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1
As far as Sloane Russo’s family was concerned, if you were over eighteen, you were either happily married or dead, with no in between. The distinct lack of a ring on her finger suggested she looked pretty damned fine, considering she’d been a corpse for nearly fourteen years. Not that it made a difference to her mother.
“Ma, do we need to have this discussion right now? I’m only in New York overnight, and I’ve got to get ready to meet with Belinda.” Sloane riffled through the bright tangle of clothes in her suitcase, searching in vain for her black push-up bra. It was God’s cruelest joke that she’d been gifted with the impossibly long legs of a runway model yet no bust to speak of, as if she was the living embodiment ofclose, but no cigar.
Wasn’t that just the story of her life?
Her mother crossed her arms over her modest pink blouse as she scowled from the doorframe of Sloane’s childhood bedroom. “I don’t understand why you insist on meeting with that woman. You only have one night before you go back to Pine Mountain. What about going to a nice dinner with Joey Romano? He always asks after you.”
Sloane swallowed a laugh. “You’re talking about a guy who tried to get me to eat paste in the second grade.”
“You and that crazy imagination.” Her mother tsked, but no way was Sloane letting her creative streak take the blame for this one.
“I remember it like it was last week. He put it on a lunch tray and told me it was mashed potatoes. Said it would stick to my ribs.” At least Sloane hadn’t been thick enough to fall for it. Poor Frannie Bascom hadn’t been so lucky, and the nickname Paste Face had stuck with her for years.
Her mother changed tactics. “That was decades ago! You can’t at least call him to say hello?”
“It’s probably not a good idea for me to date someone from Brooklyn.”Sloane dodged the subject with well-practiced grace, although her mother put the screws to her on such a regular basis, there was no chance the topic was dead.
“What’s wrong with dating someone from the neighborhood?” Her mother’s tone matched her expression in both intensity and temperature.
“Nothing, except I don’t exactly live here right now.”
Another sore subject, if her mother’s frown was any indication. “Don’t remind me. You’re still back here enough to at least give it a try.”
Sloane’s hands flew over the sweaters and silk as she continued to rummage. “But that’s only to visit. I just don’t think it would work out.”
As expected, her mother refused to be deterred. “Your father and I knew each other in the third grade. Even then, I realized he was something special.”
“I know, Ma.” Of course she did. The love-at-first-sight story was Russo family legend. But as sweet as it was, it certainly didn’t translate to her marrying Joey Romano. After all, she hadn’t been kidding about the paste.
“It’s only dinner, Sloane Marie. And Joey is such a nice boy. Why do you have to be so difficult?”
Sloane’s grip tightened over the lipstick-red sweater dress in her grasp. “I’m not being difficult. I’ve already got plans.” Her hands kicked back into gear, just as fast and twice as purposeful. “To answer your earlier question, I’m meeting with Belinda because she’s my editor. She wants to talk about the proposal for my next book. Once she gives me her feedback, I can start writing, which I’ll probably do tonight. So I wouldn’t be able to go out with Joey, even if he’d asked.”
Sloane let the sentence hang, hammering home the unspokenwhich he didn’t. Honestly, her mother’s matchmaking was getting out of hand. So she’d rather see the world than settle down with a guy from the neighborhood like her sisters. In the grander scheme of life, there were worse things Sloane could be than capricious.
“Oh, no you don’t! You’re not wasting a perfectly good chance to go out on a date. Who knows what the men are like all the way out in that tiny town you’ve landed in, or how long you’ll even stay there? You move like the wind, never too long in one place. Pretty soon it’s going to be too late for you to find a nice man the settle down with.” Her mother wagged a thin finger at her, but two could play at the stubborn game. Sloane put her hands on her nonexistent hips and forced a smile over her mouth.
“Living in different places makes me well-rounded, Ma. And Carly needed me in Pine Mountain. I’m happy staying there for now.”
She didn’t add that settling down wasn’t on her agenda, or that her mother was spot-on about the dating pool in the Blue Ridge. But Sloane had moved to the mountains to support her best friend through a horrible divorce and a career transformation. Lack of man candy aside, Sloane wasn’t bending the truth when she said she enjoyed living there.
For the moment, at least.
“Five places in ten years isn’t well-rounded,bambolina. You need to settle down.”
“It’s only been four places.” Sloane pulled another dress from her timeworn and travel-battered suitcase, smoothing her fingers over the herringbone-print fabric in approval as she shook it out. “Europe doesn’t count.”
“You spent almost five months there,” her mother argued, and Sloane had to bite her lip to keep from smiling in admission.
“What can I say? It’s not every day you find room at hostels in Madrid, Venice,andCh?teauroux. It made for a nice trip.”
So nice, in fact, that she’d written her first published book during those months. Being abroad had not only sparked her to formally study creative writing upon her return, but the research she’d done in the gorgeous locales had given her enough fodder to write two more bestsellers while she’d earned her master’s degree. Not to mention springboarding her into the only career she’d ever had that didn’t feel like a nine-to-five grind.
And Sloane had dabbled in more of those than she cared to count.
Using the details from whatever town she’d landed in as she’d toured Europe had worked like a well-traveled charm, and had launched her quickly through the romance-writer ranks. She’d planned on changing things up for her latest series and writing about small-town heroes, although she’d fudged around with the exact details in her proposal. Still, once Belinda gave her the green light today, she’d be fine, and her muse would come out of hiding to get the ball rolling again. After all, Belinda had loved her European Bachelors series, and The Men of the Mountains books were going to be just as hot. As soon as she got started, anyway.
