by Leslie Kelly
There was, of course, one thing worse than the lowliest cable fodder featuring an 80s one-hit-wonder sitcom refugee.
“You’re here for that reality TV show, aren’t cha?”
That’d be it.
“I can tell by the rental plates. And your clothes. And the bored look on your face.”
Caro’s eyes widened. “I’m not bored. I’m just—” procrastinating “—thinking.”
“Bout?”
About being stuck here for three weeks with her entire future on the line. About trying to salvage her third-rated network by riding on the reality TV wave that had crested last season.
“About what a nice, normal town this is.”
That was true. Derryville certainly seemed to satisfy all the requirements the network had laid down when planning for this next volley into the reality TV arena. Killing Time in a Small Town was supposed to take place in an average, all-American place where neighbors were friendly, doors weren’t locked and movie stars’ wives didn’t end up dead in their cars or on their doorsteps.
No crime. Peaceful. Serene. That was what was called for. And then the show would spice it up with a fake murder mystery, with the contestants competing to solve it before getting “bumped off” themselves.
“You been up to the Little Bohemie Inn yet? I hear there was some camerapeople up’t there to do some picture taking.”
“The advance team was here a few weeks ago,” she told the man as she slammed her car door. “They did some exterior filming of the inn and the town. We’ve already started working on commercial spots.”
He didn’t look impressed. That could be a problem, since the town’s residents were supplying the backup to the cast. Killing Time in a Small Town would utilize the residents of Derryville as often as possible. Maybe even the old man leaning indolently against his broom. But that might not work if the rest of the residents looked as uninterested as this fellow.
“I’m sure the town will benefit from the exposure,” she continued. “And America will love this down-home, normal atmosphere.” That’s the plan, anyway.
“Ayuh, she’s a normal small town all right. With everything that goes with it,” the old man said. He gave her a lazy grin, gave himself a comfortable scratch on the belly, and began to laugh. The sparkle in his eyes showed genuine amusement.
Caro had the feeling he was laughing at her. He’d probably pegged her as a big-city L.A. know-it-all who thought small towns were as sweet and simple as they’d appeared in 1950s sitcoms. If only he knew.
She swung her soft-sided briefcase over her shoulder, locked her car and joined him on the sidewalk. “It’s a town like a lot of other ones,” she said evenly, letting him know she understood his laughter.
He studied her. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
But it was. Transplant this place to Kentucky and it would have been the same burg where Caro had grown up. And from which she’d fled as soon as she’d graduated high school.
Small. Quiet. Boring. Judgmental. Unable to forgive or forget, particularly when it came to town bullies and bad boys.
And their daughters.
Small towns hadn’t changed. They all smiled on the outside, but seethed within. She’d never move back to one. Caro Lamb hadn’t ever been tempted. At least, she amended, not tempted for several years. In that instance, she had to admit, it hadn’t been a town tempting her. It had been a man who lived in such a town. The kind of man who could tempt a nun into stripping off her habit to do a bump and grind worthy of the Vegas stage.
Enough, Caro. That subject’s off-limits.
“You really think Derryville’s gonna make it big on the TV?” the man asked, looking as if he didn’t care one way or the other.
“Oh, absolutely,” she replied with vehemence. “This place is just perfect for a reality TV show. Killing Time in a Small Town will be a huge success.”
She prayed it would. It had to be if she ever wanted to make it past assistant producer. By nailing this assignment, keeping costs in line and producing a decent show that lasted more than the kiss-of-death four-week replacement slot, she’d have a shot at a prime-time gig.
She could hardly wait. No more road trips looking for funny home videos, or scouting out wacky ideas for the next grand experiment in the reality game. She’d be in a studio, in charge, in a position of power for the first time since she’d hit Hollywood. Eight years ago, right after she’d gotten her heart broken and dropped out of college to head west.
“You going into the realty office?” the old man asked.
“How did you know that?”
He shrugged. “Saw the owner show up early. Only reason to do that is if he had an appointment.”
“I guess he got my message,” she said. She was only in town for the day to find suitable accommodations. She’d called the realty office yesterday, asking the secretary if she could come in an hour before her scheduled appointment time, since her return flight was earlier than she’d expected.
The woman had promised to try to notify the Realtor. Obviously, since he’d come in early, his secretary had succeeded.
“Enjoy your visit,” the old man said. Then he casually stepped away, continuing to push his broom, stirring up nothing but some stale summer air, puffs of dust and a few random cigarette butts.
“Thank you,” Caro said to his retreating back. Then she turned toward the office of Derryville Realty. The place looked closed from the outside. The blinds were drawn, with no hint of interior light peeking through to indicate anyone was around. The old man had said there was, however, and he seemed like the kind of person who knew all, saw all. And commented on all.
Unsure whether to knock, Caro first tried the door handle. When it twisted easily in her hand, she stepped inside. The outer reception area was, indeed, dark and deserted. Before she could decide whether to just sit down and wait, or step back outside, she heard voices coming from an inner office.
Glancing at her watch, she made out the numbers in the semidarkness. “It is 8:00 a.m.,” she whispered. And since she had to first find accommodations, do the paperwork, and then get back to Chicago for her flight home to L.A., she wasn’t in the mood to sit patiently.
Following the sound of the voices, she rounded a sofa and coffee table loaded with sale flyers, finance company brochures and photo albums. An archway revealed a back hall, lined with closed doors, one saying Meeting Room, another Restroom. The rest were unmarked offices. One of those doors was partly open, the inside brightly lit. That’s where the voices were coming from.
Standing in the darkened hallway, Caro had an easy view of the people in the room. But it still took a moment for her to mentally assess what was happening.
A woman stood inside, with her back to the hall. She hadn’t even noticed Caro’s entrance. Stepping closer, Caro realized why the woman was so distracted.
She was staring toward a man. A bare-ass naked man.
A bare-ass naked man with a very nice ass.
“Son of a….” she whispered.
They didn’t hear. Obviously whatever was happening in the room had engaged their complete attention.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Louise, haven’t you gotten a good enough look yet?” the man asked over his shoulder, his back to his captor.
Though the question obviously hadn’t been directed at her, Caro immediately answered for the woman. No. Huh-uh. Not enough. Not nearly.
“Nope,” the woman replied.
Good answer, Louise.
“Can I at least turn back around?”
Oh, please please please please please.
“Not just yet.”
Argh.
Finally realizing exactly what she was doing, Caro sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and stepped back, pressing herself against the corridor wall. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she struggled to control her ragged breathing, wondering why the duo couldn’t hear her shocked inhalations.
Obviously, the Realtor hadn’t been showing up early for her benefit. He’d ha
d another kind of appointment altogether. The sexual kind. The kind that urged her to move her feet and get the heck out of the building before the panting and moaning commenced. At this moment, Caro really couldn’t be sure she, herself, wasn’t already doing one or the other.
“Good Lord, no wonder the women in this town are all fools whenever you’re around,” Louise, the woman in the office said.
One fool standing in the hallway completely concurred.
A discreet person would have left immediately. A calm business executive would have cleared her throat to alert them that someone was present. A sane woman would have resisted thinking about how the rest of the naked male body might look.
Caro did none of the above.
She stayed right where she was. Waiting, trying to work up the strength of will to leave quietly and not steal another peek. Finally, good sense won out. No matter what, she was not a Peeping Tom. She hadn’t been reduced to the level of a woman who hadn’t had sex in so long she had to live vicariously through other people’s sexual adventures.
Preparing to walk away and come back later when the Realtor was less, um, occupied, she pulled away from the wall. But before she could take one step, the woman in the office said something that made her freeze in place.
“I hope I don’t have to shoot you, because there isn’t a place on ya that isn’t just about perfect.”
At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She replayed the words in her mind as the truth dawned.
She hadn’t interrupted anything as mundane as an office romance. Either these two were playing some kind of fun and kinky sex game—burly prison guard attacks sexy, helpless, naked, studly criminal came to mind—or else a crime was being committed.
One scenario said she had to leave. The other demanded she stay. Because, it was entirely possible Mr. Naked Guy was about to get shot.
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU WERE SUPPOSED to turn tail and run,” a male voice said, sounding both weary and amused.
The voice sent a shiver of awareness down Caro’s spine. It sounded silky smooth, much too calm for a person being held at gunpoint, which made her think these two were, indeed, playing some kind of game. For some strange reason, the man’s voice sounded familiar to her ear. She’d just been too much in shock to pay attention the first time he’d spoken.
The woman laughed. “It takes a lot to make me run away.”
Caro inched closer to the door frame. There was just something about that man’s voice—not to mention his naked body—that made her itch to take another quick peek.
“That’s why you stripped, even though you knew I wouldn’t shoot you?” Louise asked. “You thought I’d run away at my first sight of a naked man, even though I have four little brothers?”
Caro took a deep breath and worked up her nerve to steal one more glance just as the man muttered, “Something like that.”
Louise had moved slightly out of the way. From this angle, Caro could only see the man from the waist up.
Wow, what a waist. Wow, what an up.
The man had crossed his arms in front of him, so his shoulders and triceps flexed and bulged. His hair was light brown, cut a little long, but not long enough to hide the thick strength of his neck.
Caro gulped. If she’d been the one with the gun, she figured it would’ve slipped from her hand due to the sweat breaking out all over her body. Good Lord, how could anyone be that close to a man so hot and not get weak in the knees?
“Oh, sweetie, you’re so funny. I helped raise the boys. Plus I grew up on a farm. I’ve seen male equipment. And while you’re, well, of generous proportions, you can’t compare to Buddy.”
Caro had to wonder who Buddy was. If the mysterious Louise really did know some man named Buddy, and he was better built than the guy in the office, Caro thought perhaps her stay in Derryville might be more interesting than she’d expected. Though she wasn’t sure her heart could take it. Not to mention her diaphragm, which had been sitting unused in her medicine cabinet for so long she could probably use it to strain pasta.
Truly, though, she didn’t see how anyone else could compare to Mr. Naked Real Estate Guy. At least not from her angle. She doubted anyone could look as good from behind as this man did, and she included a number of Hollywood heartthrobs in that assessment.
“Buddy’s a bull, Louise,” the man said, his voice shaking with what some might have interpreted as fear, but which Caro recognized as unbridled laughter.
Bull-like. There was something a man would aspire to, right? The thought inspired several wicked images. She had to back away again, if only to force herself to stop trying to peer around the armed woman for another tantalizing glimpse of the hips and down.
Wow, what hips. Wow, what down.
“I know. But for some reason, you made me think of him,” the woman replied.
“I don’t know many men who would compare favorably to a bull. But thank you very much, all the same.”
Still hidden in the near darkness, and still wondering whether the two were playing some sort of lovers’ game, or if she’d really stumbled into a hostage situation, she took a few calming breaths to decide what to do.
Look some more.
That worked.
This time, she gave into her impulse, dropped to her knees, and peered around the door from a lower angle. Definitely a better angle. For assessment purposes only, she told herself, knowing she was a big fat liar whose pants, if she had been wearing pants, would be incendiary right about now.
She stayed hunkered down, assessing the couple. The woman was a puzzle. Broad in girth, huge in stature, she wore an unflattering pair of jean overalls, which, Caro was sad to say, seemed to have come back into fashion for some bizarre reason. Not in Hollywood, of course. But they were showing up in the rest of the country—which pretty much meant another planet, as far as most people in L.A. were concerned.
Louise appeared taller than the better-than-average-height man, and heavier by a large amount. So maybe the hunk had a thing for big girls. In which case, he’d never spare a glance at Caro, who only stood five-seven when she wore two-inch heels.
She certainly wasn’t an imposing figure now, down on all fours in a closed real estate office, spying on a pair of lovebirds, or a female rapist. She still hadn’t decided which was the most likely explanation. Either the man was a philandering Realtor having a kinky good time—complete with props like fake guns—on a Monday morning. Or he was a poor innocent victim being held up by a naked-Realtor-robbing Amazon.
Not sure which, she curled her back and neck a bit, hunching lower until she was able to see that, yes, the woman was definitely holding a real—if rather old-looking—pistol.
The hostage wasn’t turning around. He remained still, his body aligned with the sight of the gun. His back was perfect. Smooth. Sculpted with layer upon layer of thick muscle. Tanned, taut skin glistened with a sheen of sweat that probably had more to do with the situation than with the temperature.
His thick arms flexed with the tension. That, more than anything, convinced Caro that while his tone might be flip, and his voice might hold laughter, he wasn’t relaxed. He was, in fact, completely tense, obviously waiting for his chance to extricate himself from this unusual situation.
The overall-wearing bandit was still too busy staring at that naked tush to move. Caro couldn’t blame her—she couldn’t do anything else, herself.
She’d never really considered herself a butt woman. A man’s eyes were so much more important. Or at the very least his smile. A pair of lips that could instill a sense of shimmering heat while widened in laughter used to make her completely crazed. One smile, in particular, had nearly been her undoing.
But as for the rest? Good looks, as she’d found in Hollywood, didn’t always equal good men.
That didn’t mean they weren’t fun to ogle. Particularly in this case, with a man whose backside looked hard enough to crack a walnut, and hot enough to make her legs go weak.
“Don’t turn around,” the woman said matter-of-factly, apparently noticing her victim making a move. “Please stand there and look away while I get myself mussed before Daddy gets here.”
Daddy. Mussed. Caro began to understand. This was strictly TV Writing 101 stuff. Tons of shows, from soaps to sitcoms, had explored this scenario in every conceivable way. This woman wanted to be caught in a compromising situation with Mr. Studly. Enter the enraged, armed papa. Fade to commercial.
“Please don’t take off your clothes.” He sounded more nervous than he had when she’d threatened to shoot him.
No commercial, Caro, this is real life.
“Fair’s fair.” Then the woman chuckled. “At least now I know what all the women in town are dying for a glimpse of.”
His thighs? His flexing calves? His arms, which looked strong enough to carry a woman to the nearest flat surface and make love to her from here to Sunday? All of the above?
Most especially that hard, sweetly curved rear that cried out to be caressed, held, stroked and clenched in mind-numbing passion? Caro gulped as her nervous habit kicked in: she started to hum the theme song from Sex in the City.
“Who would’ve thought those little black points were the tips of his ears?”
It took a second for Caro to understand what the woman meant. Then she leaned in farther, blinking off the haze of lust to take a really good look at the man. That was when Caro noticed what was above his perfect, hard, finger-licking-good backside.
A tattoo. A sexy, wicked, playful tattoo. It told a story that revealed quite a lot about the man it adorned.
Part of it, the little creature in the small of his back, riding just above his right cheek, made her pause. Because it looked familiar. Very familiar.
“Impossible,” she whispered, not believing her own eyes. She studied it, blinking a few times, wondering if she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing.