It had been in the family for over 80 years. Fallon grew up with dirty feet and grape-stained clothes. She loved it, she lived it, and now that Fallon ran the PR department, it was finally getting to the level it needed to be. Rocky Top should to be at the top and if Fallon had anything to do with it, it would be.
After handing out business cards and vouchers for free bottles, Fallon spotted Elli standing with some older guy who had an empty glass. Since he looked like he had money, Fallon made her way towards him. She always liked to schmooze the big money guys. If Fallon got lucky, they usually hired Rocky Top to supply the wine for their company parties.
“He has a bad rep. Money, booze, females, I don’t know,” the older guy said when Fallon reached the group. It was only Elli, Shea and the older guy. Elli didn’t seem very happy.
“He’s clean, I feel good about him,” Elli said sternly. The older guy shook his head.
“I don’t know Mrs. Adler. Brooks is a fighter.”
Fallon blinked a few times, totally stunned. It had been a long time since she had heard that name.
“Yeah, but he’s second in the league for goals.”
“And first for penalty minutes. He’s a got a huge chip on his shoulder.”
“I’ll knock the damn chip off it for him if I need to, or hell maybe we’ll get Fallon to sophisticate him,” Elli said with a grin when she noticed that Fallon was just standing there staring at them. “Ricky Owen, Fallon Parker with Rocky Top Wine. She is one of our biggest sponsors.”
“Who?” Fallon asked totally ignoring Ricky’s hand, and hoping like hell that there was another Brooks in the NHL who fought a lot.
Because she only knew one …
“You probably don’t know him, Lucas Brooks? He was just traded in from the Sharks.”
Fallon wasn’t sure how the bottle of wine slipped from her hands, but the next thing she knew it was in pieces around her beautiful boots. Cabernet Sauvignon was everywhere, and Fallon’s face was beet red as she tried to catch her breath. Everyone looked down in shock before looking back up at Fallon’s stunned face.
Shea starting laughing as everyone still looked at Fallon in shock, then he said, “Or maybe she does.”
Oh, Fallon knew Lucas Brooks alright.
He was coming to Nashville?
Great, that was just fucking great.
Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s
Along Came Trouble
Chapter One
“Get out of my yard!” Ellen shouted.
The weasel-faced photographer ignored her, too busy snapping photos of the house next door to pay her any mind.
No surprise there. This was the fifth time in as many days that a man with a camera had violated her property lines. By now, she knew the drill.
They trespassed. She yelled. They pretended she didn’t exist. She called the police.
Ellen was thoroughly sick of it. She couldn’t carry on this way, watching from the safety of the side porch and clutching her glass of iced tea like an outraged southern belle.
It was all very well for Jamie to tell her to stay put and let the professionals deal with it. Her pop-star brother was safe at home in California, nursing his wounds. And anyway, this kind of attention was the lot he’d chosen in life. He’d decided to be a celebrity, and then he’d made the choice to get involved with Ellen’s neighbor, Carly. The consequences ought to be his to deal with.
Ellen hadn’t invited the paparazzi to descend. She’d made different choices, and they’d led her to college, law school, marriage, divorce, motherhood. They’d led her to this quiet cul-de-sac in Camelot, Ohio, surrounded by woods.
Her choices had also made her the kind of woman who couldn’t easily stand by as some skeevy guy crushed her plants and invaded Carly’s privacy for the umpteenth time since last Friday.
Enough, she thought. Enough.
But until Weasel Face crushed the life out of her favorite hosta—her mascot hosta—with his giant brown boot, she didn’t actually intend to act on the thought.