I have to confess: I’m a reality-show junkie. I’ve watched the greats and the stinkers, been enthralled by The Mole and disappointed by Joe Millionaire II. So when Harlequin gave me a shot at writing my very first single-title-length romance novel, you can bet the reality-show idea popped into my mind.

There was someone else who’d been occupying my mind a lot, too.

Mick Winchester is a guy I’ve wanted since I wrote about him in my October 2003 Temptation novel Trick Me, Treat Me (Jared & Gwen’s story). He was so unrepentantly wicked, so sexy and playful and…just bad…that I found him irresistible. When he popped up again in my novella “Thrill Me” (Sophie & Daniel’s story), which appeared in a Harlequin collection called Reading Between the Lines in January 2004, I knew he had to have his own story.

It just remained to find the perfect woman, that blend of sexy, sassy, smart and strong, who could not only capture a man like Mick, but also hold on to him. TV producer Caroline Lamb is just such a woman.

I hope this story makes you laugh. I hope you can’t put it down. More than anything I hope I give you a few hours of real reading pleasure. That’s all any writer can ask for.

Happy reading, and thanks for all your support!

Leslie Kelly

Killing Time
Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s dedicated to all the wonderful,

supportive people at Harlequin,

who have given me so many opportunities.

Brenda Chin, Birgit Davis-Todd, Marsha Zinberg

and Tracy Farrell, thank you for your faith in me.

I won’t let you down.

And to all those reality-show contestants

and crews. Thanks for the laughs

and the entertainment.

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

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER ONE

“DROP YOUR PANTS.”

Today certainly wasn’t the first time a woman had told Mick Winchester to take off his pants. From playfully suggestive, to wickedly sultry, the sentence conjured up a variety of pleasant memories. Of women. Lots of women.

He just loved them. And he was a lucky enough son of a bitch that they usually loved him back. Usually.

A lot of people had told Mick that women would be the death of him. He’d heard it from ex-girlfriends, from his mother, from buddies who envied his romantic success. Hell, just yesterday his own grandfather had given him a lecture on settling down before some female went Fatal Attraction on him.

He’d laughed off the warnings. How could something he loved as much as women bring about his downfall?

Unfortunately, as he stared down the five-inch barrel of an old Colt .45 handgun, he was beginning to see the possibilities.

“Louise, you don’t want to do this,” he told the woman holding the gun. “Whatever’s wrong, we can work things out.”

“Drop ’em, loverboy.”

She didn’t say another word, merely waiting patiently, watching him the way a hawk might study a tempting bit of prey—with stoic determination and a bit of outright hunger.

He wished he’d opened the blinds as soon as he’d gotten into the office this Monday morning. Perhaps then someone outside might have noticed something odd. Unfortunately, since he had an appointment with an out-of-towner looking for a room to rent, he’d come in early and hadn’t opened the office. He’d left the blinds down and the lights dim in the reception area. No one outside would notice a thing. And his secretary wouldn’t be in for a little while yet.

The out-of-towner wasn’t due for an hour. So whoever the Hollywood woman was, she’d probably walk in after Louise Flanagan finished whatever the hell it was she was trying to do here.

“What are you waiting for?” she finally said, sounding so perfectly reasonable, as if they’d just bumped into one another at the diner or the bank. “I know you’re not hard of hearing.”

“I’m trying to understand why you want to kill me.”

Hell, of all the women in Derryville, this one had the very least reason to hate his guts. And that was saying a lot, since he could easily name several females who would probably like to see him strung up by the nuts.

But Louise? He’d always been polite to the woman, giving her a smile when other people had laughed at her. He’d been nice to her in the old days, when the high school hierarchy had liked to crucify the farmers’ daughters who wore their coveralls to school and smelled of their daddy’s dairy farm.

She gave him a small smile. “Oh, Mick, you old silly, I’m not gonna kill you. Now get naked. Pretty please?”

This was beyond ridiculous, even for him. Oh, sure, he’d been caught naked with women before, once even in the coat-check room of an upscale Chicago restaurant. But never so close to home. Never in his own realty office. Never with a local girl whose family would riot at the thought of their darling hooking up with the wickedest playboy in Derryville, Illinois.

And never, never with Louise Flanagan, his lab partner from tenth grade biology. Louise not only outweighed him by forty pounds, she was the four-time champion hog wrestler at the state fair. Plus, Mick’s and Louise’s grandfathers were long-standing enemies.

“Louise, I’m not going to take my clothes off.”

She cocked the hammer.

“Shit.” He tugged his shirt from the waist of his pants.

“That’s good. Shirt first, that’s proper. But no more cursing,” she said with a tsk. “That’s one of your bad habits. That, your drinking and your cigar smoking are going to be the first things you give up when we get married.”

That one nearly made him choke. “Married?”

She nodded. “Yessir. And soon. Got to get you tied down and rescue you from your overactive manly urges.”

Manly urges. If he’d ever had any in his life, the image of marrying Louise wiped them out of his memory banks.

She continued. “I mean, I knew when I heard about those TV people coming here to do their show that I had to step in before it was too late. I can’t have you losing your head and giving this whole town more reason to think you’re just a good-for-nothing playboy. Not when I know better.”

She gave him a worshipful smile that told him he’d been residing on a pedestal and had never known it. That almost distracted him from the fact that she’d called him a good-for-nothing playboy. But nothing was distracting him from the loaded gun, which she wagged suggestively toward his body.

“Louise…”

“Come on, your shirt’s easy. Just pretend it’s Saturday.”

The twisting turns in the conversation were giving him a headache on top of his hangover. “What?”

“Half the women in this town make a point of driving down your street on Saturday afternoons because they know you’re gonna be mowing your lawn,” she explained.

Half the women in town? No wonder his street was like Daytona during Pepsi 400 weekend when he cut the grass. “So?”

She sighed heavily, explaining as if he were a six-year-old and she a weary parent. “So…you always do it sooner or later. It’s usually after four, when you’ve finished the cutting and you’re just doing the edging and cleanup. And by the way, Mick, you do such a nice job on your lawn, much better than when the Edgertons owned your house.”

“What do I do, Louise?” he asked, still wondering whether she liked him or hated him, wanted to marry him or wanted to kill him. Hmm…when he thought of it that way, she suddenly reminded him of just about every other woman in his life.

“You know what you do,” she said. “You know when you’re almost done, and you’re ready to cool off with a long, wet soak from your garden hose…? That’s when traffic’s the heaviest.”

She gave him a look that said he was supposed to understand what the hell she was talking about. He didn’t. Rolling her eyes, Louise said, “You weren’t this thick in high school.”

“Somehow my brain doesn’t work well when it’s envisioning taking a bullet.”

“Sorry, it can’t be helped. I know even as nice as you are you won’t get naked and be forced to marry me by my daddy unless I force you to get forced first.”

He began to see, as crazy as it was. Louise, the girl he’d been nice to back in high school, wanted to force him to get forced into marrying her so she could help save his unsalvageable reputation. “My head hurts.”

“Stop drinking so many beers on Sunday nights with the fellas after your football games.”

“So, you know my entire weekend schedule, not just my Saturdays in the yard?”

“Oh, yes, Saturdays. Back to the shirt. You always take it off when you hose yourself down after you’re done. Then you get a beer from the fridge on your porch and you pop open the bottle and guzzle the thing down while you’re all wet and shiny.” A pink flush rose in her plump cheeks. “Tons of women plan their Saturday shopping around your yard work. Except, of course, on rainy days. Then they meet in the basement of the dress shop and play cards.”

Welcome to small-town life. Christ, why the hell did he live here again? “That’s crazy.”

Louise obviously saw his disbelief. “Men. You’re all thick. Didn’t you realize why Mrs. Richardson crashed her brand-new Buick into the back of your neighbor’s old AMC Pacer? She was watching you, watching all that sweat mix with the dirt and grass on your shoulders and your arms. Trying to see what we all want to see.”

His hands instinctively dropped to the front of his pants.

Louise giggled again. “Not that.” Then she stammered and looked away. “Well, yes, that. But also, your, um, you know…”

“My…” Hair? Back? Earlobes? What was the woman talking about? And who the hell knew women were as lewd as men when it came to ogling the opposite sex, even if it was a complete stranger? Of course, no one was really a stranger in Derryville.

“Your thingie,” she whispered.

His thingie. A number of thingies on his body tightened up as he waited to hear what all the women in town wanted to peek at.

“My what?” he asked, hoping she meant his checkbook, which should be enough to scare off most women. But he doubted it.

“Your…tattoo!”

He stiffened, his jaw clenching, the response as instinctive as it was predictable. Few people knew the origins of his tattoo, the one spread across his lower back, just below his hips, riding his ass like a low-slung pair of jeans. The tattoo was one subject that was off-limits in his life. As was the woman who’d originally inspired him to get it.

“Forget about seeing my tattoo or anything else. I’m not taking off my clothes.”

Her smile broadened. “Oh, yes, you are.”

“Put down the gun. You already said you wouldn’t kill me.”

She lowered the gun and took careful aim at every man’s Achilles’ heel. The one between his legs.

Muttering another curse—which earned him another tsk—he yanked off his shirt, dropping it to the floor. His Northern brain had no part in that decision. The Southern one had simply taken over in pure self-preservation.

“That’s better. Keep going.”

He hesitated, wondering how this could be happening in his nice little real estate office on the nice main road of this nice small town. If any of his poker buddies ever found out a woman had held him at gunpoint and made him strip, they’d die laughing. Of course, if the story had involved one of his more typical female friends, they’d probably be jealous as hell.

When he didn’t move fast enough, Louise let out an impatient sigh. “You know I wouldn’t kill you. But I can shoot well enough to make sure you behave from now on.” Her stare followed the direction of her pistol, and she let out a quivery sigh as she looked at his pants. “I guess I’d like to see what all the women fuss and carry on about.” Then she squared her shoulders in self-sacrifice. “But if it comes right down to it, I don’t mind having a marriage without those carryings-on between the sheets. Whatever it takes, I’ve got to save you from yourself.”

Marriage and no sex. Funny, at the thought of being married to Louise, he could suddenly understand the appeal. “That’s very kind of you…but I promise, I really don’t mind my reputation.”

She frowned and shook her head. “I do,” she said fiercely. “You’re the nicest man in this stinky town. I’m sick of everyone thinking you’re nothing but a walking cock-a-doodle-doo.”

The cock-a-doodle-doo bit almost made him laugh, particularly because a brilliant flush had darkened Louise’s cheeks when she’d said it, as if she’d uttered an unforgivable swearword. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”

Her expression told him she wasn’t. “It’s because they’re jealous you don’t take up with local women. You go casting your rod into the ponds of other towns, ’steada right here at home.”

She was right. That was one of his unspoken rules, which he’d adhered to for the past several years. Never fish in a tiny lake where it’s not so easy to throw one back.

“But I know with those Hollywood floozies coming to town, the urge might be too much for you. So I’m going to save you.”

Hollywood floozies. It took a second, but he finally figured out what she meant. Derryville was about to be invaded by a TV crew. A new reality TV show called Killing Time in a Small Town was set to film right here. That was the reason for this morning’s meeting. One of the producers was looking for a short-term rental, since Derryville’s only inn was going to be filled up with the cast and camera crew of the show.

“I know you’re not ready to settle down, Mick, but that’ll change once we’re married. Daddy should be here in fifteen minutes or so, after he takes my brothers to football practice. That gives us enough time to get you naked and me—” she flushed again, more brilliantly than before “—mussed.”

Fifteen minutes. Knowing Louise’s no-good old man, who was late on everything from his mortgage payments to his own weddings, that equaled more like an hour. Meaning he had that long to convince her to give up her crazy idea.

A number of possibilities quickly ran through his mind. He could sweet-talk her, reason with her, cajole her…

Or, given her brilliant blushes and the fact that she had never had so much as a date, he could do one thing that was sure to send her scurrying out of here like the scared virgin he knew her to be.

Exactly what she asked him to.

Without another word, Mick Winchester dropped his pants.

THE DERRYVILLE REALTY office was easy to spot on the main street of this small town. Caro Lamb smothered a sigh when she saw the sign, complete with engraved drawing of mom, dad, kid and dog playing happily on the lawn in front of their little house.

A sign like that in L.A. would have to show a hillside mansion and a kid being shuffled between Mom and her pool boy, and Dad and his trophy girlfriend. The dog would be replaced by low-maintenance, no-pooper-scooper fish. The lawn would become a skate park.

Home. A word of infinite definitions. None of which had really rung her bell as yet.

She parked the rental car, which she’d picked up in Chicago after landing there late the night before. Then Caro grabbed her briefcase and stepped out into the bright Illinois morning. “No smog. I don’t think my lungs can take it,” she mumbled.

“Eh?”

She hadn’t even realized an older man pushing a broom was standing on the sidewalk near her car.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, embarrassed to be caught talking to herself. Talking to oneself was something that could really start a rumor in Hollywood. Do that on Rodeo Drive and by the time you got back to your studio office, the execs were calling Betty Ford while your office mates planned your intervention.

Nothing was as “in” in L.A. as the occasional breakdown. Of course, as fun as they were, they also spelled death to a production career in TV. Stars, talk show hosts, radio deejays—they “got well” or “got clean” or “got acquitted” and the studio loved them. But lowly assistant producers hoping for a shot at a lead gig on a prime-time network show and an escape from the lowliest cable fodder featuring an ’80s one-hit-wonder sitcom refugee?

Huh-uh. Death. Absolute death.

There was, of course, one thing worse than the lowliest cable fodder featuring an 80s one-hit-wonder sitcom refugee.

“You’re here for that reality TV show, aren’t cha?”

That’d be it.

“I can tell by the rental plates. And your clothes. And the bored look on your face.”

Caro’s eyes widened. “I’m not bored. I’m just—” procrastinating “—thinking.”

“Bout?”

About being stuck here for three weeks with her entire future on the line. About trying to salvage her third-rated network by riding on the reality TV wave that had crested last season.

“About what a nice, normal town this is.”

That was true. Derryville certainly seemed to satisfy all the requirements the network had laid down when planning for this next volley into the reality TV arena. Killing Time in a Small Town was supposed to take place in an average, all-American place where neighbors were friendly, doors weren’t locked and movie stars’ wives didn’t end up dead in their cars or on their doorsteps.

No crime. Peaceful. Serene. That was what was called for. And then the show would spice it up with a fake murder mystery, with the contestants competing to solve it before getting “bumped off” themselves.

“You been up to the Little Bohemie Inn yet? I hear there was some camerapeople up’t there to do some picture taking.”

“The advance team was here a few weeks ago,” she told the man as she slammed her car door. “They did some exterior filming of the inn and the town. We’ve already started working on commercial spots.”

He didn’t look impressed. That could be a problem, since the town’s residents were supplying the backup to the cast. Killing Time in a Small Town would utilize the residents of Derryville as often as possible. Maybe even the old man leaning indolently against his broom. But that might not work if the rest of the residents looked as uninterested as this fellow.

“I’m sure the town will benefit from the exposure,” she continued. “And America will love this down-home, normal atmosphere.” That’s the plan, anyway.

“Ayuh, she’s a normal small town all right. With everything that goes with it,” the old man said. He gave her a lazy grin, gave himself a comfortable scratch on the belly, and began to laugh. The sparkle in his eyes showed genuine amusement.

Caro had the feeling he was laughing at her. He’d probably pegged her as a big-city L.A. know-it-all who thought small towns were as sweet and simple as they’d appeared in 1950s sitcoms. If only he knew.

She swung her soft-sided briefcase over her shoulder, locked her car and joined him on the sidewalk. “It’s a town like a lot of other ones,” she said evenly, letting him know she understood his laughter.

He studied her. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

But it was. Transplant this place to Kentucky and it would have been the same burg where Caro had grown up. And from which she’d fled as soon as she’d graduated high school.

Small. Quiet. Boring. Judgmental. Unable to forgive or forget, particularly when it came to town bullies and bad boys.

And their daughters.

Small towns hadn’t changed. They all smiled on the outside, but seethed within. She’d never move back to one. Caro Lamb hadn’t ever been tempted. At least, she amended, not tempted for several years. In that instance, she had to admit, it hadn’t been a town tempting her. It had been a man who lived in such a town. The kind of man who could tempt a nun into stripping off her habit to do a bump and grind worthy of the Vegas stage.

Enough, Caro. That subject’s off-limits.

“You really think Derryville’s gonna make it big on the TV?” the man asked, looking as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

“Oh, absolutely,” she replied with vehemence. “This place is just perfect for a reality TV show. Killing Time in a Small Town will be a huge success.”

She prayed it would. It had to be if she ever wanted to make it past assistant producer. By nailing this assignment, keeping costs in line and producing a decent show that lasted more than the kiss-of-death four-week replacement slot, she’d have a shot at a prime-time gig.

She could hardly wait. No more road trips looking for funny home videos, or scouting out wacky ideas for the next grand experiment in the reality game. She’d be in a studio, in charge, in a position of power for the first time since she’d hit Hollywood. Eight years ago, right after she’d gotten her heart broken and dropped out of college to head west.

“You going into the realty office?” the old man asked.

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged. “Saw the owner show up early. Only reason to do that is if he had an appointment.”

“I guess he got my message,” she said. She was only in town for the day to find suitable accommodations. She’d called the realty office yesterday, asking the secretary if she could come in an hour before her scheduled appointment time, since her return flight was earlier than she’d expected.

The woman had promised to try to notify the Realtor. Obviously, since he’d come in early, his secretary had succeeded.

“Enjoy your visit,” the old man said. Then he casually stepped away, continuing to push his broom, stirring up nothing but some stale summer air, puffs of dust and a few random cigarette butts.

“Thank you,” Caro said to his retreating back. Then she turned toward the office of Derryville Realty. The place looked closed from the outside. The blinds were drawn, with no hint of interior light peeking through to indicate anyone was around. The old man had said there was, however, and he seemed like the kind of person who knew all, saw all. And commented on all.

Unsure whether to knock, Caro first tried the door handle. When it twisted easily in her hand, she stepped inside. The outer reception area was, indeed, dark and deserted. Before she could decide whether to just sit down and wait, or step back outside, she heard voices coming from an inner office.

Glancing at her watch, she made out the numbers in the semidarkness. “It is 8:00 a.m.,” she whispered. And since she had to first find accommodations, do the paperwork, and then get back to Chicago for her flight home to L.A., she wasn’t in the mood to sit patiently.

Following the sound of the voices, she rounded a sofa and coffee table loaded with sale flyers, finance company brochures and photo albums. An archway revealed a back hall, lined with closed doors, one saying Meeting Room, another Restroom. The rest were unmarked offices. One of those doors was partly open, the inside brightly lit. That’s where the voices were coming from.

Standing in the darkened hallway, Caro had an easy view of the people in the room. But it still took a moment for her to mentally assess what was happening.

A woman stood inside, with her back to the hall. She hadn’t even noticed Caro’s entrance. Stepping closer, Caro realized why the woman was so distracted.

She was staring toward a man. A bare-ass naked man.

A bare-ass naked man with a very nice ass.

“Son of a….” she whispered.

They didn’t hear. Obviously whatever was happening in the room had engaged their complete attention.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Louise, haven’t you gotten a good enough look yet?” the man asked over his shoulder, his back to his captor.

Though the question obviously hadn’t been directed at her, Caro immediately answered for the woman. No. Huh-uh. Not enough. Not nearly.

“Nope,” the woman replied.

Good answer, Louise.

“Can I at least turn back around?”

Oh, please please please please please.

“Not just yet.”

Argh.

Finally realizing exactly what she was doing, Caro sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and stepped back, pressing herself against the corridor wall. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she struggled to control her ragged breathing, wondering why the duo couldn’t hear her shocked inhalations.

Obviously, the Realtor hadn’t been showing up early for her benefit. He’d had another kind of appointment altogether. The sexual kind. The kind that urged her to move her feet and get the heck out of the building before the panting and moaning commenced. At this moment, Caro really couldn’t be sure she, herself, wasn’t already doing one or the other.

“Good Lord, no wonder the women in this town are all fools whenever you’re around,” Louise, the woman in the office said.

One fool standing in the hallway completely concurred.

A discreet person would have left immediately. A calm business executive would have cleared her throat to alert them that someone was present. A sane woman would have resisted thinking about how the rest of the naked male body might look.

Caro did none of the above.

She stayed right where she was. Waiting, trying to work up the strength of will to leave quietly and not steal another peek. Finally, good sense won out. No matter what, she was not a Peeping Tom. She hadn’t been reduced to the level of a woman who hadn’t had sex in so long she had to live vicariously through other people’s sexual adventures.

Preparing to walk away and come back later when the Realtor was less, um, occupied, she pulled away from the wall. But before she could take one step, the woman in the office said something that made her freeze in place.

“I hope I don’t have to shoot you, because there isn’t a place on ya that isn’t just about perfect.”

At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She replayed the words in her mind as the truth dawned.

She hadn’t interrupted anything as mundane as an office romance. Either these two were playing some kind of fun and kinky sex game—burly prison guard attacks sexy, helpless, naked, studly criminal came to mind—or else a crime was being committed.

One scenario said she had to leave. The other demanded she stay. Because, it was entirely possible Mr. Naked Guy was about to get shot.