Miss October

by Madison Hayes

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Miss October

  ISBN # 1-4199-0627-5

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Miss October Copyright© 2006 Madison Hayes

  Edited by Pamela Campbell.

  Cover art by Willo.

  Electronic book Publication: May 2006

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Calendar Girls:

  Miss October

  Madison Hayes

  Dedication

  For Tina and Jaid.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  All Blacks: New Zealand Rugby Football Union, Inc.

  Dodge Charger: Chrysler Corporation

  Fiat: Fiat S.p.A. Corporation Italy

  Ford Thunderbird: Ford Motor Company

  Honda: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Honda Motor Co., Ltd.)

  Indianapolis Colts: Indianapolis Colts, Inc.

  Miller Beer: Miller Brewing Co.

  New England Patriots: New England Patriots L.P.

  Triumph: British Leland

  Wrestlemania: World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc.

  Chapter One

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Tavia muttered. She made a face at the small video screen on the Hummer’s center console. Shifting the vehicle into overdrive, she continued down the long, straight stretch of highway.

  The talk show’s opening topic was The Dilemma of Being Beautiful and Tavia was having a hard time scraping up much sympathy. A former beauty queen took the microphone to complain about the pitfalls of being gorgeous. “How’s a girl like me supposed to find true love?” she lilted. “In the last three years, ten different guys have proposed to me. But when a man asks me to marry him, I don’t know if he cares about me—about who I am—or if it’s just the face and the figure that has him coming on.”

  “You’re breakin’ my heart,” Tavia grumbled as she frowned at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Brown eyes glowered back at her as she dragged a hand impatiently through her long mass of curly chestnut hair. “You think you got problems? Look at me. In my case, the face and figure ain’t exactly the issue.” She snorted as she glared again at her reflection. “In my case, it’s the face value and figures that have me questioning a man’s intentions. Five million can really tip the scales in your favor when you’re dating a guy.”

  The truth of the matter was that Tavia was too heavy to win any beauty contest. Despite this fact, she didn’t think of herself as unattractive and had never lacked for male companionship—even before she had money. Although she was a big woman, she couldn’t remember a single man who’d complained about her large breasts. Her bottom was large too. But then, so was her bottom line.

  She was Octavia Smith, better known as Octavia October in the publishing industry. She authored three or four books a year with print runs of 500,000. Simply put, Tavia was worth five million dollars. And every single man she’d dated in the last three years knew it.

  Scowling at the small screen, Tavia swerved suddenly when she realized her SUV was drifting to the side. She tugged on the steering wheel just in time to avoid hitting a car lodged on the side of the road. The old junker was pale blue, bleached dull and lifeless by at least forty years of arid, sunny, high altitude weather. Tilted off the shoulder of the road, the car sat with its hood raised—a brief explanation for its presence on the highway’s sloping shoulder.

  I’m dead. Sorry.

  How the decrepit old piece of junk had survived all those years to expire on the side of the road between Fort Garland and Taos was beyond her. It looked as though it should have died years ago. Tavia shook her head in disgust. Highway 159 was a notoriously long, hot, deserted stretch of blacktop. What kind of lug nut would be stupid enough to try to run the gantlet between Fort Garland and Taos in an old wreck like that?

  A mile beyond the abandoned car, Tavia got her answer when she caught up with the lug nut stupid enough.

  His back was turned as he scuffed down the long, dry road, his thumb out at his side. It was a broad back—with the sort of sloping shoulders that spoke of massive strength while the narrow hips and long legs hinted at agility and speed. From the back, the guy was an animal. Pure testosterone with a dash of Wrestlemania. Without even thinking, Tavia took her foot off the gas pedal, slowing the car as she approached the hitchhiker.

  She felt sorry for the guy even if he was stupid enough. The sun was out and baking the highway. Transparent lines wiggled up off the tarry surface of the asphalt, making it look as though the world was melting. Out in the high desert midafternoon sun, it was hot enough to steam lizards. There wasn’t much traffic on the empty road. The hitchhiker would be lucky if another car passed him in the next half hour. And Tavia had driven this stretch of road often enough to know that his cell phone wasn’t going to work out here any better than hers did—if he even had a cell phone. Absently, she flipped her phone open and glanced at the “no service” message.

  As Tavia pulled to within a hundred feet of the hitchhiker, he turned to face her, walking backwards with his thumb extended.

  She hesitated.

  From the front, the big man with the huge shoulders looked no less like an animal. His features were rough and masculine. Not pretty. Not handsome. Just incredibly male with a brutally hard edge. The guy was all male. All Commando. No suggestion of sensitivity whatsoever. His hair was a brush cut gone wild, if you could imagine a brush cut about three inches too long. Lots of thick, stiff hair—mostly brown but bleached gold here and there. The cold surface of his slick, blue-mirrored sunglasses made him a blank, unreadable entity.

  Reluctantly, Tavia depressed the gas pedal as she sped past him.

  Watching her rearview mirror, she saw him turn and toss up his hands as he threw back his head. She was close enough to see the ugly word on his mouth. She didn’t need sound to read those rugged lips. That particular word was a pretty easy one to decipher when blasted out with vehemence.

  Watching him grow small in her rearview mirror, Tavia swiftly forgot about him when she felt a tug on her steering wheel. The road surface suddenly got very bumpy and the car swerved on the blacktop to a stead
y pace.

  She had a flat.

  Well, shit. That was typical.

  Slowing down, Tavia pulled off onto the side of the highway. Scowling at the driver’s-side rear flat, she opened the rear gate of her vehicle and retrieved the tire iron as well as the hydraulic jack. Her father had shown her how to fix a flat when she was sixteen. Loosen the nuts first then raise the car.

  Jeez, it was hot out. Dragging a wrist over her upper lip, she fitted the tire iron onto one of the wheel’s lug nuts then went to work. She was still trying to budge the first stubborn nut when a shadow fell across her shoulder.

  Crouched against the hot, black asphalt, Tavia froze as a pair of heavy black boots scuffed into view. Reflexively, her fingers tightened on the heavy tire iron. Slowly, she lifted her eyes up a long pair of legs clad in faded blue jeans.

  The jeans were incredibly worn and threadbare, pale, pale blue—almost white in places—torn across one knee, stained across the other. Other than that, they fit really well. Really well. They weren’t tight across the hips. Just nice and snug. There was a hefty bulge beneath the worn, button-down fly—not like the man was hard, just like there was a lot of male equipment on call inside his jeans. And those thighs were really packed into that thin denim with nothing to spare.

  The hitchhiker slouched with his shoulder against the rear panel of her vehicle. “Hot day,” he drawled.

  Squinting up at him, Tavia watched him drag the ragged hem of his white T-shirt over his damp upper lip. He had deliciously mean lips. The meanest lips she’d ever seen on a man. Set in a permanent scowl. Sweat gleamed on the flat, brown surface of his stomach where bronze hair swirled down into his jeans.

  “Yeah,” Octavia clipped out, dragging her eyes from his pan-flat stomach. “I noticed. I’m quick that way.”

  He nodded slowly as he angled those expressionless sunglasses down at her. “Yeah? Well, you didn’t seem to notice when you passed me ten minutes ago.”

  “I don’t pick up hitchhikers,” Tavia grunted as she strained against the tire iron.

  “There’s a difference between a hitchhiker and a stranded motorist,” he growled down on her.

  “That your piece of junk back there on the road?”

  The corner of his mouth pulled back—tight. “That’s my Charger, yeah.”

  “I don’t pick up hitchhikers,” she repeated.

  He hooked a thumb into the top of his jeans. “That’s your bad luck. If you’d picked me up, I might have changed that flat for you.”

  “I can change a flat.”

  He snorted. “I can see that.”

  “I can change a flat.”

  “Maybe you could, if you could get the lug nuts off.”

  “I can change a flat!”

  His muscles rippled across his chest and his shoulders rolled as he shrugged. “Hey,” he said, “I’m convinced. But I can get the lug nuts off.”

  “Listen, Sir Galahad. If you’re not going to offer to help, why don’t you just head on up the road?”

  He shifted his hip on the car and the next time she looked up at him, she saw her own cleavage reflected in his shining blue sunglasses. “I like the view right here,” he murmured in a low, husky drawl. One bronze eyebrow arched over the edge of his glasses as he smiled down into her gaping blouse. At the periphery of her vision, Tavia saw the mound in his groin stir like a huge, uncoiling monster.

  Dropping onto her knees, Tavia glared up at him as she very pointedly fastened the top button of her yellow cotton blouse. As she secured the button, a gruff sound of male amusement rumbled up from his chest.

  “You got a cell phone that works out here?”

  Tavia grimaced. “No.”

  “You drive a rig like this but you don’t have satellite service for your phone?”

  He was right. She should have invested in a better phone. But she’d been busy and just hadn’t gotten around to it.

  “Tell you what, lady. I’ll change that flat for you if you’ll give me a ride to Albuquerque in return.”

  “I’m not going to Albuquerque,” she answered. “I live in Santa Fe. I have an appointment there at six o’clock.”

  The hitchhiker slouched against the Hummer’s rear panel, all muscle and damp, sweaty male. “I’m in no rush.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged again. “You can take me to Albuquerque after your appointment.”

  “It’s not that kind of appointment,” she told him acidly. “It’s the kind of appointment that lasts all night.”

  She watched his eyebrows lift. His gaze slid down the length of the Hummer as he tilted his head thoughtfully. She knew what he was thinking. He was wondering what an ordinary-looking girl like her was doing, driving a Hummer and hurrying home for an all-night appointment.

  Arrogant son of a bitch. She wished he could see her with Alex. It wasn’t every woman who dated a male cover model.

  “This is a nice piece of equipment,” he finally said. “I’d like to own a Hummer.”

  “Yes, well, we can’t all have everything, can we?”

  “Nope,” he answered. “What else do you have at home?”

  “What, other vehicles?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He grinned. “You can tell me about your other vehicles, if you like.”

  “You going to change this tire while I’m telling you?”

  “You going to drive me to Albuquerque?”

  Tavia thought about this as she gazed down the long empty highway. Without cell phone service, she was now as stranded as he was. And those lug nuts weren’t coming off for her. It was going to take a whole lot more muscle than she had to get those nuts loosened and get that wheel off. Tavia had no choice but to enlist the guy’s help and give him his ride in payment.

  But she was damned if she was going to cancel her date with Alex. For that matter, she wouldn’t mind showing this guy what kind of men she went out with before she was shut of him. “It will have to be in the morning.”

  “You got a place I can stay until then?”

  Tavia hesitated. Did she dare do this? It wasn’t like she’d be alone in her house with the guy. Alex would be there.

  Tavia nodded.

  “Thought so.” The large man didn’t quite smile, but a hard little curl of arrogance appeared at the corner of his masculine mouth. “Give me that tire iron.”

  She cut a glance up at him. The heavy cross of metal was her last line of defense and she was loath to give it up to a man she didn’t know. She slid her gaze down over his body. His jeans hung low on his hips. He didn’t seem to have anything concealed in his pockets or his jeans—at least, nothing that could be considered a weapon. Of course, with hands like that, he probably didn’t need a frickin’ weapon. Jeez, the guy was a mauler.

  His mouth kicked up into a sly smile as he tracked her gaze. “What are you looking at?”

  “Just making sure you don’t have a gun,” she muttered.

  He nodded, pulling his hands away from his sides and turning slowly so she could check out the pockets hanging off his backside. “Of course,” he pointed out, “if I had a weapon, I’d probably have gotten it out by now. But I’ll be glad to strip if it makes you feel better.”

  A hot bead of sweat leaked down into the crease between her breasts. It tickled and she resisted the urge to swipe it away with her fingers. Jesus. Could it get any hotter? “That won’t be necessary,” she told him.

  That won’t be necessary, she told herself firmly, regardless of the fact that it would probably make me feel a whole lot better.

  “You’re about to lose your cell phone,” she advised him, jerking her chin to indicate his back pocket.

  Reaching behind him, the hitchhiker eased his thin, silver phone from the wide hole at the bottom of his jeans’ pocket. With a flick of his thick wrist, he redeposited the folding telephone into one of his front pockets. She watched his big fingers as he patted his hand over the rectangular bulge.

  When he reached down for t
he tire iron, Tavia hesitated again. Of course, if the guy wanted to hurt her, he could probably rip the tool from her fingers and get on with it with nothing more than his bare hands. The road was deserted. It wasn’t like there’d be anyone to stop him. She considered his large hand, outstretched and turned palm up. It hovered patiently between them as he waited for her to surrender the tool. She checked his face. When he smiled encouragingly, she handed him the tire iron.

  She’d never seen a tire changed so quickly and neatly before in her life. While she fumbled to free the spare, he got the lug nuts loosened, the car raised and the wheel off.

  “I’ll get that,” he told her as he joined her behind the car then brushed her aside to pull the spare tire free of its mounting. She glowered at him, feeling uselessly female. How did men do those things so fast? She slid a glance toward his large hands and his thick, strong fingers. Those hands would be a definite advantage when it came to working on a car—or a woman for that matter. Those strength-hardened arms wouldn’t hurt either. Wide shoulders. Muscle-ripped chest. The whole package was just made for getting the job done.

  As Tavia watched, he shouldered the spare onto the axle and hand-tightened the nuts. Releasing the hydraulic jack, he let the wheel settle back onto the ground then used the tire iron to tighten the nuts a final time.

  As he stood, he dusted off his jeans. “Want me to drive?”

  Her face twisted with incredulity. How chauvinistic could you get? “No!”

  He shrugged his huge shoulders as he opened the driver’s door for her. “Just thought it would be polite to offer.” He smiled as he closed her inside the Hummer then made his way to the back of the car where he stowed the tire iron and jack.

  When he was settled in the seat beside her, he slipped off his sunglasses. Although the Hummer was the biggest car Tavia had ever been in, her passenger made it feel packed, somehow.