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To All a Good Night
DONNA KAUFFMAN
JILL SHALVIS
HELENKAY DIMON
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
CONTENTS
UNLEASHED
by Donna Kauffman
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
Epilogue
FINDING MR. RIGHT
by Jill Shalvis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
CAN YOU HAND ME THE TAPE?
by HelenKay Dimon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
1
Emma Lafferty’s life had gone to the dogs. Literally. And to the cats. And the parakeets, goldfish, hamsters, even the occasional potbelly pig. What it and her fledgling pet-sitting service hadn’t gone to was her bank account. Not enough, anyway.
She glanced quickly—again—at the Google map printout she’d made based on the reams of detailed information she’d gotten from Lionel Hamilton’s assistant. She’d always done better with a visual map rather than the go-south-on-route-whatever type instructions. Who knew which way south was? As luck would have it—her luck anyway—the aerial route had looked a lot simpler online. Of course, online, she hadn’t been trying to find a strange house in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, during a surprise winter ice storm.
“Happy holidays to me,” she muttered, squinting through the permanently fogged windshield of her beloved, but beat-up Land Rover.
She cracked the windows a bit farther, hoping in vain that would help clear the view a bit more, then rolled her side window down enough to reach out and slap the wiper against the windshield. Again. The rapidly building crust didn’t even budge. Her headlights barely penetrated the sheet of dense gray in front of her. Regardless, she couldn’t risk getting out on such a narrow, winding road. One oncoming vehicle and she’d be toast.
She slowed as she reached the peak of yet another long hill, bracing herself for the drive down the other side. Actually, a controlled slide was probably the best she could hope for at this point. “Why,” she muttered through chattering teeth. “Why did I agree to this?”
She knew why. Chelsea, her best friend and cohort since their days together at Tech, had sold her on what had, admittedly, sounded like a pretty sweet deal. Chelsea was in Human Resources at Hamilton Industries, and she’d heard through the grapevine that the grand poobah himself, Lionel Hamilton, was looking for someone to take care of his home and assorted pets over the holidays. A sudden change in dates for a scheduled business trip to the Far East had, apparently, thrown a last-minute wrench into his holiday plans.
Emma had thought it odd that one of Lionel’s many household staffers hadn’t taken on the job, but Chelsea explained that he’d already surprised them with an extended vacation for the two weeks over Christmas and New Year’s and didn’t want to rescind the offer.
The dilemma for Emma had been that the job required her to live on premises as both house sitter and pet sitter, and, being that he housed his pets at his weekend residence, said premises was a good two hours outside of town. Which meant she’d have to turn her regular clients down. During one of the busiest seasons of the year. But the pay was ridiculously good, and while she certainly wanted to make her newly established client base happy, Chelsea had also pointed out that doing a good job for Lionel Hamilton might be her ticket to building the kind of clientele any business would love to have. The kind with deep pockets and no time to manage their own lives, much less their own pets. So, Emma had crossed her fingers…and taken the deal.
Hamilton Industries was a conglomerate that owned most of Randolph County, Virginia, and employed pretty much everyone in it. Everyone except Emma. She’d removed herself from their payroll seven months earlier when a small inheritance had given her the gumption to do what she’d always wanted to do—open her own business.
Emma’s former job in accounting would have led to a nice, stable career. She was good at her job, and it was a dependable source of income. The only problem was it bored her to tears. In fact, she’d hated it. The idea of toting up long columns of numbers for the rest of her natural days left her feeling numb inside. She didn’t want to be numb. At twenty-nine, she was too young to be numb.
She smacked the dashboard, trying to beat the heater into functioning, not missing the irony as her teeth chattered so hard her jaw hurt. “So, I open my own business, and I’m still numb. Just literally, now.”
Three treacherous hills and numerous Hail Mary’s later, Emma finally spied the huge wrought iron gate, announcing the entrance to Lionel Hamilton’s mountain getaway. As she made her way slowly up the immense circular drive, she found herself wondering, if this was the weekend house, what did his everyday house looked like?
It was amazing even beyond what she and Chelsea had imagined during the hours of animated discussion they’d indulged in since she’d agreed to take the job. The massive marble pillars and soaring double-door entrance alone would have sent her best friend into gossip nirvana, Emma thought as she navigated her way around to the separate garage in the rear. Not that she wasn’t goggling over the place herself. In fact, she could hardly wait to get settled in so she could call Chelsea and share every detail.
She used the garage door opener that had been messengered to her, along with a small, bound notebook containing the most anal-retentive, detailed list of instructions, notes, and maps she’d ever seen in her life—and was profoundly grateful to have, as she’d accepted the job without ever directly speaking to Mr. Hamilton. She’d gotten a handful of his assistants instead, over the phone, via e-mail, and text message, all of them borderline frantic to make certain she followed the notebook to the letter. Emma had assured the seemingly harried crew that she’d be fine, privately wondering what the hell she’d really signed on for. Then the notebook had arrived. And she’d been a little worried ever since. Maybe more than a little.
Hamilton apparently micromanaged his pets and his home the way he did his assistants. It was no wonder his employees sounded like