LITMIR.BIZ

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to get dressed. Gotta go change myself and meet Quinn at the community center. Come on over when you get ready.”

      “Okay.” Cammie Jo nodded. “Thanks for everything.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      Once Kay had gone, Cammie Jo hugged herself, feeling simultaneously excited and scared. First a total makeover and now a party? Her? There would be lots of handsome men in attendance. Shivers pushed down her back. And a lot of beautiful women to compete against.

      She thought about having to make conversation with strangers—it had been hard enough talking to Kay, but the woman had a journalist’s flair for drawing people out. The very idea of chit-chatting with people she didn’t know made her want to flee screaming into the wilderness.

      And yet, she wanted to go so much.

      Make a wish and you can have your heart’s desire.

      She moved toward the dresser, picked up the necklace and wrapped one hand around the totem, tentatively rubbed it with a thumb and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

      “Please,” she whispered. “Grant me my most treasured wish. Make me strong and brave. Take away my fears, vanquish my shyness, free me from my own insecurities.”

      She slipped the necklace over her head, gave a sharp “eek” of surprise at the unexpected warmth. The totem had certainly seemed to work when she’d sassed Mack in the hallway. Plus, Jake said it was an Aleut fertility totem and it possessed potent magic.

      Truth be told she had the sudden urge to stand up straight, throw back her shoulders and yodel from the rooftop, “Look out Bear Creek, here comes Camryn Josephine.”

      MACK COULDN’T GET enough of staring at the fine-looking women packing the streets of Bear Creek. When he and his three friends had taken out that ad, he had no idea women would appear like snow-flakes in winter.

      He was loving the attention. As he’d hoped, the sorority sisters from UNLV had been a lot more fun than Tammie Jo Lockhart, although he suspected they’d had one too many cocktails on the plane.

      One of the daring lasses had even pinched him on the butt when he’d unloaded their luggage. Mack wasn’t sure whether he liked that or not. He preferred daring women, sure, but there was something to be said about respecting a man’s private parts until you got to know him a little better.

      He thought of tremulous Tammie Jo plunging her face into his lap when she believed the plane was crashing and Mack had to laugh. Okay, she had violated his private parts too, but not intentionally. She’d just been scared.

      It was almost seven o’clock, and he was heading to the party Quinn and Kay had organized to celebrate the arrival of the contest winner. He wore a tuxedo at Kay’s insistence and he tugged at the stiff, choke-a-man collar. She’d had the four bachelors outfitted from some place in Anchorage, and he hated wearing the monkey suit. Kay had told him to get used to it since undoubtedly his bride-to-be, whoever she was, would expect him to stand at the altar in one.

      Mack almost said he wasn’t marrying that kind of woman but quickly shut his mouth because that’s exactly the kind of woman Kay was. And the last thing he wanted was to hurt her feelings.

      But Mack’s dream wedding would consist of something adventuresome. Like getting hitched in hiking gear atop a glacier. That’s the kind of woman he wanted for a wife. Gutsy, courageous, up for anything. The exact opposite of what his weak-willed mother had been like.

      His mind was wandering down this familiar but unpleasant train of thought when from his peripheral vision he caught a glimpse of a woman strutting down the sidewalk.

      She moved like a regal queen. Confident, self-assured, poised. Her hair, a tantalizing caramel color, floated down her back in a spiral of curls that made Mack think of pecan taffy, and his imagination triggered his mouth to fill with the sweet, buttery taste of nutty candy.

      An incredible black dress made of some soft clingy material hugged her curves snugger than a label on a wine bottle. The skirt had this amazing little tattered hem that fluttered like a handkerchief around the most sensational calves he’d ever seen.

      She was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

      His mouth went dry. His eyes bugged. His palms grew sweaty on the steering wheel.

      Who in the thunder was she? He hadn’t flown in any woman who looked like that over the last couple of days. He would have remembered. It must have been one of the other bush pilots. The lucky devil.

      Her shoulders were thrown back, her head held high, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She stalked forward on four-inch heels like she owned the world. Instant admiration sprung in his chest. His kind of gal.

      Wait a minute, what was that she was wearing around her neck?

      Stunned, he stared at the lewd totem bouncing off her perky breasts and he was completely mesmerized.

      So mesmerized, in fact, that when she stepped off the curb in front of him, Mack’s foot accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

      Good Lord, he was about to kill a dream walking!

      He slammed on the brakes while simultaneously jamming on the horn. His tires squealed in protest at the sudden pressure and his stomach vaulted into his throat.

      The woman turned to look at him, an expression of shocked surprise in her wide green eyes. Mack sprang from the front seat, rounded the hood and was devastated to see that he had stopped mere inches from her gorgeous body. His heart pounded so hard he feared it would jackhammer a hole through the bottom of his foot.

      At first, she leveled him an insouciant stare, as if it were all his fault. Then she blinked and said in a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “Goodness, did I step right out in front of you?”

      “Yes,” he said, feeling bashful as a boy for absolutely no good reason at all. “You did.”

      “Aren’t I lucky that you have lightning-fast reflexes.”

      He couldn’t stop staring at her. Couldn’t reconcile her calmness with his own flustered state of agitation. Didn’t she recognize that he had almost killed her? Or at the least given her a whoop knot bad enough to land her in the emergency ward.

      “I’m sorry. I was so busy looking for the community center, I simply didn’t see you.”

      His mouth hung open. He had a sudden desperate desire to touch her and it was all he could do to keep his hands to himself. “You’re going to the Metropolitan party?”

      She nodded.

      “Me too. Come on.” He reached out and took her by the hand. A shudder of yearning passed through him. How could one woman knock his world so completely out-of-kilter? He inhaled deeply. He couldn’t let her see how much she affected him. Not now. Not yet. “Let’s get you out of the road.”

      “What?” She blinked her big green eyes at him, and he was a goner.

      “Let’s get out of the road.”

      “Oh. Okay.”

      All right, so she wasn’t a brainiac. Big deal. She possessed a figure to make angels cry hallelujah.

      Um, McCaulley, what’s number seven on your list? His conscience nudged.

      Mentally Mack rolled his eyes at that nagging voice. Intelligence was number seven on his “wife” list.

      He’d written down that trait for a reason. He had a tendency to get involved with beautiful but flighty airheads who thought putting down roots meant bleaching your hair.

      Give this one a chance, he argued with himself. Just because she stepped out in front of his truck didn’t mean she was dumb. Everyone made mistakes. Hadn’t he hit the accelerator instead of the brake?

      He settled her in the passenger seat beside him, then drove the short distance to the community center parking lot. Heads turned to stare at

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