Tristan on a Harley (Louisiana Knights Book 3) Read Free Page A

basic idea is a football hero desperately in love with a sophisticated woman, but who can’t get her to even look his way. After he performs some heroic deed and gains her respect, he realizes the woman is too coldhearted for him. He prefers his fantasy world where every woman he meets is hot for him and asks for it outright.”
    “Sounds like a fantasy, all right. So then what happens?”
    “That’s anybody’s guess, apparently, which seems to be the deal with making movies. By the time everyone from the director to the lead actor adds their input, the original writer can’t recognize his own script.”
    “And the actor/director here has total control?”
    “Exactly. It will work out however Derek Peabody decides, when the time comes.”
    “I don’t suppose we care, as long as we get to walk across the street with everybody else,” Zeni said with a laugh.
    “Our moment of glory, immortalized on film. It’s about the most any of us can hope for, right?”
    “More than likely,” Zeni agreed, though she knew Sheriff Lancelot Benedict’s wife was being overly modest. Mandy might be a new mom to four-month-old Caleb, but she was a town powerhouse. A sponsor for the annual Relay for Life, on the boards of both the annual pilgrimage of homes and the library, initiator of a future river park for kids, and founder of a safe house for women and children escaping domestic abuse, she was always up to something. Give her another year or two, and she’d either be mayor—not an impossibility as Chamelot had a female mayor already—or there would be a statue of her erected in front of the courthouse.
    “Where’s Lance this morning?” Zeni asked, scanning the crowd. He was sure to be around somewhere for this kind of event.
    “The poor dear is directing traffic out at the highway. You wouldn’t believe the people in town today, every single one of them circling, circling to find the best parking place for this event because they don’t want to walk a single step more than necessary.”
    “I know he loves that,” Zeni said with a grin. She hadn’t seen him because she’d walked from the Watering Hole. One reason she’d settled in Chamelot was because her old rattletrap of a car had given up the ghost at the city limits.
    “Yeah, not his favorite part of the job. And he already had smoke coming out of his ears after a run-in with the man of the hour earlier.”
    Zeni swung back toward Mandy. “Derek Peabody, you mean?”
    “None other. He seems to think he can take over the town, park his limo anywhere he pleases. Unfortunately, he appropriated Judge Martin’s parking space on the courthouse square, along with three or four others. You can imagine how that went over.”
    “The judge wasn’t happy?”
    “He told Peabody to move his limo or it would be towed. I’m not sure how that was answered, but the next thing you know, the judge was threatening to bloody the guy’s cosmetically enhanced nose for him with one hand while dialing Lance’s office with the other.”
    “Wow.”
    “Things simmered down once Lance arrived and it became clear the full judicial power of the district court could be brought to bear. Derek Peabody and his chauffeur decided they didn’t need to take up a whole row of spaces after all.”
    “What did Lance think of him? Did he say?”
    “Not in so many words,” Mandy answered with a definite quirk to her mouth. “But he was wearing his grim look, which tells me he expects nothing good during these next few weeks. My guess is, he thinks Derek Peabody is a pain in the rear.”
    That last word was almost drowned out by a sudden rise in conversational volume around them. It started near the door and came toward them in a wave. The crowd shifted, people craning their necks or standing on tiptoe to see.
    “Looks as if things are about to get underway,” Zeni said.
    They were indeed. Chamelot’s lady mayor and the actor/director were moving slowly through the crowd. As they