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“I thought this was my fantasy list.”
Paige agreed with Tanya. “Fantasy, but with a shot of reality. Still, I suppose if a man knew you were the Luscious Lingerie Peacock Feather Girl you could get—”
“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Mel snapped. “People still ask me about that stupid one-of-a-kind bra-and-panty set. I would burn it, but I have a feeling it could fund my retirement.”
She’d only done one photo shoot for Luscious Lingerie, yet it seemed that’s how most of male America was going to remember her. As the Peacock Feather Girl. Funny, that particular job—which she hadn’t wanted to do in the first place—was what had made her decide to quit her former profession. Her mother-manager had insisted the exposure would be wonderful. In Melody’s opinion, the exposure had been nearly X-rated. Only if she wanted to be a porn star would the Luscious Lingerie shoot have been a wise move. Tanya had compared it to Shirley Temple posing for Penthouse after she’d gotten off the Good Ship Lollipop.
After the catalog had come out, she’d been stalked by so many men she’d had to hide out in her apartment for months. But hearing a fan say how proud he was that he’d walked in on his twelve-year-old son having his first yank-and-pull session while holding the photo of Mel in the peacock ensemble had been the last straw. Being a pinup girl for prepubescent boys to get off on was gross to the nth degree.
That’d been the moment she’d decided to quit. And finally—thankfully—she’d begun feeling she could go out without people whispering about her. The hair-color change had been a big help. So had her co-ed wardrobe and normal-person lifestyle.
“I think I’d rather be remembered for almost anything else,” she said, shaking her head. Maybe as the three-year-old running to the bathroom with her hands frantically clutching her training pants. Or, gads, as the scrub-faced teen who sang the praises of a certain brand of tampons. Like at age fifteen, she’d wanted the whole world thinking about her being on her period!
Still, they’d be better than the Peacock Feather Girl.
“I know,” Paige said. “But what I meant was, the lingerie model might have had a shot. Movie stars, however, are not in the future of Mrs. Bill the Dentist from Atlanta.”
Melody sipped again, trying to laugh at Paige’s words. Deep inside, however, she wasn’t laughing. She was wincing.
She loved Bill. She felt sure she did. He was the first man who hadn’t treated her like an object, who’d supported her decision to change her life. Marriage to him would be perfect.
So will the sex.
That was when she figured out what was really bothering her about this list thing. It was bizarre to think about having sex with a stranger—even jokingly—when she hadn’t had it with her fiancé. Bill was old-fashioned and wanted to wait.
Oh, God, what if we just don’t click in bed?
Forcing the traitorous thought away, she said, “So it’s my fantasy list, but I don’t get to say who’s on it?”
“There just have to be some ground rules,” Tanya announced.
“Why, Tanya, honey, I thought you never paid any attention to rules,” Rosemary said, sounding amused.
“First of all,” Tanya said, ignoring Rosemary, “we each need to write down copies of all four lists and hold on to them so we can keep an eye out for each other’s men.”
Paige nodded. “Good idea. And the men should be improbable—not impossible. What fun is having a fantasy if there’s not a teeny chance of it happening? It’s like buying a lottery ticket when you know you have better odds of getting hit by a low-flying seven forty-seven than winning. But you do it anyway because somebody’s gotta win.”
Melody wasn’t convinced. “This is only a joke, right? So who cares if I put Brad Pitt on there?”
Tanya blew out an impatient breath. “Of course it’s just for fun. We know you’re not a hootchie mama who’d hook up with a dude because he’s on some list. But don’t you sometimes like to wonder ‘what if?’ What fun is wondering ‘what if’ if there’s never a chance in a million years that it’ll happen?”
“Hootchie mama?” Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Really, Tanya, you’re so…descriptive.”
“Up yours,” Tanya said sweetly. She lifted the pen. “Now, Mel, your list?”
Nibbling on her lip for a second, Mel thought about it. Thankfully, the margaritas were finally kicking in. Besides, these were her best friends and, like Tanya had said, it was just silly fun. No way would any of them really jump into bed with a man at first sight. Well…maybe Rosemary, who, to be honest, had a more-than-active libido. But probably not.
Tapping her index finger on her cheek, she came up with what she thought they’d find an acceptable choice. “Jonathan Rhodes.”
“Ooh, our hunky new congressman?” Paige said.
“What can I say? I had to admire his guts with the sexy way he said his slogan.” She lowered her voice and did a bad Austin Powers impression. “I will take you with me to Washington, baby.”
He hadn’t done the baby part, but it was implied. Every time she’d heard it, Mel had given reluctant credit to the guy for appealing to female voters, who were obviously supposed to ignore the second half of that sentence and vote for him on innuendo.
The others nodded their approval, so Melody added another name—of a local guy who’d been making a name for himself on the PGA tour. His preferences meant he wasn’t much of a possibility, but he did have a cute smile. And a decent backswing.
“You know, honey, that sweet-looking man is probably not out of the realm of possibility,” Rosemary pointed out. “I bet he’d let you handle his putter any old time you asked him.”
“I hear he’s gay.”
“Ahh.” Rosemary nodded, not doubting Melody’s infamous sources, who’d kept them all in-the-know in the old days.
“Isn’t that cheating if he’s gay?” Paige asked indignantly.
“You said improbable. Not impossible. Besides, this is for fun, right? I don’t have to be too realistic. Even if he is gay, he’s still more likely than Brad Pitt.” Then, thinking of someone else, she added the name of a local TV reporter. “Drake Manning.”
Paige wrinkled her nose. “Slimy.”
That was surprising coming from Paige, who was, to be honest, the nicest one of their group. “You think?”
She nodded. “His hair never moves. I think you could hit it with a sledgehammer and it’d bounce right back into place.”
Tanya harrumphed. “It’s Mel’s list. You can put nothing but fluffy-haired heterosexuals on yours but it’s not your turn.”
“Sorry,” Paige said, looking sheepish. “Go on, Mel.”
Melody continued to think, but it was tough. Eliminating movie stars cut out about eighty percent of the men she’d ever fantasized about. Frankly, she’d never had much time for men. Her few sexual experiences before her chaste fiancé had been on-the-run affairs with an ambitious photographer who wanted to take her picture more than he’d wanted to take her. And then there’d been a male model who made friends with every mirror he met. That was it.
She sighed. “Lately my only fantasies have been about the chocolate volcano cake at Chez Jacques. I’m dying for some, but one bite’ll make my butt bulge out of my wedding gown.”
Tanya grunted, probably because she was thin as a rail and ate like a linebacker. Unlike Melody, who had been taking note of every morsel she consumed since her ninth birthday when her mother had given her an electronic calorie counter instead of the Hello Kitty play set she’d asked for.
“My father knows the chef at Chez Jacques,” Rosemary said. “His name’s not Jacques, it’s Charlie.”
“Okay, Charlie the chef,” Mel said. “He’s fourth. A man who makes art out of chocolate must be good with his hands.”
Then there was one slot left. One more fantasy guy. One more traitorous thought of another man before she ended the naughty game and focused on her fiancé. Her reality.
Draining the rest of her margarita, she contemplated naming whoever had invented fat-free cheese curls, if only to balance things out with the chocolate guy. The words were on her lips when suddenly the big-screen TV over the bar caught her eye. Or, rather, the news segment playing on it did.
She couldn’t hear well, but she didn’t have to. She knew the story. Everyone was talking about the Georgia hero who’d rescued some orphans in a third-world country. A photographer had captured the amazing moment, right in the heat of battle, and the picture had graced the cover of Time magazine last week.
It was the magazine cover that filled the screen right now as the Savannah station picked up on the Georgia-boy-done-good angle. Melody stared, unable to tear her eyes away from the haunting image. The thick-armed marine—strikingly handsome even while covered with grime and streaked with soot—was heroism personified. In one arm, he cradled a baby while, with the other, he braced an older child against his side. A tiny pair of hands and a little tear-streaked face peering above his shoulder said there was a third youngster clinging to his back.
The soldier’s dusty face was grim with resolve, his body reportedly wounded yet still so strong. The taut cords in his neck spoke of adrenaline, anger and battle—all so stark against the tenderness with which he held the children. Behind him was the outline of a burning building, orange flames merging with streaks of light that could only have been mortar fire.
But it was the eyes that got to her. The dark brown eyes, full of determination, emotion. Anger and mourning. Eyes that said he had seen too much and been cut too deeply for someone as young as he appeared to be.
His image burned itself into her brain, remaining there long after the news segment had ended and the picture had disappeared.
“Mel? You okay?” Paige asked.
She nodded slowly. Then, without having to give it another thought, she whispered, “Move everyone on the list down one.”
Melody didn’t even know the guy’s name or where he lived. Or even if he’d make it back from his next mission in whatever war-ravaged country he was in now.
She wanted him. Passionately. Unequivocally. Undeniably.
“Marine hero on Time magazine. He’s in first place,” she murmured, still visualizing his face.
There was no doubt in her mind that if she ever met the man with the haunting brown eyes—which had seemed to stare directly at her from the cover of the magazine—he’d be absolutely impossible to resist. He was larger than life, a once-in-a-lifetime fantasy man. A hero.
And now, the number-one guy on her Men Most Wanted list.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
THE REDHEAD WITH the camera was spying on him again.
Nick Walker glanced into his rearview mirror and saw the woman skulking around the corner of the church across the square. Every once in a while, she lifted the big camera that hung from one shoulder, swinging it in front of her face to snap off a shot of the trees. The birds. The sky. The church.
All of which was to hide her real photographic subject. Him.
He sighed deeply, shaking his head, wondering how long he could wait—and how far he could let her go—before his cover was blown. Not too much longer, that was for sure.
He hadn’t figured on going unnoticed when he’d started this undercover assignment a couple of days ago. Nobody dressed in his ratty clothes, with the shaggy beard, and two-days-past-needing-a-shower hair wouldn’t be looked at in old Savannah. Not to mention the car. It was a standard, city-issued, undercover P.O.S—Piece Of Shit—the color showing through the rust falling somewhere between puce and putrid.
But the cover was still a good one, considering the eclectic nature of the population in this area. There were just as likely to be panhandlers as millionaires moseying around some of the city’s famous squares. This getup was noticeable, but quickly forgotten by the busy residents who really didn’t want to think too much about how the “other half” lived.
So yeah, he’d been prepared for some attention. What he hadn’t expected was a frigging Nancy Drew out with her camera, snapping clandestine shots of a suspected bad guy and his license plate. She was about as clandestine as a tank.
“Lady, go home,” he pleaded softly, willing the woman to retreat into the building where she’d recently moved. The building where he was supposed to be conducting this stakeout.
That’d been the plan, anyway, which made the woman’s nosiness even more aggravating. His partner, Dex Delaney, was involved with the daughter of the building’s owner. Dex had felt sure his girlfriend, Rosemary, could arrange to let them use the building. It would have been perfect—discreet, vacant. An ideal place to stake out the first-floor apartment in the building across the street where a suspected drug trafficker resided.
Then, after Nick had grown in a beard and scavenged clothes from Goodwill, the ax had fallen. Rosemary’s father had refused, saying he’d rented the building to a family friend in need. Considering Rosemary’s social circles, the woman probably needed a place to stay so her mansion could be painted.
One thing he hadn’t needed was to have his stakeout made ten times tougher because of a rich woman’s whim. “Why the hell couldn’t she have moved in next month?” he muttered, still frustrated by the change in plans that had him sitting here on a sweltering ninety-five-degree day in a car that smelled like the last ninety-five men who’d been in it.
Sometimes he really didn’t like his job.
“But not often,” he admitted to himself.
Most times, he loved his job. Being a cop gave him more satisfaction than he’d ever dreamed of having in his civilian life. Funny, coming out of the marines four years ago, he hadn’t been sure what he’d do. Going back to his hometown had been impossible. College? A fantasy. He’d gotten used to being in action, to fighting and surviving. To nailing bad guys. On a big scale or on a small one, taking criminals out of commission was what he did best…he’d figured that out back when he wasn’t sure he’d ever give a damn about anything again.
Nick liked to think of it as weeding out the bullies. Pushers or terrorists, they were all the same. Narrow-minded. Violent. Caring nothing for anyone else. Just like any other loud, abusive, small-town bully trying to impose his will on everyone around him.
The one he’d grown up with, for instance.
So yeah, being a cop was a perfect fit. He’d never regretted his choice of careers. Except maybe a tiny bit on days like today. “Come on, Rupert, you punk, come visit Mr. Miller here so I can go home, shave and take a shower,” he said under his breath. Rupert was a low-level dealer. Miller was the big fish who brought in the shit that poisoned kids, ruined lives and sparked crime by addicts desperate to get one more high.
Nailing Miller would help a lot of people…which meant a lot to Nick. Because he’d discovered something else when he’d been fighting half a world away in a war-torn area foreign to anything he’d ever known: he was good at helping people who couldn’t help themselves. That was his talent, his calling.
He’d picked up that burden in Kosovo. And he’d never been able to put it back down.
“Hey, partner, you still awake?”
He slid down, trying not to let his head come in contact with the headrest. His personal ick-limit wouldn’t stand for it.
“I’m here,” he said softly into the small, handheld radio, keeping it concealed by his fingers. “Nancy Drew’s back on the beat, keeping the area safe from miscreants and jaywalkers.”
Dex laughed. He could. He was covering the back of the building. In the shade. In a newer car. With air-conditioning.
Nick was the rookie detective. So he got the P.O.S.
“You ever find out from Rosemary why this friend simply had to move in now?” he asked, his voice still low, his eyes constantly scanning the street.
“She’s an old friend of Rosie’s who’s starting a new photography business,” Dex said.
Hence the camera.
“Apparently she just came out of a really ugly divorce.”
“Wait…there’s a truck pulling up.” Nick lowered the radio, watching in his side mirror as a sizable U-Haul truck maneuvered up the street. It almost clipped a BMW and came damn close to taking out a street sign. As the truck passed, he casually glanced over and saw a small woman with curly light brown hair clutching the wheel as if she was a lion tamer holding a chair.
“No,” he bit out when the truck stopped. “Keep going.”
The radio crackled. “What is it?”
“Trouble. A big truck just pulled up in front of Rosemary’s father’s building and double-parked. It’s completely blocking my visual on the perp’s apartment. Not to mention traffic.”
“Want me to get a uniform out there to tell them to move?”
“Absolutely,” he said when he realized the driver was getting out of the truck. The woman called to someone. Somehow, Nick couldn’t muster up much surprise when he saw she was waving at the nosy photographer, who came jogging over.
That female was destined to be the bane of his existence this week.
He waited, tapping his fingers on the dash, watching the two women from behind his dark sunglasses. They stood beside the truck and talked for a while, looking upset. Finally the short, curly-haired driver pulled a cell phone out of her purse. Crossing the street to the shady square, she sat on a bench and started an animated phone conversation.
“No, you are not doing this,” he muttered, shaking his head as he observed the other one—the tall photographer—open the back of the truck and climb inside.
But she was doing it. As he watched in disbelief, she came staggering down the truck ramp carrying a double mattress. All he could see of her behind the mattress was two sandal-clad feet at the bottom, and two hands clutched on either side. Her oblivious friend was turned the other way, not even watching.
“Dammit.”
He looked at his watch. Tried again to peer around the truck. Wondered just how long it was going to take a beat cop to get his ass here and get the truck off the street. But most of all, he wondered what the heck the woman thought she was doing schlepping furniture all by herself on a hot summer day.
