Page 4 of The Small-Town Seduction Plan

I check my cell, but I’m not even getting a bar out here. It must be a dead zone. I look around. This is when I normally recruit some strapping man to help me out. Heavy lifting, cutting in line for a cab… it’s amazing what a few smiles and light flirting can achieve. But the highway is deserted, with no other cars in sight except?—

Yes!

I spot a muddy pick-up truck coming into view around the bend, so I start waving to get their attention. The back is loaded up with lumber, and it looks like the owner just drove it through a swamp, but I’m not picky right now.

I wave harder.

The truck slows as it approaches, and then pulls off the highway and parks just behind my rental Mercedes.

“Thank you for stopping!” I beam, already sashaying over to greet the driver as he climbs down. “I think it’s going to rain soon, and I don’t know what I would have done, stranded here on the side of the road.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” a deep voice says. And then he slams the door, rounding the truck, and I stop dead in my tracks.

“You!” I exclaim accusingly.

“Me.” My Good Samaritan glares back at me, suddenly looking just as annoyed.

Six foot two. Broad shoulders. Flannel shirt and old Levis. He’s got a battered baseball cap jammed backwards over his thick dark hair, two-day stubble on his stubborn jaw, and a familiar look of disdain in his clear blue eyes.

Duke Hendricks.

I take it back. I believe in curses, after all.

Not him!

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be caught dead back on the Cape,” he says, leaning back against his truck and surveying me with a scowl.

Duke is a local from Blackberry Cove, some kind of grumpy boat-building craftsman straight out of a Hallmark movie. Minus the heart of gold, that is. He made it perfectly clear when we were filming the movie last year that he can’t stand Hollywood in general – and me in particular. He spent all of the summer grumbling about the movie and glowering at me across the town square, like I’d personally offended his mother, or stolen his favorite wrench.

Clearly, he hasn’t mellowed since then.

“It wasn’t my first choice, that’s for sure,” I reply, trying to sound cheerful and friendly, and like someone you’d want to help out in a jam. “But clearly, the universe is full of surprises, because voilà! Here I am again.”

“Here you are,” he says flatly.

I beam a big smile at him, but Duke’s expression doesn’t change. His gaze drifts over my white linen pants and gold jewelry, then moves from me to the rental car. “Now, why am I getting a serious case of déjà vu?”

I flush. I may have gotten my car stuck in a ditch last year, and needed Duke’s help getting the thing out. Not that he was a gentleman about it; the man huffed and complained so much, I was tempted to leave it there altogether. “It’s not my fault,” I protest quickly. “There was a pothole. It must have caught the tire!”

“That’s what this is about, princess?” Duke asks, and it’s clear from his tone that he’s not impressed. “You need help changing a tire?”

“You don’t need to say it like that,” I mutter, and his eyebrow quirks up.

“Like what?”

“Like you think I’m a useless, shallow waste of space.”

“You said it, darlin’,” Duke drawls, with a lazy smirk. “Not me.”

I scowl. “Just so you know, I have plenty of skills,” I inform him icily, putting my hands on my hips. Somewhere, a little voice is reminding me that snapping at the man isn’t going to help with the whole flat tire situation, but there’s something about the way Duke is looking at me that prickles, hot under my skin. Like he’s wasting his time even talking to me.

Like he’s got me all figured out.

“Skills, huh?” Duke looks me up and down. “I’m sure you do.”

I gasp. “Not like that!” I exclaim, furious now. “Although, you wish you could have a glimpse of what I’m capable of in the bedroom,” I add, stabbing an angry finger in his direction. “You couldn’t handle what this body can do. I make grown men weep!”

“Is that right?” Duke smirks, amused, and my flush only deepens.

---