Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin Wells was an advertising and public relations executive, but she always dreamed of writing novelsâa dream inspired by a grandmother who told âhot talesâ and parents who were both librarians.
When she sold her first novel, her family celebrated at a Chinese restaurant. Robinâs fortune cookie read âRomance moves you in a new directionââand it has. Robin has won an RWA Golden Heart Award, two National Readersâ Choice Awards, a Holt Medallion and a Colorado Romance Writersâ Award of Excellence.
Robin lives just outside New Orleans with her husband, two daughters and an exceedingly spoiled dog named Winnie the Pooh-dle. She loves to hear from readers, so drop her a note online at her website, www.robinwells.com, or by writing her at P.O. Box 303, Mandeville, LA 70470-0303.
âWhat do you think of Summerâs hair?â
Frannie Hannon pulled her eyes away from the computer screen and swiveled around in the wooden office chair to see her two gorgeous cousins, Jasmine and Summer, standing in front of the front desk of the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast. Summerâs long, dark hair fell in a tousled cascade of curls to her shoulders, where it lay in dramatic contrast against the red silk of her short chic dress.
âGive me your honest opinion, Frannie.â Summer ran a hand through the loose waves in her normally straight hair. âDo you think Gavin will think curls look good on me?â
Frannie pushed her tortoiseshell glasses higher up on her nose, a dry smile curving the corners of her lips. âYour husband would think you looked gorgeous if you shaved your head and painted your skull green. And the annoying thing about it is, heâd be right.â
It was the absolute truth. With her beautiful Native American features, deep chocolate eyes and wide, expressive mouth, Summer Nighthawk was breathtaking. But then, so was Jasmine Monroe, with her close-cropped dark hair, delicate features and creamy pale skin. Either womanâs face or figure could stop traffic and a manâs heart at fifty paces.
All mine could stop is a clock, Frannie thought ruefully. A familiar twinge of inferiority tweaked at her heart. Sheâd grown up here in Whitehorn, Montana, with Summer, Jasmine and Jasmineâs equally gorgeous sister, Cleo, and she viewed them more as sisters than as cousins. Their mothers, in fact, were sisters. Frannieâs mom, Yvette, and Jasmineâs and Cleoâs mom, Celeste, ran a bed-and-breakfast in the rambling arts and crafts-style manor house. Summerâs mother, Blanche, had died shortly after Summerâs birth, so Celeste and Yvette had raised their sisterâs daughter as one of their own.
The four cousins had all grown up together. Theyâd spent summers splashing in the waters of Blue Mirror Lake and winters toboganning down the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. Theyâd shared their dreams and their secrets, their toys and their clothes. They were family in every sense of the word, and yet sometimes, when Frannie looked at her cousins, she found it hard to believe sheâd come from the same gene pool.
Times like now. Summer was so dark and exotic, Jasmine so fair and fragile. Next to them, Frannie always felt like a little brown mouse.
Well, not little, exactly, she thought ruefully. Tall and gawky was more like it. At five-foot, nine-inches, Frannieâs height was the only exceptional thing about her. There was nothing special about her light brown hair except its unruly nature, which was why Frannie kept it clamped back in a tight ponytail. Her skin was clear and fair, but her features were unremarkable. Her eyes were an okay shade of hazel, but she kept them hidden behind her large, tortoiseshell-framed glasses. Oh, she had her own unique characteristics, of courseâher nose was faintly freckled, her figure was on the scrawny side, and she grew in credibly clumsy whenever she was nervousâbut overall, she was drab, colorless and nondescript.
Which suited her just fine, Frannie reminded herself. It was better to fade into the background than to stick out and be ridiculed. In fact, she deliberately cultivated an inconspicuous look. She dressed to blend in, wearing brown or beige suits for her job at the Whitehorn Savings and Loan, and jeans and shapeless sweaters, like the baggy gray one she was wearing now, on evenings and weekends.