Killing Time

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED to turn tail and run,” a male voice said, sounding both weary and amused.

The voice sent a shiver of awareness down Caro’s spine. It sounded silky smooth, much too calm for a person being held at gunpoint, which made her think these two were, indeed, playing some kind of game. For some strange reason, the man’s voice sounded familiar to her ear. She’d just been too much in shock to pay attention the first time he’d spoken.

The woman laughed. “It takes a lot to make me run away.”

Caro inched closer to the door frame. There was just something about that man’s voice—not to mention his naked body—that made her itch to take another quick peek.

“That’s why you stripped, even though you knew I wouldn’t shoot you?” Louise asked. “You thought I’d run away at my first sight of a naked man, even though I have four little brothers?”

Caro took a deep breath and worked up her nerve to steal one more glance just as the man muttered, “Something like that.”

Louise had moved slightly out of the way. From this angle, Caro could only see the man from the waist up.

Wow, what a waist. Wow, what an up.

The man had crossed his arms in front of him, so his shoulders and triceps flexed and bulged. His hair was light brown, cut a little long, but not long enough to hide the thick strength of his neck.

Caro gulped. If she’d been the one with the gun, she figured it would’ve slipped from her hand due to the sweat breaking out all over her body. Good Lord, how could anyone be that close to a man so hot and not get weak in the knees?

“Oh, sweetie, you’re so funny. I helped raise the boys. Plus I grew up on a farm. I’ve seen male equipment. And while you’re, well, of generous proportions, you can’t compare to Buddy.”

Caro had to wonder who Buddy was. If the mysterious Louise really did know some man named Buddy, and he was better built than the guy in the office, Caro thought perhaps her stay in Derryville might be more interesting than she’d expected. Though she wasn’t sure her heart could take it. Not to mention her diaphragm, which had been sitting unused in her medicine cabinet for so long she could probably use it to strain pasta.

Truly, though, she didn’t see how anyone else could compare to Mr. Naked Real Estate Guy. At least not from her angle. She doubted anyone could look as good from behind as this man did, and she included a number of Hollywood heartthrobs in that assessment.

“Buddy’s a bull, Louise,” the man said, his voice shaking with what some might have interpreted as fear, but which Caro recognized as unbridled laughter.

Bull-like. There was something a man would aspire to, right? The thought inspired several wicked images. She had to back away again, if only to force herself to stop trying to peer around the armed woman for another tantalizing glimpse of the hips and down.

Wow, what hips. Wow, what down.

“I know. But for some reason, you made me think of him,” the woman replied.

“I don’t know many men who would compare favorably to a bull. But thank you very much, all the same.”

Still hidden in the near darkness, and still wondering whether the two were playing some sort of lovers’ game, or if she’d really stumbled into a hostage situation, she took a few calming breaths to decide what to do.

Look some more.

That worked.

This time, she gave into her impulse, dropped to her knees, and peered around the door from a lower angle. Definitely a better angle. For assessment purposes only, she told herself, knowing she was a big fat liar whose pants, if she had been wearing pants, would be incendiary right about now.

She stayed hunkered down, assessing the couple. The woman was a puzzle. Broad in girth, huge in stature, she wore an unflattering pair of jean overalls, which, Caro was sad to say, seemed to have come back into fashion for some bizarre reason. Not in Hollywood, of course. But they were showing up in the rest of the country—which pretty much meant another planet, as far as most people in L.A. were concerned.

Louise appeared taller than the better-than-average-height man, and heavier by a large amount. So maybe the hunk had a thing for big girls. In which case, he’d never spare a glance at Caro, who only stood five-seven when she wore two-inch heels.

She certainly wasn’t an imposing figure now, down on all fours in a closed real estate office, spying on a pair of lovebirds, or a female rapist. She still hadn’t decided which was the most likely explanation. Either the man was a philandering Realtor having a kinky good time—complete with props like fake guns—on a Monday morning. Or he was a poor innocent victim being held up by a naked-Realtor-robbing Amazon.

Not sure which, she curled her back and neck a bit, hunching lower until she was able to see that, yes, the woman was definitely holding a real—if rather old-looking—pistol.

The hostage wasn’t turning around. He remained still, his body aligned with the sight of the gun. His back was perfect. Smooth. Sculpted with layer upon layer of thick muscle. Tanned, taut skin glistened with a sheen of sweat that probably had more to do with the situation than with the temperature.

His thick arms flexed with the tension. That, more than anything, convinced Caro that while his tone might be flip, and his voice might hold laughter, he wasn’t relaxed. He was, in fact, completely tense, obviously waiting for his chance to extricate himself from this unusual situation.

The overall-wearing bandit was still too busy staring at that naked tush to move. Caro couldn’t blame her—she couldn’t do anything else, herself.

She’d never really considered herself a butt woman. A man’s eyes were so much more important. Or at the very least his smile. A pair of lips that could instill a sense of shimmering heat while widened in laughter used to make her completely crazed. One smile, in particular, had nearly been her undoing.

But as for the rest? Good looks, as she’d found in Hollywood, didn’t always equal good men.

That didn’t mean they weren’t fun to ogle. Particularly in this case, with a man whose backside looked hard enough to crack a walnut, and hot enough to make her legs go weak.

Then the man shifted, as if he planned to turn around. She hissed. Weak, nothing. At the thought of seeing the full-frontal onslaught, Caro’s legs turned to jelly. If not for her arms holding up the front part of her body, she probably would have fallen face-first on the carpet.

“Don’t turn around,” the woman said matter-of-factly, apparently noticing her victim making a move. “Please stand there and look away while I get myself mussed before Daddy gets here.”

Daddy. Mussed. Caro began to understand. This was strictly TV Writing 101 stuff. Tons of shows, from soaps to sitcoms, had explored this scenario in every conceivable way. This woman wanted to be caught in a compromising situation with Mr. Studly. Enter the enraged, armed papa. Fade to commercial.

“Please don’t take off your clothes.” He sounded more nervous than he had when she’d threatened to shoot him.

No commercial, Caro, this is real life.

“Fair’s fair.” Then the woman chuckled. “At least now I know what all the women in town are dying for a glimpse of.”

His thighs? His flexing calves? His arms, which looked strong enough to carry a woman to the nearest flat surface and make love to her from here to Sunday? All of the above?

Most especially that hard, sweetly curved rear that cried out to be caressed, held, stroked and clenched in mind-numbing passion? Caro gulped as her nervous habit kicked in: she started to hum the theme song from Sex in the City.

“Who would’ve thought those little black points were the tips of his ears?”

It took a second for Caro to understand what the woman meant. Then she leaned in farther, blinking off the haze of lust to take a really good look at the man. That was when Caro noticed what was above his perfect, hard, finger-licking-good backside.

A tattoo. A sexy, wicked, playful tattoo. It told a story that revealed quite a lot about the man it adorned.

Part of it, the little creature in the small of his back, riding just above his right cheek, made her pause. Because it looked familiar. Very familiar.

“Impossible,” she whispered, not believing her own eyes. She studied it, blinking a few times, wondering if she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing.

It was a lamb. A cute little furry white lamb, as incongruous as it was adorable when decorating this hunky man’s body. “Crazy,” she called herself, knowing there were millions of men in the world who had millions of tattoos.

Maybe some other hunk had decided to put a cute little lamb on his backside in honor of some other woman whose last name was the same as hers. Maybe that other hunk had called that other girl a sweet little lamb the first time they’d been introduced.

Or maybe she’d wronged someone in another life and karma was getting even. That was the only explanation about how fate could be cruel enough to bring him back into her world.

“Please, no,” she whispered. But even as she did so, she knew it was futile. Somehow, Caroline knew this particular tattoo belonged to only one particular man. “Lord help me.”

“Okay, Louise, this is getting ridiculous. And I’m getting cold,” the man drawled.

This time, because she was listening for it, she did, indeed, recognize the voice.

Mick Winchester. Good God, it was him. She hadn’t seen the man for eight years and already he had her down on her hands and knees, playing Peeping Tom. In two minutes flat, he’d turned her into a mindless, brainless female. Just like she’d been during the crazy, passionate year of their relationship.

She couldn’t help staring at him again, gobbling him up with her eyes, knowing that once his face was turned to hers, she wouldn’t be able to look her fill. Because he’d be watching her, laughing at her, knowing how she reacted to him.

Always had. Probably always would. Dammit all to hell.

In the office, Louise said, “It’s good you keep your tattoo covered.”

Remembering the tattoo, Caroline stared at it again, studying the whole image. The old tattoo was now part of a bigger picture. The glimpse of the lamb had made her cringe at the thought of facing Mick again. But studying the whole thing and assessing its meaning made her want to punch his lights out.

Because the louse had gone and ruined it.

“That’d just feed the gossip mill, wouldn’t it?” Louise said. “They already think you’re a horny, hungry devil.”

A horny, hungry devil. How appropriate for this horny, hungry, insatiable, exasperating man.

Her teeth clenched and her eyes narrowed as she stared at what the creep had done to the poor little lamb on his hip. Directly across from it, extending from the base of his spine and down over part of his taut left cheek, was a cartoon character. With gaping jaws, a wicked twinkle in its eye and very sharp teeth.

She recognized the character instantly. From the spiky black fur, and the two pointed ears that might, indeed, peek out from a pair of low-riding jeans, to the glistening, salacious smile, the Big Bad Wolf sat silently on this man’s body like a predator watching for some tempting prey.

And he had some. Lamb chops en brochette.

It was funny. Comical. But intensely sexual. A literal warning to any lamb to be wary of wolves with big smiles and knowing eyes. She didn’t know whether to drool or kick him.

But what really made her react with gut fury was the realization that her little lamb—the one Mick had gotten during his junior year of college in honor of their first anniversary—was no longer alone. A miniature herd of the furry little beasts marched across his back, waiting for their turn to run willingly into the Big Bad Wolf’s waiting mouth.

And Caroline Lamb had led the way.

She simply couldn’t help herself. With a strangled cry of fury, she half stood and launched herself into the room.

“Do the women of the world a favor and shoot the bastard,” she snarled at Louise.

Then she promptly ruined her grand entrance by losing her battle with gravity and falling flat on her face.

MICK DIDN’T KNOW who the woman lying on the floor was, or why she’d stumbled in just in time to prevent him from trying to physically wrest the gun from Louise Flanagan.

He did know, however, that she looked damned sexy, face-down, with her short white skirt riding up high enough to show him the hem of her filmy white panties.

As for why she’d want to shoot him, well, there could be any number of reasons. The first one that came to mind was that he did know her. The legs certainly looked familiar. Then again, any gorgeous legs looked familiar to a leg man.

“Louise, I think you’ve done enough for this morning,” he said, reluctantly, but necessarily, focused on the woman with the gun, not the woman with the silky underwear. Because as much as he’d prefer not to be the only naked one in the room, he had the feeling the likelihood of the gun going off was better than the likelihood of the brunette’s panties coming off.

“Your plan obviously isn’t going to work if your father shows up and sees another woman here. Knowing him, it’ll just reinforce his already bad opinion of me. He’ll think I was trying to draw you into something terribly…unsavory.”

Her face flushed and her mouth dropped into an O shape. “He wouldn’t think I’d do something like that!”

“He might. So maybe you should go now,” he told her. Despite everything, he felt touched that she cared enough to try to save his reputation. Even if she’d had to shoot him to do it. Somehow, that made about as much sense as anything else in Derryville.

“We’ll forget this ever happened. Go home.” Then he said, “Leave the gun.” The prankster and movie lover in him almost added “Take the cannoli,” but he doubted either of the women in the room would appreciate the Godfather reference.

“I…I would never want my daddy to think such a thing,” Louise said, lost in thought, her voice sounding shocked. Her trembling hand dropped to her side, leaving the gun dangling there, pointing at the floor.

Speaking of dangling…“Can I please get dressed now?” he asked no one in particular.

The prone woman in the short white skirt, who’d been pounding her fist on the floor and muttering the word “no” over and over into the carpet, finally looked up at that one.

Looked up. Direct line of sight. Got an eyeful.

Then he recognized her face and the bottom dropped out of his gut. “Caroline.”

“Mick.”

Louise stared at them both. “You two know each other?”

Know each other. Knew each other. Oh, yeah. A lifetime ago.

“Go, Louise.” Mick’s voice was thick, his throat tight.

Caroline Lamb. Here. In his office. Jesus.

He yanked his khaki pants off the floor and pulled them up over his hips, more to stall for time and regain his suddenly questionable sanity than anything else. It wasn’t like he was covering up something Caroline hadn’t already seen a number of times. Up close. And personal.

He began to sweat. Caroline slowly rose to her feet, watching his every move. Louise didn’t budge an inch.

“I can’t believe you did it,” Caroline said, glaring toward his half-covered body.

“She was holding a gun on me,” he replied in self-defense.

“Not that,” she said with derision. Brushing past the wide-eyed Louise, she stalked to stand toe-to-toe with him. Mick felt her anger wash over him as tangibly as a blast of heat. Caroline had always blown over him like a blast of heat. Always. Whether she’d been in a rage, laughing, teasing him or kissing him like they needed each other’s breath to survive.

“I can’t believe you had that…obscene representation of your own shortcomings tattooed onto your back.”

He almost grinned, suddenly knowing why she was so ticked off. Then his grin faded. No, Caroline wouldn’t like what he’d done with “her” lamb. But he’d had to do it, had to try to make their relationship mean nothing, seem like nothing. Because it had, once upon a time, meant too damn much.

“Okay, I guess you two do know each other,” Louise finally said as she inched toward the door, probably seeing by the fury in Caroline’s eyes that an assault was, indeed, about to take place here. But instead of defending him, Louise looked ready to leave him to his fate. She also looked amused.

“The gun, Louise,” Mick said, unable to keep his stare from drifting back to the face he’d never thought he’d see again.

He heard a thud, and assumed the gun had dropped to the carpeted floor, but he couldn’t look away from that amazing familiar face long enough to make sure. Then the door clicked shut, leaving him alone in his office with Caroline Lamb.

She’d changed. Matured. Oh, she was still a knockout, but she’d lost that small-town-girl look that used to make her eyes a little brighter and her smile a little sunnier than anyone else’s. Not that she was smiling now.

“Great entrance,” he murmured. “Graceful as always.”

She merely closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as they both struggled to regain their composure.

She was really here. In the flesh. Very nice flesh.

While she got a grip on herself, he took a moment to devour her with his eyes, noting the things that had changed over time and those that had remained the same. It was easy to tell—her image had been burned into his brain since the day they’d met.

He studied the way her new, chin-length haircut accentuated the sweet curve of her face and the vulnerable delicacy of her neck. Her makeup was designed to accentuate the alluring, vivid blue of her eyes. God, those eyes, such a stunning contrast to her thick, dark hair.

She wasn’t quite as slender as she’d been in college, but the curves were in all the right places. His college girl had grown into quite a woman. From the top of her chestnut-brown hair, to the tips of her expensive shoes, she screamed totally-in-control female.

But she wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

“Yeah, well, I see you haven’t changed much either,” she finally said with a falsely sweet smile. “Why am I not surprised to bump into you after eight years and find you with a woman, naked and displaying your best side?”

His eyes narrowed. “Used to be you thought my front was my best side.”

She raked a thorough look across his bare chest and arms, his stomach, the unfastened waist of his slacks.

Everywhere her gaze touched, his body tightened and grew hot. His reaction to her was instinctive, and had been since the minute he’d met her in his sophomore year of college.

Somehow she managed to look as though she’d studied him and found him lacking. Which was, he knew, total bullshit. The flush on her cheeks and the way she couldn’t quite control her deep breathing told him her dismissing look was as fake as her perfectly manicured nails.

Caroline was a nail biter. A blusher. And a heavy breather.

But she gave it her best shot. Crossing her arms, she managed what would probably pass for a pitying smile. “That was before I got to know you. I’m all grown-up and I’ve figured out that the rear is always the best side of a horse’s ass. The better to watch him walk away.”

He grinned, unable to help it. Damn, the woman always had been able to throw a good insult. Her prickliness had been one of the things that had so fascinated him in the old days. Because it came in the sweetest, most adorably sexy package.

“So what are you doing here, Caroline?” he asked, struggling to remain casual and calm, as if his world hadn’t rolled over the minute he’d seen her face.

She ignored his question. “Are you going to call 9–1-1?”

He raised a curious brow.

“A woman just threatened to shoot you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you to end up in jail so soon. I mean, we just met again. We haven’t had time to catch up yet.”

Her eyes narrowed as she tapped her fingers on the top of his desk, near the gun Louise had dropped. “I’m talking about your big friend.”

“Louise? She’s harmless.”

She gaped. “She had you at gunpoint.”

“Right.”

“She made you take off all your clothes.”

“She didn’t really make me,” he explained in his own defense, not wanting Caroline to think he was a pansy-ass who’d let a woman—even an armed one—make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

“Oh, so you just decided it was too warm in here this morning and decided to strip down to nothing to get some fresh air?”

“No.”

She tapped the tip of her fingertip on her cheek. “Let’s see, you’ve become a nudist since the last time I saw you?”

“Not exactly.”

“So, she was right? You consider yourself hot enough that she’d fall over in a faint when she saw your manly magnificence?”

“Something like that,” he replied with a long, low chuckle.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not all that, Mick.”

He raised a challenging brow, daring her to be honest. Once upon a time, he’d been all that and a lot more to this woman.

No, Caroline hadn’t exactly fainted away the first time she’d seen him naked. But she had dropped to the nearest flat surface pretty damn quick.

“She’s a nice, misguided lady, who I don’t think has ever had a date in her life,” he explained, recognizing that Caroline really did think he should call the police on poor, sad Louise. “So, yeah, I somehow thought I might be able to scare her off.”

“But you’re no Buddy.”

He remembered Louise’s comments about her daddy’s prize bull, who was famous in these parts. “Ahh, you were eavesdropping for quite a while, hmm?”

She pinkened. “Just…scouting out the situation before I decided what to do. I wasn’t sure whether I’d interrupted some lovers’ tryst, a robbery or a bizarre sex crime.”

Mick pulled his shirt on, tucked it in, then refastened his belt. It was easier to deal with Caroline when fully dressed. Half-naked felt too damned vulnerable. “So, what would you have done if it were a lovers’ tryst?”

“Backed out gracefully.”

“Bizarre sex crime?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Called the police.”

“And since it was neither,” he said suggestively, “you just decided to, uh…watch.”

She straightened her back, looking so stiff he thought she might break in two. “I did no such thing.”

“You were out there a long time,” he countered, keeping his voice at the level of a purr. “Staring at the…scenery.”

“The only scenery I was staring at was the nightmare on your butt.”

He couldn’t prevent a triumphant smile for getting her to admit she’d been staring at his naked body.

“I was trying to figure out what kind of man would shout his true nature to the world. ‘I am dog, hear me roar.’”

Tsking, he clarified, “It’s a wolf.”

“Same species.”

He shook his head. “Actually, no. But same genus, I think.”

She let out a soft groan, and he knew he was driving her crazy. He’d always been able to drive her crazy, just like this. A highly emotional person—easily swinging from the highest highs to the lowest lows—Caroline had been a perfect foil for someone like Mick, who was so difficult to rile he’d been accused of having no heart at all.

She’d been the one to accuse him of that, come to think of it. Then she’d stormed out, missing the damage Mick was capable of when his emotions really got the better of him.

“Want to sit down? You look flushed,” he said, thinking she was doing a good job getting riled up all on her own this time.

Ignoring the offer, she shook her head and walked across the office, leaving them separated by a few feet and an ocean’s worth of emotional baggage. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

She was wrong there. He had changed. Not that she’d see it, not that he’d admit it out loud. But he wasn’t the same guy she’d known.

Actually, he wasn’t sure who Mick Winchester was these days. But that was okay. Because nobody else was quite sure who he was, either, other than the black sheep of the Winchester family. The playboy of Derryville. The tattooed bad boy who was much more often found playing poker with the guys on a Sunday than having a weekly after-church gathering with family.

“Still Mr. Cool, aren’t you?” Caroline said. “Still trying to pretend you’re untouchable.”

Untouchable. Perhaps, but only in the emotional sense.

Caroline wasn’t the only one to accuse him of hiding his emotions behind an easy laugh and a charming grin. His little sister, Sophie, had told him more than once he was an emotional teakettle, at full rolling boil just beneath a calm, smooth surface.

Sophie was probably right. No one had ever been able to get Mick to completely lose his control and erupt. Except once. With the woman standing right in front of him.

Of course, Caroline hadn’t been around to see. That had been after she’d left. After she’d waltzed out of his life, accusing him, judging him, sentencing him and walking away without even giving him a chance to defend himself. Hell, he hadn’t even done anything. He’d been guilty of what he might do in the future, and that was enough for her.

Such trust from the girl he’d asked to marry him.

That was the only time Mick had ever lost himself to anger. He still had the scars on his knuckles from where he’d broken several fingers punching holes in the wall of his room.

Not that her lack of trust and his perceived inability to commit were the only things to break them up. There had also been geography. She wanted west. L.A. Big city, bright lights. All that star-studded stuff a lot of college girls seemed to want. Mick had never been able to picture anything but what he’d always known. Small-town life. Home.

So she’d taken off. He’d torn apart his dorm room and gotten kicked out of school. End of story. Until now.

“Why are you here?” he finally asked again, unable to keep baiting her when he simply felt weary and off balance. “Why after eight years did you track me down?”

“I didn’t track you down. I’m your appointment.”

He simply stared, not sure what she meant.

“Your renter.”

His renter. One of the studio executives looking for a place to rent in Derryville for a month.

Caroline Lamb was moving here? To this tiny town where they’d be running into each other all the time?

His dismay must have shown in his expression, because for the first time since she’d stumbled into the office, a genuine smile brightened her face. “Doesn’t that just make your day?”

He couldn’t even fathom what life would be like if he had to get used to Caroline being back in his world. The thought of having his youthful stupidity and heartbreak thrown into his face on a daily basis was more than he could stand.

Striding out of his office, he nearly tripped on something, but kicked it out of the way. He continued down the darkened hallway, reached the front door and yanked it open.

“Louise,” he bellowed into the street. “Get back here and shoot me!”