Finding The One (Meadowview Heroes 1; The Meadowview Series 5) Read Free Page B

himself off at her glare. Her adorably cute glare.
    She crossed her arms over her chest.
    Mac held out the flute of champagne. “Peace offering.” When she hesitated for a few beats, he held his breath, breathing out when she finally accepted the flute. “I’m Mac.”
    The tiny muscles on the right side of her mouth relaxed. Then a small smile formed. “I guess in retrospect, that grape’s sneak attack was rather funny.” Her smile widened, fractionally. “I’m Trudy.” She raised the flute up and sipped.
    “Cute name,” he said, thinking the name as one normally associated with a round little thing, not someone as tall and strong as Trudy, but somehow it fit her.
    Red Hot—no, Trudy —nodded at the shorter and very pregnant woman next to her, wedged in tight by the crowd. “My sister, Milla.”
    Up close, he could see the similarities—the light lines creasing the side of their mouths, the flecks of gold and grey in their eyes. Milla shook his hand vigorously, beaming at him. Cool . Score one for him—he’d managed to win over the sister. Now to win over Trudy.
    And he had a proven process…
    Step One: meaningless chitchat.
    “Are you two Gregor Johansson fans?” he asked the sister, throwing out the most meaningless chit-chatty line he could come up with.
    Milla let go of his hand, and said, “As an overwhelmed mom and a former accountant, I haven’t exactly focused on art. So no. No clue who the man was until about five hours ago. Trudy convinced me to come.”
    He focused his attention on Trudy. “Because you’re a fan?”
    She still wore that tight expression, although a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Um…I’m actually here to network.”
    Hmm…she hadn’t quite melted. But what had he expected? For her to accept his first attempt at breaking the ice after he’d found the grape incident funny when it was now clear she most definitely had not? Remy was right—a cheesy pickup line, such as “If I told you that you had a good body, would you hold it against me?” wouldn’t cut it with this woman. He instead opted for more chitchat. “So…what do you do, Trudy? Professionally, I mean?”
    She hesitated, staring intently at him. After a pause, she swallowed. The tiny muscles on the left side of her mouth relaxed and the tiny smile widened. “When I’m not serving as a fruit bowl, you mean? I model.”
    Distracted by the pulse along her neckline, it took Mac a second to register what she’d said. He clapped a hand to his forehead. “ That’s how I know you. I knew I’d seen that mane of hair and that strut before. You worked the catwalks in New York, about four or five years ago.”
    Her brow wrinkled slightly and her grin faded. “Yes…” she answered slowly. “Four years.”
    “Oh, thank God,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out how I recognized you.”
    “You remember me from a fashion show?”
    “Not exactly. For a second I thought maybe we’d slept together and I’d forgotten.”
    Trudy’s eyes narrowed.
    Hell . “Uh…I didn’t mean to imply sex with you would be forgettable.”
    Her jaw dropped.
    Shit . He hadn’t blown a pick-up this bad since he wrote a love letter to his teacher Mrs. Livery, proclaiming his fourth-grade adoration. He needed to get this conversation back on track. Because the more he spoke with her, he realized that not only did he want to sleep with her, he was also considering asking her to pose for him.
    Yeah, he’d told Remy to drop the discussion about his exploration of reentering the art world, but seeing Trudy had triggered his creative juices that had almost disappeared the day his mother died. He could see Trudy as his Warrior Woman—could see the photographs in his mind. Warrior Woman in Repose. Warrior Woman in Despair. Warrior Woman in Defiance.
    Tension wound its way through his spine. He still wasn’t certain he wanted to push forward with his plan to get back into art photography, though. Even though he