Never Happened. Debra Webb

      “You can’t run away from love forever, Alex.”

      Marg placed a hand on hers. “Sooner or later it’s going to sneak up on you, and you need to be ready.”

      Alex didn’t draw her hand away, as was her first inclination. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings.

      “Mother, I’m perfectly happy with my life. I’m not interested in long-term.”

      “You see, that’s my point. You should be,” Marg countered. “You think I couldn’t get a job. You think I couldn’t get a place if I didn’t have this one. Well, you’re wrong. I could make it on my own. I might fall down now and then, but there’s nothing wrong with that.”

      Alex wasn’t sure where she was going with all this.

      “It’s okay to fail every so often. Life isn’t supposed to be perfect. Living life is about taking risks, about allowing yourself to be vulnerable at times,” Marg insisted. “You need to fall. Otherwise you’re never going to know just how magical life is.”

      Debra Webb

      Debra Webb’s romantic-suspense publishing career was launched with her first Harlequin Intrigue novel in September 2000. Since then this award-winning, bestselling author has had more than fifty novels hit the shelves. She spends most of her research in one of three ways—picking the brain of any FBI agent who will listen, following around her favorite local private investigator, or reading about new technology and bizarre criminal cases. Her family and friends have come to expect this sort of behavior and are rarely surprised anymore. Her favorite television shows, 24 and Grey’s Anatomy, showcase perfectly her love of suspense along with her wicked sense of humor.

      Never Happened

      Debra Webb

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      From the Author

      Dear Reader,

      Thanks so much for picking up my first Harlequin NEXT novel! I was so excited when asked to write this project. Alex Jackson and her somewhat quirky occupation of cleaning up dead things was a story I definitely wanted to tell.

      As a fortysomething myself, I can relate to the career issues as well as the complex romance needs of a woman barreling toward that half-century mark. Reaching forty and then onto fifty is a wonderful and, at times, frustrating time for a woman. I still feel youthful and ambitious and downright sexy. I refuse to allow anyone to make me feel otherwise. In my opinion the greatest thing about being over forty is that I can still be all those things but I have the wisdom necessary for making much better decisions than I did at twenty or even thirty.

      So enjoy these years, ladies. Challenge yourself and never, ever let anyone make you feel like anything less than the brilliant, sexy woman you are. Life is full of wonderful surprises and you never know what might happen next!

      Cheers,

      Debra Webb

      This book is dedicated to an editor who challenged me to write the very best book possible. Without her vision and close attention to detail Never Happened would not be the fabulous, fun read it is.

       Thank you, Jennifer Green, for your dedication to and your passion for the written word.

      CONTENTS

      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 1

      “You’re early, Alex.” A wide grin accompanied the remark. “You know I can’t let you get started just yet.”

      The smart-ass cop was right. Charlie Crane’s body was still in the house when Alex arrived. She surveyed the scene, could have done without seeing the old guy with his head all mangled by the bullet that had passed through his skull, but there was no changing that stomach-turning fact now.

      “Yeah, well, Henson,” she said, shifting her gaze from the poor bastard in the easy chair, “you’re late. You guys were supposed to be out of here an hour ago.”

      Detective Rich Henson snorted at her comeback. “The M.E. had a little fender bender, but he’ll be here any minute now, and then—” he spread his arms widely to indicate the room “—the place is all yours.”

      As Henson spoke, his gaze slid down her Margaritaville T-shirt, pausing ever so briefly on her 36D cups, before trailing the length of her jean-clad legs. She’d gotten used to the leers ages ago. Despite being called Alex by all who knew her, she was one hundred percent female and damned proud of it.

      Alexis Jackson was thirty-nine—okay, forty, but she wasn’t telling anyone since she remained in staunch denial of the fact—five feet six, and one-hundred-ten pounds of well-toned muscle and hard-earned grit and determination. She wore her hair long, straight and blond—her methods for keeping it that way were a closely guarded secret. The men she dated, including the one visually eating her up right now, liked to wax on about how the color of her eyes reminded them of the sea.

      Sounded great, huh? Well, the downside to being a blue-eyed blonde with a great body was that most men, and some women, mistakenly thought she was just another pretty face. But they only made that mistake once.

      “Who hired you?” Henson asked, being his usual nosy self. Alex felt pretty sure he didn’t really care; he just wanted to make conversation. She knew he still had a thing for her, and if she was into long-term relationships and cute guys with adrenaline-driven egos she might just give him a second chance. The fact of the matter was they had been there, done that and she’d walked away.

      Besides, cops were off-limits. As were firemen, P.I.’s and paramedics. Give her a CPA anytime. At least she didn’t spend all her time stroking his ego. Unfortunately, in her line of work most of the CPA types she ran into were dead. That sort of thinking led one place—to the big, looming cloud that proclaimed “dateless for twenty-three days now.” Definitely not where she wanted to go. As simple as it would be to tread into deeper waters with a sweet guy like Henson, she saw the risks a mile away.

      He was one of those guys who wanted something permanent. The only things in her life that were permanent were her friends and her work. And that was fine by her.

      “I didn’t think this guy had any family,” Henson tacked on just to add credibility to his question and to prompt an answer, which he would already know. It was his job to know. Charlie Crane’s death might just be a suicide, but in the state of Florida all unattended deaths had to be investigated, especially those involving trauma.

      “The landlord.” Her gaze went back to rest on Charlie’s slumped form. He had to be sixty at least. It amazed her that he didn’t have any family at all. No parents, no kids, no siblings. No one. Not even any real friends as far as the landlord knew. A stir of something Alex refused to identify made her stomach feel a little tight and queasy.

      Henson cocked his head and studied the stiff, then tossed