyder is wrapping up her London Undead trilogy with Survive to Dawn, in which werewolf and pack medic, Danny, must choose between his Alpha’s orders and the human witch who might have the cure to the zombie plague. And in the second installment of the Once Upon a Red World science fiction romance saga from Jael Wye, the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk unfolds on a devastated Earth 300 years in the future in Ladder to the Red Star.

  A.J. Larrieu debuts with her first full-length paranormal romance novel, Twisted Miracles. A reluctant telekinetic is drawn back to New Orleans’ supernatural underworld when her friend goes missing, but once she’s there, she finds her powers—and her attraction to the sexy ex-boyfriend who trained her—are stronger than ever. Talented fantasy author Angela Highland is back with Rebels of Adalonia book two in her epic fantasy Vengeance of the Hunter. As rebellion ignites across Adalonia, the healer Faanshi must save both the Hawk Kestar Vaarsen and the assassin Julian—the one from magical annihilation at the hands of his Church, and the other from a path of revenge.

  For mystery fans, we welcome author Delynn Royer to Carina Press with her book, It Had to Be You. An ambitious tabloid reporter stumbles upon the story of her career when she joins up with a jaded homicide detective to solve the Central Park murder of a notorious bootlegger in 1920s Manhattan.

  Rounding out the April lineup is a book for all Regency historical romance fans. Wendy Soliman’s Forsters series wraps up with Romancing the Runaway. When Miranda and Gabe discover her childhood home has been stripped of all its valuables, Gabe uncovers more to the old house than either of them had imagined. And with Gabe’s safety hanging in the balance, Miranda is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice...

  I’m confident you’ll find something to love among these books and I hope we provide you with many hours of reading enjoyment and escape from the neverending dishes!

  Coming next month: Fan favorite male/male author Josh Lanyon, an amazing science fiction lineup, more sexy cowboys and hot moments from Leah Braemel and so much more!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For my dad, who took me to the movies and taught me how to tell a good story.

  He still tells them better than I do.

  Acknowledgments

  In the same way that books don’t write themselves, they don’t critique themselves, edit themselves, or pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. This book has people to thank. Mandy Brown, for her kindly critical eye; my editor, Mallory Braus, for her spot-on suggestions; Sara Brubaker, for uttering six words that broke a nasty case of writer’s block; and Central Pennsylvania Romance Writers, for so warmly welcoming me back into the writing community.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapt
er Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  New York City, Thanksgiving Day, 1924

  There was nothing New York City loved more than a parade.

  Trixie Frank hated them. In fact, starting today, the only thing she hated more than watching a parade was writing about one. She’d just interviewed Santa Claus and two elves, for Pete’s sake. No crime, no lust, no drama, just a jolly bewhiskered fat man in red.

  What news was there in that?

  “None,” she muttered as she pushed out through the revolving door of R.H. Macy’s to join the jostling, high-spirited mass of humanity that thronged Herald Square.

  Santa had been crowned King of the Kiddies and the parade was complete, but the celebration was not. Zoo animals still lingered in the square and a magical fairy wonderland had been unveiled in Macy’s 34th Street window. This meant one last photograph for the morning edition before calling it quits.

  “Let’s make this snappy,” she said when her gangling young camera man, Finnian MacDougle, emerged from the store to join her.

  Buttoning her coat against the autumn chill, she started through the crowd, bristling anew that after two weeks on rewrites, her first real assignment had turned out to be a baby parade. Was this what her new editor thought of girl reporters?

  She stumbled when her shoe stuck to something on the pavement. “Nuts!”

  Finn had been following too closely. His camera smacked into her spine. “Whoops.”

  “Ow.” Trixie turned to give him a look.

  “Sorry.” He backed up a few steps. “You okay?”

  She waved him off. “Yeah, forget it. Not your fault.”

  None of this was. Not her lousy mood, not this chirpy assignment, and certainly not the boneheaded idea she’d gotten exactly one month ago today that she could crank up her stalled career by quitting her job at the Brooklyn Eagle to go work for the new Morning Examiner.

  Trixie pulled her shoe free and lifted her foot to find a chewed-up wad of taffy stuck to the sole. “Oh, for the love of—”

  The rest of her lament was drowned out by a brass band as it struck up a rousing rendition of “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.”

  Swell.

  She gestured to Finn to go on ahead and get his photograph without her, then hopped back to the store. She set her purse down and unbuckled her shoe. Had she made the wrong decision when she’d left the Eagle?

  No doubt cooler heads would have said so. After all, the Eagle was an established daily and the Examiner was a jazzy new tabloid, but, gosh, it was the most wildly successful tab to ever hit the newsstands. Lurid headlines, crime, sex, scandal.

  “Never a dull moment,” Trixie mused as she scraped taffy off against the granite façade. Or at least that’s what she’d hoped for in making the leap.

  She sensed, rather than felt, something move behind her and turned to make split-second eye contact with a tow-headed boy in knickers. She barely registered the startled expression in the kid’s wide blue gaze and the fact that he had her purse clutched in one grubby hand before he took off.

  “Hey!” She swiped too late at his fleeing back. “Get back here, you—ahhh!”

  Trixie couldn’t think of a word vile enough to fit her miniature thief and buckle her shoe at the same time. What was this city coming to when a girl couldn’t come downtown to enjoy a holiday parade without getting robbed in broad daylight?

  Even as she gave up on her shoe, yanked it off again, and gave chase, something perverse inside of her brightened.

  Now, that was a story.

  The street was crowded, but the kid was as elusive as a butterfly as he darted around pedestrians, pushcart vendors, two clowns, one camel, an elephant and a monkey to shoot diagonally across the square. He was already halfway up Broadway to 36th.

  “Purse snatcher!” Trixie hoped someone would nab the kid, but no dice.

  When he crossed 36th, he glanced back to see if she’d given up. She hadn’t, she wouldn’t, and to prove it she brandished her sticky footwear at him. She was getting angrier by the second. Not only had the brat absconded with her Santa Claus and elf notes, she could feel her new seventy-five-cent silk stockings snagging to shreds on the cold gritty sidewalk beneath her shoeless foot.

  “Thief!” Trixie yelled again but to no avail as she nearly collided with an irate organ grinder. She pursued her quarry another two blocks until she lost sight of him. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. Nuts.

  Still, she kept on and when she crossed West 38th her perseverance was rewarded. Retributive justice had caught up with l’enfant terrible. He’d fallen and sat sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the Knickerbocker Theatre.

  The kid seemed to take no notice of Trixie as she approached, and it was clear why. He had bigger worries. A patrolman with a day-stick loomed over him. “Whose bag is it you got there, lad?”

  Trixie frowned. Up close, l’enfant terrible appeared more l’enfant than terrible. His cheeks still retained hints of baby pudge. How old was this kid anyhow? Nine? Ten?

  The patrolman poked the boy’s shoulder with his day-stick. “Ain’t you got a tongue in your head? Speak up.”

  The child’s eyes were huge. Terrified.

  Trixie waved her shoe to get the cop’s attention. “Say, uh...officer? That’s mine.”

  “What’s that, miss?” The cop eyed her shoe suspiciously. “And you would be...?”

  “Trixie Frank.”

  “Trixie Frank?” Now he eyed her suspiciously. “Where’ve I heard that name before?”

  “Nowhere,” she said quickly. It was best not to give him time to think about it. “If I could have my purse back, I’m sure we can just forget—”

  “Now, wait just a minute.” The cop’s scrutiny had thankfully shifted away from her, but he pointed sharply to the boy. “Did he nick your bag?”

  Trixie took measure of the child. His dirty blond hair was mussed, there were holes in his shoes, and the sleeves of his threadbare coat were too short. Where was this child’s mother? Did he have a mother?

  She met the policeman’s hard stare. “Nick it? Why, no. He’s my nephew.” She shook a finger at the boy. “Theodore, how many times have I told you not to run off like that?”

  The boy gaped at her like she had carrots sprouting from her ears.

  “I’m sorry, officer.” Trixie lowered her voice and turned just enough so that the boy couldn’t hear. “Just between you and me, I don’t know what’s gotten into him since his mother passed on.”

  The cop arched an eyebrow.

  Trixie smile hopefully. Would he buy it?

  “Dead mother,” he said. His stare was flat. He wasn’t buying anything.

  “Yes. If I could just have my purse, we’ll be on our way, and I promise we’ll be no more trouble to you today.”

  Lucky for her, this cop must have had better things to do than argue. With a weary sigh, he tucked his day-stick into his belt and retrieved her purse. “If you’ll tell me what’s in the bag, miss, I won’t be kee
ping you from your business.”

  As Trixie strapped on her shoe, she rattled off a list of contents that satisfied him. He handed the purse to her. “You have a fine afternoon now.”

  Trixie waited until the cop was out of earshot before she turned back to the boy. His pouchy cheeks and bewildered, long-lashed blue eyes threatened to tug on her heartstrings again, but she resisted. “You. Get up.”

  When he was on his feet, Trixie took hold of his ear and marched him through a lively stream of pedestrian traffic to the theater where a marquee advertised the show now appearing on stage, Peter Pan.

  Lost boys. How fitting that she should find one of her own right here. “What’s your name?”

  “Theodore.”

  She tweaked his ear.

  “Ouch!” His brow furrowed and he glared.

  “Real name?”

  “Danny.”

  “Danny, you’re on the wrong road, young man. Do you know what happens to little boys who steal ladies’ purses?” She commenced to fill him in on the consequences of a life of crime.

  He stared at her hard as she lectured, his childish glare fading and his blue eyes taking on a glint of something like crafty contemplation. The squirt was sizing her up.

  “Cut that out,” she said.

  He flashed a cherubic smile. “Gotta nickel?”

  She wasn’t falling for it. “Where do you live? Where are your parents?”

  “Paris, France.”

  “Where do you sleep?”

  “Gotta dime?”

  Oh, this kid was a tough nut to crack. He needed a new coat, clean clothes, shoes, a bath and heaven knew what else, but it would take time to gain his trust. Time Trixie didn’t have. Not today. She had an article to turn in and several hours after that on the rewrite desk.

  A bribe was in order.

  Trixie let go of his ear. “I’ve got a dime, all right. In fact, I’ve got a half-dollar. One now and more later.”

  He cocked his head.

  Trixie snapped open her purse, pulled out a pencil, business card and fifty-cent piece. “Interested?”