Page 64 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

Winifred woke up the next morning and attempted to write. She went about the same rituals that had brought her such success the night before, such as positioning the chair at a slight angle to the fireplace, which had apparently been kick-ass feng shui. She played the same smooth jazz CD as the night before. She drank the same mint herbal tea in the same earthenwave coffee mug, which she placed in the exact same spot to the right of the laptop keyboard.

Last night, this delicate balance had allowed the words and images to fly from her brain so fast, her fingers had trouble keeping up.

But today—zilch. Nada. Not a damn thing. And she’d planned on spending the day adding oomph to the budding relationship between Max and Eva. (She’d decided the exotically beautiful Lebanese-British spy was definitely an Eva, not a Zoe.)

Win shook her wrists and took a deep breath, then positioned her fingers on the keys. What she needed was some red-hot sexual tension, a handful of racy double entendres, and a few scenes where Max and Eva were forced into confined spaces, their lives in danger and their endorphins raging.

Win sensed Lulu staring at her, and looked up to see the dog lying in a pool of sunshine, pity and disdain written all over her curly face.

“I’d like to see you write a red-hot script,” Win said to the dog. “I bet you can’t even type.”

Lulu sniffed the air and turned away, as if she’d been embarrassed by the outburst and was too ladylike to respond.

Win groaned. She jumped up from the straightback chair and began to pace. She rubbed her own shoulders and her own lower back as she let her eyes wander over the huge room. She did some stretches, some wall push-ups, some toe raises. She stood next to the towering window at the front of the house and ran in place for what seemed like seven hours but turned out to be two minutes and thirteen seconds, according to the stopwatch feature on her Rolex.

Her mind wandered to the mountain man, all the subtle sexuality that simmered in his dark eyes. The astounding ledge of his shoulders, the deep rumble of his voice. Where did that guy come from? Could she have imagined him? The idea frightened her—was her stress level so high, she was seeing things? Was she so sex-starved that she was having arousing encounters with pretend men?

Win ran to her laptop, took out the Boney James CD and put in The Black Eyed Peas, then danced around the room singing “Let’s Get It Started” At some point during the chorus, Lulu left the room, obviously needing more dignified environs.

And so it was that at about noon, Win found herself standing at the kitchen sink eating a huge Mrs. Field’s Macadamia Nut Chocolate Chip cookie and drinking skim milk directly from its half-gallon jug, wishing she had chosen to be a kindergarten teacher or a computer chip designer or an elephant trainer—anything but a screenwriter.

Win brushed the crumbs off her shirt and decided that if she wasn’t able to write, then she should do something useful, so she made her bed and rounded up a few dirty clothes—including the jeans she’d muddied running away from the make-believe mountain man—and headed to the washer. She threw them in, poured in the soap and turned the knob. Click.

“What the—?”

Win pushed and turned the damn knob a dozen times and even resorted to reading the operating instructions on the inside of the Maytag lid before she decided the appliance was broken.

When she called Artie’s office, Betsy informed her that her agent was having lunch with a client, and suggested she try the neighbor, Mr. MacBeth. No, Betsy didn’t have a telephone number for him, but the directions to his place were on the fax. Yes, she’d tell Artie to call. Yes, she’d tell him to get the car ready for the next day.

Win put on a pair of hiking shorts and, as a last-minute precaution, she grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen butcher block. She wrapped the knife inside a thick cotton tea towel and shoved it under her belt. Win supposed it was ridiculous to walk into the wilderness prepared to peel an apple, but after that encounter with the animal—and the imaginary mountain stud—she wanted to have something in the form of protection. She left Lulu in the house and headed out.

Win walked across slippery creek stones and climbed the same embankment from which the mountain man had leaped to her rescue the day before. About ten minutes up the trail, she saw a little cabin tucked in the trees. If Artie’s place was Park Avenue, then this place was Possom Holler. It was tidy, but just a simple log structure with a small front porch. And out front sat a big, shiny, black Chevy truck with Virginia plates, which Win found strange. She walked to the front door, worrying that she would be interrupting Mr. Macbeth’s visit from a friend. She knocked and heard a rustling inside.

“Who is it?” asked a male voice.

She cleared her throat and announced loudly, “Mr. MacBeth? I am so sorry to disturb you, but my name is Winifred Mackland and I’m staying at the Jacobs place and Artie said that if I should have any problems, you’d—”

The thick pine door opened, leaving just an old screen between herself and Mr. MacBeth, who, it turned out, was the mountain man, and who had, in fact, ditched the flannel shirt and now stood bare from the waist up. He opened the screen door, and that’s when Win saw that the half-naked man was sporting the most fabulous upper body she’d ever seen, decorated with an angry red welt at the left shoulder in the shape of a small scythe blade, held together with staples.

Win felt woozy. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes settled once again on the painful, crimson pucker of his flesh.

If she were writing this scene, Win would not have awakened the instant her face slammed to the floorboards. Instead, there would have been a dramatic moment when she recovered from her faint only to find Max Mercy—or the mountain man—hovering over her, looking concerned. But no. As it turned out, Win hit the floor, woke up, staggered to her feet and leaned over the porch railing, where she puked into the bushes.

“Expecting someone else, Miss Mackland?” He handed her a damp paper towel.

“Uh. Thanks.” She wiped her mouth. “How do you know my name?”

He shrugged. “The usual way. You just told me.”

“Right.”

“Let me get a shirt on.”

“Perhaps that would be best.”

“Care to come in and freshen up?”

Win follo

---