“Honk If You Love Real Men”

Excerpt from “Have Mercy,” novella by Susan Donovan

“Who is it?” asked a male voice.

She cleared her throat and announced loudly, “Mr. MacBeth? I am so sorry to disturb you, but my name is Winifred Mackland and I’m staying at the Jacobs place and Artie said that if I should have any problems, you’d –”

The thick pine door opened, leaving just an old screen between herself and Mr. MacBeth, who, it turned out, was the mountain man she’d seen in the woods earlier, and who, in fact, had ditched the flannel shirt and now stood bare from the waist up. He opened the screen door, and that’s when Win saw that the half-naked man was sporting the most fabulous upper body she’d ever seen, decorated with an angry red welt at the left shoulder in the shape of a small scythe blade, held together with staples.

Win felt woozy. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes settled once again on the painful, crimson pucker of his flesh.

If she were writing this scene for one of her screenplays, Win would not have awakened the instant her face slammed to the floorboards. Instead, there would have been a dramatic moment when she recovered from her faint only to find the hero, Max Mercy, hovering over her, looking concerned. But no. As it turned out, Win hit the floor, woke up, staggered to her feet, and leaned over the porch railing, where she puked into the bushes.

“Expecting someone else, Miss Mackland?” He handed her a damp paper towel.

“Uh. Thanks.” She wiped her mouth. “How do you know my name?”

He shrugged. “The usual way. You just told me.”

“Right.”

“Let me get a shirt on.”

“Perhaps that would be best.”