LITMIR.BIZ

       PROLOGUE

      THENIGHT ADRIAN CARLTON first saw James Bracken naked, he was bloodied and bruised. He’d gone several rounds with a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, then crawled behind the wheel of his father’s old Mustang convertible.

      The joyride ended abruptly on a backcountry road when the speeding muscle car skated off the pavement, plowed through the entry sign in front of Carlton Nurseries and skinned the side of a giant oak tree before barreling into the glass front of the office building.

      From the farmhouse behind the nursery, Adrian had heard the deafening crash and gone running—out the front door and through the rows of her parents’ shrubs and saplings, her bare feet sinking into the damp earth. A light drizzle was falling from the leaden night skies and the humidity had swelled at the onset of rain. By the time she reached the nursery’s office and saw the cherry-red Shelby that had decimated it, sweat was crawling from her neck to her back.

      “Oh, my...” She trailed off as she took in the scene. Her hands lifted to her mouth as she shook her head. “What in God’s name...”

      She trailed off at the sound of a grunt and tinkling glass. Her feet unstuck and she took several steps forward. Surely no one had survived this carnage.

      The grimacing man unfolding himself from the driver’s seat as he struggled to push the car door open suggested otherwise. Swearing under his breath, he grabbed the top of the car for balance. He hissed, lifting his arms away from the glass shards that were littered there, tilting his wrists to the dim light from the street to reveal fresh cuts on the undersides.

      “Somabitch,” she heard him mutter, the foul words tripping over each other.

      Adrian scoffed. The guy was drunk. Her lips peeled back from her teeth in a sneer as she hissed, “You stupid moron! You could have killed someone!”

      He started at the sound of her voice. His head turned. Through the blood leaking from a large gash close to his dark hairline and the thin cut below his left eye, recognition struck her. Adrian’s eyes rounded in surprise. “James?” she said, her voice laden with dread. “James Bracken, is that you?”

      He stared at her face for a moment, his eyes moving slowly, sluggishly over her features. Then he staggered forward, his mouth warming into a devilish grin. “Adrian.”

      As he loped around the trunk of the car, it wasn’t just his towering height and lean, muscled form that struck her. Her heart rapped against her chest. He was bloody. He was bruised. He was grinning like a fool. And he was naked as a jaybird. She took a long step back and swallowed. “James, are you all right?”

      He laughed, stumbled a bit. When she dove for him, he pulled himself up to his full height, his blue eyes winking with laughter and not a hint of remorse. She couldn’t be altogether sure that he wasn’t suffering from a concussion or worse, much less that he was completely aware of his surroundings.

      He was six feet five inches tall, easy. Her eyes were level with the wooden cross on his sternum that hung from a leather strap. The religious symbol was so at odds with his devil-may-care persona she frowned, extricating her gaze from his fine, muscled form and, more importantly, his naked hips.

      She watched his gaze skim from the top of her head to the tips of her bare toes, and she frowned once more when she felt her red-painted toenails tingle under the smoldering assessment.

      “Adrian Carlton,” he drawled, swaying a bit. “Damn. Was that an earthquake—or did you just rock my world?”

      He was picking her up? Now? For heaven’s sake. She pursed her lips, ready to give him the what-for. “Listen, hot rocks, you can’t just—”

      His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his legs folded beneath him. Cursing, she ducked under his shoulder to catch him but he was too tall. Too damn heavy. She shrieked as they both went crashing to earth. The breath whooshed out of her when his naked form landed on top of her in full supine position. She pushed against his shoulder, couldn’t budge him and cursed again.

      “Damn you, James Bracken,” she murmured, teeth clenched as she yanked his head back with a fistful of his thick, tousled hair. Jaw slack, eyes closed, he greeted her with a gurgling snore. With a sigh, she dropped his head back to her shoulder and groaned. “You’re going to be more trouble than you’re worth.”