Win sat on a moss-covered rock and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She thought of Maximillion Mercy, his dark and foreboding beauty, the two-inch scar directly under his left cheekbone, his knack for being at the right place at exactly the right time, with all the right tools.
Maybe she could put a moss-covered rock in the chase scene. Maybe just a slick rock would do. Yes—the woman double-agent—Win still couldn’t decide between the names Eva or Zoe—would slip on a craggy rock jutting out over a raging waterfall, inches from plummeting to her death, when Max would arrive. He’d dive into the air, grab a lock of her long black hair and yank her to safety. Eva—or Zoe—would cry out in alarm and smack him across the face. Max would grab her by the upper arms and kiss her.
Or not.
Win sighed in creative despair and rose from the mossy rock, noting that if she fell off, the worst she’d get would be a pair of damp sneakers. “C’mon, Lulu.”
She turned and froze. Lulu made a strange vibrating noise Win thought might be a growl. And she had no idea what to do next.
The animal—it looked like some kind of skinny wild dog—shook all over, holding its position in the middle of the trail, teeth clenched. Blood streamed down its left front leg and dripped onto the dirt. Its eyes were crazy with pain and terror. White foam collected around its snarling mouth.
Win wasn’t proud of her ignorance, but she was wholly unprepared for a close encounter with nature and so scared she thought she would pee her pants. Why didn’t she know more about the natural world?
Why hadn’t she watched more Wild Kingdom as a kid? What the hell were you supposed to do when facing a rabid wolf, or fox, or whatever this was? Were sudden moves a good thing or a bad thing? Did you run for a tree? Escape to the creek? Lie down in the dirt and pretend you were dead?
And how do you protect a toy poodle in this situation?
Win instinctively stepped backward, but her foot hit the rock. The animal let out a horrible rumbling sound from deep in its throat and took a step toward them. Well, that didn’t work. And there was nowhere to go.
This was ridiculous, Win thought. She’s out of the Upper West Side for less than one day and she’s mauled by a rabid mountain lion—or lynx or dingo—whatever it was.
Crack!
The animal fell to the dirt in a lifeless lump of fur, a small red hole in its forehead. From the opposite bank of the creek came the sound of rocks tumbling downhill and crashing into the creek. Win spun around in time to see a man—a very big dark-haired man—come flying over the water. He landed with a thud by the animal’s side, peered closely at the creature, then stood upright.
The wild mountain man had to be six-four. His back was wide, and all Win could see was a wall of burgundy and cream plaid, breathing heavily. She went ahead and took that step backward, even if it meant she was standing on the moss-covered rock. Then she took two more to her left, picked up Lulu, and started running through the thicket as though her life depended on it.
“Wait. Please.”
The voice was low, contained, and shockingly polite. Win turned to find the mountain man facing her, a half-smile on his unshaven face. His dark eyes were wide and he held his hands out, palms up, to show her he wasn’t a threat. Yeah, right.
“It’s the damn traps. People can be so stupid.”
Win stood with her mouth hanging open and her heart beating so hard, she worried it would explode. “You killed it!”
“The animal was suffering and scared and just about to go for you and your little dog.”
Win scrambled over downed trees, ferns and bushes and made it back to the trail. Then she walked backward, keeping her eyes on the mountain man. “Do not come any closer to us,” she said. “We are leaving. I have a cell phone and I’ll call the police if you come near us.”
The man smiled at her, and something in that face caused Win’s entire being to go on alert. “You’ll find cell reception really sucks up here.”
Oh, God. Oh, dear God! How bizarre! Win had to blink several times to make sure she wasn’t imagining this—because the man standing in front of her was Maximillion Mercy in the flesh. No, he looked nothing like Hollywood superstar Tony Cardone, who was now synonymous throughout the world with the Lethal Mercy hero. But the man standing in front of her was the embodiment of how she had written Maximillion. How she’d seen him in her mind’s eye. The man had Max Mercy’s magnetism, his quiet strength, his dominant sensuality. The man was fiction come to life, her fantasy made real.
That ugly lumberjack shirt, however, had to go.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I’m leaving now.” Win swallowed. She turned to walk away, but spun around again. “How could you kill that animal! How could you shoot that poor thing?”
With that, she turned and ran. The sexy, intelligent, gun nut of a mountain man didn’t come after her, which relieved her and disappointed her in equal measure. She made it back to the clearing around Artie’s house in no time, and put Lulu down in the grass.
The stupid shower spigot in the guest bath didn’t work, so Win settled for a soak in the master bathtub. Then, after double-checking the security system and all door and window locks, she sat down to write.
And for some reason, Maximillion was alive in her imagination like he hadn’t been in months. He had it going on—hot but levelheaded, suave but raw, in the way only Max Mercy could be.
Win’s fingers flew across the keyboard until two in the morning.
Chapter Two