My Harlequin Romance

I'm pretty certain that I'm not living in one, and there are clues all around me. It would seem that the thump on my head last Sunday afternoon has not transported me into delirium. For instance, my modest "B" endowment would have ballooned to a "DD", and I'd be showing it off with low cut, filmy tops. There isn't a strapping young fellow named Ethan or Rhys living in the little cabin at the back of my estate. Okay, it's not an estate, it's a ranch-style house with an attached garage. And it's not a cabin, it's a garden shed. But a dandy garden shed, I'll have you know! Anyway, Ethan or Rhys or whatever his name is, I keep him around for chopping firewood and posing half naked and sweaty with various yard implements for my entertainment, hears my scream and runs to my rescue. Ethan or Rhys scoops a limp and injured me up into his powerful arms and carries me all the way to the ER! I feel all safe and reassured as I bury my bleeding face into his burly chest. This is when I get a hearty whiff of his man smell. That mildy ambiguous yet overwhelming combination of sweaty pheromones, a masculine sort of woodsy scent, and I'm sure there must be tobacco in there somewhere. I swoon and swear to myself that I will put aside our class differences, marry him and bear his children. Wait a minute, Ethan or Rhys should have been working on the garage door instead of me!! What a worthless hunk of man flesh! Let's try this, then. Our heroine, Isabella or Layne or Raven, plucky girl that she is, rends her flimsy blouse and binds her massive wound with its rags and drives herself to the ER! When she arrives, she collapses into the gallant arms of the handsome and much younger EMT, who carries her into a trauma area and shouts, bandages! lip gloss! antiseptic! get a tetanus shot ready! STAT! When Isabella or Layne or Raven regains consciousness, her entire head is swaddled in a pressure bandage and she cannot see the gorgeous, single intern who is checking her vitals. Later, she will have to decide between the intern and the EMT. Somehow or other, the smell of lilacs helps her choose which man (how can she choose, they both were instrumental in saving her life!) she truly loves. If this really was a romance novel, I'd have to work in a long, arduous journey, probably on a boat, a mistaken identity of some sort, a cruel stepmother, the return of a priceless family heirloom to its rightful owner, a villainous yet attractive antagonist, a happy ending and a dazzling sunset. Rest assured that you won't confuse a bodice ripper with a bad country song. There might be a faithful hound dog or a train, but there will be a glaring absence of trailer houses, pick-up trucks, banjos and light beer.