LITMIR.BIZ

       One

      Hadley Everton both loved and hated living in Cole’s Hill, Texas. To be fair, the town had been growing ever since the joint NASA-SpaceNow training facility had opened on its outskirts, but those small-town minds weren’t keeping up. Today, she had dodged several well-meaning society matrons from the upscale Five Families neighborhood who were all concerned about her lack of a man. Since this was her sister’s engagement party, everyone in her mother’s circle of friends had fixed their eyes on her as the next one to finally wise up and land herself a husband.

      It wasn’t as if Cole’s Hill didn’t have its share of eligible bachelors for her to pick from, as her parents’ neighbor Mrs. Zane had pointed out with her usual blend of sweet bluntness. Hadley could choose from any of them. Though in her infinite wisdom, Mrs. Zane advised her to stay away from the Velasquez brothers, especially after her recent breakup with Mauricio.

      Seeing two more of her mother’s friends, Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Crandall, making a beeline toward her, Hadley faked a sneezing fit and ducked into the country club’s kitchen. The waitstaff were busy living up to her mother’s exacting standards, preparing the trays of food for circulation, so they didn’t care if Hadley had broken up with her “one good prospect” and seemed doomed to a life as a single woman.

      She stood in the corner near the door to be out of the way of the staff, which unfortunately left her in earshot of her busybody pursuers.

      “I heard she told him if he didn’t put a ring on her finger, she was out of there,” Mrs. Abernathy said.

      “And he just said see you later. What is wrong with young people these days? He should have asked her then and there. He’s almost thirty and it’s not like anyone else is going to be interested in him if he couldn’t make Hadley happy,” Mrs. Crandall added.

      Hadley turned to leave the kitchen via the back door but bumped into someone. She glanced up with an apology on her lips, but froze when she saw it was her sister, Helena.

      Helena was the pretty sister, with a heart-shaped face, naturally thick eyebrows and blue eyes that Hadley had always envied. She stood a few inches taller than Hadley, as well. Today she wore a slim-fitting sheath that showed off her curves in a subtle way. Normally, her sister was very low key and laid back, but Hadley noticed she seemed tense.

      “What are you doing in here?” Hadley asked.

      “Same as you,” Helena said. Reaching up, she tucked a strand of Hadley’s hair behind her ear where it had escaped from her low chignon.

      Hadley pulled the tendril back down to frame her face. Her older sister was forever acting like Hadley was still an eight-year-old and Helena was the more sophisticated ten-year-old.

      “Hardly. This is your party,” Hadley said, moving away from the door and the women who were still talking about her and Mauricio.

      “Girls. What are y’all doing?” their mother asked as she entered the kitchen. Candace Everton was the spitting image of Helena, just twenty-one years older. She kept the grays at bay in her natural strawberry blond hair with bi-weekly appointments at her hair salon and kept her figure by playing in a women’s tennis league at the club.

      Their mother had always had it all together and there were times when Hadley wished she had just a tenth of her mom’s ease when it came to dealing with the social pressures of living in Cole’s Hill. But she never had.

      Candace inspected a tray of canapés that one of the uniformed waiters was about to take out and wrinkled her nose at him. “This looks sloppy. Please get a clean tray before you serve my guests.”

      The waiter turned around as their mother walked toward them. Hadley found herself standing a little taller and tucked the tendril that Helena had been messing with earlier back behind her ear.

      “Just enjoying a moment of quiet,” Helena said. “I asked Hadley to help me with my zipper. It felt like the hook had come undone.”

      “Let me see,” Mother said.

      Helena turned around and their mother checked the hook and eye before wrapping her arm around both of her daughters’ shoulders. “Ready to get back to the party?”

      No, but clearly that wasn’t the answer their mom wanted. She urged them both toward the door that led out of the kitchen.

      When she got back out into the living room, Hadley came to a stop as she saw Mauricio Velasquez standing there. Of course, he looked like he’d stepped out of her hottest dreams. That was the thing no one had warned her about with breakups and broken hearts. She might be ready to move on, but her damned subconscious kept churning him up in the middle of the night and giving him a starring role in her sexiest dreams.

      He had what she’d heard the old biddies in town refer to as a chiseled jaw; his neatly trimmed eyebrows framed eyes that were as black as her favorite dark chocolate. When he looked at her, she always felt like he could see straight past the layers she used to keep the world at bay to the very heart of her. But she knew that was a lie. Had he been able to do that, he wouldn’t have invited Marnie Masters, the femme fatale of Cole’s Hill, into his bed, while he and Hadley were taking a break in their relationship. She had believed they were going to get back together up until the moment she found out about Marnie.

      “Hadley, what are you doing?” Mother said, putting her hand on Hadley’s shoulder.

      “Sorry, Mother, I just saw Mauricio.”

      “So?”

      “I’m not ready to talk to him,” she said.

      “This is Helena’s day, sweet child, so you will straighten Grandma’s pearls and walk over there and greet him like he’s an old friend,” Mother said.

      She took a deep breath and looked over at Helena. “You’re right. Sorry, Hel.”

      She’d known he’d be here. Mauricio and her sister’s fiancé were best friends and had been since

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