Book 18 in the Wrong Bed series, 2002

He’d never forget his first glimpse of her. Or his second. She walked in as if she owned the place, and in spite of the chaos around him, Mike Wright's gaze went straight to her.

It was all indelibly imprinted on his mind: the harsh storm outside pounding against the fogged windows of the hotel's pub; the lights flickering overhead as the electricity spiked with the repeated thunder and lightning; the loud strains of Bruce Springsteen blaring from the speakers mounted on the walls; and the even louder voices of the crowd around him talking, laughing, flirting.

He'd been preoccupied, thinking about the reason he was in Huntsville, Alabama, in the first place-his life's work, flying space-shuttle missions. The primary pilot of STS-124 had broken his leg parachuting and the first team backup had contacted hepatitis. All of which left Mike, once the secondary backup, as primary. He'd been called home from Russia, where he'd been on loan from NASA to the Russian space agency for the past decade.

Mike loved being an astronaut, loved his testosterone-run life. But he loved women, too. All of them, all shapes and sizes and colors and temperaments, and everything else faded away the moment she stepped foot into the place-the storm, the crowd, the noise, everything.

She was wet. Drenched, actually, her dark, dark hair plastered to her head, her clothes molded to her body.

Another poor, unsuspecting victim of Huntsville 's weather.

He could empathize, having just come from Russia 's much more predictable climate. But this woman didn't look like anyone's poor, unsuspecting victim, not with all that attitude, fire and rage spitting from her eyes.