Killing Time. Leslie Kelly

feed the gossip mill, wouldn’t it?” Louise said. “They already think you’re a horny, hungry devil.”

      A horny, hungry devil. How appropriate for this horny, hungry, insatiable, exasperating man.

      Her teeth clenched and her eyes narrowed as she stared at what the creep had done to the poor little lamb on his hip. Directly across from it, extending from the base of his spine and down over part of his taut left cheek, was a cartoon character. With gaping jaws, a wicked twinkle in its eye and very sharp teeth.

      She recognized the character instantly. From the spiky black fur, and the two pointed ears that might, indeed, peek out from a pair of low-riding jeans, to the glistening, salacious smile, the Big Bad Wolf sat silently on this man’s body like a predator watching for some tempting prey.

      And he had some. Lamb chops en brochette.

      It was funny. Comical. But intensely sexual. A literal warning to any lamb to be wary of wolves with big smiles and knowing eyes. She didn’t know whether to drool or kick him.

      But what really made her react with gut fury was the realization that her little lamb—the one Mick had gotten during his junior year of college in honor of their first anniversary—was no longer alone. A miniature herd of the furry little beasts marched across his back, waiting for their turn to run willingly into the Big Bad Wolf’s waiting mouth.

      And Caroline Lamb had led the way.

      She simply couldn’t help herself. With a strangled cry of fury, she half stood and launched herself into the room.

      “Do the women of the world a favor and shoot the bastard,” she snarled at Louise.

      Then she promptly ruined her grand entrance by losing her battle with gravity and falling flat on her face.

      

      MICK DIDN’T KNOW who the woman lying on the floor was, or why she’d stumbled in just in time to prevent him from trying to physically wrest the gun from Louise Flanagan.

      He did know, however, that she looked damned sexy, face-down, with her short white skirt riding up high enough to show him the hem of her filmy white panties.

      As for why she’d want to shoot him, well, there could be any number of reasons. The first one that came to mind was that he did know her. The legs certainly looked familiar. Then again, any gorgeous legs looked familiar to a leg man.

      “Louise, I think you’ve done enough for this morning,” he said, reluctantly, but necessarily, focused on the woman with the gun, not the woman with the silky underwear. Because as much as he’d prefer not to be the only naked one in the room, he had the feeling the likelihood of the gun going off was better than the likelihood of the brunette’s panties coming off.

      “Your plan obviously isn’t going to work if your father shows up and sees another woman here. Knowing him, it’ll just reinforce his already bad opinion of me. He’ll think I was trying to draw you into something terribly…unsavory.”

      Her face flushed and her mouth dropped into an O shape. “He wouldn’t think I’d do something like that!”

      “He might. So maybe you should go now,” he told her. Despite everything, he felt touched that she cared enough to try to save his reputation. Even if she’d had to shoot him to do it. Somehow, that made about as much sense as anything else in Derryville.

      “We’ll forget this ever happened. Go home.” Then he said, “Leave the gun.” The prankster and movie lover in him almost added “Take the cannoli,” but he doubted either of the women in the room would appreciate the Godfather reference.

      “I…I would never want my daddy to think such a thing,” Louise said, lost in thought, her voice sounding shocked. Her trembling hand dropped to her side, leaving the gun dangling there, pointing at the floor.

      Speaking of dangling…“Can I please get dressed now?” he asked no one in particular.

      The prone woman in the short white skirt, who’d been pounding her fist on the floor and muttering the word “no” over and over into the carpet, finally looked up at that one.

      Looked up. Direct line of sight. Got an eyeful.

      Then he recognized her face and the bottom dropped out of his gut. “Caroline.”

      “Mick.”

      Louise stared at them both. “You two know each other?”

      Know each other. Knew each other. Oh, yeah. A lifetime ago.

      “Go, Louise.” Mick’s voice was thick, his throat tight.

      Caroline Lamb. Here. In his office. Jesus.

      He yanked his khaki pants off the floor and pulled them up over his hips, more to stall for time and regain his suddenly questionable sanity than anything else. It wasn’t like he was covering up something Caroline hadn’t already seen a number of times. Up close. And personal.

      He began to sweat. Caroline slowly rose to her feet, watching his every move. Louise didn’t budge an inch.

      “I can’t believe you did it,” Caroline said, glaring toward his half-covered body.

      “She was holding a gun on me,” he replied in self-defense.

      “Not that,” she said with derision. Brushing past the wide-eyed Louise, she stalked to stand toe-to-toe with him. Mick felt her anger wash over him as tangibly as a blast of heat. Caroline had always blown over him like a blast of heat. Always. Whether she’d been in a rage, laughing, teasing him or kissing him like they needed each other’s breath to survive.

      “I can’t believe you had that…obscene representation of your own shortcomings tattooed onto your back.”

      He almost grinned, suddenly knowing why she was so ticked off. Then his grin faded. No, Caroline wouldn’t like what he’d done with “her” lamb. But he’d had to do it, had to try to make their relationship mean nothing, seem like nothing. Because it had, once upon a time, meant too damn much.

      “Okay, I guess you two do know each other,” Louise finally said as she inched toward the door, probably seeing by the fury in Caroline’s eyes that an assault was, indeed, about to take place here. But instead of defending him, Louise looked ready to leave him to his fate. She also looked amused.

      “The gun, Louise,” Mick said, unable to keep his stare from drifting back to the face he’d never thought he’d see again.

      He heard a thud, and assumed the gun had dropped to the carpeted floor, but he couldn’t look away from that amazing familiar face long enough to make sure. Then the door clicked shut, leaving him alone in his office with Caroline Lamb.

      She’d changed. Matured. Oh, she was still a knockout, but she’d lost that small-town-girl look that used to make her eyes a little brighter and her smile a little sunnier than anyone else’s. Not that she was smiling now.

      “Great entrance,” he murmured. “Graceful as always.”

      She merely closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as they both struggled to regain their composure.

      She was really here. In the flesh. Very nice flesh.

      While she got a grip on herself, he took a moment to devour her with his eyes, noting the things that had changed over time and those that had remained the same. It was easy to tell—her image had been burned into his brain since the day they’d met.

      He studied the way her new, chin-length haircut accentuated the sweet curve of her face and the vulnerable delicacy of her neck. Her makeup was designed to accentuate the alluring, vivid blue of her eyes. God, those eyes, such a stunning contrast to her thick, dark hair.

      She wasn’t quite as slender as she’d been in college, but the curves were in all the right places. His college girl had grown into quite a woman. From the top of her chestnut-brown hair, to the tips of her expensive shoes, she screamed totally-in-control female.

      But