LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      This one’s dedicated to all the wonderful,

       supportive people at Harlequin, who have given me so many opportunities. Brenda Chin, Birgit Davis-Todd, Marsha Zinberg and Tracy Farrell, thank you for your faith in me. I won’t let you down.

      And to all those reality-show contestants

       and crews. Thanks for the laughs and the entertainment.

      CONTENTS

      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

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER ONE

      “DROP YOUR PANTS.”

      Today certainly wasn’t the first time a woman had told Mick Winchester to take off his pants. From playfully suggestive, to wickedly sultry, the sentence conjured up a variety of pleasant memories. Of women. Lots of women.

      He just loved them. And he was a lucky enough son of a bitch that they usually loved him back. Usually.

      A lot of people had told Mick that women would be the death of him. He’d heard it from ex-girlfriends, from his mother, from buddies who envied his romantic success. Hell, just yesterday his own grandfather had given him a lecture on settling down before some female went Fatal Attraction on him.

      He’d laughed off the warnings. How could something he loved as much as women bring about his downfall?

      Unfortunately, as he stared down the five-inch barrel of an old Colt .45 handgun, he was beginning to see the possibilities.

      “Louise, you don’t want to do this,” he told the woman holding the gun. “Whatever’s wrong, we can work things out.”

      “Drop ’em, loverboy.”

      She didn’t say another word, merely waiting patiently, watching him the way a hawk might study a tempting bit of prey—with stoic determination and a bit of outright hunger.

      He wished he’d opened the blinds as soon as he’d gotten into the office this Monday morning. Perhaps then someone outside might have noticed something odd. Unfortunately, since he had an appointment with an out-of-towner looking for a room to rent, he’d come in early and hadn’t opened the office. He’d left the blinds down and the lights dim in the reception area. No one outside would notice a thing. And his secretary wouldn’t be in for a little while yet.

      The out-of-towner wasn’t due for an hour. So whoever the Hollywood woman was, she’d probably walk in after Louise Flanagan finished whatever the hell it was she was trying to do here.

      “What are you waiting for?” she finally said, sounding so perfectly reasonable, as if they’d just bumped into one another at the diner or the bank. “I know you’re not hard of hearing.”

      “I’m trying to understand why you want to kill me.”

      Hell, of all the women in Derryville, this one had the very least reason to hate his guts. And that was saying a lot, since he could easily name several females who would probably like to see him strung up by the nuts.

      But Louise? He’d always been polite to the woman, giving her a smile when other people had laughed at her. He’d been nice to her in the old days, when the high school hierarchy had liked to crucify the farmers’ daughters who wore their coveralls to school and smelled of their daddy’s dairy farm.

      She gave him a small smile. “Oh, Mick, you old silly, I’m not gonna kill you. Now get naked. Pretty please?”

      This was beyond ridiculous, even for him. Oh, sure, he’d been caught naked with women before, once even in the coat-check room of an upscale Chicago restaurant. But never so close to home. Never in his own realty office. Never with a local girl whose family would riot at the thought of their darling hooking up with the wickedest playboy in Derryville, Illinois.

      And never, never with Louise Flanagan, his lab partner from tenth grade biology. Louise not only outweighed him by forty pounds, she was the four-time champion hog wrestler at the state fair. Plus, Mick’s and Louise’s grandfathers were long-standing enemies.

      “Louise, I’m not going to take my clothes off.”

      She cocked the hammer.

      “Shit.”

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