considering that the barren landscape surrounding it was too marshy for farming and too rocky for developing. Reportedly there was no coal in the three mountains ringing the small valley or even a decent slope for skiing.
Just one sorry little town with a cocky name, her home for the next week or two. Or as long as it took to track down Mr. Taylor and get him to come out of hiding as Prince Charming and put on his Hugh Hefner robe.
She was about to swing the car around and head back when she got a welcome distraction. Grabbing her cell phone out of her purse, she recognized the number on the caller ID.
“Nancy, I don’t know anything yet, I just got here,” she said. Her boss, senior editor Nancy Carazzi, had called for hourly updates all morning.
“Are you sure he’s there?”
“How could I be sure of that when I’m still in my car?”
“By the trail of women lying in satisfied puddles of lust around the town square?”
Sabrina chuckled at Nancy’s droll tone. She wasn’t surprised by the question. Though her boss—and friend—had no use for men, in or out of the bedroom, even she had been intrigued by the stories about one Maxwell Taylor, the stud of southern California—at least according to Grace Wellington’s book.
Neither of them had seen a decent picture of the man, since his airline Web site only featured a group shot taken from a distance. Posed beside a fleet of planes, the owner of Taylor Made Air Charters had been indistinguishable from his staff. All of them wearing dark glasses against the sun, they had formed a solid block of blue-uniformed flyboys.
But Grace’s descriptions had been evocative to say the least. And Sabrina could picture him in her mind.
He was suave. Sophisticated. James Bond in a pilot’s cap, with an elegant, lean body and smoothed-back dark hair. He had high cheekbones, a strong chin, and deep, knowing eyes. She just knew it. Because she’d seen him in her dreams. A lot.
“You still there?”
Sabrina cleared her throat and pulled her thoughts off the book. That part of it, anyway. “I haven’t spied any women stripping and throwing themselves naked at a man’s feet.”
“Is that your plan?”
“I’m not the least bit…”
“Can it,” Nancy said. “You think I didn’t notice the dreamy look you got on your face when you were reading the Max chapter of the book? You were intrigued, Sabrina. Hell, I haven’t had any use for a penis since I decided as a kid that Betty should end up with Veronica instead of Archie, and I was intrigued.”
Laughing, Sabrina mentally admitted she’d been more than intrigued. She wouldn’t say so out loud, but in her mind she could acknowledge that her curiosity about Grace Wellington’s former lover had become all-consuming.
“It’s just curiosity,” she insisted, not sure which of them she was trying harder to convince. “Plus a lot of skepticism. And a little bit of disgust.” Okay, she could mentally admit it was titillated disgust when it came to some of the seedier details of the wicked pleasures Max had introduced Grace to.
Wiping her brow with the back of her hand, she wasn’t surprised to find moisture there. Even with the car’s air-conditioning, memories of those scenes made her break out in a sweat. But she gamely declared, “I’d never get involved with someone like that.”
“Who said anything about getting involved? That man was born to inspire clothes to drop, not dreams of wedding rings.”
Unfortunately, sex did mean getting involved for Sabrina—she couldn’t help it. Some fire and brimstone had remained burning deep inside her long after she’d shaken off the dust of her hometown and upbringing, and taken off to the big city to go to college. Her single one-night stand a few years ago had left her feeling so guilty that she’d thrown out the sexy pair of slut shoes she’d worn to the bar that night.
Racked with guilt…hmm, her grandfather would be so proud. After he condemned her for the one-night-stand thing.
She shuddered at the thought of the old man with whom she, her mother and her younger siblings had lived since Sabrina was twelve. But, hey, she was lucky. Only one-third of her childhood had sucked. Her first twelve years had been wonderful. Her sister Allie had also been old enough to remember the good times, and they’d talked often about how fortunate they were because of that.
Sadly, their brother and youngest sister had never even known what their real family life had been like, back when they’d lived in New York and Dad was alive. Since he died when they were babies, all they’d ever known was the judgmental narrow-mindedness of their mother’s father. Which might explain why Sabrina and Allie were so much alike—rebellious and anxious to escape—while the younger two were the models of proper youthful behavior.
God, she felt so sorry for them.
“You’re supposed to be tempting the man into misbehaving. At least that’s what you said when you came to me with this whole harebrained scheme.”
“Don’t remind me,” Sabrina said, shaking off the dark thoughts. “I’m still wondering if I had some kind of psychotic break.”
Nancy snickered. “Don’t sell yourself short. You can do it…you’re just his type.”
“Alive and breathing?”
“Yes. But also beautiful, vulnerable…So why not misbehave yourself while you’re at it?” Nancy asked.
“I’m not looking for a fling with a playboy,” she insisted.
“Yeah, yeah. You want someone nice.”
“Exactly. Decent, funny. A combination of Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks and every father from every old 1950s black-and-white family sitcom on TV Land.”
“Boring.”
She went on as though Nancy hadn’t spoken. “The kind who’ll be loyal and faithful.”
“Get a Labrador.”
“Gentle,” she added.
“Get a girlfriend.”
“Well hung.”
“Get a dil—”
“Don’t say it,” Sabrina ordered. “I prefer male sexual organs that are actually attached to a body.”
“Strap-on?”
Groaning helplessly, Sabrina muttered, “A male body.”
Nancy sighed. “Picky picky.”
One thing was sure, whoever the next serious guy in her life happened to be, he would not be the type who’d get so angry when a woman broke up with him that he’d seek cruel revenge. Like seducing her innocent younger sister, getting her pregnant and walking out on her.
Her sister Allie was currently waiting out the last two months of her pregnancy in Sabrina’s apartment. Allie’s entire life had been ruined as part of the stupid revenge plot concocted by a guy Sabrina had dumped.
Yes, she’d had enough scumbags to last her whole life. It was nice, decent men from now on. No wicked studs need apply.
So her almost overwhelming need to see this Max Taylor in person had to be about curiosity, that was all. She simply couldn’t believe any man could be a modern-day combination of Valentino, James Bond and a porn star—as Grace claimed.
Skepticism and curiosity, she reminded herself. Not interest. Not in a million years.
She was about to continue arguing that point, but a noise distracted her. A metallic banging split the quiet afternoon air. It came from beyond a small stand of scraggly trees right off the road. Just after it came the loud, familiar tones of a calliope—the plaintive call to come to the circus.
Glancing that way, she caught the sparkle of something