However, in an instant-in less than a breath or the bat of an eyelid-the elusive pepper spray hiding somewhere in her purse was all but forgotten. For standing before her-right there before her, not three feet away-was the best-looking, most gorgeous, handsomest man she had ever seen in all her life "No, seriously," she thought out loud with lingering bewilderment at how perfectly stunning the man standing before her was, wearing a worn pair of Levi's, dusty cowboy boots, and a short-sleeved, plaid-print, snap-up shirt that hung open, revealing a bronzed, perfectly sculpted torso that was simply a mass of muscles. She was so unsettled by the man's appearance that she wasn't sure whether she was whispering aloud to herself or her car. Either way, the man asked, "Beg your pardon, ma'am?" "Oh...oh, nothing," Fairlee said as she began rummaging in her purse again. But the man's presence and appearance had entirely rattled her. As her awe-inspired brain obviously quit sending out instructions to the rest of her body, Fairlee felt her purse slip from her hands-watched in humiliated dismay as its contents tumbled out and scattered over the shoulder of the road."