Page 27 of Christmas at the Ranch
The thought of sitting across from Beatrix while she talked about the thrill of night skiing was more frightening than any firework.
Samantha set her face in a smile. “It’s Beatrix’s first night. You should stay and have fun.”
Samantha sat on the bed in her guest room. She was going to change and take a bath. Charlie texted her a photo of Socks eating baked ham and turkey stuffing. At least one of them was enjoying Christmas night.
It wasn’t that the entire evening was awful. Marigold had been fascinating to talk to, and the torch parade was dazzling. She hadn’t even been afraid when the firework exploded; for some reason she’d known she’d be all right.
She tried to analyze why she was feeling unsettled. Was it because Drew kept his arm around her for an extra moment when she fell against him? Or how Beatrix managed to look gorgeous even when the only parts of her that were showing were her perfectly upturned nose and high cheekbones?
None of that mattered. Drew and Beatrix were engaged. No couple in New York gave up a six-figure income and a house in Connecticut. Especially not for sleeping bags and a tent infested with snakes in the mountains of Thailand.
Samantha glanced out the window at the fir trees blanketed in snow. The sky was black velvet and the stars were so bright and sparkly, they appeared to be made of tinsel. Suddenly she missed her apartment in Brooklyn. Christmas in Jackson Hole might resemble the inside of a snow globe, but there was no place like home.
Chapter Seven
It was midmorning the next day, and Samantha was taking Arthur’s suggestion to borrow books from his library. It was the most spectacular space. She reached it by a spiral staircase, just like the staircase she once saw in a movie. In the movie, the staircase led up to a dusty old attic overflowing with books, and there was a secret manuscript that had been hidden for sixty years. It gave Samantha an idea for a Sloane Parker book. Sloane is in Rome, browsing at one of her favorite bookstores. A handsome dark-haired Italian enters and whispers something to the woman behind the counter. The dark-haired man glances around to make sure no one is watching, and climbs the circular staircase.
The man is Alfonso Bellini, the Italian computer hacker Sloane has been following for months. The bookstore is a front for a group of hackers who have infiltrated intelligence networks across Europe. The codes are stored in books and only the hackers can decipher them.
Alfonso is a known womanizer. Sloane is going to distract him with a little flirtation, then she’s going to steal the code books.
Sloane is puzzled when Alfonso doesn’t respond to her advances.It’s only when she notices the manuscript on the desk that she discovers he isn’t Alfonso. He’s Alfonso’s twin brother, Eduardo.
Eduardo is a struggling writer. Eduardo doesn’t want his family to know about the manuscript because twenty-three publishers have already rejected it. He should be doing something worthwhile with his time, like working on his accounting certificate. Sloane feels sorry for him and puts him in touch with a publisher she knows in London. They end up having a discussion about Italian literature and Sloane leaves with a selection of books by writers she never heard of.
The spiral staircase in Arthur’s library was the same dark wood, but the library itself was completely different. Two walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, and there was a coffee table and thick white carpet. Leather armchairs faced each other and the bookshelves were lined with books.
Samantha’s phone buzzed and she answered.
“Samantha, it’s Charlie,” Charlie said when she answered. “I wanted to see if you’re having a good Christmas.”
“You mean you’re checking up on me,” Samantha replied, smiling. “I turned off the location tracker on my phone. I don’t know why you insist on following me.”
“I would never check your phone tracker,” Charlie said indignantly. “And I already called Arthur to wish him a merry Christmas. He said you’re having a wonderful time. You even went snowmobiling with everyone else.”
Samantha wasn’t going to tell Charlie about Marigold or the arrowhead pendant.
“Arthur is a great host, it’s impossible not to have a good time,” Samantha said truthfully. “I told you I wouldn’t let you down.”
“I’m glad.” Charlie’s voice grew serious. “I wanted to warn youabout something, in case you see it on social media. Arthur is in talks with Melody Minnow’s agent for Melody to narrate a line of original audiobooks. Melody has a great voice; her agent is confident the audiobooks will be bestsellers.”
Samantha heard Melody talk on a podcast once. She had one of those deep, throaty voices that some people found sexy but Samantha thought sounded as if Melody was recovering from a cold.
“Sloane Parker isn’t available on audio,” Samantha reminded Charlie. “So she won’t be competition.”
It was Samantha’s decision to hold on to the audio rights for the Sloane Parker books so they wouldn’t be produced. She was afraid that if the narrator gave Sloane the wrong accent—a Southern twang like Scarlett inGone with the Wind,or something foreign like Anna Karenina—the reader wouldn’t feel a connection with her. It was better to leave Sloane’s voice to the reader’s imagination.
“We should rethink that. Everyone listens to books on audio these days,” Charlie suggested. “The marketing department is stepping up your campaign so you don’t lose your edge. It’s going to be called Extreme Sloane Parker, with images of you doing extreme sports: heli-skiing off a glacier in New Zealand, volcano surfing in Japan.”
“Sloane would never surf in a volcano,” Samantha protested. “Volcano ash is terrible for the skin.”
“We could partner with a cosmetics company,” Charlie offered. “Lancôme or Clinique might be interested.”
Winter sun streamed on the bookshelf. Samantha recognized some of the books she loved:Angels & Demonsby Dan Brown,Gone Girlby Gillian Flynn, a shelf devoted to John le Carré spy thrillers. She let out a sigh.
“Since when did reading stop being about checking out yourfavorite books from the library and become about which heroine uses better moisturizer?”
“Publishers need to make a profit so we can all be paid,” Charlie reminded her. “Thank god Emily’s parents are taking care of the wedding, but I still need to come up with money for the honeymoon. Ever since we got engaged, Emily has dreamed of us going to Paris. Lately, she’s been dropping hints. She made crepes for breakfast and there was a bottle of French cologne in my Christmas stocking.”
