When opposites attract, nothing can stand in the way.

Excerpt From "The Thrill Of It All"

Felicity Charm awoke to find herself flat on her back, her head pounding and her mouth dry. Not ready to open her eyes, she licked her lips and tried accounting for her grogginess. The only time she'd felt like this was after her first freshman dorm party and too many Dixie cups of Mountain-Dew-and-lime-sherbet wine cooler. At the thought, her heart started thumping in time with her head, and she groped along either side of herself, eyes still tightly shut. It seemed wiser that way.

The morning after the wine cooler wingding, she'd found herself in her single bed, fully clothed, but not alone. The couple sharing the mattress had never bothered to introduce themselves, though they'd dressed hastily enough after startled good-morning shriek.

But this time there weren't any warm bodies beside her, nor any warm sheets, for that matter. Only sand. Cold sand?

Felicity let her eyelashes part. Dark night sky. A gazillion stars, like you only saw in the desert.

Desert. Oh.

She closed her eyes again as her head redoubled its Blue Man Group rhythm. She'd been in Vegas. Won the Joanie award. Called Aunt Vi. With the keys to a brand new Thunderbird convertible in her hands, she'd taken it into her now-aching head to immediately climb into the thing and hie off for her hometown of Half Palm, California.
Memory returned in a series of snapshots. Speeding through the night. The car suddenly losing traction. The steering wheel wrenched out of her hands.

Then...then... Nothing.

Until the cold sand, the dark night, the gazillion stars. Oh, God. She was alone in the dark in the desert, just her and the sand and--her eyes shot open and she instinctively jackknifed to a sitting position, jerking arms and legs close to her chest as a ripple of goosebumps moved over her skin--every freaky, creepy, crawly, hairy, scary, multilegged nocturnal critter that called the night its own.

A man's voice sounded behind her. "You're back."
True to form, Felicity shrieked, her head whipping around. She stared at a pair of denim-covered kneecaps, then her gaze followed long legs upward as she took in the new throb at her temples, the new rasp in her throat, and--she blinked a couple of times to be sure--the new man in her life.

"You." Fear evaporated. "It's you."

The stranger's shoulders twitched, as if she'd spooked him. "Me?"

That's right, she thought, now confused. He was a stranger--someone she'd never seen before, and one of those dark, reckless-looking types she'd always been careful to shun. Yet...

Felicity put up a hand to hold her aching head, trying to make sense of this certain, deep-down recognition. There's something...I..." What there was, was no way to explain it, she realized, embarrassed heat washing over her face. "You said, 'You're back.' I guess I, uh, thought you knew me."

Lame, but it was the only excuse her hazy brain provided.

It seemed to satisfy him, though, because he lowered to a crouch beside her. "I meant you're back with me. I've been waiting for you to open your eyes."

"What--" She broke off as she took in the sight over his shoulder. "My car." It was nose-to-nose with some sort of black, heavy metal vehicle that belonged at an Iron Maiden concert or in a Terminator movie. Worse, her once sleekly built automobile now had the profile of a pedigreed Pekingnese. "My new car."

"And my old one," the man added dryly.

Felicity's gaze moved back to his face, and her thoughts were derailed by another wave of that odd, undeniable familiarity. How did she know him? she wondered, attempting to sift through the muddle in her head. Had they met sometime before?

His face was lean, with high cheekbones and deep, outdoorsy brackets around his mouth. A breeze stirred the ends of his tangle of black hair and she could swear she remembered them brushing against her cheek.
She shivered.

His already grim expression deepened. "You should lie back down." He reached out as if to help her, but she scooted away to avoid him.

That was odd too, because she could swear she already knew his touch.

"Listen," he said. "You need to take it easy after the accident."

The accident. The fog in her head cleared more and her gaze jumped to their cars, then back to him. "Oh, my God. I didn't, did I? Tell me I didn't hit you?"

"No can do, dollface," he replied, shaking his head. "You hit me, all right, even though my car's gotta be the only thing bigger than yours within a thirty-five-mile radius."

Her jaw dropped. "But--but how can that be?"

His teeth flashed in something that wasn't a smile. "Karma. The way I figure it, you're my very own spitwad of bad karma."