Nora Roberts Land

by Ava Miles

  Kindness didn’t happen often in New York. In her hometown of Dare Valley, Colorado, it happened more times than she could count. “Thank you.” A wave of homesickness hit her. “Maybe you’re right, Jill. It would be nice to be around people who know me.”

  “Good! So think about it. Talk to Karen. Now, drink your latte, and then we’ll talk you into the romance section. Nora Roberts Land awaits.”

  A smile tugged at Meredith’s lips. “I forgot how mom always used to call Nora’s books that. She’d point her finger at dad and say she was taking a few hours to visit Nora Roberts Land, and then she’d seal herself off in the bedroom. Like it was an adult version of Disneyland. Dad never got it.”

  “Yeah, but at least he didn’t blame divorce on Nora’s books. Rick-the-Dick’s the kind of man who can’t take responsibility for his cheating, so he blamed it on you—and fiction. Isn’t that the most pathetic thing ever? It’s like blaming teen suicide on Romeo and Juliet. It’s asinine.”

  “Actually, I think that’s been done.” She took the last drink of her latte and stood. Tested her balance. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “So strut your stuff over to the romance section.”

  She didn’t strut. She stumbled—twice. Thank God there were scads of bookshelves to grab. As she passed the periodicals, she stopped in her tracks, her eyes zeroing in on a picture of her ex and the cocky smile he used to make women fall for him, her included.

  “Richard’s on the front of The New York Man, ” she rasped, taking in the navy suit and patriotic red tie. “Huh?” Jill asked, probably because Meredith sounded like a smoker on oxygen.

  “Rick-the-Dick is on the cover of a magazine,” she said, enunciating each word. “It’s like a weekly local GQ. ”

  “What does it say? Please tell me he’s come out as a cross-dresser and is modeling your La Perla lingerie.”

  After her split with Rick, she’d thrown out all of her cotton underwear, substituting it for La Perla bustiers and matching panties. Cinched in luxurious lingerie, Divorcée Woman was kind of like a superhero, sans the billowing cape and iridescent tights. Sure, it was a bit strange to create an alter ego for yourself, but it was helping her move forward. She could pretend she was a young and hot New Yorker, capable of bringing any man to his knees.

  It had been a while since she’d brought a real man to his knees. A long, long while.

  Since Rick-the-Dick. The bastard.

  She read the headline: “Media Mogul Throws Hat into Political Ring.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said, picking up a copy.

  “What?” her sister yelled.

  “The rumors were true.” She thumbed to the article. “Rick’s finally going to do it. He’s formed an exploratory committee for the Senate.”

  “You’re kidding. Man, this is the only time I wish I was a New Yorker so I could vote ‘no’ in the ballot box.”

  She scanned the article, holding her breath as she checked to see if he’d stuck to their bargain. Her unease grew when she reached the part about their divorce. He hadn’t. Isn’t that why her pulse had started pounding the second she saw the cover? “He broke our agreement not to talk about the divorce.”

  “Asshole fink. What does it say?”

  “It says…” Her heart rate doubled as she read the print. She was tempted to put her head between her legs, standing up. “He said we had different ideas about our life together. He wanted to serve a higher good. Give the public information to…improve their lives. Bullshit. Oh, and now he wants to be a public servant in an elected office. He said I wanted a more traditional family with kids— the kind you read about in books—not that he’s against that.” Pain seared her temple at the betrayal even as she wanted to rip apart the magazine. Her old wounds emerged, raw and fresh.

  “Asshole, dickwad…” her sister said.

  Jill continued to call him names while Meredith’s head spun. She tagged a bookstore worker, who was carrying an armful of books. “When did this come out?”

  The young woman stopped and puffed out her chest. “That’s an advance copy. We negotiated to receive it a few days earlier than the other outlets since it’s such a big story. He’s cute, huh? I’d vote for him.” She sashayed off without another word.

  Meredith turned back to her cell phone. “We agreed we wouldn’t talk about the divorce. We shook on it.”

  “When did he ever keep a promise? I’ll bet he’s super nervous you’ll tell the media about his infidelities. Voters don’t like cheaters.”

  Or politicians who paid for sex…But that hadn’t stopped him. Nothing did. That’s why people called him a mogul. Her phone beeped again. She looked at the display. The familiar number had her breath hitching again. Then her anger dug in.

  Rick-the-Dick was calling her. Well, he wasn’t the only one who had something to say.

  “Jill, it’s Richard. I’ll call you back.”

  “Wait—”

  She clicked over. “What in the hell do you want?”

  “Meredith,” he uttered brightly. “I take it I didn’t reach you before you heard the news.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I called your assistant three times this morning. When she finally said she couldn’t reach you, I decided to try your cell.”

  She leaned against a display. The sound of his smooth, charming voice made her knees shake. It was the first time she’d spoken to him in a year. “You bastard. You broke our agreement.”

  “Well, it couldn’t be avoided. Voters want to know. I was as charming as I could be. I praised you to high heavens, but the writer didn’t choose to include those quotes.”

  Clorox couldn’t clean the bullshit off that one. “I’ll bet.”

  “So, I’m calling to touch base. I don’t think too many reporters will call you now that I’ve announced I’m forming an exploratory committee, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your statements short and sweet. You can say what a great guy I am, and think I’d be a great senator even though we couldn’t make it work as man and wife.”

  The nerve. She saw red for reasons other than a lack of oxygen. “You bastard.”

  “Now, Meredith…”

  “No, you stop right there! You didn’t call earlier because you knew I’d object. You’re selfish to the last.”

  A few people browsing raised their eyebrows at her and hustled by.

  “Dammit. I hoped you wouldn’t be like this. I gave you a generous settlement for Christ’s sake.”

  Money was one of his many tools of manipulation. “It was never about the money. God. I loved you!” She ground her teeth for control. Two could play this game. She had tools of her own. “Were you hoping to buy my silence?”

  “Meredith—”

  “Shut up. You know what I know, and if you don’t leave me alone and out of your…bullshit public servant messages, I can’t be held accountable for my actions, just like someone else I know.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “Don’t manage me! You don’t have any right to tell me what to do, and if you try, I swear I’ll make you regret it. Goodbye, Richard.”

  She hit the off button so hard she broke a nail. Her head buzzed like a swarm of bees had found honey in her hair. She stomped over to the Romance section.

  She was not letting him control her anymore.

  Her feet rushed forward, and before she knew it, she was holding Nora’s newest hardcover in her hands. She caressed the spine. Traced the NR logo. Took deep breaths to calm her pounding heart.

  How could she have ever bought into Rick-the-Dick’s accusation?

  He was full of shit—a whole crock of it.

  Their divorce didn’t have anything to do with some highfalutin image of romance and marriage. It had ended because she’d been married to a cheating, megalomaniacal asshole.

  God, she had to get over this, over him. She was not going to let him ruin the rest of her life.

  She pressed the book to her chest. Her racing heart calmed. She
could feel a warm embrace from Divorcée Woman.

  Nora’s books lifted the human spirit, making her readers hope for the best—romance, hot sex, love, independence, family, and good conquering evil. Nora Roberts Land. She wanted to believe in that again.

  No, she needed to believe in that again.

  She walked through the stacks to pick up the other books released since her divorce—especially the ones Nora published under the pen name J.D. Robb. She needed a Roarke fix big-time. Maybe someday she’d find her own version of him.

  Her eyes fell on Nora’s anthology Going Home. It reminded her of Jill asking her to come home and help their family. What was more important than that? If she remembered the story right, that’s what Nora’s heroine had done in the title story. And in so doing, she’d found Mr. Right.

  So, what would a Nora heroine do right now?

  The question was a whisper in her head. She tapped her fingernail on the book, thinking.

  A Nora heroine…would face her greatest fears head-on, without making excuses.

  Meredith’s mind cleared, and with it, the threads of a brilliant idea emerged. A new purpose.

  I don’t know if I’m ready for it, she thought, but I’m going to give love another try. She was going to march back to her office and tell her boss she needed to go home to help her family’s newspaper. But while she was there, she’d also be working on an article for The Daily Herald—a personal-interest story about a divorced woman returning to her small town to find Mr. Right and a new happily ever after, aka Nora Roberts Land.

  Her family could pick up her salary while she worked for them, so budget wouldn’t be an issue. Karen knew she brought something special to the paper and would hold her position while she was away. If she didn’t, well, Meredith could find another job. The Hale name opened doors, and she’d built her own reputation across town. Plus, she’d write the hell out of this story, however it turned out. Who wouldn’t want to read about a scorned woman trying to believe in the power of love again?

  She sailed to the checkout. It was time to try something different.

  She was going to get over Rick-the-Dick if she had to date every man in Dare Valley to do it.

  Chapter 2

  Tanner McBride stopped on the street corner, waiting for the light to change. He reveled in the controlled chaos, the honks from aggressive drivers, and the rumblings of New Yorkers as they pushed their way down the sidewalk in determined strides. It made him almost giddy that he didn’t need to worry about being shot at or stared at for being an American.

  British accents caught his attention, and he swiveled his head. Pale fingers pointed at a map of the downtown area. An older woman in a floral dress shook her head and stepped into traffic.

  Seeing the approaching cab, Tanner lunged forward and hauled her back to the curb. The cab rushed past, blowing his new sports jacket up like dry clothes on a windy clothesline.

  The woman patted her bosom. “My goodness, I looked the wrong way.”

  Tanner’s heart sputtered and then returned to its usual cadence. That had been tame in comparison to what he’d faced on a day-to-day basis in Afghanistan.

  “We drive on the opposite side of you folks in England. I wouldn’t jaywalk.”

  She squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”

  He hustled across the street.

  Everyone had told him he’d experience a sense of unreality when he returned home, and he might be bored by the lack of conflict and chaos. So far he could see a grain of truth in that. Hopefully New York would be big enough and edgy enough to keep him from going insane. He scanned the street and the rows and rows of postage-stamp eateries and restaurants. At least there was food. Christ, he was going to eat everything in sight for the next six months since food was safe here.

  The out-of-the-way restaurant called The Porterhouse seemed an odd location for meeting his new boss, but Richard Sommerville wasn’t known for being conventional. Even though everyone thought he was a prick, he was a well-respected newspaper editor. And now he was thinking about running for the Senate.

  Working the International Desk for The Standard would give him a terrific opportunity to further his career. He’d paid serious dues as an international correspondent. Now, it was time to come home and have a normal life—whatever the hell that meant.

  But he planned to find out.

  He was good at finding things out.

  A bell chimed when he opened the door. Sommerville sat three tables up on the right, chatting on his phone, looking like what his mother would call a Pretty Boy Floyd in some fancy, gray, pin-striped suit Tanner would bet cost more than his plane ticket from Kabul to New York City. The restaurant sported worn red booths, scuffed hardwood tables, and no other customers. The smell of hickory aged steaks made his mouth water. Tanner pulled out a chair, hoping he wouldn’t have to wear a suit for this job. A sports jacket, button-down shirt, and creased slacks were about as much dressing up as he could take on a daily basis.

  Sommerville lifted a finger to convey he was finishing up his conversation. “Listen, I need to run. You do what I tell you. I don’t want any more excuses.” He clicked off and laid his phone on the table as delicately as a priest would handle a sacred instrument. “Tanner McBride, it’s great to see you. Welcome to The Big Apple.”

  They shook hands, measuring each other. Sommerville might be a well-respected journalist, but he was too GQ. Man used crap in his blond hair that had it swirling in a way some people might call fashionable. It looked fussy to Tanner. The guy probably got manicures too, if his hands were any indication. Yet the gleam in Sommerville’s eyes couldn’t be missed. Predatory, but in a classy way. Stupid people wouldn’t see it.

  Tanner wasn’t stupid.

  A man at the front turned the CLOSED sign over in the window and locked the door. Tanner’s radar went up, but he kept his face expressionless. Sommerville wanted privacy. Must be something big. The out-of-the-way venue began to make more sense.

  “Let’s order, and you can tell me about your last days in Kabul.”

  He was tired of talking about Kabul, but he indulged his new boss. Journalists who rode desks tended to get off on the war stories of other journalists.

  Sommerville nursed his scotch as Tanner gave him the highlights of his recent tour. Lies, blood, and death pretty much summed it up. There were good people there like anywhere else, but if he never saw the place again, he’d be happy. God, he was tired of seeing kids get killed over politics and drugs.

  Tanner waited for Sommerville to share the reason for the private meeting. He was halfway finished with his medium rare ribeye steak when Sommerville set aside his drink, finally ready to talk. Tanner reached for his water.

  “So, I have a new assignment for you. A big one.” He rubbed his hands together, the sound like sandpaper on wood.

  “What is it?”

  Sommerville’s phone beeped, but he ignored it. “First, I’ve been checking up on you. People are saying you’re burned out. Need some time out of the fast lane. So, I’m switching you back to domestic for the time being.”

  Tanner’s jaw clenched. “That’s not what we agreed to.”

  Sommerville waved his hand. “I know, but this is a really juicy assignment.” He dug out his wallet and pulled out a picture.

  Tanner studied it. The blond woman looked to be in her early thirties and as cool as a cucumber. Her blond hair reminded him of the coif women journalists on CNN preferred. She was attractive—beautiful, if he was being honest—and intelligence and confidence radiated from her direct green gaze.

  “Who is she?”

  Sommerville laid it on the table like he was a Vegas dealer, the photo facing Tanner.

  “She’s my ex-wife, and I want you to make her fall in love with you.”

  Tanner started laughing. He jostled Sommerville with a hand to the shoulder like he would a Marine who’d told a dirty joke to break the tension as they rode through hostile territory. “Christ, that’s a good one.
Flipping me back to domestic. Right.”

  Sommerville smiled. It thinned out his full lips.

  Tanner’s laughter died. “You’re serious?”

  “I never joke about journalism. If Meredith—that’s my ex—writes the article she’s pitched to her boss, my reputation will be damaged. I’m not entirely sure she’s going to leave me out of it. We had a…disagreement recently. I need someone to handle her. Be the focus of her article, and then crush her premise to bits.” He drained his scotch. “I won’t let her ruin my run for the Senate.”

  Tanner spread his hands on the table. “I don’t see how this has anything to do with me.”

  Sommerville raised his drink to a passing waiter for a refill. “Then let me fill you in. I have it on good authority my ex-wife is going to return to her hometown in Dare Valley, Colorado, to write an article about her attempts to find love like a heroine in a Nora Roberts romance novel.” He suddenly slapped a paperback on the table. “Ever heard of her?”

  Tanner picked up the book, Montana Sky. Had Sommerville gone off his rocker? “Sure, my mom reads her. Why?”

  “I blamed these books for our divorce. My ex-wife is planning to prove I’m wrong by actually trying to live the life of a Roberts’ character and showing happy endings do exist.”

  Okay…Tanner signaled the waiter. “Bourbon. Neat.”

  Sommerville grabbed the book. “Do you have any idea how many people read Nora Roberts?”

  Tanner lifted a shoulder. Were they actually talking about romance novels? This was his big assignment? His dream job lay in ashes at his feet. Sommerville was certifiable. There was no way he’d work for him now.

  “We’re talking millions. This article will be read by every woman in America—possibly overseas too. Meredith has to be stopped! I won’t let her divulge…less than favorable information about our marriage and what drove her to this ridiculous stunt. She’s acting like a hysterical female.”

  Tanner crossed his arms. “So you think making your ex fall in love with me is going to somehow stop this?”