Finding The One (Meadowview Heroes 1; The Meadowview Series 5) by Rochelle French

quickly into an inhale of tension as a figure wearing tight black jeans, a ripped Ramones T-shirt, knee-high black Doc Martens, and a broad grin came tripping out.
    Doe, Gregor’s assistant—and Mac’s sister.
    Trudy crossed her fingers that Doe wouldn’t bring up her brother.
    “Oh good, the nudist.” Doe grabbed the goat’s leather collar with one hand and gripped a notebook and white waffle-weave robe with the other.
    Trudy’s jaw clenched, sending a sharp shooting pain up along her hairline. Posing nude was part of her job—and part of the contract—but she hated it when the issue was made front and center. “Doe. I didn’t realize I’d be working directly with you.”
    “Yeah, I’m the one who’ll show you around, get you into position. You know, nudie modeling stuff.”
    The headache, which had been fading, flared back like a sunspot. Gregor’s assistant should learn more professional language. At least the girl hadn’t mentioned Mac.
    “You have fun with my brother the other night?” Doe asked.
    Aaaaaaand there it was. The very topic she’d hoped to avoid. “Where’s your baby?” she asked, purposefully deflecting Doe’s question.
    “Aaron’s taking a nap. Be down for about an hour. Gives me a chance to do the dishes, put the laundry out on the line, and get on my hands and knees and scrub the floor. After that I’ll find some birds and a couple of rats to help me sew a dress for the ball.”
    Trudy frowned. “Mice. Cinderella’s helpers were mice, not rats.”
    Doe rolled her eyes. “What ever . Rats, mice—they’re all vermin. Here, follow me. He’s got you posing on some Greek pedestal-thingy in the weeds out back.”
    “Will he meet us out there? Will he talk to me before I pose?”
    “Dunno… I need to read his instructions. I do know you’ll be changing in the former servant’s quarters out back. We have to slog through the grass—just don’t step on any nanny berries.”
    “What are ‘nanny’ berries?”
    “Nanny leaves little presents about.”
    The goat bleated.
    Trudy groaned. “That’s Nanny?”
    “Yup.”
    She’d been envisioning a professional art studio. She certainly hadn’t anticipated posing naked in a barnyard. Or tromping through rain-soaked, goat-berry-dropping-filled grass in high heels.
    In her Louboutins, she hobbled to keep up with fast-paced Doe as the girl trotted down what had transitioned into a bucolic pathway. At the sight, Trudy caught her breath. Low-growing trees lined the pathway, light green leaves and tight buds on every branch, a promise of spring blossoms. She recognized lavender and sage intermingled with batches of low-growing vicuna and moss. Beautiful. Not what she’d call weeds, either.
    Around a corner, positioned under a wide oak tree, sat a single-story house: the servant’s quarters, she assumed. Pretty. Inviting. Welcoming.
    Doe handed Trudy the robe and motioned in the direction of the doorway. “That’s where you’ll get naked. I’ll get you settled, then I gotta check on Aaron. I’ll meet you back here in five minutes and figure out if I’m supposed to help get you in your first nudie position. Kinky stuff, that.”
    It took everything Trudy had not to roll her eyes and respond Doe-style by saying, “What ever .”

O utside Mac’s office , robins twittered as loudly as his client, who wouldn’t stop talking on the other end of the line. Mac figured if Bob Keenley of Keenley’s Automotive & Bicycle Repair didn’t stop yammering on and on about his pampered poodle—aka: Mac’s new client—he’d strangle himself with the telephone cord. This conversation had to end, and now: He’d heard a car come up the drive and park so Trudy must have arrived. Couldn’t be anyone else since not many people came out to the house—at seven miles outside Meadowview, the place was considered rather rustic.
    He needed to get off the phone and meet with her before the photography session—make sure she really was okay