Sheridan Weaver has been living a nice quiet life in Boston for the last year or so, working for an insurance company and doing well at it, when suddenly her previous life as a private investigator in business with her father intrudes. Richard St. Charles appears in her office wearing a "classy eye-catching combination of white pleated pants, a pale-yellow unstructured linen jacket and a lavender T-shirt" requesting an interview with her regarding her father. While at first she blows this off as another of her father's attempts to get her to go back to San Francisco and being his PI partner (or "girl dick" as the bad guy puts it), she soon realizes that more is going on and hightails it back to CA to make sure her father is ok.
The story that eventually comes out is that her father, J.B., won this necklace years ago when he was a professional gambler, thinking it was worth a lot of money, but finding that it was just a fake. Now, he's decided to resolve old debts but gets in deeper than anticipated when it turns out the necklace could be the key to prosecuting an old burglary/murder case. Richard got caught up in it by paying J.B. for the necklace when he wants to use it for collatoral during the poker game - Richard is a independently wealthy guy who owns a house in San Fran, a yacht and a few small boats in Sausilito, a "cottage" in Hawaii and a horse racing stud, etc., so putting up the money wasn't a big deal for him. So J.B. pays Sheridan (whose name I kept reading as Signourney every time Weaver came after it btw) to keep Richard out of trouble while Richard pays her to find J.B. who has disappeared.
Sheridan and Richard both feel a connection and don't waste time fighting it. Richard adores both Sheridans - the yuppie Bostonian businesswoman, and the rough and tumble San Franscisco PI who wears a judogi - and when everything is resolved he wants to be with her whereever she is in either life.
This book was very pleasant and enjoyable, in the way of an old movie if you know what I mean. I love the description of Richard's lavender shirt, it really sets the whole mood for his character. My favorite thing about this book is just how accepting the characters are - there is no hand-wringing of should they sleep together, what should be done next about the necklace, nothing: the characters just act true to themselves. Well done.
