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

everything got screwed up this morning because of some goat.”
    Goat? Had she heard right? Trudy’s head spun. She tried Lisa’s number again, only to be met with the same canned “We’re closed” response. Then she tried Lisa’s cell again and it went straight to voice mail. God, what was her agent doing for her commission? Certainly not answering phones. She could refuse to sign and potentially lose the job, or sign the damned thing and show up at work on Monday. But she couldn’t risk losing this job. Not with all that was at stake.
    She heaved a sigh and quickly flipped through the contract, making sure the contract amendments Lisa put in ever since the Tubster Trudy incident was clear on the page: no images of her of any kind would be posted online or in any other medium prior to the artist’s official showing of the work without her signed consent. Good. Everything looked perfect.
    She clicked the pen. In under a minute, she’d signed on the dotted line and handed the contract back to the courier. Instead of feeling elated, though, she felt a sense of unease wash over her as she watched the courier jump start his motorcycle and zoom off in a cloud of black smoke into the late afternoon sun.

    * * *
    E arly Monday morning , Trudy drove her Prius through the quiet streets of Meadowview, wishing she could enjoy the quaint scenery but frustrated that she was thoroughly lost. The instructions she’d been given had directed her up Interstate 80 until the interstate was surrounded by towering pines, then onto a two-lane highway that twisted and turned through the northern California foothills for about an hour before putting her smack-dab in the middle of an adorable small town.
    But her GPS didn’t seem to recognize the street name on the directions given to her by the courier, and no matter which way she turned the paper, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out the map and instructions she’d been given. She was supposed to turn right off Main Street just after some business named Jenny’s Barn, but she couldn’t find the store. She’d driven the length of Main Street twice and had found two grocery stores—Dillards and Camden’s—an old-fashioned stage theater, a bakery, and a pub, but nothing named Jenny’s Barn. Would it be a clothing store?
    She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. Gah . Fifteen minutes until she was supposed to meet the artist. She needed to stop and ask directions.
    The wooden sidewalks lining Main Street were bare—too early in the morning for tourists, she figured. Sighing, she turned the car around and drove back to the first stop-sign in town. A few seconds ago she’d passed a diner at the corner that seemed to be bustling. Surely someone there would know how to find the famous sculptor’s place, right?
    A bell over the door tinkled when she entered, but the sound was superfluous—as soon as she stepped into Delilah’s Diner, heads swiveled and warm gazes stared at her. She glanced around the room and took in the eclectic group of patrons. A beautiful young woman in a tie-dyed maxi dress sat at one table, holding hands with a handsome man in a Armani suit, and a middle-aged woman with blond dreadlocks and a 1950s red and white polka-dotted apron stood behind the counter, talking to a thin but busty redheaded woman in a T-shirt with English Major—You Do the Math emblazoned across the back and a man in firefighter pants. The rest of the people scattered around wore a mix of Levis, Wrangler jeans, and plaid shirts. Even the two kids in the corner were in plaid—the little girl wore a dress entirely out of red and black hunter (or was that lumberjack?) check.
    Wow. Plaid must be the “new black” in this town.
    With the exception of the guy in Armani, this was quite different attire from what she was used to in New York, or even Sacramento. When the patrons kept looking at her, she glanced down at her outfit, which consisted of a pale green silk button-down blouse,