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Excerpted from Ready and Willing:
While parts of Prescott, Texas may have
grown since his boyhood here, Noah found that the outskirts where farms and
residential ranches existed looked exactly the same. On the two-lane road,
with rain ditches and fenced pastureland running alongside, there was no
lighting except the stars in the sky. The stillness he could now appreciate
as peaceful had seemed awfully stifling to a teenage boy.
Staring
ahead, Noah almost missed the flash of headlights to his right, just below
street level. A car had gone into the ditch, and a woman stood near the
hood. He couldn't make out any of her features from here, but her curves
were nicely silhouetted.
He veered
toward the right, flipped on his hazards and parked. While he had left his
cell phone in Dallas as a result of impromptu packing and couldn't call for
assistance, he was pretty good with cars. His older brother had been
better, but at least Noah wasn't prone to hot-wiring and joyriding.
Shutting
his cab door, he called out a greeting. "Hello, down there. Need a hand?"
At the
truck's approach, the stranded woman had moved to the driver's seat, halfway
inside with her hand on the open door. Her delicate features, short brown
hair and full mouth were captured in the glow of the car's interior light.
"Hi," she
returned, her voice neutral despite her
I'm-prepared-to-jump-in-and-lock-all-the-doors posture. "I swerved to miss
a deer and lost control for a minute, but I think the front-end damage is
mostly cosmetic."
"I'm Noah.
I'd be happy to take a look for you."
"That's not
necessary. I'm just going to gun the accelerator and get her back up on the
road. No offense, but I'd prefer you not come any closer. Also, my
cell-phone's right here and I have a can of pepper spray in my hand."
He stopped
short, not sure whether he was amused or insulted by her warning. To think,
he'd thought her delicate-looking!
So much for
the myth of damsels in distress.
###
Nice, Bree.
Brianne McCormick sighed. Women all over the world complained that
chivalry was dead, and here she was, driving nails into its coffin. Still,
her upbringing had left her too aware of predators and con artists, and she
was shaken by this morning's news of a robbery. So when a strange man
parked behind her in the middle of the night and approached, Brianne worried
more about safety than manners.
"I throw myself on your mercy, ma'am." Though she couldn't see it, she
heard a smile in Noah's voice. She practically detected dimples. "I'm
unarmed, don't even have a phone."
Unarmed? The way he drawled "ma'am" was
dangerous in its own right. When the sheriff had called her that earlier
today, it sure hadn't sounded like warm
butterscotch syrup being drizzled over
rapidly melting ice cream.
Copyright by
Tanya Michaels ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. The edition
published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. For more romance
information, surf to:
http://www.eHarlequin.com .
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