Here Comes Trouble
Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated with utmost appreciation to my readers. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your encouragement, support and enthusiasm. I hope you’ll stick with me as we all get into Trouble.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

MORTIMER POTTS was not insane.

He did, on occasion, like to slip into the past—at least in his mind—and relive his favorite days. Days that were certainly more exhilarating than those he lived now. But contrary to the belief of some of his detractors, he was able to separate fiction from reality. Usually.

The problem with reality was that it was boring. The idea of settling down into his role as elderly millionaire—sipping cognac and smoking cigars on the patio of his Manhattan penthouse as he watched the world go by—simply held no appeal.

He needed adventure. Excitement. Needed to ride through the desert on a fine black stallion, or sail into a secluded jetty on the coast of Malta to escape pirates. Or whisk three young boys away to an African safari.

That was one consolation—his grandsons, at least, did not think him mad. Eccentric? Yes. But not insane.

Or perhaps that wasn’t a consolation. Having a bit of madness in the family would certainly invigorate the lives of those three young men, who’d become just a bit too pedestrian in their adult years. A little insanity could be good for the soul.

He would go insane if he was forced to ring in his eightieth year at a boring club filled with artificial people who wouldn’t dream of walking unaccompanied in Central Park, much less fighting their way out of a smoky tavern in Singapore. Ah, the good old days.

At least, he thought they were his good old days. Sometimes his memory played tricks on him.

“Your morning papers, sir,” said a familiar, well-modulated English voice.

Mortimer looked up to greet his manservant—and best friend. Roderick had been with him since 1945—a dispirited Brit tooling across Africa with a rich American once the Desert Fox had been defeated. He’d saved Mortimer’s life on one occasion and, as incongruous as it seemed, had helped him raise his grandsons.

Roderick had taught the boys how to live responsibly. Mortimer had taught them how to live.

“Anything of interest?” Mortimer asked.

“Not particularly.” Unruffled as always, Roderick, his dark, slicked-back hair now as gray as Mortimer’s was white, spread the papers on the small café-style table on the penthouse patio. Then the butler-cum-mechanic-cum-partner-in-crime-on-occasion stepped back and cleared his throat.

“What is it?”

“I believe the boy might be headed for a storm, sir.”

“Goodness, Roderick, how many times have I told you to call me Mortimer?” he asked. Then he focused on the man’s words. “The boy?”

Roderick merely sighed. “With a woman.”

Ah, Maxwell. A smile tugged at his mouth, even as Mortimer began to shake his head in feigned disapproval.

Mortimer did not play favorites with his grandchildren. But the rascally middle Taylor son, Max, was so much like him that he’d never been able to help being amused by his antics. Max was a rogue. A rapscallion, though a goodhearted one. At least, he had been. Before life had slapped him with a faithless wife.

Mortimer had had a few of those…wives, that is. Only one he’d wanted to keep. None, however, had sent him into the tailspin his grandson’s had. She had apparently destroyed Max’s faith in love. He seemed completely uninterested in trying marriage again…as were his two brothers, who’d never tried at all.

“What type of storm?” It probably didn’t speak well of him that he had a quick hope that his grandson had gotten a young lady in trouble. He would rather enjoy a great-grandchild.

“I fear he may be flying toward some rough publicity.”

Bad headlines. Bah. “Maxwell can handle rough publicity.”

Too bad. The idea of having to help his grandson with something scandalous was more appealing than sitting here in the city waiting to die. And a wrong-side-of-the-blanket infant sounded much more exciting than a media scandal.

Lifting the London paper, he idly began to flip the pages, finding nothing of interest. Until…“Did you see this?” he asked. “Property For Sale—A Pennsylvania Township.”

“A township, sir?”

Mortimer read on, barely hearing the other man. With each word, a surge of excitement built in his veins. Soon he was sitting straight in his chair, rereading, thinking, planning.

“I recognize that expression. You’re going to do something outrageous,” Roderick said, a note of resignation in his voice. “And I’m going to be dragged along, forced to break you out of some prison or find a bottle of your favorite Courvoisier XO Imperial cognac in a remote store that carries little more than six-packs of—” he shuddered “—Schlitz Malt Liquor.”

Ignoring him, Mortimer said, “This town is looking for a sheikh, a prince or a duke to save them from bankruptcy.”

“Is that possible? A town being sold?”

“It happens. Some actor bought a town last year, I think.” Mortimer read on. “Being offered in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is the town of Trouble, Pennsylvania, established 1821.”

A dry chuckle told him what Roderick thought of the name of the place. Most people would probably be put off by it. Mortimer, however, had never been one to retreat, had never liked to ride out of the way to avoid trouble. “This might be just what I need,” he murmured. “They did say they wanted a sheikh.”

He peered out of the corner of his eye, watching for any sign of skepticism from his butler, as he occasionally saw on the faces of others when the subject of some of Mortimer’s adventures arose. There was none, of course. Roderick knew full well that Mortimer had been granted an honorary sheikhdom from the head of a Bedouin tribe after the winter of forty-eight.

“I wonder about the condition of the place, if it’s bankrupt,” Roderick said, reading over his shoulder. “A few buildings, roads and parks for that amount? I should think you’d be able to purchase an entire colony for such a sum.”

“They’re states,” Mortimer said. “Remember that tea party and several years of revolution?”

Roderick lifted a disdainful brow.

Still, the man was correct. The amount named in the ad was not a paltry one. “Well, see here, there is more for the price.” He pointed. “Beyond the courthouse, town hall and fire station, some formerly private buildings are also included.”

“Oh, goody,” Roderick said, his voice as dry as the sawdust-flavored English biscuits he so enjoyed.

Mortimer’s enthusiasm was not dampened as he finished reading the advertisement. “These include a movie theater, photo hut, school, barber shop, a big, furnished house, a gas station, two restaurants—one with working ice-cube maker—and a factory formerly occupied by Stuttgardt Cuckoo Clock Company.”

Roderick sniffed. “How very appropriate.”

“All government buildings are currently in use, all others are closed after bank foreclosure. Also included is the bank.”

Well, that cinched it, didn’t it? His family had been in banking for a hundred years. It was how the Potts family had made their fortune. Which had provided Mortimer with a comfortable inheritance that he’d parlayed into millions through prudent investing and a bit of international intrigue.

Destiny. He was a sheikh. He had the money. He loved trouble. And he would, most assuredly, love Trouble.

“About the boy…”

Mortimer set the paper down. “Is it serious?”

“It may be. He will likely need to do some reevaluating.”

There wasn’t anything Mortimer Potts wouldn’t do for his grandsons. And it suddenly occurred to him that the purchase of his own little Pennsylvania town could help in that respect, too. “You are aware that if I proceed with this, my grandsons are certain to come try to rescue me from my folly.”

Roderick nodded ever so slightly.

“Morgan is preparing to fly off on some assignment for Time magazine. And Michael is doing something quite mysterious, which he referred to as ‘deep undercover’ work.”

That left Max. The rascal. Who would, without doubt, come to Trouble determined to save his grandfather.

Instead, Mortimer hoped, Max would be saving himself.

CHAPTER ONE

PILOTING A TWIN-ENGINE Cessna Citation CJ2+ out of Long Beach Airport in California, Max Taylor was prepared for a lot of things. Bad weather, low visibility, turbulence. He’d dealt with the wind shear off a low-flying commercial airliner. Equipment failure. Hell, even the odd seagull going splat on the windshield or getting sucked up into an engine.

But not this. Not a scene straight out of a bad porn movie. Nothing in his wildest dreams—or darkest nightmares—could have prepared him for a seventy-year-old passenger bursting into his cockpit. Naked. Completely, shockingly naked. “Wha—”

“Mr. Taylor, induct me into the mile-high club!” the gray-haired woman exclaimed, her arms wide, emphasizing the, uh, length of her bustline.

Max’s first thought was to dive back below five thousand feet so they wouldn’t be a mile up. His second was to think that all her millions hadn’t managed to make Mrs. Rudolph Coltrane look as young from the neck down as it had managed to deal with her tightly Botoxed face. And his third was to realize that he was being attacked in his own plane. By a woman old enough to be his grandmother.

“Mrs. Coltrane, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, somehow managing to keep his voice steady, his hands on the controls and his gaze straight ahead. Not that it was going to do much good—he’d already gotten an eyeful.

Still in shock, Max suspected he was going to have nightmares tonight. Nightmares about the unattractiveness of breast implants going south, and sags that couldn’t be lifted by a crane, much less the best plastic surgeon in L.A.

“I was going to wait until we were higher up, but I can’t,” the woman said. “I’ve waited too long as it is. I know you’re used to a slightly younger woman…”

Decades.

“…but we’re alone now and I’m willing and a man with your…appetites probably can’t go for long without giving in to his carnal urges.”

Currently, Max’s only urge was to jump out of the plane.

“I’ve paid good money for this trip, and I fully expect you to be my in-flight entertainment.”

“That’s what the DVD player is for,” he whispered, shaking his head in bewilderment.

This couldn’t be happening. Not along with all the other weird crap he’d been experiencing lately. A constant stream of women had been driving him nuts for weeks, almost sending him into hiding. He seemed to be the latest fad among the “ladies who lunch” of southern California.

Max had always enjoyed relationships with his fair share of females. Probably the next guy’s fair share, too. He certainly wasn’t going to apologize for liking women.

And he did. Oh, he really did. He liked how they smelled and how they looked. Liked the tender bit of skin at the nape of a lovely neck and the feel of soft hair against his bare chest. Liked tangled sheets, steamy nights and slow, deep kisses.

Careful not to get snagged in any commitment nets—not after his one disastrous experience with marriage and the major screw-up he’d made of his life following his divorce—he only got involved with women who were looking for the same things he was. Intelligent conversation, a few nice meals and, occasionally, scream-like-a-banshee sex. No strings.

Which meant, he supposed, that the strange abundance of propositions coming his way the past few weeks should have been a good thing.

It wasn’t.

Because Max had become much more careful and circumspect about his sex life in recent years. Besides, he had always been the pursuer, not the pursued. He liked flirtation and seduction. A shared glance and the not-completely-innocent brush of a hand against a soft female arm. Charming his way into the good graces of even the most cool and unattainable ice queen gave him a great deal of satisfaction, whether sex was involved or not.

Lately, though, he’d been like a lame zebra being stalked by a pride of hungry lionesses.

He was being felt up by women in line at the bank, and having notes and drinks delivered to him in restaurants. One brunette with about ten carats of diamonds glittering from her fingers had been sitting on the hood of his Porsche last week. He’d been so concerned about possible dents in his car that at first the woman’s lack of panties beneath her short dress hadn’t registered. Once it did, his only reaction had been annoyance that he was also going to have to get the car washed.

“It’s gotta be the cologne,” he muttered, wondering if he was the subject of a secret scientific experiment. Maybe Calvin Klein was slipping some kind of animal secretion into his aftershave. Something that made Max give off irresistible pheromones that turned women into sex-starved vixens.

“Mr. Taylor…”

Or sex-starved bovines.

“Return to your seat,” he said from between clenched teeth. He didn’t look around, focusing instead on the blue sky spread in a brilliant panorama outside the windshield. Not on the age-spotted lady in the doorway spread in an Eve-old invitation. “Get dressed and sit down or I’ll return to the airport.”

“You can’t mean to tell me you’re refusing.” The spoiled, rich socialite wasn’t used to being told no. And as the owner of a young private charter company that was still struggling under last year’s expansion from a four-jet fleet to a six-jet one, he wasn’t used to saying it—not when it came to business.

Max had worked his ass off in the past three years, determined to get himself out of the quagmire his life had become after he’d left the Air Force. After a brief, yearlong bout of drunkenness during his divorce, he’d pulled his shit together and had launched his small, regional airline. It was something he’d dreamed of doing since his teenage years when he first learned to fly over the African desert, taught by one of his grandfather’s cronies.

Since then, his airline had become one of the fastest-growing private carriers in Orange County. Especially with customers like Mrs. Rudolph Coltrane, who freely shelled out major dollars to grab a ride to Vail or down to Cancún.

Of course, he’d always thought he’d be living this life after he finished a career as an Air Force pilot. That hadn’t exactly gone as planned. Don’t go there, he silently reminded himself.

“Look, I’m willing to fly you wherever you want to go,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “As long as it’s within the safety parameters of the aircraft. And sex in the cockpit is not.”

He didn’t go into the whole “I’d rather poke my liver out with a burning pogo stick than have sex with you” bit. Hopefully the woman cared enough for her own skin to sit down.

“Rubbish.”

Okay, apparently she didn’t.

“I know you have autopilot,” she added. “Everyone knows about this airline and your new planes.”

Yeah, they did. Word had spread about Taylor Made until they could barely keep up with demand. So the idea of merging with a large outfit trying to break into the lucrative southern California market had seemed perfect when he’d been approached by a New York executive a few months ago.

The merger was progressing nicely and would be wrapped up later in the year. Determined to make it happen, Max was working double time to keep the business lucrative. He could take a vacation after he had a partner.

Mrs. Coltrane put her hand on his shoulder. “Now, set the autopilot and turn around.”

Pleasing the customer was a top priority in his business, and he didn’t want to alienate someone with as powerful a reputation as Mrs. Coltrane. But despite the special extras and level of excellence he advertised in his promotional material, flying the twin of the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” lady to the heights of passion was not in his job description.

“You’ve got to the count of five, then I radio the tower and we make an immediate landing,” he said, trying to shrug off her hand.

“Don’t be coy. I know all about you.”

He stiffened, having no idea what she meant. “One.”

“Surely you can at least do me the courtesy of a quickie.”

The woman’s indignance would have been laughable if Max’s laughter hadn’t been sucked out of him like spit through a dentist’s tube. “Two.”

“But I thought…”

He reached for the radio handset. “Three.”

“Well,” the woman said with a phlegmy harrumph, “if I don’t have a thing or two to say to Grace Wellington.”

The word four died on Max’s lips as he focused on the name his passenger had uttered. Grace Wellington. What on earth a woman he’d gone out with a few years ago could have to do with Grandma getting naked in his Cessna, he had no idea. But he’d very much like to find out. Especially because he couldn’t help wondering if all the other strange experiences he’d been having with women were also connected to Grace, whom he’d dated briefly after the death of her scandalous politician husband.

“What about Grace?” he couldn’t help asking.

“She’s a liar, that’s what I think,” Mrs. Coltrane said, her tone nasal.

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder—and wouldn’t have for the single winning lottery ticket in the biggest Powerball jackpot in history—to see the woman’s chin jutting up and out, and her nostrils flaring with patrician arrogance. He was familiar with the expression, having seen it on the faces of a lot of his rich, female clients.

Of course, most of them were clothed when they got all haughty and pretentious. Wrinkly nudity probably ruined the effect—not that he wanted to find out.

“I never was certain whether the stories she wrote about you were true—that any man could be as sexually potent and addictive. Now I’m quite sure they’re not.” The woman grunted. “Some sexual fiend you are—a naked woman standing a foot away and you couldn’t even manage a quick game of hide-the-joystick.”

He didn’t know whether to be relieved that she’d given up her seduction attempt, or offended that she thought him incapable of, uh, playing her game. But since the only place he wanted to hide his joystick was behind his own zipper, maybe her interpretation wasn’t such a bad thing.

Then the rest of her words sunk in. Sex fiend? “What stories? What, exactly, are you talking about?”

She was silent for a moment. If he had had a whole lot more nerve, he would have turned around to see if she was wearing a guilty expression at spilling some kind of secret. He wasn’t that brave, however, so he settled for prompting her. “Mrs. Coltrane?”

“You’ll know soon enough, I suppose.” Her voice sounded farther away, meaning she was back in the passenger cabin, hopefully getting dressed. “The book comes out this fall. And there’s talk of a story in the Star or the Globe or something.”

“Book?”

“Grace’s autobiography. Huh! As if that woman is interesting enough to need a whole book. If not for the scandals, it would be nothing more than a page.”

An autobiography. Grace Wellington—spoiled socialite turned scandalous widow after her bribe-taking politician husband had eaten the muzzle of a gun—had written her memoirs. And included him. Damn.

Almost afraid to hear the answer, he asked, “What exactly did Grace have to say about me in this book?”

The woman snorted an inelegant laugh. He realized she’d returned to the cockpit and was right behind him. When she moved her arm within view, he saw the sleeve of her designer blouse and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“There’s a whole chapter devoted to you, my boy, and it’s been making the rounds. The lurid details are enough to make even the most risqué piece of erotica look tame.”

His stomach rolled over. It hadn’t done that in a cockpit since the first time he’d sat in an F-15 during his Air Force days…the early ones, before an unplanned pregnancy and a fucked-up marriage had derailed his plans to complete the pilot training program. “I can’t believe this.”

He didn’t want to believe it, but Mrs. Coltrane seemed sure of herself. Grace had written a bunch of raunchy stuff about him and circulated it among her highbrow friends. Which explained why he’d become the flavor of the month among the Beverly Hills set.

“The book’s coming out in hardcover in November.”

His temple began to throb as the full implication hit him. A book with a chapter full of sordid stories about him was about to go public. Now. Right when he was entering negotiations to take his company to the next level with a major merger.

God, how he wished he’d never laid eyes—or hands—on Grace Wellington.

“This is wrong.”

His passenger seemed unaware of his dismay. “If the rumors of an accompanying tabloid article are true, I imagine the book will sell well.”

Tabloid article. He felt like throwing up.

“Well, if you’re really not going to provide me with any form of entertainment, you may as well turn around. I want to go home,” Mrs. Coltrane said, her voice sharp with annoyance.

Max didn’t have to be asked twice. Within a half hour they were on the ground and Mrs. Coltrane was flouncing toward the terminal used by the private airlines. Max, meanwhile, stood on the tarmac, cell phone in hand, dialing a familiar number.

His brother Morgan—who lived in New York managing the family assets when he wasn’t off on some wildlife photographic safari—would know what to do. Or at least, who to call. But the minute Morgan answered the phone, Max heard a surprising note of excitement in his normally calm and collected older sibling’s voice.

“Max. You heard?”

“I heard.” He covered his free ear as a small Lear roared to life nearby. “Who’s the best literary attorney you know?”

“Literary?” A crackle of static interrupted, then Max thought Morgan said, “…a real estate attorney!”

Jogging toward the terminal entrance to get better reception, he spoke loudly so his brother could understand. “I don’t want to buy the woman’s house, I want to stop her damn book.” Speaking as he stepped inside, his raised voice garnered the attention of a number of people. This was so not his day.

“A book? Max, I’m talking about Trouble.”

Max strode into the private pilot’s lounge, which was, thankfully, deserted. “Tell me about it. I know I’m in trouble.”

“You are? You’re there? Then you’ve seen him?”

“Seen who?”

“Grandfather.”

Grandfather. Ah…that explained Morgan’s excited mood. If anything could send his level-headed older brother into a tailspin, it was their wildly flamboyant grandfather, the elderly man who’d raised them after their parents died. “Where is he and what has he done now?”

“I just told you, he’s in Trouble.”

“Yeah. I got it. He’s gotten himself into another mess.”

“No.” His brother’s voice was impatient. “You don’t get it. Grandfather is in a small town called Trouble.”

Max had to laugh. Because if there was anywhere Mortimer Potts was destined to be, it was in a town with that dubious name. “Okay. So he’s visiting a weird town. That’s nothing new.”

“He’s not on vacation,” Morgan said. “He owns it, Max.”

“Huh?”

“Our grandfather has purchased an entire town. He now officially owns Trouble, Pennsylvania. One of us has to fly there right away to get him out of this mess.”

One of us. Max could tell by his brother’s voice which one of us he meant. And it sure wasn’t Morgan—or their younger brother, Mike.

He was about to refuse, knowing there was too much at stake with the merger to take off on an unexpected vacation. Then he thought it over. Maybe getting out of town for a while would be a good thing. He could disappear—away from more crazy, horny old moneybags like Mrs. Coltrane. And in the meantime, get the best attorney he could find to stop publication of Grace’s book.

Besides, his grandfather was always a lot of fun. Right now, he could use some fun…not to mention the distraction. A false identity wouldn’t hurt, either, at least until this book thing was taken care of.

Neither would a sip of alcohol.

Forget it. He didn’t do that anymore—couldn’t do that anymore. Not ever.

If the eccentric old man who’d raised him was in a bad way, well, there wasn’t much Max wouldn’t do for him. Wasn’t much his brothers wouldn’t do for him, either. They were family, after all, the four of them. Had been for eighteen years, since Max, Morgan and Mike had lost their dad to the first Gulf War and their mom to cancer.

“All right. I’ll do it,” he said, trying to look on the bright side. “It’s not a bad time for me to get out of Dodge.”

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

Max suddenly didn’t want to talk to his brother about the Grace Wellington situation. Considering his older sibling had been hounding him since they were young about the scrapes Max got into with women, he couldn’t give the other man the satisfaction.

He had to laugh at the irony. His grandfather’s new town was aptly named for Max, too. Though he’d done everything he could to stay out of trouble for the past few years, he just seemed destined to keep landing in it.

“I’m okay,” he finally replied. “After I make some arrangements here, I’ll be getting the old man out of trouble. Figuratively and literally.”

Two weeks later

SABRINA CAVANAUGH had heard the old saying about a place being so small you’d miss it if you blinked. But she’d never realized it could really be true of an entire town.

She couldn’t have driven through Trouble and not realized it, could she? That awkward conglomeration of falling-down houses, boarded-up businesses and doleful people hadn’t been her destination, right? Because she came from a dinky little Ohio town, population twelve, and it still seemed bigger than this.

Pulling her rented car over, she parked on the side of the dusty, two-lane road on which she’d been traveling since leaving the interstate. The road that had none of the shady trees, rolling hills or charming scenery she’d seen since leaving Philadelphia this morning. Then she reached for her map.

“Darn.” She had missed it. That small cluster of buildings she’d barely noticed out of the corner of her eye must have been the town she was looking for.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising. The closer she’d gotten to Trouble, the more her mind had filled with doubt. The whole idea for this trip had seemed ridiculous when she and her senior editor at Liberty Books had conceived it, and it was much more so now.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered, “a rich, hot pilot is really going to fall down with desire for a small-town minister’s granddaughter turned junior book editor.”

Why on earth had she ever gone to her boss and convinced her that she could do this? That she could stop a womanizing playboy from suing them for libel by proving he was a womanizing playboy?

She really needed to stop watching old movies—this was so Rock Hudson/Doris Day. Maybe it would have worked for Doris, but no way was it going to for Sabrina Cavanaugh.

She was in way over her head. Unless wanting it to happen was enough. Because Sabrina did. She desperately wanted Max Taylor to fall crazy in lust with her. Not so she could have wild, passionate sex with the man—liar, liar—but so she could nail him for the womanizing deviant Grace Wellington’s book made him out to be. The book that was right now in jeopardy since the rich, slimy playboy had hired a shark lawyer to threaten a lawsuit.

“What man wouldn’t want to have his wickedly erotic sexual exploits glorified in a well-written memoir?” she mused.

Okay…sort of well written.

Apparently not this man. He, it seemed, had pulled out an angel costume and hired the best lawyer he could. Taylor’s lawyer was demanding that publication be stopped, threatening a libel lawsuit over Grace’s descriptions of their wild and kinky affair, her subsequent heartbreak and Max’s jaded lifestyle. And in the post–James Frey era of memoirs, Liberty was threatening to pull the book altogether.

“Oh, no, you will not ruin this for me,” Sabrina muttered, determined all over again to out the man for the reprobate he really was.

It was only because of the book—because of how important the success of that book would be for Sabrina. It had absolutely nothing—zero, zilch—to do with the man himself.

Keep telling yourself that, kid.

Sabrina never had been able to lie well, despite having a lot of experience with it as a kid. Lying had been a necessity for a troublemaking rebel trapped in the body of a small-town minister’s granddaughter who wasn’t allowed to wear jeans and had been called a harlot by her grandfather the first time she wiped a streak of pink lipstick across her mouth.

God help her if the old man had ever found out Sabrina was the one who’d put twenty packets of red Kool-Aid mix in the fountain outside his church. And had thrown one of her grandmother’s old wigs in with it so the whole thing resembled a murder scene.

She’d had a vivid imagination as a child.

Glancing in her rearview mirror, Sabrina noticed the buildings a few hundred yards back—a gas station, and a sagging, cone-shaped hut that had once either sold ice cream or developed film. Farther back, she thought she remembered driving by a restaurant, a drug store and a small courthouse supported by a ring of dirty cement columns, pitted with age spots and faintly green with mildew. There had also been an overgrown playground with swings that would require a child to get a tetanus shot before climbing aboard.

It seemed exactly the kind of place that would be called Trouble. Especially considering that the barren landscape surrounding it was too marshy for farming and too rocky for developing. Reportedly there was no coal in the three mountains ringing the small valley or even a decent slope for skiing.

Just one sorry little town with a cocky name, her home for the next week or two. Or as long as it took to track down Mr. Taylor and get him to come out of hiding as Prince Charming and put on his Hugh Hefner robe.

She was about to swing the car around and head back when she got a welcome distraction. Grabbing her cell phone out of her purse, she recognized the number on the caller ID.

“Nancy, I don’t know anything yet, I just got here,” she said. Her boss, senior editor Nancy Carazzi, had called for hourly updates all morning.

“Are you sure he’s there?”

“How could I be sure of that when I’m still in my car?”

“By the trail of women lying in satisfied puddles of lust around the town square?”

Sabrina chuckled at Nancy’s droll tone. She wasn’t surprised by the question. Though her boss—and friend—had no use for men, in or out of the bedroom, even she had been intrigued by the stories about one Maxwell Taylor, the stud of southern California—at least according to Grace Wellington’s book.

Neither of them had seen a decent picture of the man, since his airline Web site only featured a group shot taken from a distance. Posed beside a fleet of planes, the owner of Taylor Made Air Charters had been indistinguishable from his staff. All of them wearing dark glasses against the sun, they had formed a solid block of blue-uniformed flyboys.

But Grace’s descriptions had been evocative to say the least. And Sabrina could picture him in her mind.

He was suave. Sophisticated. James Bond in a pilot’s cap, with an elegant, lean body and smoothed-back dark hair. He had high cheekbones, a strong chin, and deep, knowing eyes. She just knew it. Because she’d seen him in her dreams. A lot.

“You still there?”

Sabrina cleared her throat and pulled her thoughts off the book. That part of it, anyway. “I haven’t spied any women stripping and throwing themselves naked at a man’s feet.”

“Is that your plan?”

“I’m not the least bit…”

“Can it,” Nancy said. “You think I didn’t notice the dreamy look you got on your face when you were reading the Max chapter of the book? You were intrigued, Sabrina. Hell, I haven’t had any use for a penis since I decided as a kid that Betty should end up with Veronica instead of Archie, and I was intrigued.”

Laughing, Sabrina mentally admitted she’d been more than intrigued. She wouldn’t say so out loud, but in her mind she could acknowledge that her curiosity about Grace Wellington’s former lover had become all-consuming.

“It’s just curiosity,” she insisted, not sure which of them she was trying harder to convince. “Plus a lot of skepticism. And a little bit of disgust.” Okay, she could mentally admit it was titillated disgust when it came to some of the seedier details of the wicked pleasures Max had introduced Grace to.

Wiping her brow with the back of her hand, she wasn’t surprised to find moisture there. Even with the car’s air-conditioning, memories of those scenes made her break out in a sweat. But she gamely declared, “I’d never get involved with someone like that.”

“Who said anything about getting involved? That man was born to inspire clothes to drop, not dreams of wedding rings.”

Unfortunately, sex did mean getting involved for Sabrina—she couldn’t help it. Some fire and brimstone had remained burning deep inside her long after she’d shaken off the dust of her hometown and upbringing, and taken off to the big city to go to college. Her single one-night stand a few years ago had left her feeling so guilty that she’d thrown out the sexy pair of slut shoes she’d worn to the bar that night.

Racked with guilt…hmm, her grandfather would be so proud. After he condemned her for the one-night-stand thing.

She shuddered at the thought of the old man with whom she, her mother and her younger siblings had lived since Sabrina was twelve. But, hey, she was lucky. Only one-third of her childhood had sucked. Her first twelve years had been wonderful. Her sister Allie had also been old enough to remember the good times, and they’d talked often about how fortunate they were because of that.

Sadly, their brother and youngest sister had never even known what their real family life had been like, back when they’d lived in New York and Dad was alive. Since he died when they were babies, all they’d ever known was the judgmental narrow-mindedness of their mother’s father. Which might explain why Sabrina and Allie were so much alike—rebellious and anxious to escape—while the younger two were the models of proper youthful behavior.

God, she felt so sorry for them.

“You’re supposed to be tempting the man into misbehaving. At least that’s what you said when you came to me with this whole harebrained scheme.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sabrina said, shaking off the dark thoughts. “I’m still wondering if I had some kind of psychotic break.”

Nancy snickered. “Don’t sell yourself short. You can do it…you’re just his type.”

“Alive and breathing?”

“Yes. But also beautiful, vulnerable…So why not misbehave yourself while you’re at it?” Nancy asked.

“I’m not looking for a fling with a playboy,” she insisted.

“Yeah, yeah. You want someone nice.”

“Exactly. Decent, funny. A combination of Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks and every father from every old 1950s black-and-white family sitcom on TV Land.”

“Boring.”

She went on as though Nancy hadn’t spoken. “The kind who’ll be loyal and faithful.”

“Get a Labrador.”

“Gentle,” she added.

“Get a girlfriend.”

“Well hung.”

“Get a dil—”

“Don’t say it,” Sabrina ordered. “I prefer male sexual organs that are actually attached to a body.”

“Strap-on?”

Groaning helplessly, Sabrina muttered, “A male body.”

Nancy sighed. “Picky picky.”

One thing was sure, whoever the next serious guy in her life happened to be, he would not be the type who’d get so angry when a woman broke up with him that he’d seek cruel revenge. Like seducing her innocent younger sister, getting her pregnant and walking out on her.

Her sister Allie was currently waiting out the last two months of her pregnancy in Sabrina’s apartment. Allie’s entire life had been ruined as part of the stupid revenge plot concocted by a guy Sabrina had dumped.

Yes, she’d had enough scumbags to last her whole life. It was nice, decent men from now on. No wicked studs need apply.

So her almost overwhelming need to see this Max Taylor in person had to be about curiosity, that was all. She simply couldn’t believe any man could be a modern-day combination of Valentino, James Bond and a porn star—as Grace claimed.

Skepticism and curiosity, she reminded herself. Not interest. Not in a million years.

She was about to continue arguing that point, but a noise distracted her. A metallic banging split the quiet afternoon air. It came from beyond a small stand of scraggly trees right off the road. Just after it came the loud, familiar tones of a calliope—the plaintive call to come to the circus.

Glancing that way, she caught the sparkle of something brilliantly shiny—a beautiful gleam of light that seemed entirely out of place in this gray-washed landscape.

Sabrina liked shiny things—bright lights, big city, loud music, fun. Just one more holdover from an early childhood with her funny, doting father that life with Grandfather hadn’t been able to extinguish.

Which, she supposed, was why she ended the call, dropped her phone in her purse and stepped out of the car. The music and the colors were calling to her.

And her curiosity wasn’t going to let her head back to Trouble without finding out where they were coming from.

CHAPTER TWO

TROUBLE MIGHT be the name of this town, but as far as Max was concerned, a better one would be The Mental Ward. After two weeks in the Pennsylvania community his grandfather called his kingdom, he was ready to run screaming off a bridge. Anything to escape the sounds of people calling him a savior—or a villain, the rattle of cars on their last piston, or—worst of all—the excruciating chirp of dozens of cuckoo clocks, all cuckooing their black little hearts out when the minute hand struck twelve.

The clocks. They were the tormenting fiends who’d convinced him he was one inch from insanity. At least one—usually more—of the vile things decorated every room of Max’s grandfather’s house, where Max was staying. And his grandfather loved them as much as he loved the dusty old furniture that had come with the place.

A lumpy couch he could live with. A few dozen cackling birds he could not. They’d driven him out early this morning, seeking both peace and quiet and a distraction. Any distraction.

Only not a female one, which was the biggest frustration of all. He was here to live down his reputation. Not add to it.

Coming to Trouble had been about more than talking his grandfather into unloading this bottomless pit he’d dumped a mountain of money into. The man did have a thing for lost causes and a sob story—apparently this tiny town being bankrupted by an embezzling crook had tugged at Mortimer’s heartstrings.

Max couldn’t forget his second objective, however—to lay low and stay out of the limelight while his lawyer took care of this Grace Wellington nonsense. Which was why he’d been here for days and had so far not given so much as a second glance to a nicely curved feminine ass.

Not that he’d seen any. Which was probably a good thing, even though it felt like a bad one.

There were only two things Max liked as well—or did as well—as women. Piloting. And tinkering with machinery.

He’d gone flying this morning, and, as always, the freedom and beauty of an endless blue sky had helped. Zipping and soaring between a few fluffy white clouds provided the kind of mindless delight he otherwise only got with sex. But once back on solid ground, the feeling had quickly disappeared. He was still tense…restless.

Which was why he was now cussing and coaxing the rust-covered engine of an ancient carousel back to life. He’d stumbled across the glorious ruin in the falling-down remnants of what had been Pennsylvania Kiddie World during one of his daily get-out-to-stay-sane walks earlier this week. Something about the place had appealed to him, unlike anything else in Trouble. Certainly unlike the moldering, cuckoo-clock-infested ruin in which he was currently residing with his happy-as-a-pig-in-mud grandfather.

He supposed there were benefits to being the grandson of a town owner, because he’d been able to get the power to this park turned on. Not that it seemed to have done any good. The poor carousel motor hadn’t made so much as one long groan of agony in the days he’d been tinkering with it, even if he had managed to get a few wailing notes of the calliope to belt out.

“Come on, sweetheart, I know you’re tired and old, but you must have one more go-round in you, merry or not.”

“Excuse me?”

Jerking his attention from the control panel, which had required a good quart of WD-40 before even allowing itself to be opened, Max swung his head around and stared over his shoulder. A woman had come up behind him in the tiny, weed-encrusted, abandoned amusement park, which had once been the cubic zirconia jewel in Trouble’s dubious crown.

And speaking of jewels…good Christ, was the woman standing in front of him one. A blonde. She was a blonde. His absolute weakness.

She was also tall, curvy and had the kind of lips that’d make a man howl to the night in pure, primal hunger.

No. No howling. No wolfing at all, remember?

Swallowing his libido, he offered her a smile. “Sorry. I guess you caught me talking to myself.” He stood and brushed his hands off on his jeans, leaving a smear of grease on one thigh. Stepping closer, he forced himself to keep this encounter friendly, neighborly.

When what he wanted was sexy and suggestive.

She smiled back, also noncommittal. Cordial but not flirtatious. Unfortunately. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.” Pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, she revealed a pair of bright sky-blue eyes.

Damn. A blue-eyed blonde with a pretty smile and a pair of succulent lips. A smooth-skinned face with soft cheeks and the tiniest jut in her jaw that said she was stubborn. A bright, smiling angel appearing in this private corner of perdition just like the sun coming out on a cloudy, overcast day….

He felt like groaning out loud. Who, he wondered, had he wronged in another life to have such temptation presented to him when he couldn’t—simply could not—give in to it?

She looked him over, head to toe, with that calm, innocent glance women always hid their interest behind. A tiny hint of color appeared in her creamy cheeks and she licked at her lips—those lips—to moisten them.

Just throw a lightning bolt at me and be done with it.

“Talking to yourself—that can be a dangerous thing,” she said, her voice throatier than he’d have expected from such a soft-looking female.

“So can cutting a hand on some of this sharp, rusty metal.” Max grinned. “I feel like I ought to sweet-talk her to make sure she doesn’t scratch me.” Hmm…had that sounded suggestive? He hadn’t meant it to.

Like hell. Knock it off, Taylor.

Her full lips twitching, she gazed at his hands. “Are you hurt?”

“Not yet. But I have the feeling I will be by the time I coax this old sweetheart into action.”

The blonde glanced toward the carousel, one fine brow lifting as she studied the decrepit wreck. The only intact portion was the mini-carousel perched on the top, its mirror-tiled roof still sending out flashes of light when the sun hit it the right way. As for the rest…the once brightly colored circus animals were now mostly a uniform gray, with spots of red or green occasionally showing through. The zebra was missing its front legs, and two jagged shards were all that remained of the lion’s mane. Behind each animal, old-fashioned mirrors—dingy and cracked—provided a distorted, fun-house reflection of the washed-out menagerie, duplicating and emphasizing the sadness of each pitiful creature

He had no doubt what the stranger was looking at—but did she see? He couldn’t help wondering if the blonde saw the same aching, sad beauty that had captivated him the first time he’d spotted this place, set back off the road in a tangled, forgotten clearing.

“I can’t believe this thing hasn’t been torn down.” She kept her words in close, as if talking to herself.

“Me, either,” he admitted. “From the service records on it, I’d say it’s been closed since seventy-eight.” Which meant it was probably almost as old as this woman. Just the right age.

For ignoring. He forced himself to focus on the book. And remember he was here as the boy next door. Not the wolf beneath the porch.

“I caught the sparkle of it out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t resist exploring. I bet a lot of kids around here have had the same impulse.”

“I would have when I was a kid.”

As she met his gaze, her blue eyes sparkled. Her chuckle was as throaty as her voice as she admitted, “Me, too.”

Their smiles and immediate mental connection to mischievous childhoods provided an instant rapport, one that took Max by surprise.

The blonde carefully stepped over the toolbox, which lay open on the ground, a smattering of hand tools jumbled inside.

Not Max’s—it was from his grandfather’s house. Max’s toolbox was immaculate. Some things a man just couldn’t mess around with. Like his tools.

And this woman.

“I guess the clang of metal I heard from the road was you doing some, uh, coaxing with your hammer?”

“Is that all you heard?”

“That and some music.”

“Whew. Glad you didn’t hear me yelling, so you won’t be reaching for the soap to wash my mouth out.”

Her gaze shifted to his mouth. Which made his blood grow one degree hotter and his jeans grow one size tighter.

“Don’t tell me you were cursing at your sweetheart.”

“Guilty. Patience isn’t my strongest attribute.”

He’d like to tell her what his strongest attribute was, but that seemed like a dangerous idea. Besides, if she liked danger, she’d know exactly what he was talking about and would continue the subtle innuendo of their conversation.

She stepped closer to the carousel, focusing only on it, obviously not a danger-seeker. That was probably just as well.

“It is a ruin,” she murmured, running a hand over the flank of a shabby horse whose braided tail was now merely a stump. “But somehow, it’s…it’s almost pretty in spite of that.”

She did see. And just like that, Max realized he liked her. Didn’t know her name or a thing about her, but the woman had vision. He liked a person with vision.

Especially when she also had incredibly long legs nicely hugged by sinfully tight jeans, and a mouthwatering hint of cleavage peeking from the scooped neck of her sleeveless top.

Stop.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It tells a story.”

“A wistful one.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of pathetic, but I guess ‘wistful’ works.”

“She’s not pathetic. She’s majestic…but worn. Weary.”

“Very weary. I can’t even get a moan out of her, much less a ride.”

Bad choice of words. The blonde’s lips parted as she breathed over them.

He tugged his attention off her mouth. Off her face. Off anything that could make him think things he should not be thinking. Which pretty much left the ground.

Nope. Flat, open surfaces suitable for rolling around on didn’t work either.

“Not going to make it easy on you, is she?”

He lifted his eyes from the soft grass circling the perimeter of the park. “No way. She’s stubborn. Keeps herself tight as a drum—dry—no matter how much I try to lube her.” He almost groaned. This was going from bad to worse. Mentally kicking himself, he gave it another shot. “I can’t loosen her up and get her going.”

God, he was out of control. Blathering suggestive comments without any mental volition whatever. Like his mouth was on flirtation autopilot. It was just…second nature.

The woman kept watching, silently. Something that looked like amusement might have been dancing in those blue eyes of hers, but he couldn’t be certain. Because her expression remained merely curious—friendly—not the least bit sexual or inviting.

“I mean,” he said forcefully, almost dragging appropriately inane words from the un-sexed corner of his brain, “this thing might be too much for me to handle.”

Not great. But acceptable.

He hoped.

“You keep insulting her and she’s definitely going to scratch you,” the blonde murmured as she stepped around him to examine the junction box. She bent over, her jeans pulling tight against the finest hips and backside he’d seen in months, and Max had to send up a prayer for strength.

“You actually think you can get it working?” she asked. She crouched down, shoving a long strand of fine, blond hair back and tucking it behind her ear.

No, he really didn’t. But damned if he wasn’t going to try. “What can I say? I like to tinker and I don’t like having to give up on anything.”

Merry-go-rounds. Sex. Marriages.

“Are you a mechanic?”

In the early days of his business, he’d been a jack-of-all-trades. Mechanic, pilot, reservations clerk. Flight attendant. Anything to keep Taylor Made in the air and in the black. “On occasion. I definitely know my way around a toolbox.”

“I don’t think even Mr. Goodwrench could get this old beauty going again.”

“I don’t think he works on merry-go-rounds. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t make house calls.” Crossing his arms, he leaned against a striped carousel pole, which was a muddy brown and gray color, rather than red and white. “So I guess I’m all you’ve got, baby.”

The woman tilted her head back to look at him from beneath her wispy bangs, as if she thought he’d been talking to her.

He hadn’t. Well, maybe he had, just a bit. He couldn’t help it. Flirting with women had come naturally to Max since childhood, when he’d realized his older brother Morgan was always going to be known as the smart, determined one and his younger brother Mike was a fearless daredevil who also had the whole baby thing working in his favor.

Max had his charm. He’d been using it since third grade, when he sweet-talked his teacher out of calling his parents after he’d been caught on the playground organizing an enthusiastic game of Han Solo Kisses Princess Leia.

He’d been Han Solo. Little girls had been standing in line waiting for their turn to play Princess Leia.

Even at age eight the middle Taylor son had understood the appeal of the bad-boy. Let Luke Skywalker get the glory—the Han Solos of the world were the ones who got the girl.

But not this one.

No. He couldn’t afford those kinds of games right now. Not until he got some good news from his lawyer that his threats to sue Liberty Books had succeeded in halting—or altering—Grace Wellington’s book. Until then, he had to be on his best behavior.

“Well, I guess I’d better get back to work,” he said.

Perfect. His voice had held a combination of down-home friendliness and sincere work ethic while also silently telling her to move along.

Having to play Mr. Squeaky Clean was ridiculous at this point in his life. It seemed impossible that a tiny publisher he’d never even heard of might be so desperate to keep their book project going that they’d go after him personally. Would any legitimate publishing company really try to get some tabloid to do an expose on Max, showing him as the Don Juan he was made out to be in Grace’s book?

Outrageous.

Though he came from a wealthy family—and his grandfather was pretty well known—there was absolutely nothing about Max’s life that would garner the interest of a national magazine. His marriage had been pretty crazy, but not headline worthy. And he’d done some stupid shit following the breakup—but again, nothing to write about in the papers.

Grace, however, was another story. The woman had been the Paris Hilton of her decade before she’d married an up-and-coming congressman. When he’d become a down-and-out congressman and had committed suicide after getting his hand caught in a publicly funded cookie jar, she’d gotten even more attention.

So, yes, it could happen. There were a lot of jaded people out there who got off on reading about the rich and scandalous, so Grace’s book might grab some attention. And if the chapter about him really had gotten most of the rich women of southern California talking, he supposed the publisher might be pretty desperate to keep it.

His lawyer sure seemed to think so. Suspecting the publisher might try something extreme now that Max had threatened to sue, he’d warned Max to keep himself out of trouble. So Max had dug out his dented halo and would be wearing it from here on out—if it killed him.

And it might.

Playing nice and proper was bad enough on a regular day, but with a female like this one—with a body made for silk sheets, sighs and sin—it was proving torturous. He hadn’t expected to come to Trouble and stumble over a woman who made him stupid with lust, but here she was.

Which seemed almost too convenient, didn’t it? He hadn’t met an unattached, attractive woman between the ages of fifteen and forty since he’d shown up in town, and now here was one who’d tempt the Queer Eye guys to go straight. Out in the woods…alone…smelling so damn sweet and looking so damn delicious. What were the odds?

Not very good.

Suddenly, Max began to wonder if his lawyer might have been on to something. Maybe somebody out there was trying to set him up, to put his ass over the flame and see if he cried “Fire!” before being barbecued.

Could this blonde be some kind of reporter? Some tabloid shark using herself as bait?

All of his senses on high alert, he found a well of determination deep inside that enabled him to put on his best “I’m a trustworthy guy” face. That look—and the matching attitude—would stay there, too. At least until he found out exactly who this woman was. And why she was here.

One thing was certain—no matter how much she attracted him, Max Taylor’s business meant a whole lot more to him than any woman. So from this moment on, this one was strictly hands-off.

Which was exactly the silent message he sent her as he smiled, nodded goodbye and murmured, “Well, have a nice day.”

Then he bent down and returned to work on the engine, praying the blond sweetheart would leave before he forgot he was supposed to be a nice guy.

SABRINA HAD NO BUSINESS being out here on the outskirts of town drooling over the hottest male she’d ever seen. But somehow, she couldn’t make herself walk away. Instead, she wandered around the old abandoned amusement park, surreptitiously watching him work.

If there were such a thing as an orgasm in a box, this man would be the spokesman for it. That smile, that husky voice, that knowing look—oh, yeah, $29.95, ladies, flip the lid and start moaning.

She’d buy a case. That was for sure.

His face had sent her heart into overdrive at first sight, and his playful smile had made her stomach roll over about ninety-four times. The body—whew, that big, massive body—had awakened all her most feminine parts and started them zinging. Sparking. Melting.

He had her tense with excitement, hyper-reactive, on alert. Wondering what to say to make him drop his wrench, rise to his feet and get back to paying attention to her rather than the merry-go-round.

Which didn’t make any sense.

He wasn’t her type. Not at all. A muscle-bound hunk wearing dusty jeans that clung to lean hips and solid thighs was not on her list of acceptable men. He certainly wasn’t the nice, Tom Hanks type she’d been telling Nancy about earlier.

No. This brown-haired mechanic with his second-skin black T-shirt that clung to a pair of arms thick enough to burst its sleeves was definitely not for her. His shoulders looked broad enough for a lumberjack—as if he bench-pressed the cars he worked on. His thick, blond-streaked brown hair was windswept, and a little too long for “nice.” It was also much too tempting for finger-curling.

Everything else was wrong, too. His face was too lean, his jaw too square, his eyes—those incredible green eyes—were much too bright and knowing. His mouth was too wide, his smile too confident, his laugh too enticing. His hands…his big, strong, rough hands…Oh, God help her.

No, no, no. He would not do at all.

So why in heaven’s name couldn’t she make herself leave? Even when she should have—given his provocative comments. Then again, he’d looked so innocent, so friendly-but-not-slimy when he’d made them, that she wasn’t entirely sure he’d been coming on to her. Every word he’d said had made perfect sense in the context of the carousel.

And sex.

So which, exactly, had he been talking about?

The carousel. It had to be. This guy was too simple—too openly friendly, blue-collar working man—to play the kind of word games she’d been imagining. He was a small-town mechanic who saw the prettiness in a broken-down old carnival ride and was spending his spare time trying to revive it. Generous, sweet, gorgeous.

Perfect.

Could it be that simple? Could he just be the kind of nice, fabulous man women talked about meeting but never did? A good, honorable guy, despite his rock-hard, sex-on-two-legs appearance?

If only.

He had to have a flaw. Have the IQ of a rabbit or like to scratch his crotch and drink cheap beer while watching monster truck rallies on weekends. Something.

He was married. A chauvinist. A gambler.

She didn’t for a moment suspect gay. No way would any woman think that. The female half of humanity would never stand for it—they’d stage a billion-woman protest march at the very idea.

But there had to be something—some imperfection she wasn’t seeing. Because no way could he look this good and be the man of her dreams.

The man of her nice dreams. Her happily-ever-after dreams.

Not her wild, erotic, do-me-’til-I-can’t-move dreams about smooth-talking, Mr. Suave playboy, Max Taylor.

The idea that one man could be both was simply too far in the realm of science fiction to seriously consider.

Sabrina had to admit one thing. She somehow suspected her Max Taylor dreams were going to be supplanted by big-hot-hard-mechanic dreams, at least for the time being.

So, go! She shouldn’t be out here, wondering about this man, not when she had a job to do. But something wouldn’t let her leave. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe even a hint of cowardice about her real mission in Trouble, since she had about as much in common with a femme fatale as she did with Queen Elizabeth.

Whatever the reason, she suddenly wanted to take a few minutes for herself. Just a little longer to try to get to know this stranger who was apparently obsessed with bringing a sad old ruin back to life.

She’d begin her “mission” soon enough—dressed in the expensive knockoffs and playing the part of a rich, bored woman visiting a quaint American village. Trying to tempt Satan’s sexy henchman into revealing his wicked seducer tendencies.

Hmm.

Tough job. But somebody has to do it.

But until she threw herself into some incognito role, she just wanted to be herself for a while longer. Why not, for a few more moments, enjoy the company of this simple mechanic, who probably had never seen the wife of a congressman—much less gotten her naked in the ladies’ room of a trendy Los Angeles restaurant?

Enough with the book.

She really needed to stop thinking about it, to stop remembering the way her whole body had gone warm and moist when she’d imagined being wildly seduced into a debauched life of sensuality by a predatory Max Taylor, as Grace Wellington had been.

Somehow, this stranger with his big hands and his strong shoulders seemed just the person to help her do that.

“So, is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked, once she’d worked her way all around the park and had run out of sad, broken attractions to look at.

He glanced up, eyes widening, displaying the flecks of gold breaking through the green in his irises. Beautiful eyes.

“No, thanks, I think I have it covered.”

Sabrina squatted next to him, anyway, wondering if the warm summer day felt even warmer down here close to the ground because of the man’s overall hotness. “Your hands are pretty big. I’d probably have better luck reaching behind that panel.”

His gaze dropped to her hands, which, hopefully, prevented him from seeing how avidly she was staring at his.

Big hands—big everything else?

“Know a lot about engines, huh?” he asked, sounding amused.

He might be surprised. Her uncle, back in the tiny Ohio town where she grew up, owned an auto repair shop. She hadn’t been allowed to spend a whole lot of time with her father’s brother—mainly because her mother got so much grief from Grandfather whenever she allowed it—but she knew a thing or two. Not that she was about to get into her background with this stranger.

Especially since she almost certainly would never return to her hometown again. Not unless her little sister was welcome, too…which didn’t seem likely. Not after the way their grandparents—and even their mother—had reacted to Allie’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And to Sabrina’s so-called culpability in the affair. After all, she’d been the one who’d brought that vermin-in-sheep’s-clothing into their lives.

She hated Peter Prescott for going after her sister to get even with Sabrina for breaking up with him—and for turning him in to their employer for his dishonest activities. But she positively loathed him for costing both sisters their family. Judgmental and old-fashioned or not, they were the only family Sabrina had. And she truly missed them.

Well…most of them.

“I know enough about engines to know you’re never going to be able to get to that green wire.” She pushed his hand out of the way and slipped her fingers into the crevice, catching a frayed wire between the tips of two fingers. She might not always be able to walk in big-girl shoes, but she knew how to use her hands.

And she’d sure like to use them on him….

“Excellent,” he murmured. “I scraped the rust off the receptor—can you reattach it?”

She did so, pretending she didn’t notice the warmth of his breath against her hair. Nothing, however, could make her forget feeling it.

Once she’d accomplished the task, Sabrina leaned out of the way, allowing the stranger to get back to work. He focused on the motor for a few minutes, until she almost thought he’d forgotten she was there.

Then, under his breath, he asked, “Are you from Trouble?”

“No. You?”

He shook his head. “Just visiting.”

“Hot time in the big city?” She didn’t bother keeping the dry tone out of her voice.

“What can I say?” he said with a small laugh. “I love life in the fast lane.”

“I think a horse and buggy would be too fast for this town, so I don’t imagine you’re going to stumble over any Hooters restaurants or wet T-shirt contests.”

His lips twitched as if he was about to laugh at her quip, but he didn’t. Instead, a slight frown tugged at his brow and his mouth pulled tight with disapproval. “I can’t imagine such a thing. It’s awful to think women would degrade themselves in such a way or that men would enjoy it.”

Surprise made her jaw drop. He was shocked by the idea?

Wow, this had to be one amazing guy if he thought bouncing breasts in wet cotton were utterly shocking when she, Reverend Caleb Tucker’s oldest granddaughter, did not. For a man who looked like this one, even Sabrina might forget that a wet T-shirt wouldn’t look so great over the push-up bra she wore when she needed to pretend she had some cleavage.

“You know, I hear the old movie theater opens once a month,” he offered, his eyes wide and innocent. “Third Saturday…that’s coming up. Better keep your calendar clear.”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “But, well, I don’t even know you, ma’am.”

She almost gnashed her teeth, embarrassed as hell. He wasn’t being insulting and she hadn’t shocked him. He simply sounded a little surprised, as if he wasn’t used to such a forward female.

Ha. Nancy had been telling her for four years—since she’d hired Sabrina right out of college—that she was about as romantically aggressive as a guppy. Why this man—who had obviously in no way been making sexual comments earlier—was making her behave in such a way, she had no idea.

“I was just joking,” she mumbled, wondering if the heat in her cheeks had made her face flame red. And if there was any way he’d interpret such redness as her skin crisping under the bright sun. One could hope.

“So why are you here, anyway?” he asked.

She thought of her cover story, the one she and Nancy had concocted. From all reports, Max Taylor’s eccentric—some said mad—old grandfather had just purchased this entire town. And his grandson was here trying to get the man out of the deal, or else resell the property.

She didn’t like carrying on the charade when Taylor wasn’t around to hear it, but since she needed to maintain the facade for as long as she was here, she stuck to her story. “I’m just looking the place over, for possible investment purposes. This is the town that was advertised in the New York Times, isn’t it, with lots of potential for investors?”

His eyes flared and the man reared back, almost tumbling to his butt on the dusty ground. Then a broad smile brightened his face, setting those green eyes to sparkling and sucking the last coherent thought right out of Sabrina’s head.

“You bet it is, and you won’t regret making the trip. Do you need a tour guide? I’d be glad to show you around.” Rising to his feet again, he reached down to help her up, as well.

She shouldn’t have taken his hand. Shouldn’t have let skin touch skin. At the feel of his rough, warm fingers against her own, she mentally crossed the big giant T in her brain that reminded her she was in big trouble. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the name of the godforsaken little town.

No. She was in trouble because now, when she could least afford it, she’d stumbled over the kind of male distraction she’d almost given up on finding. A distraction who was looking at her like she was his guardian angel and Playboy fantasy woman all rolled into one.

She yanked her hand away, clenching then unclenching her fingers to get them to stop tingling.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re here. Have you seen all the public buildings yet? Been inside that movie theater? There’s a huge amount of potential there.”

Sabrina, still reeling from the way she’d reacted to his simple touch, remained silent.

“What a fortunate coincidence that we met,” he added, his enthusiasm so boyishly charming that she couldn’t help smiling in response.

“Why is that?”

“Because I’m exactly the man you need to see.”

She did need to see him. Naked. And soon. No matter what her brain was telling her about why he was the wrong kind of man, her sexual self wanted nothing more than to watch his clothes come off piece by piece, to reveal that incredible body under the bright, sunny sky.

But he couldn’t know that…she hoped. Which meant he was referring to something else.

“How so?”

“Because I happen to have an ‘in’ with the owner of this place and I can guarantee he’d love to meet you.”

The owner. Max Taylor’s grandfather. The one who lived with the spoiled, sexpot pilot himself.

Though shaking inside, Sabrina maintained a calm expression. It was time to focus on her mission—getting Grace’s book into print as written—and to forget about handsome mechanics with laughing eyes and killer chests. Time to get into character and do what she’d come to this lousy town to do: pretend to be an investor. Pretend to be rich. Get Max Taylor to come after her and prove himself as big a fiery sex maniac as Grace made him out to be.

Without getting herself burned in the process.

Maybe she should just call this Mission: Impossible?

Too bad she’d put on a simple pair of jeans and sneakers for the drive here today—she certainly wasn’t dressed for seduction. But she wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip away, not when she was finally so close to Max Taylor she could almost smell him.

“Okay,” she forced herself to say to the dusty mechanic, who she could no longer afford to lust after, even mentally, “that would be wonderful. Can we go now?”

She held her breath, and almost groaned in frustration when the man shook his head. “He’s not home right now, but if you want to come by tomorrow, I promise I’d be happy to introduce you. You can’t miss the house—it’s right there.”

He pointed through the woods toward a small hill. She could just make out the top floor of a three-story monstrosity looking like something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne story. A famous millionaire lived there?

Sabrina hid her surprise. “Okay. What time?”

He shrugged, looking at the carousel and at the hammer in his hand. “I have the feeling I’ll be here all day. So come on by whenever you want and I’ll walk you up.”

“Perfect,” she said, meaning it. That would allow her the chance to find the B&B where she’d made a reservation, get settled in and prepare to accomplish her objective.

A good night’s sleep would be helpful before going on a clandestine sex campaign.

Hopefully, by tomorrow, Sabrina would have gotten a grip on her libido and would be able to shove her attraction to this sweet, sexy mechanic aside. And focus only on the wicked, soulless playboy she’d come here to expose.

CHAPTER THREE

IDA MAE MONROE AND Ivy Helmsley—better known as the Feeney sisters—had been fighting over men since they were two willowy slips of girls. It had started way back in forty-three when Ida Mae was fourteen and her sister Ivy only twelve and Ida Mae’s beau, Buddy Hoolihan, threw Ivy’s lunch pail down the well at his daddy’s farm. Ida Mae laughed, though she did feel a bit bad for Ivy, ’specially since their mama had made corn bread for their lunches that day.

But sisters were only sisters and boys were better. So, deciding she’d give Ivy her pretty new yellow hair ribbon later that night, Ida Mae cheered Buddy on during his tormenting.

Then Ivy began to cry like her heart would break. Just like that, Buddy went all gooey-soft. He apologized to Ivy, put his arm around her and looked at a still-laughing Ida Mae like her heart was black as coal. Ivy batted her lashes at him, stuck her tongue out at Ida Mae…and silently declared a war that lasted for more than half a century.

The sisters had battled over Buddy throughout grade school, but moved on to other boys—and men—as the years progressed. Usually bloodlessly. But not always.

Eventually, after their mama had died, they both left town, married fellas from the outside, and each tried to keep her husband away from her man-stealing sister.

They’d realized, however, somewhere around 1980 when they’d both been widowed—Ivy more than once—that life just wasn’t as much fun without a sister around to love to hate. So they moved back to Trouble and promptly resumed their feud.

Ida Mae called Ivy the black widow spider.

Ivy called Ida Mae the cold-hearted bride of Satan.

But God forbid anyone else call one of the sisters as much as miserly, for the other one would let loose a razor-blade tongue to defend her.

They lived next door to each other, on the north side of town in two ramshackle old houses that had once been Victorian but could now only be called sorry. Some days they sat in Ida Mae’s kitchen drinking tea while arguing over who Buddy Hoolihan had loved more. And some evenings they sat on Ivy’s front porch drinking bourbon while arguing over which of them had the tinier waist back in the day. Sometimes they merely sipped daisy wine and reminisced about the men they’d killed.

Most often, though, they talked about Mama. How she’d laughed. How she’d made the best pumpkin bread. How she’d tanned them when they were bad. How she’d taught them which poison to use on a man who was a little too free with his fists, or who couldn’t keep his man-parts safely buttoned in his own trousers or between his wedded wife’s legs.

This would inevitably lead to arguments about their daddy, whom both of them had loved to pieces when they were children. Whether Mama really murdered him, and whether Daddy truly had deserved it.

Ida Mae thought she did and he probably had.

Ivy thought she did but he definitely had not.

The argument—or any number of other ones—would eventually lead one of them to steal the beautiful Sears, Roebuck urn with the glossy faux mother-of-pearl handles—which was full of Daddy’s ashes—and hide it so the other one couldn’t say good-night to him. Which was why Ida Mae was currently tugging all the flour, sugar, stale chocolate chips and dried-up boxes of prunes out of Ivy’s dusty pantry.

“It’s not your turn to take care of Daddy, it’s mine. I have him until tomorrow night, sundown!”

Ivy was smiling as she watched from the other side of her kitchen. Curling her fingers together and resting her hands on the cracked linoleum surface of her faded, yellow kitchen table, she merely watched, a satisfied gleam in her eye. “Seems to me that he was feeling a little ignored.”

Ida Mae glared at her sister, knowing by Ivy’s expression that she wasn’t even close in her hunt for Daddy’s ashes. Ivy wouldn’t be smiling like that if she were. If her sister had put Daddy on the roof again and Ida Mae had to climb out the third-story window, she was going to snatch her bald.

“I haven’t ignored him.”

“You were gone for two hours yesterday,” Ivy replied. “Two whole hours and heaven only knows where you were. I thought we were going to start talking about the next book we’re going to write.”

Ivy had it in her head that the two of them could be the next Agatha Christie, even though the one murder book they wrote a few years back never had gotten sold anywhere. “Nobody’s been killed around here in years, so we don’t have anything to write about,” Ida Mae retorted, hoping to change the subject.

It didn’t work. “We’ll discuss that later. Now, tell me what sneaky things you were up to yesterday.”

Ida Mae felt hotness in her cheeks, the kind of heat she hadn’t had rush through her since she’d gone through the change twenty-five years ago. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Her hawk-eyed sister noticed. “You’re blushing.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“Why? Where were you? What aren’t you telling me?” Ivy braced her hands on the table. Pushing herself up with her strong, wiry arms, she rose on her spindly legs. She tottered over on those ridiculous high-heeled shoes that her vanity kept her from tossing into the trash heap where they could rest with Ivy’s youth.

The heels put her nose to nose with Ida Mae—another reason Ida hated them—and Ivy took full advantage. Staring so hard her eyes almost bugged out, Ivy pasted on that mulish expression that said she wasn’t going to give up until Ida Mae came clean with her secret.

But, no. Not this one. She wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, she didn’t have to.

“It’s a man!”

Damnation, her sister was a know-it-all.

“Who? Who? Who?” Ivy chirped, like a greedy baby hoot owl opening its mouth for a still-wiggling worm dangling from its mama’s beak.

“Don’t be so foolish…”

Ivy grabbed the front of Ida Mae’s blouse—her favorite one, with the little birds stitched on the collar. She knew how much Ida Mae liked birds because Ivy had stitched the thing herself as a Christmas gift. “Bye-bye, blackbird,” she whispered in a singsong voice as she began to pluck at the threads with the long tips of her nails.

“Stop it.”

“Who is he?”

Ivy wasn’t going to stop. She’d tear the delicate birds right off her blouse, then move on to something else Ida Mae loved, until she got what she wanted. The name. Ida Mae knew it…because she’d have done exactly the same thing.

“All right,” she snapped, determined that one day she would learn to keep a secret.

A joyful smile took ten years off Ivy’s face. Ida Mae made a mental note to not tell any funny stories around her sister when eligible bachelors were in the vicinity.

“Really? You’ll share?”

She’d rather share a bowl of rat pellets. But there would be no stopping Ivy now. “Yes.”

“Who?” her silver-haired sister asked, almost bouncing on her toes like a debutante.

Ivy always had been man-crazy. Unlike Ida Mae, who simply liked men so much she sometimes felt the need to marry one for a while. “Just a stranger.”

“A handsome one?”

“No.”

“Liar. Where’d you meet him?”

She wasn’t lying. The stranger hadn’t been what you’d call handsome. More like, startling…striking. Vivid. That was a nice word for Mr. Potts.

“Where?” Ivy pressed, reaching for Ida Mae’s collar again.

“He moved into Stuttgardt’s old house.”

Ivy wrinkled her nose. “That one…he was a nasty bad man.”

“I know. Remember when Mama threatened him with a rifle if he didn’t stop coming to pester her into selling that land between his place and hers?”

“Those clocks…”

“The scandal…”

They met each other’s eyes, sharing a quick, unspoken memory. Ida Mae half hoped her sister had gone off the scent and would forget all about the stranger. Ivy was almost as fascinated by murder as she was by men, and Wilhelm Stuttgardt’s had never been solved. The old German clockmaker had been dead and buried for five years but he was still talked about nearly every day. His villainy—and the money he’d stolen from the town, not to mention the pension funds he’d taken from his own employees at the clock factory—was fresh in everyone’s minds. Even her sister’s.

Stuttgardt had lived in Trouble for more’n thirty years, but most folks still called him “the German.” Or “the Clockmaker.”

Or just “the Thief.”

He might have moved here at the age of twenty, planning to bring his silly, fussy clock-making business into their quiet, small community, but to Ida Mae’s mind, he’d never been one of them. She hadn’t been surprised that he’d eventually stolen anything he could get his hands on, bankrupting Trouble so that a few short years later it’d had to prostitute itself like a cheap street whore to stay alive.

And she most definitely hadn’t been surprised that someone had made him pay for his crime. Pay hard.

“Oh, yes, he was a bad one. Someone took care of him, though, didn’t they?” she said, hoping Ivy would now be good and distracted.

Today, however, wasn’t her lucky day. Ivy wasn’t distracted for long. “Now, tell me everything about him. This newcomer.”

Sighing, knowing she had no choice, Ida Mae began the tale. She told her sister about how she’d met the latest resident of their small hometown while picking over the badly wilting lettuce at Given’s Grocery in town.

His name was Mr. Mortimer Potts. And despite his long, wild white hair, he was a gentleman. A true, noble, old-fashioned gent the likes of which hadn’t moved to these parts in many a year.

And Ida Mae knew, by the gleam in her sister’s eye, that even though she, herself, was seventy-seven years old and Ivy seventy-five, they were once again about to embark upon their favorite pastime. Competing for a man.

Maybe to the death.

SABRINA COULDN’T DECIDE which was worse: staying in a tiny old B&B called the Dewdrop Inn, or the fact that it was run by a pseudo-nudist. At least the innkeeper, who had introduced himself as Al Fitzweather when she’d arrived yesterday at the crusty old house pretending to be an inn, was only a nudist on the weekends, and only in the backyard. Unlike the Dewdrop Inn, which was always as nauseating as its name would imply.

She was still hearing Nancy’s laughter through the cell phone a full minute after she’d described the first day of her assignment in Trouble. While waiting for the laughter to stop, she concluded that the inn was worse than its owner. His dangly bits probably couldn’t compete in grossness with the fake grape arbor complete with Cupid statue, the heart-shaped bed and mirrored ceiling in her room, and the eight-person hot tub that probably contained the DNA of the last eighty people who’d been in it.

The Dewdrop obviously longed to run off to the Poconos to be a star in the honeymoon biz.

“So have you seen Mr. Hot Stuff yet?”

Sabrina dropped the curtain and stepped away from her window. No longer distracted by the sight of her landlord—who, since it was a weekday, was mercifully clothed while doing yard work—she was able to give her full attention to her boss.

She almost tossed out a quick, instinctive reply that, yes, she definitely had seen Mr. Hot Stuff, and he was an adorable mechanic who liked merry-go-rounds. One whose name she hadn’t even asked for, though she supposed she could excuse herself for that—the man had been attractive enough to make a woman forget her own name.

But for some reason she wanted to keep that encounter to herself. “I haven’t. But I have made a connection and am going to get introduced to his grandfather today.” She threw off the instinctive dismay the word grandfather brought to her mind. “Max Taylor is staying with him, so I should have him directly in my line of sight within a few hours.”

“Okay, but what about in the meantime?” Nancy said. “Have you learned anything that could be useful in defending against a possible lawsuit brought by the loverboy? That is still the objective, right?”

Oh, yes, it definitely was. Sabrina ticked the whole plan off in her mind: stop the lawsuit, get the book into print so it could make a big splash, earn a promotion because of that big splashy book, and make more money so she could take care of Allie. Should be simple—four little steps to her goal.

Too bad they suddenly seemed huge and insurmountable.

“Yes, it’s still the objective.”

“So what have you found out?”

She perched on the edge of a desk, on which sat a greasy phone book blackened with graffiti drawings of bearded men and enormous phalluses, and a Bible blackened with graffiti of bearded Jesuses and enormous crosses. “I’ve heard people talking about him. According to my waitress last night, he’s Saint Max, the new benevolent lord who’s come to help his grandfather save them from disappearing off the map.”

Huh. More likely he was working on making the panties disappear off every attractive young female in the vicinity.

“From the sound of it, if there’s a town that should disappear from the map, it’s that one.”

“Trouble, Pennsylvania, has definitely been hit with some hard times.”

Not just hit with hard times, it’d been smacked about the head and shoulders with them. Then dipped in a tar of misery and feathered in dismay.

“Makes the city look a little more appealing, huh?”

“Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sounds like heaven to me right now. I swear, the buildings here are only being held together by decades’ worth of dried-up paint.”

Not to mention everything else that was wrong with this place. The potholes on the main road had jarred her so hard during the drive in, she seriously thought she’d cracked a tooth. There were more businesses closed and shuttered than open. And the ones that were open appeared to have been sucked through a time warp—when she’d seen the old movie theater advertising Smok y and t e B nd t, the effect had been complete.

The theater unbelievably had seemed like the newest building, every other place having signs that looked original to the 1950s. From the pharmacy/drugstore, to the hardware shop that needed some of its own products to repair the front awning, the town wore its aura of abandon and weariness the way a tired old woman wore a housecoat—with lazy, haphazard helplessness.

Then there were the people…

“Okay, but what about the people, are they cheerful despite living in a rust bucket? Is everyone just as cloyingly friendly as they are in every TV small town?”

Sabrina thought about the small towns she’d seen on television and tried to find one that might compare. Finally, with a sigh, she admitted, “I can think of one or two episodes of The X-Files that could come close. Every single time I go down the street, I see this one man wearing a gray sweatsuit sitting on the same bench, in the exact same position. If his skin was gray, too, I’d swear he was dead and nobody in this place was interested enough to find out.”

Uninterested. Gray. Dead. Three words that described Trouble and its residents very well. Except for the few bright, splashy colorful ones…like her landlord.

And one amazingly hot mechanic.

Nancy snorted. “Your choice, honey. You’re the one who wanted to catch the guy in the act.”

Wanted? No. Sabrina didn’t want to catch Max Taylor schmoozing his way through every woman within range of his overactive hormones and the laser-precision missile between his legs. She had to. So much depended on it.

“I’ll get him, Nancy. The next time that shark lawyer of his calls, we’ll be able to hit him with proof his client’s a reprobate and practically a gigolo and just dare him to try to sue for defamation.”

And then the book would go to print as written—complete with the titillating, attention-grabbing details of Grace’s shocking sexual affair with Max Taylor. Sabrina would get a lot of attention…and hopefully a promotion. Not to mention a raise, which she would need if she was going to be able to help her sister pay for the baby she was expecting.

No, it wasn’t her fault Allie had had unprotected sex and gotten pregnant. But it was Sabrina’s fault that an older, sophisticated man had intentionally targeted the innocent college student for seduction and heartbreak.

She was responsible for her sister’s situation. Even her mother believed it. And now that she and Sabrina’s grandparents had turned against Allie—cut them both out of their lives in shame—Sabrina was all she had. She owed her.

“Okay, kid, it’s your game. Let me know if you need anything else. I expect daily updates.”

“You bet. Remember, if Allie tries to reach me at the office, I’m at a book expo.” Her little sister had seemed suspicious about the sudden trip. Sabrina knew the twenty-year-old might call the office and try to find out exactly where Sabrina’s “business trip” had taken her. Considering how bored and lonely her unpredictable sibling had been lately—now that she could no longer work as a waitress due to her advanced pregnancy—Sabrina wouldn’t put it past Allie to try to follow her.

After finishing her phone conversation, Sabrina began to prepare herself for her visit to Max Taylor’s grandfather, Mortimer Potts. She needed to get in character—to get her mind around her mission—since she might very well be meeting her quarry in just a few hours.

And you’ll be seeing him.

She thrust that thought off. Sabrina couldn’t afford distractions like small-town mechanics right now. Not when there was so much at stake. She had to get to work, focus on the real reason she’d gone shopping on a Philadelphia street corner to buy knock-offs of expensive-looking clothes and had rented a car that probably cost as much as she’d make for the next two years. It had seemed silly, but Nancy had insisted that she look the part. Because her whole purpose for being in Trouble was to validate every word Grace Wellington had written about playboy pilot Max Taylor. The man addicted to rich, vulnerable women.

Which meant she had to look like one.

Hmm…small-town girl who’d never seen a real pair of Gucci shoes, much less worn them…social klutz who’d once fallen facefirst in a giant bowl of cocktail sauce at a writers’ conference—how tough could it be?

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. Then she shook off the doubt because she had to make this work. And she would.

Once she’d caught Taylor in the act of being exactly the heartbreaking, sex-addicted loverboy Grace had made him out to be, she’d cut his legal legs out from under him. Nip his lawsuit to stop publication of Grace’s book in the bud. And laugh all the way to the bestseller lists.

Piece of cake.

She just had to remember one thing—this was only about the book. No matter how curious she was about Max Taylor, the world’s greatest lover, her clothes were staying on.

Because if they didn’t, all bets would be off.

IF MAX WERE A PSYCHO serial killer or a cannibal or something, the pretty blonde walking beside him through the woods would be in serious trouble. She’d shown up at the old, abandoned park this afternoon, and Max had no sooner said he was ready to take her to meet Mortimer than she’d started walking—away from the main road and possible witnesses. He’d fallen into step beside her, leading her toward the path going up the hill to hell. Er…home.

He wondered if she was a black belt. Or if she was armed. Or simply very, very trusting. Like a certain little girl with a red riding cape complete with hood.

“Why did you come with me?” he asked, unable to contain his curiosity. “Weren’t you the least bit concerned that I could be dangerous?”

Her curvy lips twitched. An invisible string in his chest tugged his heart until it twitched along with them. Either that or his empty stomach was reminding him he hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Had to be hunger. Max’s heart hadn’t been involved in any relationship with a woman in years.

“I’m prepared. I have something in my pocket….”

He shifted away a bit, giving her more room on the dirt path that led to his grandfather’s new white elephant. “Please don’t mace me, I was just asking a question.”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket, and he saw her cell phone.

“Were you going to ring-tone me to death if I turned out to be Freddy Krueger in disguise?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m awake—not dreaming—so you can’t be Freddy,” she murmured, tucking her phone back into the pocket of her white slacks.

Considering they were delightfully tight, he wondered how she had the room, but quickly figured it out. God bless spandex. Spandex is my friend.

“I had my finger ready to speed-dial my friend Butch.”

“Butch?”

Color rose in her cheeks and she cleared her throat before explaining. “The ex-Marine turned bouncer.”

It was all he could do not to tsk, knowing she was lying.

She might have made a flip comeback, but she had also stepped away from him on the path. He hadn’t intended to scare her. Honestly, he found her openness and trusting spirit incredibly attractive…if a bit naive. “There’s no Butch.”

“Says you.”

“If there’s a Butch, he’s a five-foot-six engineer trying to counter his geekiness and ninety-eight-pound physique by having a tough nickname.” Her audible sigh of defeat told him he’d hit home. “Sorry if I just offended your…boyfriend?”

Shaking her head, she reluctantly laughed, and little sparkles of delight seemed to spill out of her and bathe him in her good humor. “No, no boyfriend.”

Hallelujah. He’d already noticed there was no wedding ring.

“But there really is a Butch…”

“Oh, yeah?”

Instead of meeting his eye, she glanced down at her feet, kicking a small branch away with one sneaker-clad foot. “He’s my dog. A toy poodle.”

“Is his name really Butch?”

She tugged one corner of her lip between her teeth before slowly shaking her head. “It’s Giorgio.”

Max snorted. “Who named him?”

“Me.”

Shaking his head, he mourned for poor old Giorgio. “That should be against the law. Saddling a completely hideous name on another living creature.”

“I like Giorgio. It’s very…Mediterranean.”

“Bet he gets the snot beat out of him by the other pups at the doggie park.”

“He’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex,” she admitted. “So he does tend to get in trouble with some of the bigger dogs. That’s why my younger sister decided to start calling him Butch once she moved in with me.”

A sister who lived with her. He filed the information away for future use. Not that he knew for sure that he’d ever be invited in for coffee and an all-night sex-fest after one of their inevitable dates. But he was hoping. And a live-in sister could make things a little…crowded.

Now, however, wasn’t the time to be thinking that way. Not until he was out of this whole book jam. Best behavior, he reminded himself. You’re Mr. Boy Next Door. Because, though he wanted to believe this woman was in Trouble for exactly the reasons she claimed, he wasn’t ready to completely discount the possibility that he was being played.

A player was always on the lookout for anyone who wanted to play him. And once upon a time, Max had been one of the best players around.

“So whose speed-dial number did you have your finger on?”

“The Trouble Police Department. They are programmed into my cell phone.” She shuddered lightly, though the day was warm and comfortable. “I put them in there when I arrived and found out my landlord likes to get naked and prune the rosebushes in his backyard on the weekend. Which, to me, seems like a dangerous combination—thorns, hedge clippers and nudity.”

“Ah. You’re staying at the Dewdrop.”

“Yes.”

“Could be worse. You could be staying at Seaton House, which used to be open as a hotel just north of Trouble.”

Cringing, she admitted, “I saw pictures on the Internet of that place, hulking over the town like a gargoyle hovering over its still-bleeding prey.”

Good visual.

“I had this image of a nightmarish version of Satan’s Hotel where demons turn down your bed and you realize it’s full of snakes. You check in and you never check out. It looked as if Norman Bates and his mother lived there.”

“They might. Or so says the Trouble gossip mill. The hotel closed down a month ago, leaving the Dewdrop as the only lodging option within twenty miles of here.” He grinned. “Nicely worded description by the way.”

“Thanks. I guess I’ve got a lot of practice trying to paint pictures with words.”

“Ah. You’re a writer?”

She didn’t answer right away, staring at the ground in front of them as if afraid she’d trip and fall over a jumbled mound of brush. Finally, though, she said, “I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was a kid.”

Though he had no fondness for writers lately, he admitted, “Well, you’re good. As long as you stick to fiction and none of that tell-all crap.”

Like Grace. But this blonde was nothing like Grace, who wasn’t really a writer at all. She was merely a spoiled brat who was never happy if she wasn’t messing with someone’s life.

His companion stumbled a little and Max grabbed her arm to steady her. “Careful.”

“Thanks,” she said, her voice low.

They walked in silence for a few yards, then Max said, “Just so you know, I’d read your books. You’ve got me convinced to never set foot in Seaton House, much less sleep in it.”

He wondered if she’d believe him if he told her there was somewhere she could be staying that was even more frightening—the house where they were heading. The one where he currently resided.

Because hearing a few dozen screaming cuckoos every hour had to be worse than sleeping one thin wall away from the owner of the Seaton House, a man most of Trouble apparently considered a murderer. Or from Al Fitzweather, whose goods, one would hope, would at least be hidden by his beer gut whenever he was walking around the house in the buff.

“Remind me to do a narrative passage on Al Fitzweather and the Dewdrop Inn, just to keep you safe from that place, too,” she said.

“If there’s a law against bad pet names, there should also be one against unattractive people getting naked in public,” he said, inwardly cringing at the mental picture of the inn owner, and then of the old lady in his cockpit a few weeks ago.

“I think there already is.”

“In Trouble? One can never be sure…”

“Good point.”

Thinking about her comments regarding her cell phone, he added, “You know, even with your speed dial, I don’t think any of the three officers on the Trouble P.D. could get here fast enough to save you if I turned into Jason or Pinhead.”

“You have a thing about horror movies?”

“You obviously do, too, since you know exactly who I’m talking about, including Norman Bates.”

They were passing beneath an enormous elm and a bit of sunlight peeked between its leaves to bathe her hair in a warm, soft glow. He wondered if the color was natural and thought it might be—a cascading jumble of golds, blondes and light browns, it probably couldn’t have come from a bottle.

His body chose that moment to remind him of that lack of breakfast again, because Max felt something roll over, deep inside. Definitely food related. Not female related. Uh-uh.

“I think I’ve seen every horror movie ever made, even though we weren’t allowed to watch them in our house growing up,” she explained. “My friends would have terror marathons whenever I slept over. I was a bad influence.”

Oh, right. This soft, curvy-looking woman was probably about as bad as Mr. Peanut.

“A couple of times I’d go to the movies to see something PG rated but sneak into Child’s Play or another bloody flick.”

She had a naughty side. He wouldn’t have predicted that—though he should have, given the sarcastic, earthy wit that she exhibited at unexpected moments. “How very shocking,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his tone.

“Anyway, I learned enough to know that the girl who fights back is the only one who makes it out of the dark and scary house alive, so when I moved to the city I took a self-defense course from an ex-cop. I could hurt you…just so you know.”

That he wouldn’t have predicted. “You telling me another Butch story?”

Shaking her head, she lifted a golden brow, as if daring him to find out. That gleam in her blue eyes told him he’d better not. So maybe the pretty blonde wasn’t naive at all—just confident of her ability to defend herself.

Not that she needed to. Max had never so much as yelled at a woman, much less lifted a hand to one. Seductive whispers or sweet, playful words were so much more effective than shouted ones, in his experience.

Except with his ex-wife. And with her, his lawyer had done all the yelling.

Max had stuck to drinking.

He’d spent a good year completely intoxicated following their shocking breakup. Which was why he currently had a twelve-step card tucked safely in his wallet. And why he hadn’t had anything more alcoholic than a Butter Rum Lifesaver near his lips in three years.

“He said I was the best student he ever had,” she said. “And I liked it so much, I went on to become an instructor at a local community center.”

Hmm…a self-defense instructor at a community center? Didn’t sound like the monied type—the type who’d be able to take this albatross called Trouble off his grandfather’s back and let Max and his brothers return to their regularly scheduled lives. Then again, maybe she was an eccentric, altruistic rich person.

Max certainly was acquainted with a few of those. Some of whom were related to him. Like the one who’d bought this monstrosity of a town to try to breathe financial life into its carcass before rigor mortis set in.

“You know,” he murmured as they crested the hill, reaching the edge of the tangled, overgrown yard surrounding his grandfather’s new house, “it wasn’t the girl who fought back who survived a night with Freddy, Jason or Norman.” Hiding a smile, he continued. “It was always the good girl. The virgin.”

He gave her a look of complete innocence, remembering at the last moment that he was not allowed to tread deep into dangerous, sexual waters with any woman just now. Frankly, he thought he’d been doing pretty well at keeping things light, friendly and above the waist with all this talk of blood, murder and psycho killers. But that last comment had shot his good intentions straight to hell.

He somehow didn’t think she’d mind. He had the feeling that despite her angelic looks, this woman was not the sweet type. Which was good. Max didn’t much care for sweet girls. Not when bad ones were so much more…entertaining.

“Well,” she replied, “I guess it’s a good thing you’re not a Jason or a Freddy, then, or my guts might be hanging from a tree back in the woods right about now. Because my virginity was history long before Jason killed his hundredth victim.”

Sassy comeback. Damn, he really liked that. On top of everything else he already liked about this stranger, who’d popped into his mind several times the night before when he’d been trying to sleep. “Considering he probably hit a hundred by the second movie, I somehow doubt that. You would’ve been in preschool.”

“Thousandth victim, then. At least five movies ago.”

“Okay.” Since they were now discussing her virginity—Lord have mercy on his wicked soul for those mental images—he figured introductions might be good. “What’s your name, anyway? We never did the how-do-you-do stuff. Some self-defense expert you are.”

“It’s Sabrina. Sabrina Cavanaugh.”

He stuck his hand out. “Mine’s Michael. Michael Myers.”

She rolled her eyes, instantly recognizing the name of the psycho from the Halloween movies. Smiling, Max opened his mouth to offer his real name, but before he could, Sabrina—pretty Sabrina—cut him off with a surprised gasp.

“Oh, my God.”

Wonderful. The woman had obviously seen Hell House. Sighing, Max steeled himself for her obvious dismay when she realized just how bad it was. She’d run as fast as she could when she saw the kind of accommodations the owner of this crazy little town would get to live in.

And there was more. He simply couldn’t wait until she met Mortimer.

CHAPTER FOUR

ASIDE FROM GETTING lots of attention and feeling the baby moving around inside her, being pregnant sucked the big one. Not that Alicia Cavanaugh knew much about sucking, big ones or little ones…her single sexual relationship had been short-lived and pretty straightforward. Vanilla. None of the icky stuff.

Just a three-week game of wham, bam, thank you ma’am, and here’s an up-yours to your sister, too. That pretty much described her one and only grown-up romance with Peter “the Prick” Prescott, who’d screwed her over but good, all to screw over her big sister, Sabrina.

Frankly, Peter the Prickface was the reason Allie was feeling especially yucky today. Well, Peter and the extra twenty pounds sitting squarely on her bladder. And the…other stuff.

It was beyond awful. Twenty years old and she had stretch marks and hemorrhoids. Unbe-freaking-lievable.

All of which Peter had provided. God, she wanted to kill him, especially after last night.

“It’s okay, Lumpy, he was just being a jerk. He didn’t mean it.” She didn’t know who she was trying harder to convince—the lump wriggling around on her kidneys, or herself.

He couldn’t have meant it. Could not seriously be considering fighting her for custody of this baby once he or she was born.

“Never in a million years,” she muttered as she scoured Sabrina’s refrigerator, dying for something chocolate. It was nearly noon and any reasonable person would assume that a pregnant woman would want chocolate for lunch on occasion. But was there any to be found? Nooooo.

No chocolate. Not even any chocolate sauce lurking behind the nauseating fresh fruits and vegetables and high-protein shakes.

“My kingdom for a Yoo-hoo,” she whispered, staring at all the healthy junk her sister had stocked up on before leaving town yesterday. “Bailing out, more like it,” she added as she slammed the door shut, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

She knew it was stupid to feel this way. Sabrina hadn’t bailed, she had a book expo to go to, a business trip. Her sister hadn’t wanted to leave Allie alone this close to her due date. But she’d had no choice. Now that she was supporting not only herself but her freeloading, knocked-up sibling, Sabrina had to work extra hard.

She probably hated Allie.

A fat salty tear fell out of her eye, slid down her face and landed on her big belly. Quickly wiping it off, she blinked a few times, not wanting the baby to know she was crying. Again. Poor little thing might get a complex before he was ever born, thinking his mommy was a basket case who didn’t love him.

“I do,” she whispered. “And Aunt Sabrina loves you, too. She loves both of us.”

In her heart, she knew her sister didn’t resent her, but her whacked-out hormones had been calling the shots for a good seven months now. So Allie couldn’t stop the tears.

She cried over being a burden to Sabrina.

Over being a single parent.

Over the scene with Peter the Prick-face.

Over the birthday coming up next month that would include no card from her younger sister or brother, no small bottle of cologne from her mother. No sermon disguised as a birthday greeting from her grandfather. No word from home at all.

Most of all she cried over the major screwup she’d made of her life.

Peter made it…

“No,” she said, her voice firm, her tears drying as quickly as they’d burst forth.

Peter had used her and hurt her, but he hadn’t forced her to open her legs and say aah. Or to trust him with the birth control issue. That was all on Allie’s shoulders. And, oh, they felt mighty small these days.

“I need to tell Sabrina that we ran into him,” she whispered. She was still cursing her decision to take the bus out to an upscale mall last night to window-shop for cute baby clothes she could never afford. Department store jammies were out of the question. Her baby was starting out life as a true American, clothed by Wal-Mart from head to toe.

“Should’ve just gone to the secondhand shop,” she muttered, knowing she never would have run into him if she had. Him…the snob who’d never be caught dead in a non-designer suit. The man she’d hoped to never see again. Her ex. Her sister’s ex. The six-foot-tall pile of shit in Versace known as Peter Prescott.

Sabrina’s gonna kill me.

Disgusted by the very thought of Peter ever entering their lives again, Sabrina had warned her to stay close to home. But figuring Peter was long gone, Allie hadn’t seen the harm in going out for a little while. The apartment was too quiet without Sabrina in it, talking about how adorable the baby would be and what a great job Allie would do as a mother.

She’d thought her sister was being overprotective about Peter. Because once he’d quit his job at the publishing house where he’d worked with Sabrina—quit because of some big hush-hush scandal her sister wouldn’t tell her about—Peter had supposedly left town. Sabrina figured he’d gone to New York. Allie had hoped he’d gone to a back alley in Tijuana and been jumped by some horny drug traffickers who’d kidnapped him and put him to work in a slave labor camp picking corn and cleaning toilets with his tongue.

Or something like that.

But, no, apparently not. Because he was here, in Philadelphia. So either he’d never really left, or he’d come back with his tail between his legs.

Whatever the case, the cat was out of the bag—or more appropriately, the pregnant belly was out of the maternity smock.

Remembering the initial shock on his face when he’d seen her—all of her—she couldn’t prevent a small stab of righteous pleasure. But because her own heart had tumbled at the sight of him, she hadn’t been able to enjoy his obvious dismay.

Allie wished it hadn’t hurt to see his handsome face and experience that familiar rush of want she’d felt from the minute she’d met him on campus at Tyler College. Back when she’d had no idea the man had, until recently, been her sister’s colleague—and boyfriend—and was carrying a grudge wider than an elephant’s butt.

What an absolute idiot she’d been to fall for his line. Easy pickings. And, oh, had he picked her over. Flirted with her, teased her, made her feel like a beautiful woman instead of an awkward, small-town girl.

Made her fall in love.

Then he’d dropped her flat. Not even sticking around to see just how much of an impression he’d left behind. A seven- or eight-pound one, she suspected.

Not even twenty-one and she had already disgraced her family, lost her scholarship to her Christian college and been forced to quit her job, move out of the dorm and crash with her big sister. No money. No insurance. No future.

All of that was worse than stretch marks. Or even hemorrhoids.

“Here lies Alicia Cavanaugh,” she whispered. “Her grave marked with nothing but a great big L. For Loser.”

Tears welled up again but this time they wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t have been able to stop them if she tried, not even for chocolate. Not for Hershey’s. Or Dove. Or Godiva. Or even those crunchy See’s toffee candies.

“Mmm…toffee,” she whispered through a hiccupping little sob.

Not having the toffee candies made her cry harder. Not even thoughts of how much she was going to love her baby boy or girl and how good a mother she was going to make helped.

Because Peter was threatening to take that away from her, too. Once he’d recovered from his shock last night, he informed her that there was no way he was paying child support. And that she might end up paying it to him because he could decide to sue for custody, and since she was an immature college dropout barely out of her teens, he would probably get it.

What if he was right?

He didn’t want to raise this baby, she knew it. He was being hateful. That expression of amusement in his eyes, as he’d informed her he had to think about it first and would be in touch, said it all.

He didn’t want to be a father. He just wanted to be cruel, which seemed to be what he did best.

“I have to tell Sabrina. She’ll know what to do.”

This wasn’t something she could share over a cell phone, however. She needed to see her big sister face-to-face. Which might prove tricky, since Sabrina hadn’t told her where she was going.

Fortunately, however, Allie knew a secret about Jane, Sabrina’s secretary at Liberty Books—a secret Peter Pecker had revealed during their last phone call so many months ago. He’d told her about his affair with Jane, hoping she’d tell Sabrina…and hurt her some more. Allie had kept it to herself. Until now.

Allie wasn’t fond of blackmail, but she’d learned a lot of hard lessons at the school of Peter. Jane would know where Sabrina was, and Allie had ammunition against Jane.

Now, it appeared, was a very good time to use it.

“WHAT ON EARTH is that?”

Hearing the shock in Sabrina’s voice as they reached the top of the hill beside his grandfather’s new home, Max steeled himself to explain. His own first closeup view of the house had been much the same.

The three-story mausoleum had been built about a hundred years ago and it wore every one of those years on its face. With missing tile shingles on the roof, shutters that couldn’t be closed dangling outside most of the windows, peeling layers of varying colors of paint, and a sagging porch that had begun to separate from the front door—requiring a little hop to go inside—the place was silently begging for a wrecking ball.

Max was loudly begging for one.

Especially to maim, kill and annihilate the clocks. The former occupant had apparently owned a clock factory and had liked to sample the wares. Blue ones, red ones, open-billed ones…cuckoos with glittering emerald eyes and shiny black ones, with carefully detailed feathers or fake-looking plastic talons. With open wings or military epaulets or garland wreaths dangling from their beaks.

Two dozen of them, at least, though it seemed more like a thousand. The noise was enough to make a man lose his mind.

And the clocks weren’t the beginning and the end of the insanity, oh, no. The inside of the house was, itself, a crazy maze, with oddly shaped rooms, doors that opened to interior brick walls, chimneys rising from no fireplaces. Like it had been built little by little—piece by piece—with no thought given to the finished product.

Grandfather loved it—right down to the last cuckoo and threadbare rug. No big surprise.

Max supposed that with a few million dollars, the cast and crew of Trading Spaces and that wrecking ball, it could be made into something inhabitable.

“I guess you’re wondering about the house.” But as Max followed Sabrina’s stare, he realized she was not looking at the building. She was looking at the enormous structure beside the building. The one he hadn’t noticed until right now, probably because his brain was used to blocking out the more impossible sights a life with Mortimer Potts often provided.

He closed his eyes briefly, but, unfortunately, the mirage hadn’t disappeared when he reopened them.

Rising from the tangled brush, brambles and honeysuckle vines—which had grown from beyond their original perimeter against the falling-down stone fence to encroach all the way to the side patio—was a monstrosity. A gigantic thing, swaying in the light morning breeze.

Standing twenty feet high and covering most of the side yard, it was an enormous mass of colors all swirled together on a billowy fabric. A tent…but not a garden variety camping-in-the-backyard one. This was like something out of an old Arabian Nights film. Emblazoned with brilliant splashes of red, green and gold, the thing stood like an enormous jewel beneath the bright summer sky.

“Damn.”

Mortimer was in one of his Middle East moods again. His grandfather had spent a number of years in Egypt after the Second World War. He liked to claim he’d been granted an honorary sheikhdom from a Bedouin tribe with which he’d spent one winter, cut off from the rest of the world in a secret, sand-battered camp.

As with many of Mortimer’s stories, Max wasn’t certain if this one was true or not. All Max knew was that whenever Morty had walked like an Egyptian, he and his brothers had been stuck drinking goat’s milk and eating camel tongue.

“Is there a circus in town?”

There was almost always a circus in town when his grandfather was around. And the memory of all those circuses, all those towns—all that adventure—made him smile, despite his fears that the potential investor was about to be scared off. Any sane woman would be.

Especially if Mortimer came out brandishing his sword.

“Not a circus. But there could be animals.”

She merely gaped.

“I don’t think there would be any dangerous ones,” he quickly added. “Though you can never be entirely sure. He did once rescue a tiger headed for the dinner table of some sick, twisted millionaire.”

“He? Are you talking about Mr. Potts?” she asked, her eyes wide, as if she wasn’t sure if he was pulling her leg.

He wasn’t. Though he’d like to, if it meant he actually got to touch one of those long, beautiful legs.

“Es salaam aleikom!”

He tore his attention off Sabrina Cavanaugh’s slender thighs and braced himself for introductions. This could be tricky.

“What did he say?”

“That’s hello. I think. Though he could be offering you some camel tongue,” Max muttered. Then he fell silent, watching Sabrina absorb Mortimer Potts.

A mane of thick white hair blew around his grandfather’s shoulders, which were still strong and straight despite his age. His face was smooth, nearly unwrinkled, but dark and leathery after years in the blazing sun of Africa or South America. Even from several feet away, his blue eyes shone brilliantly—alight with intelligence and a genuine love of life—as he approached. His steps were firm, his legs never hinting that they’d been walking the earth for eight decades. Or that they suffered terribly with arthritis.

Clothed in a traditional long, white tunic with a red sleeveless coat draped over it, and a colorful cloth resting lightly on top of his hair, he looked just like the Bedouin sheikh he imagined himself to be. The garb flowed around his tall, lanky form, each gust of wind molding it against his skinny legs.

Max sent up a quick prayer that Mortimer was wearing something underneath this time.

Sabrina stared, saying nothing, not even when his grandfather reached her side. She looked stunned—as robbed of speech as if her prissy poodle Giorgio had started singing “Like A Virgin.”

He understood the reaction. His grandfather was a little…startling, at first. But he was not truly crazy—just a bit eccentric.

And he was definitely not laughable.

In fact, if she laughed at him, he’d let her find her own damn way back to town and she could take her money with her.

Max, Morgan and Mike could laugh with the old man as much as they wanted. But heaven help anyone who laughed at him.

If, however, she saw the man Max and his brothers saw—as she’d seen the beauty in the carousel—he might fall in love and propose. Not marriage—God, no. But…something.

Probably something indecent.

“You’ve arrived just in time. I’ll have my manservant fetch my pipe. Come smoke with me.”

Max frowned. “You know you can’t do that anymore.”

“What do the doctors know?”

“I’m not talking about your health, I’m talking about the stuff you put in that pipe. It’s illegal in most countries, especially this one.”

Mortimer rolled his eyes.

“And,” Max added, “you don’t have a manservant anymore. Roderick spent one night with those clocks and hightailed it back to New York, remember?”

His grandfather waved an airy hand, completely unconcerned by such banal things as his health, flighty butlers with superiority complexes, or his stature as a law-abiding citizen. That last part was questionable, anyway.

“Did you put that thing up yourself?” Max asked, unable to figure out how Grandfather could have gotten this whole Middle Eastern scenario set up in the few hours since he’d left. Grandfather wasn’t, after all, a seventy-year-old anymore.

Shaking his head, Mortimer explained. “Hired a few of the townies for the morning.”

Oh, joy. Word was likely spreading already. Our new town patriarch is a wingnut. Hide the good china, stash the children and lock up the virgins.

“Now, tell me, who have we here?” Grandfather asked. A smile that could only be described as wolfish appeared on the old man’s face, and a recognizable, flirtatious twinkle appeared in his eyes. Twenty years dropped off his age. Someone who didn’t know him would peg him as a man of sixty. A virile one.

Oh, did Max ever want to be his grandfather when he was that old!

“My name is Sabrina Cavanaugh,” she said, sticking out her hand and smiling at the old man. She appeared friendly, admiring.

Grandfather had a way with women. And judging by the light in his eyes, he’d noticed that this particular woman had a smile that could bring a man to his knees. Even aged arthritic ones.

“I am—”

“Mortimer Potts,” Max interjected, nipping the long sheikh title in the bud.

Grandfather offered him a slight, condescending smirk. “I suppose that will do for now.”

Max watched closely as Mortimer and the newcomer took stock of each other. His grandfather was, as always, regal and proud in his eccentricity. And so far, Sabrina wasn’t running. In fact, she looked intrigued. The same way she’d looked at the carousel.

He knew he was going to like this woman.

“Mr. Potts, I am not a smoker, but I would very much like to see inside that tent. I’ve often wondered what they’re like.”

“They’re so comfortable. Mountains of pillows, cool, silk draperies. Quite the thing for this dry, desert climate.”

Not batting an eye, she offered him her arm. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Good. Then I’ll brew us some tea.”

Max cleared his throat and shot the old man a warning glance, knowing Mortimer sometimes liked to get creative with what he put in his tea. “No weird spices.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Oh, I’m so disappointed.”

Great, just what Grandfather needed, a partner in crime. But Max knew how to scare the woman into behaving. “And none of that aphrodisiac powder, either.”

This time she kept her mouth shut.

Grandfather rolled his eyes. “My grandson can be tiresomely pedestrian at times. Too bad, he really needs to stop that. He has such promise, you know, being the most like me.”

And that truth terrified him almost as much as it excited him. To think he might really be like his grandfather…it was also another reason Max was glad he no longer drank. Because, even sober, he could probably have far too much fun with the idea if he let himself go with it.

Sabrina nodded her agreement. “He’s very…” Then her words trailed off as she looked back and forth between the two of them. “Grandson?”

Mortimer nodded. So did Max.

The color disappeared out of the blonde’s face so fast it was as if someone had doused her with a giant puff of talcum powder. Her mouth hung open, working a bit, but no sound came out. She stared at both of them, looking genuinely stunned, then began to shake her head.

“Sorry, I never did tell you how I knew this old codger, did I?” he said, figuring she was just confused. Maybe puzzled, thinking he’d been keeping his relationship with Mortimer secret for some reason. He hadn’t. Max might think his grandfather a little nutty, but he was in no way ashamed of him.

In fact, he considered Grandfather one of the finest men he’d ever known. Not every man would have taken in three rowdy young grandsons and raised them himself, dragging them around the world with him wherever he went when he could easily have written a few checks and sent them away to expensive schools. He could have washed his hands of them when his daughter and son-in-law died. But he hadn’t. He’d made them his own and he’d made them believe—truly, genuinely believe—that they were loved and safe and secure. And he’d even provided something of a mother figure, with prissy Roderick making them wash behind their ears and finish their peas while Mortimer plotted their next adventure. What more could any kid ask for?

Their upbringing may have been unconventional and eccentric, but the Taylor brothers had had both childhood and family from the moment they were orphaned. All thanks to this man.

Sabrina was still staring, silent, so Max shook off the introspection. “My name’s Taylor. Max Taylor.”

He stuck out his hand for the formal introduction, but the blonde didn’t take it. She simply stared at his fingers, slowly lifting her gaze to his face. Finally—wonderingly—she said the strangest thing.

“As in Bond. James Bond?”

Confused, he simply stared at her, waiting for the punch line. Because he was so focused, it was easy to catch her reaction. Like water bursting through a dam, the blood returned to Sabrina’s face. Her pale cheeks filled with color as rapidly as they had emptied of it. She jerked her chin up and licked her full, pouty lips.

And he saw it. The look. The suggestive, heated, take me expression he’d seen on women’s faces from the minute he’d been both mature enough to inspire it and old enough to understand what it meant.

Unfortunately, at that time, he hadn’t had the third key ingredient—being skilled enough to take advantage of it.

That had changed, though, round about age sixteen. The mother of one of his classmates at his multinational high school in Cairo had helped him develop his…skills. And he’d been utilizing them ever since, more during some periods of his life than others.

For the first time since he’d met her by the carousel, the blonde was finally looking at him the way he’d wanted her to look at him. The way he’d want any gorgeous, intelligent, witty woman to look at him. Not merely with speculation, interest and friendliness. Not even with attraction and flirtatiousness.

No. Sexy Sabrina’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement. Her breath exited her lips in choppy, audible exhalations. Though she didn’t step away, or come any closer, her whole body slowly moved. Curving sinuously, like a cat stretching in the sun, one shoulder going back, one hip tilting to the side to highlight the indentation of her waist.

Yeah. He knew this look. Her stance, her expression, the heavy-lidded stare exuded one thing: pure, sexual want. A blatant, no-questions-asked invitation to sin.

He didn’t know why he was getting it now, while his elderly grandfather watched wide-eyed with interest, but he had no doubt he was being silently propositioned by the blond stranger. He’d been propositioned by enough women to know.

It was just his damn bad luck that it was an invitation he could not, under any circumstances, accept.

MAX TAYLOR, SABRINA DECIDED late that night when lying alone in her bed at the inn, was a fiend. A sadistic, twisted, manipulative monster. He had to be. How else had he been able to fool her so completely—to make her think he was nothing but a simple small-town mechanic, when, in truth, he was more like an oversexed Dr. Evil?

Addictive. Seductive. Overpoweringly sensual. All while smiling a you-can-trust-me grin and keeping that aw-shucks-ma’am tone in his voice.

“Monster.”

Oh, the man was good. Talented. If they gave out Academy Awards to playboys in disguise, he’d be writing his acceptance speech now.

Because he must have been acting. That sweet, kind, friendly—oh, God, sexy—guy she’d met tinkering with the carousel had to have been a façade. Behind the mask lurked a polished seducer who could lure women down a dark path of eroticism with a touch of his hand, a whisper in the ear.

The promise of a five-hour, nonstop session of lovemaking.

Impossible. No man could…no matter what Grace Wellington said in her memoir.

After yesterday—and this afternoon—Sabrina had to add a few other possibilities to his repertoire. A friendly nod, a welcoming smile. A twinkle in his eye. Who could have known they’d be just as effective as a deep kiss, a tender caress or a mammoth hard-on at inspiring lustful thoughts?

“Not lust, damn it,” she whispered, rolling over and punching the lumpy pillow. She kept her voice low, knowing there were only three other guests staying at the inn. The last thing she wanted was to arouse her landlord’s curiosity and have him come investigate.

“Oh, great, it’s almost Saturday,” she muttered, wondering whether his nudey thing began at midnight or would be mercifully held at bay until dawn.

If anything could kill her hungry curiosity about Max Taylor, it was thoughts of a nude Al Fitzweather.

Actually, she should easily be able to control any sexual feelings whatsoever. After all, Sabrina didn’t lust. Well, maybe she lusted sometimes—lusted for the kind of sex she read about in racy novels or imagined in her mind’s eye after the end of a movie. Who, for instance, hadn’t pictured Buttercup and Wesley doing the deed in a meadow full of daisies after the end of The Princess Bride?

She’d said that to her mother once, when she was a teenager. For about three seconds, the older woman’s lips had twitched, as if a real laugh was about to spill out. But she’d quickly sucked it back in.

Of all the reasons Sabrina resented her grandfather, that was probably the biggest one. Because he’d stolen her mother’s smile. By making her feel like the death of her husband in a robbery had been God’s judgment for marrying outside her rigid faith, he’d used guilt and heartache to control all their lives. And she hadn’t had the education, money or career prospects to do anything about it.

“I lust, Grandfather,” Sabrina whispered, staring up at the ceiling. “Hear me? Lust, lust, lust! Naked, sweaty sex. Big, hard penises. I think about them all the time!”

Only, she needed to not talk about them out loud right now for fear Mr. Fitzweather would think she was issuing an invitation.

She definitely wasn’t. Not to him—not to anyone. Because Sabrina had never made a habit of lusting after real, live men, not even anyone she’d been dating.

She’d always been able to separate sex out from her other daily requirements. Exercise, mental stimulation, a steady influx of cash, an orgasm or two, mechanically provided, if necessary—Ooh, how wicked, a vibrator—she was surely destined for hell. She hadn’t cared, because the thing had come in handy, particularly after she’d wised up to the kind of man Peter really was and dumped him seven-and-a-half months ago.

Since then, her life had been compartmentalized, planned, normal. No men required. Not crazy—other than her involvement in Allie’s situation. Never unexpected—uh, other than that Allie thing again. But certainly never dangerous or wicked, despite what her grandfather had direly predicted when Sabrina left home at eighteen. Black sheep or not, she’d done a pretty good job of living a “good” life. Being safe, respectable and completely sensible.

At least…until she’d started working on Grace Wellington’s book and had begun to wonder what it would be like to let go of all her inhibitions. To be so caught up in a dark, passionate affair that she’d open herself up to all sorts of kinky possibilities like the ones Grace had described. Threesomes and bondage…pleasure and pain.

The idea had repulsed her. And yet it had somehow aroused her, too.

One thing was certain. She hadn’t been able to put it out of her thoughts—or her dreams. Night after night her mind had filled with sultry images. And by day she’d found herself wondering what it would be like to do something wild with someone who was totally outside polite society. An intoxicatingly wicked bad boy. The kind about whom rock songs were sung and romance novels were written. The kind she’d flirted with back in high school and had brought home once or twice in order to get some kind of action going in their very sedate house.

The Max Taylor kind of bad boy.

Or was he?

Could he really be as bad as all that if he liked to volunteer his spare time working to repair broken-down relics like the Kiddie World carousel? Or exchanging kindly barbs with a sweet, funny old man who told the most wonderful stories of deserts and pirates, harems and spies?

It was hard to dislike Max Taylor when Sabrina already adored his wonderfully vibrant grandfather. She’d never—ever—have imagined liking anyone with that title. But Mortimer Potts still made her smile, just picturing him pouring their tea as they’d sat in his colorful tent, chatting about the weather in Borneo and the dangers of the Asian trade routes.

Max had been there, too. Being friendly…and nothing else, despite her best flirting efforts.

That’s how he’d been the entire time. Nothing but helpful and nonaggressive with a woman who had practically thrown herself at him.

“I didn’t really throw myself at him,” she whispered, wishing the bed wasn’t as lumpy as a bag of rocks.

Liar. That movie invitation thing had definitely been throwing herself.

But that was the whole point, the reason she was here in the first place. Talk about stepping outside the safety zone—the one she’d erected around herself once it had become clear that she had to be the responsible adult who handled Allie’s situation. This entire trip was definitely not safe.

Sabrina had come to Trouble to entice Max Taylor into proving his wicked reputation. No, she hadn’t gotten off to the best start, but she had to hand it to herself, she’d recovered rather quickly from the shock of finding out the nice, boy-next-door mechanic was in fact her targeted sex fiend.

Once he’d confirmed his identity, Sabrina had gone into action. She’d thrown off her surprise, pasted on a sultry look and gone all come-hither.

And he’d nearly come and hithered.

The flash of interest in his sparkling green eyes had been unmistakable when she’d given him the kind of look any man would understand. Though he’d quickly squelched it, she’d seen the answering heat.

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