by Lora Leigh
The man smiled at her, and something in that face caused Win’s entire being to go on alert. “You’ll find cell reception really sucks up here.”
Oh, God. Oh, dear God! How bizarre! Win had to blink several times to make sure she wasn’t imagining this—because the man standing in front of her was Maximillion Mercy in the flesh. No, he looked nothing like Hollywood superstar Tony Cardone, who was now synonymous throughout the world with the Lethal Mercy hero. But the man standing in front of her was the embodiment of how she had written Maximillion. How she’d seen him in her mind’s eye. The man had Max Mercy’s magnetism, his quiet strength, his dominant sensuality. The man was fiction come to life, her fantasy made real.
That ugly lumberjack shirt, however, had to go.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I’m leaving now.” Win swallowed. She turned to walk away, but spun around again. “How could you kill that animal! How could you shoot that poor thing?”
With that, she turned and ran. The sexy, intelligent, gun nut of a mountain man didn’t come after her, which relieved her and disappointed her in equal measure. She made it back to the clearing around Artie’s house in no time, and put Lulu down in the grass.
The stupid shower spigot in the guest bath didn’t work, so Win settled for a soak in the master bathtub. Then, after double-checking the security system and all door and window locks, she sat down to write.
And for some reason, Maximillion was alive in her imagination like he hadn’t been in months. He had it going on—hot but levelheaded, suave but raw, in the way only Max Mercy could be.
Win’s fingers flew across the keyboard until two in the morning.
Chapter Two
Winifred woke up the next morning and attempted to write. She went about the same rituals that had brought her such success the night before, such as positioning the chair at a slight angle to the fireplace, which had apparently been kick-ass feng shui. She played the same smooth jazz CD as the night before. She drank the same mint herbal tea in the same earthenwave coffee mug, which she placed in the exact same spot to the right of the laptop keyboard.
Last night, this delicate balance had allowed the words and images to fly from her brain so fast, her fingers had trouble keeping up.
But today—zilch. Nada. Not a damn thing. And she’d planned on spending the day adding oomph to the budding relationship between Max and Eva. (She’d decided the exotically beautiful Lebanese-British spy was definitely an Eva, not a Zoe.)
Win shook her wrists and took a deep breath, then positioned her fingers on the keys. What she needed was some red-hot sexual tension, a handful of racy double entendres, and a few scenes where Max and Eva were forced into confined spaces, their lives in danger and their endorphins raging.
Win sensed Lulu staring at her, and looked up to see the dog lying in a pool of sunshine, pity and disdain written all over her curly face.
“I’d like to see you write a red-hot script,” Win said to the dog. “I bet you can’t even type.”
Lulu sniffed the air and turned away, as if she’d been embarrassed by the outburst and was too ladylike to respond.
Win groaned. She jumped up from the straightback chair and began to pace. She rubbed her own shoulders and her own lower back as she let her eyes wander over the huge room. She did some stretches, some wall push-ups, some toe raises. She stood next to the towering window at the front of the house and ran in place for what seemed like seven hours but turned out to be two minutes and thirteen seconds, according to the stopwatch feature on her Rolex.
Her mind wandered to the mountain man, all the subtle sexuality that simmered in his dark eyes. The astounding ledge of his shoulders, the deep rumble of his voice. Where did that guy come from? Could she have imagined him? The idea frightened her—was her stress level so high, she was seeing things? Was she so sex-starved that she was having arousing encounters with pretend men?
Win ran to her laptop, took out the Boney James CD and put in The Black Eyed Peas, then danced around the room singing “Let’s Get It Started” At some point during the chorus, Lulu left the room, obviously needing more dignified environs.
And so it was that at about noon, Win found herself standing at the kitchen sink eating a huge Mrs. Field’s Macadamia Nut Chocolate Chip cookie and drinking skim milk directly from its half-gallon jug, wishing she had chosen to be a kindergarten teacher or a computer chip designer or an elephant trainer—anything but a screenwriter.
Win brushed the crumbs off her shirt and decided that if she wasn’t able to write, then she should do something useful, so she made her bed and rounded up a few dirty clothes—including the jeans she’d muddied running away from the make-believe mountain man—and headed to the washer. She threw them in, poured in the soap and turned the knob. Click.
“What the—?”
Win pushed and turned the damn knob a dozen times and even resorted to reading the operating instructions on the inside of the Maytag lid before she decided the appliance was broken.
When she called Artie’s office, Betsy informed her that her agent was having lunch with a client, and suggested she try the neighbor, Mr. MacBeth. No, Betsy didn’t have a telephone number for him, but the directions to his place were on the fax. Yes, she’d tell Artie to call. Yes, she’d tell him to get the car ready for the next day.
Win put on a pair of hiking shorts and, as a last-minute precaution, she grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen butcher block. She wrapped the knife inside a thick cotton tea towel and shoved it under her belt. Win supposed it was ridiculous to walk into the wilderness prepared to peel an apple, but after that encounter with the animal—and the imaginary mountain stud—she wanted to have something in the form of protection. She left Lulu in the house and headed out.
Win walked across slippery creek stones and climbed the same embankment from which the mountain man had leaped to her rescue the day before. About ten minutes up the trail, she saw a little cabin tucked in the trees. If Artie’s place was Park Avenue, then this place was Possom Holler. It was tidy, but just a simple log structure with a small front porch. And out front sat a big, shiny, black Chevy truck with Virginia plates, which Win found strange. She walked to the front door, worrying that she would be interrupting Mr. Macbeth’s visit from a friend. She knocked and heard a rustling inside.
“Who is it?” asked a male voice.
She cleared her throat and announced loudly, “Mr. MacBeth? I am so sorry to disturb you, but my name is Winifred Mackland and I’m staying at the Jacobs place and Artie said that if I should have any problems, you’d—”
The thick pine door opened, leaving just an old screen between herself and Mr. MacBeth, who, it turned out, was the mountain man, and who had, in fact, ditched the flannel shirt and now stood bare from the waist up. He opened the screen door, and that’s when Win saw that the half-naked man was sporting the most fabulous upper body she’d ever seen, decorated with an angry red welt at the left shoulder in the shape of a small scythe blade, held together with staples.
Win felt woozy. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes settled once again on the painful, crimson pucker of his flesh.
If she were writing this scene, Win would not have awakened the instant her face slammed to the floorboards. Instead, there would have been a dramatic moment when she recovered from her faint only to find Max Mercy—or the mountain man—hovering over her, looking concerned. But no. As it turned out, Win hit the floor, woke up, staggered to her feet and leaned over the porch railing, where she puked into the bushes.
“Expecting someone else, Miss Mackland?” He handed her a damp paper towel.
“Uh. Thanks.” She wiped her mouth. “How do you know my name?”
He shrugged. “The usual way. You just told me.”
“Right.”
“Let me get a shirt on.”
“Perhaps that would be best.”
“Care to come in and freshen up?”
Win follo
wed him into the cabin, stunned by the buns of titanium he packed in those jeans. She’d never seen a physique like the mountain man’s, except in her mind, every time she pictured Maximillion Mercy.
The place was torn apart, boxes everywhere, furniture stacked into piles, plastic storage crates full of books and papers.
“My dad’s stuff. I’m getting ready to put the cabin on the market for him.”
“Oh.”
He directed her toward the bathroom, where Win threw cool water on her face, rinsed her mouth and checked out her hair. She gave up.
He waited for her in the hallway, leaning up against a knotty pine wall. “Mississipi?”
“Excuse me?”
“Arkansas, then? Louisiana?”
Win huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She’d done remarkably well in masking her southern accent in the last fifteen years, to the point that hardly anyone ever noticed the underlying slow drawl of home.
She noticed that Mr. MacBeth now wore a heather green corduroy shirt. He smiled down at her, and suddenly the narrow hall seemed like one of those endorphin-charged confined spaces she should have been writing about. “Alabama. But I’m a New Yorker now.”
“Never would have guessed. So where’s Fifi today?”
She realized that he was making fun of her, and walked past him toward the main room, seething. How dare some card-carrying NRA member who’d been sliced up in a roadside tavern brawl make fun of her because she lived in the largest city in North America and was accompanied by a borrowed poodle?
“Her name is Lulu.”
“My bad.”
“I came here for a reason, Mr. MacBeth.” She turned to him, trying not to be too snarky, because she needed him to fix the washer. He clearly had no manners, because he hadn’t even asked her to have a seat. A quick look around showed her there weren’t any seats.
“You mentioned you needed help with something at the house?”
“The washer. Seems the water isn’t making it into the machine, and I hate to impose, but could you take a look?”
Mountain Man MacBeth frowned, those remarkable black eyebrows coming to a vee above those rich, deep, sexy eyes. “Is the water turned on at the main?”
“The main what?”
“The water main in the wall behind the washer.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He nodded slowly. “I can see that, Miss Mackland. Let’s go have a look.”
She watched him walk toward the door and grab a set of keys off a hook. She gasped. The idea that she’d get in a moving vehicle with a known animal killer was preposterous.
“I think I’ll walk.”
“Takes three minutes by car, Miss Mackland. Twenty by foot.”
How did he know how long it took to reach the Jacobs place? Had he been stalking her? Peering in the windows as she wrote? Observing her breasts move under her thin tank top with each breath?
“I lived here every summer of my life till I turned eighteen. I’ve probably walked the path to the Jacobses’ a thousand times.”
Now Win felt foolish. This was his home. If anyone was stalking, it was her, just showing up unannounced like this.
“Of course,” she said.
“I won’t bite.” His voice betrayed his amusement. “My name is Vincent MacBeth. People call me Mac.”
He reached in his pocket and Win took a step backward, propelled by the memory of the gun.
“It’s always tucked into the back of my pants. Never my pocket.” He slowly reached toward her, his eyes clearly gauging her level of discomfort. “This is my wallet. Look at my ID so we can zoom on over and check out the water line, all right?”
She accepted the worn brown leather with trembling fingers. Holding this stranger’s wallet seemed like such an intimate act, almost a brazen suggestion on his part. Wallets were a man’s most personal possession, and handing it to her like that implied a great deal of trust. It felt like they were skipping several “get to know you” steps and heading right to the good stuff.
Win looked up and he was smiling at her. Holy shit, he was beautiful. Those eyes were authoritative and wise, his mouth a delicious collection of thick lips and white teeth surrounded by unshaven stubble. She wondered about all the textures she might encounter if she put her lips on his. He would be smooth but rough, wet and warm, gentle yet self-possessed and—
“Aren’t you going to look at my ID?”
“Right.”
Win opened the wallet. She encountered two forms of photo identification under clear plastic. A Virginia driver’s license and a U.S. Navy active duty badge with a rank of lieutenant, both with the name Vincent J. MacBeth. In one of the wallet slots was a concealed weapon permit. This would explain so many things.
“Yes, my injury is work-related.”
She handed the wallet back to him and his fingers grazed her own. That simple contact, combined with his seeming ability to hear her unspoken thoughts, wreaked havoc with Win’s nervous system. She felt exposed. She felt vulnerable in his presence. She felt the heat of total body awareness spread through her, culminating deep in her belly, her core, the command center for her personal juice flow.
“Let’s go turn on some pipes,” Vincent J. MacBeth said.
“Amen to that,” Win said, and got into the truck.
It took Mac about ten seconds to find the water valve and turn it to the “on” position. He smiled to himself quickly before he stood up.
“Next crisis?”
“I am so embarrassed. Can I get you anything? Maybe some lunch?”
He rested his left hip against the happily purring washing machine and pondered her generosity. It was the best offer he’d had in a long time, from the prettiest woman he’d seen in ages, and he’d be a fool to turn it down. But he didn’t want to appear overeager.
“You don’t need to go out of your way.”
The lovely lady tossed her curls and laughed. “It’s no trouble at all, Vincent. Have you had lunch?”
Vincent? No one had called him that since his mom died. She was the only person he’d ever allowed to use his full name and walk away with two functioning legs. His displeasure must have shown on his face.
A little scowl appeared on the woman’s flawless brow. “You don’t like to be called Vincent?”
“Just not used to it.”
“Would you prefer that I call you Mac?”
Mac smiled, thinking to himself that he’d prefer she called him a badass muthafucka or any number of other out-of-her-head obscenities, at the top of her lungs, while she lay underneath him.
“Vincent works for me.”
He could have sworn he saw a little seductive twitch on her lips, but it could have been the light. “And you prefer Win over Winifred, I assume?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Mac laughed. Contrary to what he’d first assumed, this woman was no brainless tart. She’d clearly been out of her comfort zone in the woods yesterday—okay, and with the scar and the washer today—but apparently she was not used to rabid coyotes, gunshot wounds or malfunctioning appliances. She seemed more at ease in the comfort of Artie’s home, and Mac figured she was some hotshot New York producer Artie was trying to soften up for the kill. A few days up here could get anyone to relax their guard, even high-strung city women like Win Mackland.
“So what’s on the menu?” he asked.
Win sent him a flirty grin and gestured for him to follow her from the laundry room into the big, open kitchen. Following her was no great sacrifice—he’d follow a round, firm booty like that to hell and back.
“I was thinking a little salad and maybe some grilled teriyaki salmon. What do you usually have for lunch?”
Mac laughed. “A can of pork and beans. If I’m feeling frisky, I heat it up.”
“Yummy.” She blinked at him with a pair of stunning blue eyes. “But not exactly my style.”
Women with her coloring—such pale, pale skin, light eyes and d
ark hair—had always been his weakness. He’d never been a fan of blondes—too washed out for his tastes. He liked contrast in his women, and Win Mackland packed quite a few contrasts on her small frame. Like the way her breasts jutted out in contrast to her narrow shoulders and small waist; the way her hips swelled in contrast to her slim, long legs. When God put a woman together like this one, He had only one thing planned for her—a lifetime of fending off men.
“So you’re in the entertainment business?” He’d apparently spent too many months on assignment, where the only women around were the kind who’d enjoy stabbing him in the back, because he was having a viscerally sexual reaction to this pretty city girl. Though their conversation had been nothing but polite, Mac needed to change the subject in his own head. His mother had raised him better than to behave like a pig.
“Sort of. I’m a screenwriter.” She opened the refrigerator door. It was such a no-frills movement, but the turn of her torso, the slight bend at the waist—it was like she now had a big red bull’s-eyes drawn on all her female parts. Mac began to sweat. He told himself it was the result of the discomfort in his shoulder, not the hard-on in his pants.
“So you’re one of Artie’s clients?” He didn’t know how much longer he could keep up with the chitchat, when his hands were itching to feel that remarkable hair. He’d known women before with outrageously sexy hair like Win’s, and for every one of them it had been a source of consternation. He never understood why women fought to tame something so beautiful, keep it under control. Win had pulled hers back in a big clip, twisted up along the back of her head, leaving curls cascading down the sides like little black springs. He wondered how far the curls would reach down her back once he yanked out its restraint.
“Yes, I am one of Artie’s clients. I’m the one who’s going to single handedly ruin his reputation if I don’t get my new script written.” Win unwrapped a large salmon fillet and turned on the kitchen grill. “He sent me here to live in exile for three weeks. My orders are to write, or not bother coming back.”