Read the book: «Here Comes Trouble»

Here Comes Trouble
Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated with utmost appreciation to my readers. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your encouragement, support and enthusiasm. I hope you’ll stick with me as we all get into Trouble.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER 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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

MORTIMER POTTS was not insane.

He did, on occasion, like to slip into the past—at least in his mind—and relive his favorite days. Days that were certainly more exhilarating than those he lived now. But contrary to the belief of some of his detractors, he was able to separate fiction from reality. Usually.

The problem with reality was that it was boring. The idea of settling down into his role as elderly millionaire—sipping cognac and smoking cigars on the patio of his Manhattan penthouse as he watched the world go by—simply held no appeal.

He needed adventure. Excitement. Needed to ride through the desert on a fine black stallion, or sail into a secluded jetty on the coast of Malta to escape pirates. Or whisk three young boys away to an African safari.

That was one consolation—his grandsons, at least, did not think him mad. Eccentric? Yes. But not insane.

Or perhaps that wasn’t a consolation. Having a bit of madness in the family would certainly invigorate the lives of those three young men, who’d become just a bit too pedestrian in their adult years. A little insanity could be good for the soul.

He would go insane if he was forced to ring in his eightieth year at a boring club filled with artificial people who wouldn’t dream of walking unaccompanied in Central Park, much less fighting their way out of a smoky tavern in Singapore. Ah, the good old days.

At least, he thought they were his good old days. Sometimes his memory played tricks on him.

“Your morning papers, sir,” said a familiar, well-modulated English voice.

Mortimer looked up to greet his manservant—and best friend. Roderick had been with him since 1945—a dispirited Brit tooling across Africa with a rich American once the Desert Fox had been defeated. He’d saved Mortimer’s life on one occasion and, as incongruous as it seemed, had helped him raise his grandsons.

Roderick had taught the boys how to live responsibly. Mortimer had taught them how to live.

“Anything of interest?” Mortimer asked.

“Not particularly.” Unruffled as always, Roderick, his dark, slicked-back hair now as gray as Mortimer’s was white, spread the papers on the small café-style table on the penthouse patio. Then the butler-cum-mechanic-cum-partner-in-crime-on-occasion stepped back and cleared his throat.

“What is it?”

“I believe the boy might be headed for a storm, sir.”

“Goodness, Roderick, how many times have I told you to call me Mortimer?” he asked. Then he focused on the man’s words. “The boy?”

Roderick merely sighed. “With a woman.”

Ah, Maxwell. A smile tugged at his mouth, even as Mortimer began to shake his head in feigned disapproval.

Mortimer did not play favorites with his grandchildren. But the rascally middle Taylor son, Max, was so much like him that he’d never been able to help being amused by his antics. Max was a rogue. A rapscallion, though a goodhearted one. At least, he had been. Before life had slapped him with a faithless wife.

Mortimer had had a few of those…wives, that is. Only one he’d wanted to keep. None, however, had sent him into the tailspin his grandson’s had. She had apparently destroyed Max’s faith in love. He seemed completely uninterested in trying marriage again…as were his two brothers, who’d never tried at all.

“What type of storm?” It probably didn’t speak well of him that he had a quick hope that his grandson had gotten a young lady in trouble. He would rather enjoy a great-grandchild.

“I fear he may be flying toward some rough publicity.”

Bad headlines. Bah. “Maxwell can handle rough publicity.”

Too bad. The idea of having to help his grandson with something scandalous was more appealing than sitting here in the city waiting to die. And a wrong-side-of-the-blanket infant sounded much more exciting than a media scandal.

Lifting the London paper, he idly began to flip the pages, finding nothing of interest. Until…“Did you see this?” he asked. “Property For Sale—A Pennsylvania Township.”

“A township, sir?”

Mortimer read on, barely hearing the other man. With each word, a surge of excitement built in his veins. Soon he was sitting straight in his chair, rereading, thinking, planning.

“I recognize that expression. You’re going to do something outrageous,” Roderick said, a note of resignation in his voice. “And I’m going to be dragged along, forced to break you out of some prison or find a bottle of your favorite Courvoisier XO Imperial cognac in a remote store that carries little more than six-packs of—” he shuddered “—Schlitz Malt Liquor.”

Ignoring him, Mortimer said, “This town is looking for a sheikh, a prince or a duke to save them from bankruptcy.”

“Is that possible? A town being sold?”

“It happens. Some actor bought a town last year, I think.” Mortimer read on. “Being offered in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is the town of Trouble, Pennsylvania, established 1821.”

A dry chuckle told him what Roderick thought of the name of the place. Most people would probably be put off by it. Mortimer, however, had never been one to retreat, had never liked to ride out of the way to avoid trouble. “This might be just what I need,” he murmured. “They did say they wanted a sheikh.”

He peered out of the corner of his eye, watching for any sign of skepticism from his butler, as he occasionally saw on the faces of others when the subject of some of Mortimer’s adventures arose. There was none, of course. Roderick knew full well that Mortimer had been granted an honorary sheikhdom from the head of a Bedouin tribe after the winter of forty-eight.

“I wonder about the condition of the place, if it’s bankrupt,” Roderick said, reading over his shoulder. “A few buildings, roads and parks for that amount? I should think you’d be able to purchase an entire colony for such a sum.”

“They’re states,” Mortimer said. “Remember that tea party and several years of revolution?”

Roderick lifted a disdainful brow.

Still, the man was correct. The amount named in the ad was not a paltry one. “Well, see here, there is more for the price.” He pointed. “Beyond the courthouse, town hall and fire station, some formerly private buildings are also included.”

“Oh, goody,” Roderick said, his voice as dry as the sawdust-flavored English biscuits he so enjoyed.

Mortimer’s enthusiasm was not dampened as he finished reading the advertisement. “These include a movie theater, photo hut, school, barber shop, a big, furnished house, a gas station, two restaurants—one with working ice-cube maker—and a factory formerly occupied by Stuttgardt Cuckoo Clock Company.”

Roderick sniffed. “How very appropriate.”

“All government buildings are currently in use, all others are closed after bank foreclosure. Also included is the bank.”

Well, that cinched it, didn’t it? His family had been in banking for a hundred years. It was how the Potts family had made their fortune. Which had provided Mortimer with a comfortable inheritance that he’d parlayed into millions through prudent investing and a bit of international intrigue.

Destiny. He was a sheikh. He had the money. He loved trouble. And he would, most assuredly, love Trouble.

“About the boy…”

Mortimer set the paper down. “Is it serious?”

“It may be. He will likely need to do some reevaluating.”

There wasn’t anything Mortimer Potts wouldn’t do for his grandsons. And it suddenly occurred to him that the purchase of his own little Pennsylvania town could help in that respect, too. “You are aware that if I proceed with this, my grandsons are certain to come try to rescue me from my folly.”

Roderick nodded ever so slightly.

“Morgan is preparing to fly off on some assignment for Time magazine. And Michael is doing something quite mysterious, which he referred to as ‘deep undercover’ work.”

That left Max. The rascal. Who would, without doubt, come to Trouble determined to save his grandfather.

Instead, Mortimer hoped, Max would be saving himself.

CHAPTER ONE

PILOTING A TWIN-ENGINE Cessna Citation CJ2+ out of Long Beach Airport in California, Max Taylor was prepared for a lot of things. Bad weather, low visibility, turbulence. He’d dealt with the wind shear off a low-flying commercial airliner. Equipment failure. Hell, even the odd seagull going splat on the windshield or getting sucked up into an engine.

But not this. Not a scene straight out of a bad porn movie. Nothing in his wildest dreams—or darkest nightmares—could have prepared him for a seventy-year-old passenger bursting into his cockpit. Naked. Completely, shockingly naked. “Wha—”

“Mr. Taylor, induct me into the mile-high club!” the gray-haired woman exclaimed, her arms wide, emphasizing the, uh, length of her bustline.

Max’s first thought was to dive back below five thousand feet so they wouldn’t be a mile up. His second was to think that all her millions hadn’t managed to make Mrs. Rudolph Coltrane look as young from the neck down as it had managed to deal with her tightly Botoxed face. And his third was to realize that he was being attacked in his own plane. By a woman old enough to be his grandmother.

“Mrs. Coltrane, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, somehow managing to keep his voice steady, his hands on the controls and his gaze straight ahead. Not that it was going to do much good—he’d already gotten an eyeful.

Still in shock, Max suspected he was going to have nightmares tonight. Nightmares about the unattractiveness of breast implants going south, and sags that couldn’t be lifted by a crane, much less the best plastic surgeon in L.A.

“I was going to wait until we were higher up, but I can’t,” the woman said. “I’ve waited too long as it is. I know you’re used to a slightly younger woman…”

Decades.

“…but we’re alone now and I’m willing and a man with your…appetites probably can’t go for long without giving in to his carnal urges.”

Currently, Max’s only urge was to jump out of the plane.

“I’ve paid good money for this trip, and I fully expect you to be my in-flight entertainment.”

“That’s what the DVD player is for,” he whispered, shaking his head in bewilderment.

This couldn’t be happening. Not along with all the other weird crap he’d been experiencing lately. A constant stream of women had been driving him nuts for weeks, almost sending him into hiding. He seemed to be the latest fad among the “ladies who lunch” of southern California.

Max had always enjoyed relationships with his fair share of females. Probably the next guy’s fair share, too. He certainly wasn’t going to apologize for liking women.

And he did. Oh, he really did. He liked how they smelled and how they looked. Liked the tender bit of skin at the nape of a lovely neck and the feel of soft hair against his bare chest. Liked tangled sheets, steamy nights and slow, deep kisses.

Careful not to get snagged in any commitment nets—not after his one disastrous experience with marriage and the major screw-up he’d made of his life following his divorce—he only got involved with women who were looking for the same things he was. Intelligent conversation, a few nice meals and, occasionally, scream-like-a-banshee sex. No strings.

Which meant, he supposed, that the strange abundance of propositions coming his way the past few weeks should have been a good thing.

It wasn’t.

Because Max had become much more careful and circumspect about his sex life in recent years. Besides, he had always been the pursuer, not the pursued. He liked flirtation and seduction. A shared glance and the not-completely-innocent brush of a hand against a soft female arm. Charming his way into the good graces of even the most cool and unattainable ice queen gave him a great deal of satisfaction, whether sex was involved or not.

Lately, though, he’d been like a lame zebra being stalked by a pride of hungry lionesses.

He was being felt up by women in line at the bank, and having notes and drinks delivered to him in restaurants. One brunette with about ten carats of diamonds glittering from her fingers had been sitting on the hood of his Porsche last week. He’d been so concerned about possible dents in his car that at first the woman’s lack of panties beneath her short dress hadn’t registered. Once it did, his only reaction had been annoyance that he was also going to have to get the car washed.

“It’s gotta be the cologne,” he muttered, wondering if he was the subject of a secret scientific experiment. Maybe Calvin Klein was slipping some kind of animal secretion into his aftershave. Something that made Max give off irresistible pheromones that turned women into sex-starved vixens.

“Mr. Taylor…”

Or sex-starved bovines.

“Return to your seat,” he said from between clenched teeth. He didn’t look around, focusing instead on the blue sky spread in a brilliant panorama outside the windshield. Not on the age-spotted lady in the doorway spread in an Eve-old invitation. “Get dressed and sit down or I’ll return to the airport.”

“You can’t mean to tell me you’re refusing.” The spoiled, rich socialite wasn’t used to being told no. And as the owner of a young private charter company that was still struggling under last year’s expansion from a four-jet fleet to a six-jet one, he wasn’t used to saying it—not when it came to business.

Max had worked his ass off in the past three years, determined to get himself out of the quagmire his life had become after he’d left the Air Force. After a brief, yearlong bout of drunkenness during his divorce, he’d pulled his shit together and had launched his small, regional airline. It was something he’d dreamed of doing since his teenage years when he first learned to fly over the African desert, taught by one of his grandfather’s cronies.

Since then, his airline had become one of the fastest-growing private carriers in Orange County. Especially with customers like Mrs. Rudolph Coltrane, who freely shelled out major dollars to grab a ride to Vail or down to Cancún.

Of course, he’d always thought he’d be living this life after he finished a career as an Air Force pilot. That hadn’t exactly gone as planned. Don’t go there, he silently reminded himself.

“Look, I’m willing to fly you wherever you want to go,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “As long as it’s within the safety parameters of the aircraft. And sex in the cockpit is not.”

He didn’t go into the whole “I’d rather poke my liver out with a burning pogo stick than have sex with you” bit. Hopefully the woman cared enough for her own skin to sit down.

“Rubbish.”

Okay, apparently she didn’t.

“I know you have autopilot,” she added. “Everyone knows about this airline and your new planes.”

Yeah, they did. Word had spread about Taylor Made until they could barely keep up with demand. So the idea of merging with a large outfit trying to break into the lucrative southern California market had seemed perfect when he’d been approached by a New York executive a few months ago.

The merger was progressing nicely and would be wrapped up later in the year. Determined to make it happen, Max was working double time to keep the business lucrative. He could take a vacation after he had a partner.

Mrs. Coltrane put her hand on his shoulder. “Now, set the autopilot and turn around.”

Pleasing the customer was a top priority in his business, and he didn’t want to alienate someone with as powerful a reputation as Mrs. Coltrane. But despite the special extras and level of excellence he advertised in his promotional material, flying the twin of the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” lady to the heights of passion was not in his job description.

“You’ve got to the count of five, then I radio the tower and we make an immediate landing,” he said, trying to shrug off her hand.

“Don’t be coy. I know all about you.”

He stiffened, having no idea what she meant. “One.”

“Surely you can at least do me the courtesy of a quickie.”

The woman’s indignance would have been laughable if Max’s laughter hadn’t been sucked out of him like spit through a dentist’s tube. “Two.”

“But I thought…”

He reached for the radio handset. “Three.”

“Well,” the woman said with a phlegmy harrumph, “if I don’t have a thing or two to say to Grace Wellington.”

The word four died on Max’s lips as he focused on the name his passenger had uttered. Grace Wellington. What on earth a woman he’d gone out with a few years ago could have to do with Grandma getting naked in his Cessna, he had no idea. But he’d very much like to find out. Especially because he couldn’t help wondering if all the other strange experiences he’d been having with women were also connected to Grace, whom he’d dated briefly after the death of her scandalous politician husband.

“What about Grace?” he couldn’t help asking.

“She’s a liar, that’s what I think,” Mrs. Coltrane said, her tone nasal.

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder—and wouldn’t have for the single winning lottery ticket in the biggest Powerball jackpot in history—to see the woman’s chin jutting up and out, and her nostrils flaring with patrician arrogance. He was familiar with the expression, having seen it on the faces of a lot of his rich, female clients.

Of course, most of them were clothed when they got all haughty and pretentious. Wrinkly nudity probably ruined the effect—not that he wanted to find out.

“I never was certain whether the stories she wrote about you were true—that any man could be as sexually potent and addictive. Now I’m quite sure they’re not.” The woman grunted. “Some sexual fiend you are—a naked woman standing a foot away and you couldn’t even manage a quick game of hide-the-joystick.”

He didn’t know whether to be relieved that she’d given up her seduction attempt, or offended that she thought him incapable of, uh, playing her game. But since the only place he wanted to hide his joystick was behind his own zipper, maybe her interpretation wasn’t such a bad thing.

Then the rest of her words sunk in. Sex fiend? “What stories? What, exactly, are you talking about?”

She was silent for a moment. If he had had a whole lot more nerve, he would have turned around to see if she was wearing a guilty expression at spilling some kind of secret. He wasn’t that brave, however, so he settled for prompting her. “Mrs. Coltrane?”

“You’ll know soon enough, I suppose.” Her voice sounded farther away, meaning she was back in the passenger cabin, hopefully getting dressed. “The book comes out this fall. And there’s talk of a story in the Star or the Globe or something.”

“Book?”

“Grace’s autobiography. Huh! As if that woman is interesting enough to need a whole book. If not for the scandals, it would be nothing more than a page.”

An autobiography. Grace Wellington—spoiled socialite turned scandalous widow after her bribe-taking politician husband had eaten the muzzle of a gun—had written her memoirs. And included him. Damn.

Almost afraid to hear the answer, he asked, “What exactly did Grace have to say about me in this book?”

The woman snorted an inelegant laugh. He realized she’d returned to the cockpit and was right behind him. When she moved her arm within view, he saw the sleeve of her designer blouse and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“There’s a whole chapter devoted to you, my boy, and it’s been making the rounds. The lurid details are enough to make even the most risqué piece of erotica look tame.”

His stomach rolled over. It hadn’t done that in a cockpit since the first time he’d sat in an F-15 during his Air Force days…the early ones, before an unplanned pregnancy and a fucked-up marriage had derailed his plans to complete the pilot training program. “I can’t believe this.”

He didn’t want to believe it, but Mrs. Coltrane seemed sure of herself. Grace had written a bunch of raunchy stuff about him and circulated it among her highbrow friends. Which explained why he’d become the flavor of the month among the Beverly Hills set.

“The book’s coming out in hardcover in November.”

His temple began to throb as the full implication hit him. A book with a chapter full of sordid stories about him was about to go public. Now. Right when he was entering negotiations to take his company to the next level with a major merger.

God, how he wished he’d never laid eyes—or hands—on Grace Wellington.

“This is wrong.”

His passenger seemed unaware of his dismay. “If the rumors of an accompanying tabloid article are true, I imagine the book will sell well.”

Tabloid article. He felt like throwing up.

“Well, if you’re really not going to provide me with any form of entertainment, you may as well turn around. I want to go home,” Mrs. Coltrane said, her voice sharp with annoyance.

Max didn’t have to be asked twice. Within a half hour they were on the ground and Mrs. Coltrane was flouncing toward the terminal used by the private airlines. Max, meanwhile, stood on the tarmac, cell phone in hand, dialing a familiar number.

His brother Morgan—who lived in New York managing the family assets when he wasn’t off on some wildlife photographic safari—would know what to do. Or at least, who to call. But the minute Morgan answered the phone, Max heard a surprising note of excitement in his normally calm and collected older sibling’s voice.

“Max. You heard?”

“I heard.” He covered his free ear as a small Lear roared to life nearby. “Who’s the best literary attorney you know?”

“Literary?” A crackle of static interrupted, then Max thought Morgan said, “…a real estate attorney!”

Jogging toward the terminal entrance to get better reception, he spoke loudly so his brother could understand. “I don’t want to buy the woman’s house, I want to stop her damn book.” Speaking as he stepped inside, his raised voice garnered the attention of a number of people. This was so not his day.

“A book? Max, I’m talking about Trouble.”

Max strode into the private pilot’s lounge, which was, thankfully, deserted. “Tell me about it. I know I’m in trouble.”

“You are? You’re there? Then you’ve seen him?”

“Seen who?”

“Grandfather.”

Grandfather. Ah…that explained Morgan’s excited mood. If anything could send his level-headed older brother into a tailspin, it was their wildly flamboyant grandfather, the elderly man who’d raised them after their parents died. “Where is he and what has he done now?”

“I just told you, he’s in Trouble.”

“Yeah. I got it. He’s gotten himself into another mess.”

“No.” His brother’s voice was impatient. “You don’t get it. Grandfather is in a small town called Trouble.”

Max had to laugh. Because if there was anywhere Mortimer Potts was destined to be, it was in a town with that dubious name. “Okay. So he’s visiting a weird town. That’s nothing new.”

“He’s not on vacation,” Morgan said. “He owns it, Max.”

“Huh?”

“Our grandfather has purchased an entire town. He now officially owns Trouble, Pennsylvania. One of us has to fly there right away to get him out of this mess.”

One of us. Max could tell by his brother’s voice which one of us he meant. And it sure wasn’t Morgan—or their younger brother, Mike.

He was about to refuse, knowing there was too much at stake with the merger to take off on an unexpected vacation. Then he thought it over. Maybe getting out of town for a while would be a good thing. He could disappear—away from more crazy, horny old moneybags like Mrs. Coltrane. And in the meantime, get the best attorney he could find to stop publication of Grace’s book.

Besides, his grandfather was always a lot of fun. Right now, he could use some fun…not to mention the distraction. A false identity wouldn’t hurt, either, at least until this book thing was taken care of.

Neither would a sip of alcohol.

Forget it. He didn’t do that anymore—couldn’t do that anymore. Not ever.

If the eccentric old man who’d raised him was in a bad way, well, there wasn’t much Max wouldn’t do for him. Wasn’t much his brothers wouldn’t do for him, either. They were family, after all, the four of them. Had been for eighteen years, since Max, Morgan and Mike had lost their dad to the first Gulf War and their mom to cancer.

“All right. I’ll do it,” he said, trying to look on the bright side. “It’s not a bad time for me to get out of Dodge.”

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

Max suddenly didn’t want to talk to his brother about the Grace Wellington situation. Considering his older sibling had been hounding him since they were young about the scrapes Max got into with women, he couldn’t give the other man the satisfaction.

He had to laugh at the irony. His grandfather’s new town was aptly named for Max, too. Though he’d done everything he could to stay out of trouble for the past few years, he just seemed destined to keep landing in it.

“I’m okay,” he finally replied. “After I make some arrangements here, I’ll be getting the old man out of trouble. Figuratively and literally.”

Two weeks later

SABRINA CAVANAUGH had heard the old saying about a place being so small you’d miss it if you blinked. But she’d never realized it could really be true of an entire town.

She couldn’t have driven through Trouble and not realized it, could she? That awkward conglomeration of falling-down houses, boarded-up businesses and doleful people hadn’t been her destination, right? Because she came from a dinky little Ohio town, population twelve, and it still seemed bigger than this.

Pulling her rented car over, she parked on the side of the dusty, two-lane road on which she’d been traveling since leaving the interstate. The road that had none of the shady trees, rolling hills or charming scenery she’d seen since leaving Philadelphia this morning. Then she reached for her map.

“Darn.” She had missed it. That small cluster of buildings she’d barely noticed out of the corner of her eye must have been the town she was looking for.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising. The closer she’d gotten to Trouble, the more her mind had filled with doubt. The whole idea for this trip had seemed ridiculous when she and her senior editor at Liberty Books had conceived it, and it was much more so now.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered, “a rich, hot pilot is really going to fall down with desire for a small-town minister’s granddaughter turned junior book editor.”

Why on earth had she ever gone to her boss and convinced her that she could do this? That she could stop a womanizing playboy from suing them for libel by proving he was a womanizing playboy?

She really needed to stop watching old movies—this was so Rock Hudson/Doris Day. Maybe it would have worked for Doris, but no way was it going to for Sabrina Cavanaugh.

She was in way over her head. Unless wanting it to happen was enough. Because Sabrina did. She desperately wanted Max Taylor to fall crazy in lust with her. Not so she could have wild, passionate sex with the man—liar, liar—but so she could nail him for the womanizing deviant Grace Wellington’s book made him out to be. The book that was right now in jeopardy since the rich, slimy playboy had hired a shark lawyer to threaten a lawsuit.

“What man wouldn’t want to have his wickedly erotic sexual exploits glorified in a well-written memoir?” she mused.

Okay…sort of well written.

Apparently not this man. He, it seemed, had pulled out an angel costume and hired the best lawyer he could. Taylor’s lawyer was demanding that publication be stopped, threatening a libel lawsuit over Grace’s descriptions of their wild and kinky affair, her subsequent heartbreak and Max’s jaded lifestyle. And in the post–James Frey era of memoirs, Liberty was threatening to pull the book altogether.

“Oh, no, you will not ruin this for me,” Sabrina muttered, determined all over again to out the man for the reprobate he really was.

It was only because of the book—because of how important the success of that book would be for Sabrina. It had absolutely nothing—zero, zilch—to do with the man himself.

Keep telling yourself that, kid.

Sabrina never had been able to lie well, despite having a lot of experience with it as a kid. Lying had been a necessity for a troublemaking rebel trapped in the body of a small-town minister’s granddaughter who wasn’t allowed to wear jeans and had been called a harlot by her grandfather the first time she wiped a streak of pink lipstick across her mouth.

God help her if the old man had ever found out Sabrina was the one who’d put twenty packets of red Kool-Aid mix in the fountain outside his church. And had thrown one of her grandmother’s old wigs in with it so the whole thing resembled a murder scene.

She’d had a vivid imagination as a child.

Glancing in her rearview mirror, Sabrina noticed the buildings a few hundred yards back—a gas station, and a sagging, cone-shaped hut that had once either sold ice cream or developed film. Farther back, she thought she remembered driving by a restaurant, a drug store and a small courthouse supported by a ring of dirty cement columns, pitted with age spots and faintly green with mildew. There had also been an overgrown playground with swings that would require a child to get a tetanus shot before climbing aboard.

It seemed exactly the kind of place that would be called Trouble. Especially considering that the barren landscape surrounding it was too marshy for farming and too rocky for developing. Reportedly there was no coal in the three mountains ringing the small valley or even a decent slope for skiing.

Just one sorry little town with a cocky name, her home for the next week or two. Or as long as it took to track down Mr. Taylor and get him to come out of hiding as Prince Charming and put on his Hugh Hefner robe.

She was about to swing the car around and head back when she got a welcome distraction. Grabbing her cell phone out of her purse, she recognized the number on the caller ID.

“Nancy, I don’t know anything yet, I just got here,” she said. Her boss, senior editor Nancy Carazzi, had called for hourly updates all morning.

“Are you sure he’s there?”

“How could I be sure of that when I’m still in my car?”

“By the trail of women lying in satisfied puddles of lust around the town square?”

Sabrina chuckled at Nancy’s droll tone. She wasn’t surprised by the question. Though her boss—and friend—had no use for men, in or out of the bedroom, even she had been intrigued by the stories about one Maxwell Taylor, the stud of southern California—at least according to Grace Wellington’s book.

Neither of them had seen a decent picture of the man, since his airline Web site only featured a group shot taken from a distance. Posed beside a fleet of planes, the owner of Taylor Made Air Charters had been indistinguishable from his staff. All of them wearing dark glasses against the sun, they had formed a solid block of blue-uniformed flyboys.

But Grace’s descriptions had been evocative to say the least. And Sabrina could picture him in her mind.

He was suave. Sophisticated. James Bond in a pilot’s cap, with an elegant, lean body and smoothed-back dark hair. He had high cheekbones, a strong chin, and deep, knowing eyes. She just knew it. Because she’d seen him in her dreams. A lot.

“You still there?”

Sabrina cleared her throat and pulled her thoughts off the book. That part of it, anyway. “I haven’t spied any women stripping and throwing themselves naked at a man’s feet.”

“Is that your plan?”

“I’m not the least bit…”

“Can it,” Nancy said. “You think I didn’t notice the dreamy look you got on your face when you were reading the Max chapter of the book? You were intrigued, Sabrina. Hell, I haven’t had any use for a penis since I decided as a kid that Betty should end up with Veronica instead of Archie, and I was intrigued.”

Laughing, Sabrina mentally admitted she’d been more than intrigued. She wouldn’t say so out loud, but in her mind she could acknowledge that her curiosity about Grace Wellington’s former lover had become all-consuming.

“It’s just curiosity,” she insisted, not sure which of them she was trying harder to convince. “Plus a lot of skepticism. And a little bit of disgust.” Okay, she could mentally admit it was titillated disgust when it came to some of the seedier details of the wicked pleasures Max had introduced Grace to.

Wiping her brow with the back of her hand, she wasn’t surprised to find moisture there. Even with the car’s air-conditioning, memories of those scenes made her break out in a sweat. But she gamely declared, “I’d never get involved with someone like that.”

“Who said anything about getting involved? That man was born to inspire clothes to drop, not dreams of wedding rings.”

Unfortunately, sex did mean getting involved for Sabrina—she couldn’t help it. Some fire and brimstone had remained burning deep inside her long after she’d shaken off the dust of her hometown and upbringing, and taken off to the big city to go to college. Her single one-night stand a few years ago had left her feeling so guilty that she’d thrown out the sexy pair of slut shoes she’d worn to the bar that night.

Racked with guilt…hmm, her grandfather would be so proud. After he condemned her for the one-night-stand thing.

She shuddered at the thought of the old man with whom she, her mother and her younger siblings had lived since Sabrina was twelve. But, hey, she was lucky. Only one-third of her childhood had sucked. Her first twelve years had been wonderful. Her sister Allie had also been old enough to remember the good times, and they’d talked often about how fortunate they were because of that.

Sadly, their brother and youngest sister had never even known what their real family life had been like, back when they’d lived in New York and Dad was alive. Since he died when they were babies, all they’d ever known was the judgmental narrow-mindedness of their mother’s father. Which might explain why Sabrina and Allie were so much alike—rebellious and anxious to escape—while the younger two were the models of proper youthful behavior.

God, she felt so sorry for them.

“You’re supposed to be tempting the man into misbehaving. At least that’s what you said when you came to me with this whole harebrained scheme.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sabrina said, shaking off the dark thoughts. “I’m still wondering if I had some kind of psychotic break.”

Nancy snickered. “Don’t sell yourself short. You can do it…you’re just his type.”

“Alive and breathing?”

“Yes. But also beautiful, vulnerable…So why not misbehave yourself while you’re at it?” Nancy asked.

“I’m not looking for a fling with a playboy,” she insisted.

“Yeah, yeah. You want someone nice.”

“Exactly. Decent, funny. A combination of Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks and every father from every old 1950s black-and-white family sitcom on TV Land.”

“Boring.”

She went on as though Nancy hadn’t spoken. “The kind who’ll be loyal and faithful.”

“Get a Labrador.”

“Gentle,” she added.

“Get a girlfriend.”

“Well hung.”

“Get a dil—”

“Don’t say it,” Sabrina ordered. “I prefer male sexual organs that are actually attached to a body.”

“Strap-on?”

Groaning helplessly, Sabrina muttered, “A male body.”

Nancy sighed. “Picky picky.”

One thing was sure, whoever the next serious guy in her life happened to be, he would not be the type who’d get so angry when a woman broke up with him that he’d seek cruel revenge. Like seducing her innocent younger sister, getting her pregnant and walking out on her.

Her sister Allie was currently waiting out the last two months of her pregnancy in Sabrina’s apartment. Allie’s entire life had been ruined as part of the stupid revenge plot concocted by a guy Sabrina had dumped.

Yes, she’d had enough scumbags to last her whole life. It was nice, decent men from now on. No wicked studs need apply.

So her almost overwhelming need to see this Max Taylor in person had to be about curiosity, that was all. She simply couldn’t believe any man could be a modern-day combination of Valentino, James Bond and a porn star—as Grace claimed.

Skepticism and curiosity, she reminded herself. Not interest. Not in a million years.

She was about to continue arguing that point, but a noise distracted her. A metallic banging split the quiet afternoon air. It came from beyond a small stand of scraggly trees right off the road. Just after it came the loud, familiar tones of a calliope—the plaintive call to come to the circus.

Glancing that way, she caught the sparkle of something brilliantly shiny—a beautiful gleam of light that seemed entirely out of place in this gray-washed landscape.

Sabrina liked shiny things—bright lights, big city, loud music, fun. Just one more holdover from an early childhood with her funny, doting father that life with Grandfather hadn’t been able to extinguish.

Which, she supposed, was why she ended the call, dropped her phone in her purse and stepped out of the car. The music and the colors were calling to her.

And her curiosity wasn’t going to let her head back to Trouble without finding out where they were coming from.

CHAPTER TWO

TROUBLE MIGHT be the name of this town, but as far as Max was concerned, a better one would be The Mental Ward. After two weeks in the Pennsylvania community his grandfather called his kingdom, he was ready to run screaming off a bridge. Anything to escape the sounds of people calling him a savior—or a villain, the rattle of cars on their last piston, or—worst of all—the excruciating chirp of dozens of cuckoo clocks, all cuckooing their black little hearts out when the minute hand struck twelve.

The clocks. They were the tormenting fiends who’d convinced him he was one inch from insanity. At least one—usually more—of the vile things decorated every room of Max’s grandfather’s house, where Max was staying. And his grandfather loved them as much as he loved the dusty old furniture that had come with the place.

A lumpy couch he could live with. A few dozen cackling birds he could not. They’d driven him out early this morning, seeking both peace and quiet and a distraction. Any distraction.

Only not a female one, which was the biggest frustration of all. He was here to live down his reputation. Not add to it.

Coming to Trouble had been about more than talking his grandfather into unloading this bottomless pit he’d dumped a mountain of money into. The man did have a thing for lost causes and a sob story—apparently this tiny town being bankrupted by an embezzling crook had tugged at Mortimer’s heartstrings.

Max couldn’t forget his second objective, however—to lay low and stay out of the limelight while his lawyer took care of this Grace Wellington nonsense. Which was why he’d been here for days and had so far not given so much as a second glance to a nicely curved feminine ass.

Not that he’d seen any. Which was probably a good thing, even though it felt like a bad one.

There were only two things Max liked as well—or did as well—as women. Piloting. And tinkering with machinery.

He’d gone flying this morning, and, as always, the freedom and beauty of an endless blue sky had helped. Zipping and soaring between a few fluffy white clouds provided the kind of mindless delight he otherwise only got with sex. But once back on solid ground, the feeling had quickly disappeared. He was still tense…restless.

Which was why he was now cussing and coaxing the rust-covered engine of an ancient carousel back to life. He’d stumbled across the glorious ruin in the falling-down remnants of what had been Pennsylvania Kiddie World during one of his daily get-out-to-stay-sane walks earlier this week. Something about the place had appealed to him, unlike anything else in Trouble. Certainly unlike the moldering, cuckoo-clock-infested ruin in which he was currently residing with his happy-as-a-pig-in-mud grandfather.

He supposed there were benefits to being the grandson of a town owner, because he’d been able to get the power to this park turned on. Not that it seemed to have done any good. The poor carousel motor hadn’t made so much as one long groan of agony in the days he’d been tinkering with it, even if he had managed to get a few wailing notes of the calliope to belt out.

“Come on, sweetheart, I know you’re tired and old, but you must have one more go-round in you, merry or not.”

“Excuse me?”

Jerking his attention from the control panel, which had required a good quart of WD-40 before even allowing itself to be opened, Max swung his head around and stared over his shoulder. A woman had come up behind him in the tiny, weed-encrusted, abandoned amusement park, which had once been the cubic zirconia jewel in Trouble’s dubious crown.

And speaking of jewels…good Christ, was the woman standing in front of him one. A blonde. She was a blonde. His absolute weakness.

She was also tall, curvy and had the kind of lips that’d make a man howl to the night in pure, primal hunger.

No. No howling. No wolfing at all, remember?

Swallowing his libido, he offered her a smile. “Sorry. I guess you caught me talking to myself.” He stood and brushed his hands off on his jeans, leaving a smear of grease on one thigh. Stepping closer, he forced himself to keep this encounter friendly, neighborly.

When what he wanted was sexy and suggestive.

She smiled back, also noncommittal. Cordial but not flirtatious. Unfortunately. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.” Pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, she revealed a pair of bright sky-blue eyes.

Damn. A blue-eyed blonde with a pretty smile and a pair of succulent lips. A smooth-skinned face with soft cheeks and the tiniest jut in her jaw that said she was stubborn. A bright, smiling angel appearing in this private corner of perdition just like the sun coming out on a cloudy, overcast day….

He felt like groaning out loud. Who, he wondered, had he wronged in another life to have such temptation presented to him when he couldn’t—simply could not—give in to it?

She looked him over, head to toe, with that calm, innocent glance women always hid their interest behind. A tiny hint of color appeared in her creamy cheeks and she licked at her lips—those lips—to moisten them.

Just throw a lightning bolt at me and be done with it.

“Talking to yourself—that can be a dangerous thing,” she said, her voice throatier than he’d have expected from such a soft-looking female.

“So can cutting a hand on some of this sharp, rusty metal.” Max grinned. “I feel like I ought to sweet-talk her to make sure she doesn’t scratch me.” Hmm…had that sounded suggestive? He hadn’t meant it to.

Like hell. Knock it off, Taylor.

Her full lips twitching, she gazed at his hands. “Are you hurt?”

“Not yet. But I have the feeling I will be by the time I coax this old sweetheart into action.”

The blonde glanced toward the carousel, one fine brow lifting as she studied the decrepit wreck. The only intact portion was the mini-carousel perched on the top, its mirror-tiled roof still sending out flashes of light when the sun hit it the right way. As for the rest…the once brightly colored circus animals were now mostly a uniform gray, with spots of red or green occasionally showing through. The zebra was missing its front legs, and two jagged shards were all that remained of the lion’s mane. Behind each animal, old-fashioned mirrors—dingy and cracked—provided a distorted, fun-house reflection of the washed-out menagerie, duplicating and emphasizing the sadness of each pitiful creature

He had no doubt what the stranger was looking at—but did she see? He couldn’t help wondering if the blonde saw the same aching, sad beauty that had captivated him the first time he’d spotted this place, set back off the road in a tangled, forgotten clearing.

“I can’t believe this thing hasn’t been torn down.” She kept her words in close, as if talking to herself.

“Me, either,” he admitted. “From the service records on it, I’d say it’s been closed since seventy-eight.” Which meant it was probably almost as old as this woman. Just the right age.

For ignoring. He forced himself to focus on the book. And remember he was here as the boy next door. Not the wolf beneath the porch.

“I caught the sparkle of it out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t resist exploring. I bet a lot of kids around here have had the same impulse.”

“I would have when I was a kid.”

As she met his gaze, her blue eyes sparkled. Her chuckle was as throaty as her voice as she admitted, “Me, too.”

Their smiles and immediate mental connection to mischievous childhoods provided an instant rapport, one that took Max by surprise.

The blonde carefully stepped over the toolbox, which lay open on the ground, a smattering of hand tools jumbled inside.

Not Max’s—it was from his grandfather’s house. Max’s toolbox was immaculate. Some things a man just couldn’t mess around with. Like his tools.

And this woman.

“I guess the clang of metal I heard from the road was you doing some, uh, coaxing with your hammer?”

“Is that all you heard?”

“That and some music.”

“Whew. Glad you didn’t hear me yelling, so you won’t be reaching for the soap to wash my mouth out.”

Her gaze shifted to his mouth. Which made his blood grow one degree hotter and his jeans grow one size tighter.

“Don’t tell me you were cursing at your sweetheart.”

“Guilty. Patience isn’t my strongest attribute.”

He’d like to tell her what his strongest attribute was, but that seemed like a dangerous idea. Besides, if she liked danger, she’d know exactly what he was talking about and would continue the subtle innuendo of their conversation.

She stepped closer to the carousel, focusing only on it, obviously not a danger-seeker. That was probably just as well.

“It is a ruin,” she murmured, running a hand over the flank of a shabby horse whose braided tail was now merely a stump. “But somehow, it’s…it’s almost pretty in spite of that.”

She did see. And just like that, Max realized he liked her. Didn’t know her name or a thing about her, but the woman had vision. He liked a person with vision.

Especially when she also had incredibly long legs nicely hugged by sinfully tight jeans, and a mouthwatering hint of cleavage peeking from the scooped neck of her sleeveless top.

Stop.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It tells a story.”

“A wistful one.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of pathetic, but I guess ‘wistful’ works.”

“She’s not pathetic. She’s majestic…but worn. Weary.”

“Very weary. I can’t even get a moan out of her, much less a ride.”

Bad choice of words. The blonde’s lips parted as she breathed over them.

He tugged his attention off her mouth. Off her face. Off anything that could make him think things he should not be thinking. Which pretty much left the ground.

Nope. Flat, open surfaces suitable for rolling around on didn’t work either.

“Not going to make it easy on you, is she?”

He lifted his eyes from the soft grass circling the perimeter of the park. “No way. She’s stubborn. Keeps herself tight as a drum—dry—no matter how much I try to lube her.” He almost groaned. This was going from bad to worse. Mentally kicking himself, he gave it another shot. “I can’t loosen her up and get her going.”

God, he was out of control. Blathering suggestive comments without any mental volition whatever. Like his mouth was on flirtation autopilot. It was just…second nature.

The woman kept watching, silently. Something that looked like amusement might have been dancing in those blue eyes of hers, but he couldn’t be certain. Because her expression remained merely curious—friendly—not the least bit sexual or inviting.

“I mean,” he said forcefully, almost dragging appropriately inane words from the un-sexed corner of his brain, “this thing might be too much for me to handle.”

Not great. But acceptable.

He hoped.

“You keep insulting her and she’s definitely going to scratch you,” the blonde murmured as she stepped around him to examine the junction box. She bent over, her jeans pulling tight against the finest hips and backside he’d seen in months, and Max had to send up a prayer for strength.

“You actually think you can get it working?” she asked. She crouched down, shoving a long strand of fine, blond hair back and tucking it behind her ear.

No, he really didn’t. But damned if he wasn’t going to try. “What can I say? I like to tinker and I don’t like having to give up on anything.”

Merry-go-rounds. Sex. Marriages.

“Are you a mechanic?”

In the early days of his business, he’d been a jack-of-all-trades. Mechanic, pilot, reservations clerk. Flight attendant. Anything to keep Taylor Made in the air and in the black. “On occasion. I definitely know my way around a toolbox.”

“I don’t think even Mr. Goodwrench could get this old beauty going again.”

“I don’t think he works on merry-go-rounds. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t make house calls.” Crossing his arms, he leaned against a striped carousel pole, which was a muddy brown and gray color, rather than red and white. “So I guess I’m all you’ve got, baby.”

The woman tilted her head back to look at him from beneath her wispy bangs, as if she thought he’d been talking to her.

He hadn’t. Well, maybe he had, just a bit. He couldn’t help it. Flirting with women had come naturally to Max since childhood, when he’d realized his older brother Morgan was always going to be known as the smart, determined one and his younger brother Mike was a fearless daredevil who also had the whole baby thing working in his favor.

Max had his charm. He’d been using it since third grade, when he sweet-talked his teacher out of calling his parents after he’d been caught on the playground organizing an enthusiastic game of Han Solo Kisses Princess Leia.

He’d been Han Solo. Little girls had been standing in line waiting for their turn to play Princess Leia.

Even at age eight the middle Taylor son had understood the appeal of the bad-boy. Let Luke Skywalker get the glory—the Han Solos of the world were the ones who got the girl.

But not this one.

No. He couldn’t afford those kinds of games right now. Not until he got some good news from his lawyer that his threats to sue Liberty Books had succeeded in halting—or altering—Grace Wellington’s book. Until then, he had to be on his best behavior.

“Well, I guess I’d better get back to work,” he said.

Perfect. His voice had held a combination of down-home friendliness and sincere work ethic while also silently telling her to move along.

Having to play Mr. Squeaky Clean was ridiculous at this point in his life. It seemed impossible that a tiny publisher he’d never even heard of might be so desperate to keep their book project going that they’d go after him personally. Would any legitimate publishing company really try to get some tabloid to do an expose on Max, showing him as the Don Juan he was made out to be in Grace’s book?

Outrageous.

Though he came from a wealthy family—and his grandfather was pretty well known—there was absolutely nothing about Max’s life that would garner the interest of a national magazine. His marriage had been pretty crazy, but not headline worthy. And he’d done some stupid shit following the breakup—but again, nothing to write about in the papers.

Grace, however, was another story. The woman had been the Paris Hilton of her decade before she’d married an up-and-coming congressman. When he’d become a down-and-out congressman and had committed suicide after getting his hand caught in a publicly funded cookie jar, she’d gotten even more attention.

So, yes, it could happen. There were a lot of jaded people out there who got off on reading about the rich and scandalous, so Grace’s book might grab some attention. And if the chapter about him really had gotten most of the rich women of southern California talking, he supposed the publisher might be pretty desperate to keep it.

His lawyer sure seemed to think so. Suspecting the publisher might try something extreme now that Max had threatened to sue, he’d warned Max to keep himself out of trouble. So Max had dug out his dented halo and would be wearing it from here on out—if it killed him.

And it might.

Playing nice and proper was bad enough on a regular day, but with a female like this one—with a body made for silk sheets, sighs and sin—it was proving torturous. He hadn’t expected to come to Trouble and stumble over a woman who made him stupid with lust, but here she was.

Which seemed almost too convenient, didn’t it? He hadn’t met an unattached, attractive woman between the ages of fifteen and forty since he’d shown up in town, and now here was one who’d tempt the Queer Eye guys to go straight. Out in the woods…alone…smelling so damn sweet and looking so damn delicious. What were the odds?

Not very good.

Suddenly, Max began to wonder if his lawyer might have been on to something. Maybe somebody out there was trying to set him up, to put his ass over the flame and see if he cried “Fire!” before being barbecued.

Could this blonde be some kind of reporter? Some tabloid shark using herself as bait?

All of his senses on high alert, he found a well of determination deep inside that enabled him to put on his best “I’m a trustworthy guy” face. That look—and the matching attitude—would stay there, too. At least until he found out exactly who this woman was. And why she was here.

One thing was certain—no matter how much she attracted him, Max Taylor’s business meant a whole lot more to him than any woman. So from this moment on, this one was strictly hands-off.

Which was exactly the silent message he sent her as he smiled, nodded goodbye and murmured, “Well, have a nice day.”

Then he bent down and returned to work on the engine, praying the blond sweetheart would leave before he forgot he was supposed to be a nice guy.

SABRINA HAD NO BUSINESS being out here on the outskirts of town drooling over the hottest male she’d ever seen. But somehow, she couldn’t make herself walk away. Instead, she wandered around the old abandoned amusement park, surreptitiously watching him work.

If there were such a thing as an orgasm in a box, this man would be the spokesman for it. That smile, that husky voice, that knowing look—oh, yeah, $29.95, ladies, flip the lid and start moaning.

She’d buy a case. That was for sure.

His face had sent her heart into overdrive at first sight, and his playful smile had made her stomach roll over about ninety-four times. The body—whew, that big, massive body—had awakened all her most feminine parts and started them zinging. Sparking. Melting.

He had her tense with excitement, hyper-reactive, on alert. Wondering what to say to make him drop his wrench, rise to his feet and get back to paying attention to her rather than the merry-go-round.

Which didn’t make any sense.

He wasn’t her type. Not at all. A muscle-bound hunk wearing dusty jeans that clung to lean hips and solid thighs was not on her list of acceptable men. He certainly wasn’t the nice, Tom Hanks type she’d been telling Nancy about earlier.

No. This brown-haired mechanic with his second-skin black T-shirt that clung to a pair of arms thick enough to burst its sleeves was definitely not for her. His shoulders looked broad enough for a lumberjack—as if he bench-pressed the cars he worked on. His thick, blond-streaked brown hair was windswept, and a little too long for “nice.” It was also much too tempting for finger-curling.

Everything else was wrong, too. His face was too lean, his jaw too square, his eyes—those incredible green eyes—were much too bright and knowing. His mouth was too wide, his smile too confident, his laugh too enticing. His hands…his big, strong, rough hands…Oh, God help her.

No, no, no. He would not do at all.

So why in heaven’s name couldn’t she make herself leave? Even when she should have—given his provocative comments. Then again, he’d looked so innocent, so friendly-but-not-slimy when he’d made them, that she wasn’t entirely sure he’d been coming on to her. Every word he’d said had made perfect sense in the context of the carousel.

And sex.

So which, exactly, had he been talking about?

The carousel. It had to be. This guy was too simple—too openly friendly, blue-collar working man—to play the kind of word games she’d been imagining. He was a small-town mechanic who saw the prettiness in a broken-down old carnival ride and was spending his spare time trying to revive it. Generous, sweet, gorgeous.

Perfect.

Could it be that simple? Could he just be the kind of nice, fabulous man women talked about meeting but never did? A good, honorable guy, despite his rock-hard, sex-on-two-legs appearance?

If only.

He had to have a flaw. Have the IQ of a rabbit or like to scratch his crotch and drink cheap beer while watching monster truck rallies on weekends. Something.

He was married. A chauvinist. A gambler.

She didn’t for a moment suspect gay. No way would any woman think that. The female half of humanity would never stand for it—they’d stage a billion-woman protest march at the very idea.

But there had to be something—some imperfection she wasn’t seeing. Because no way could he look this good and be the man of her dreams.

The man of her nice dreams. Her happily-ever-after dreams.

Not her wild, erotic, do-me-’til-I-can’t-move dreams about smooth-talking, Mr. Suave playboy, Max Taylor.

The idea that one man could be both was simply too far in the realm of science fiction to seriously consider.

Sabrina had to admit one thing. She somehow suspected her Max Taylor dreams were going to be supplanted by big-hot-hard-mechanic dreams, at least for the time being.

So, go! She shouldn’t be out here, wondering about this man, not when she had a job to do. But something wouldn’t let her leave. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe even a hint of cowardice about her real mission in Trouble, since she had about as much in common with a femme fatale as she did with Queen Elizabeth.

Whatever the reason, she suddenly wanted to take a few minutes for herself. Just a little longer to try to get to know this stranger who was apparently obsessed with bringing a sad old ruin back to life.

She’d begin her “mission” soon enough—dressed in the expensive knockoffs and playing the part of a rich, bored woman visiting a quaint American village. Trying to tempt Satan’s sexy henchman into revealing his wicked seducer tendencies.

Hmm.

Tough job. But somebody has to do it.

But until she threw herself into some incognito role, she just wanted to be herself for a while longer. Why not, for a few more moments, enjoy the company of this simple mechanic, who probably had never seen the wife of a congressman—much less gotten her naked in the ladies’ room of a trendy Los Angeles restaurant?