Leslie Kelly - Killing Time

“Ms. Kelly has a delightful and engaging voice that had me laughing out loud and relentless in reading every delicious word.”

—The Romance Reader’s Connection

“Leslie Kelly continues to show why she is becoming one of Harlequin’s most popular authors.”

—The Best Reviews

“Ms. Kelly never fails to deliver a captivating story.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“The story is filled with uproariously funny twists, scintillating conversations and steamy hot passion.”

—Romantic Times on Thrill Me

“[Leslie Kelly’s] characters are the kind of people you would love to hang out with.”

—The Best Reviews on Suite Seduction

Dear Reader,

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

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

“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.