Melody wasn’t convinced. “This is only a joke, right? So who cares if I put Brad Pitt on there?”
Tanya blew out an impatient breath. “Of course it’s just for fun. We know you’re not a hootchie mama who’d hook up with a dude because he’s on some list. But don’t you sometimes like to wonder ‘what if?’ What fun is wondering ‘what if’ if there’s never a chance in a million years that it’ll happen?”
“Hootchie mama?” Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Really, Tanya, you’re so…descriptive.”
“Up yours,” Tanya said sweetly. She lifted the pen. “Now, Mel, your list?”
Nibbling on her lip for a second, Mel thought about it. Thankfully, the margaritas were finally kicking in. Besides, these were her best friends and, like Tanya had said, it was just silly fun. No way would any of them really jump into bed with a man at first sight. Well…maybe Rosemary, who, to be honest, had a more-than-active libido. But probably not.
Tapping her index finger on her cheek, she came up with what she thought they’d find an acceptable choice. “Jonathan Rhodes.”
“Ooh, our hunky new congressman?” Paige said.
“What can I say? I had to admire his guts with the sexy way he said his slogan.” She lowered her voice and did a bad Austin Powers impression. “I will take you with me to Washington, baby.”
He hadn’t done the baby part, but it was implied. Every time she’d heard it, Mel had given reluctant credit to the guy for appealing to female voters, who were obviously supposed to ignore the second half of that sentence and vote for him on innuendo.
The others nodded their approval, so Melody added another name—of a local guy who’d been making a name for himself on the PGA tour. His preferences meant he wasn’t much of a possibility, but he did have a cute smile. And a decent backswing.
“You know, honey, that sweet-looking man is probably not out of the realm of possibility,” Rosemary pointed out. “I bet he’d let you handle his putter any old time you asked him.”
“I hear he’s gay.”
“Ahh.” Rosemary nodded, not doubting Melody’s infamous sources, who’d kept them all in-the-know in the old days.
“Isn’t that cheating if he’s gay?” Paige asked indignantly.
“You said improbable. Not impossible. Besides, this is for fun, right? I don’t have to be too realistic. Even if he is gay, he’s still more likely than Brad Pitt.” Then, thinking of someone else, she added the name of a local TV reporter. “Drake Manning.”
Paige wrinkled her nose. “Slimy.”
That was surprising coming from Paige, who was, to be honest, the nicest one of their group. “You think?”
She nodded. “His hair never moves. I think you could hit it with a sledgehammer and it’d bounce right back into place.”
Tanya harrumphed. “It’s Mel’s list. You can put nothing but fluffy-haired heterosexuals on yours but it’s not your turn.”
“Sorry,” Paige said, looking sheepish. “Go on, Mel.”
Melody continued to think, but it was tough. Eliminating movie stars cut out about eighty percent of the men she’d ever fantasized about. Frankly, she’d never had much time for men. Her few sexual experiences before her chaste fiancé had been on-the-run affairs with an ambitious photographer who wanted to take her picture more than he’d wanted to take her. And then there’d been a male model who made friends with every mirror he met. That was it.
She sighed. “Lately my only fantasies have been about the chocolate volcano cake at Chez Jacques. I’m dying for some, but one bite’ll make my butt bulge out of my wedding gown.”
Tanya grunted, probably because she was thin as a rail and ate like a linebacker. Unlike Melody, who had been taking note of every morsel she consumed since her ninth birthday when her mother had given her an electronic calorie counter instead of the Hello Kitty play set she’d asked for.
“My father knows the chef at Chez Jacques,” Rosemary said. “His name’s not Jacques, it’s Charlie.”
“Okay, Charlie the chef,” Mel said. “He’s fourth. A man who makes art out of chocolate must be good with his hands.”
Then there was one slot left. One more fantasy guy. One more traitorous thought of another man before she ended the naughty game and focused on her fiancé. Her reality.
Draining the rest of her margarita, she contemplated naming whoever had invented fat-free cheese curls, if only to balance things out with the chocolate guy. The words were on her lips when suddenly the big-screen TV over the bar caught her eye. Or, rather, the news segment playing on it did.
She couldn’t hear well, but she didn’t have to. She knew the story. Everyone was talking about the Georgia hero who’d rescued some orphans in a third-world country. A photographer had captured the amazing moment, right in the heat of battle, and the picture had graced the cover of Time magazine last week.
It was the magazine cover that filled the screen right now as the Savannah station picked up on the Georgia-boy-done-good angle. Melody stared, unable to tear her eyes away from the haunting image. The thick-armed marine—strikingly handsome even while covered with grime and streaked with soot—was heroism personified. In one arm, he cradled a baby while, with the other, he braced an older child against his side. A tiny pair of hands and a little tear-streaked face peering above his shoulder said there was a third youngster clinging to his back.
The soldier’s dusty face was grim with resolve, his body reportedly wounded yet still so strong. The taut cords in his neck spoke of adrenaline, anger and battle—all so stark against the tenderness with which he held the children. Behind him was the outline of a burning building, orange flames merging with streaks of light that could only have been mortar fire.
But it was the eyes that got to her. The dark brown eyes, full of determination, emotion. Anger and mourning. Eyes that said he had seen too much and been cut too deeply for someone as young as he appeared to be.
His image burned itself into her brain, remaining there long after the news segment had ended and the picture had disappeared.
“Mel? You okay?” Paige asked.
She nodded slowly. Then, without having to give it another thought, she whispered, “Move everyone on the list down one.”
Melody didn’t even know the guy’s name or where he lived. Or even if he’d make it back from his next mission in whatever war-ravaged country he was in now.
She wanted him. Passionately. Unequivocally. Undeniably.
“Marine hero on Time magazine. He’s in first place,” she murmured, still visualizing his face.
There was no doubt in her mind that if she ever met the man with the haunting brown eyes—which had seemed to stare directly at her from the cover of the magazine—he’d be absolutely impossible to resist. He was larger than life, a once-in-a-lifetime fantasy man. A hero.
And now, the number-one guy on her Men Most Wanted list.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
THE REDHEAD WITH the camera was spying on him again.
Nick Walker glanced into his rearview mirror and saw the woman skulking around the corner of the church across the square. Every once in a while, she lifted the big camera that hung from one shoulder, swinging it in front of her face to snap off a shot of the trees. The birds. The sky. The church.
All of which was to hide her real photographic subject. Him.
He sighed deeply, shaking