Glamour Girl (West Coast Girlz: Book Two) by Sandra Edwards Page A

up in the Sierra Nevada foothills wine country, so the chances of being set up on new blind dates were slim, and he wasn’t likely to hit on her since he was openly gay.
    Maybe while she was gone her friends would move on to some other poor schmuck who couldn’t land a decent date.
    Rosanna loaded her bags into the car, drove to the 5 and headed north, jumping over to Hwy 99 around Fresno. After driving nearly five hours, which included a few stops, she found the roadside inn she’d booked for the trip.
    She climbed out of the car and moved toward the trunk, stopping to gaze around the small town set picturesquely against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The scenery was pretty enough, but too quiet, too secluded to suit her. She’d be bored to tears long before she wrapped up her assignment and left this place.
    Rosanna lugged her bags into room number four, which was two doors down from the office. After settling in, she thought about grabbing an early dinner before heading out to Gavin Elliot’s latest venture, Mirabelle Winery.
    Hopefully, he had some nice views and she could get a few twilight shots. Those always paid well.
    She hoped he didn’t ask her to taste his wine. Rosanna wasn’t much of a wine drinker. She was more of a champagne kind of girl. She’d heard people argue that champagne was wine, but Rosanna supposed that was only because they’d never tasted a decent champagne.
    Stomach growling, she snatched the brochure off the small table by the window and opened it. There were two restaurants advertised inside. “I guess room service is out of the question.” She shrugged and perused the menus for both places. Nothing jumped off the pages to entice her taste buds. She closed the brochure and propped it onto the table.
    Glancing around the dreary room, she backed up and sat down on the bed, raking her hand over the bedspread, which felt a little too rough for her tastes. It was one of those dull, dingy brown and orange striped jobs. It came with matching curtains, which Rosanna was sure had once been tarps in a previous incarnation. The dark brown carpeting on the floor came as no surprise. Topping off the decor, a gigantic painting hung on the wall above her bed—a weird, orange, red and yellow sunflower-looking thing with a red and green—yes, green—center.
    Rosanna sucked in a breath and reached for her purse. “Well, you wanted to be isolated from the riff-raff you’ve been dating lately...” she said, digging around for her cell phone. Latching onto it, she decided to give Gavin Elliot a call.
    The call didn’t go as smoothly as she’d imagined. Mr. Elliot wasn’t as nearly supportive of the idea as one would expect. After all, it was his parent company, Elliot Enterprises—and there was no coincidence in them having the same name—that had set up the photo shoot in the first place. Yet, he seemed overtly put out as he rattled off directions to the house.
    She stuffed her phone in her purse, grabbed her car keys and her camera bag, thinking, this might not turn out to be a boring shoot after all!
    Twenty minutes and a long, winding road later, Rosanna rolled to a stop behind a new tricked-up Jeep Wrangler Unlimited on a spacious, tiled driveway. At first glance, it looked like a typical forty thousand dollar ride. But on closer inspection, it was obvious that the gold color was a custom paint job, as were the tires and rims. And, if she could get a look inside, she’d bet there were all kinds of amenities that didn’t come as standard equipment on the vehicle.
    Gavin Elliot had good taste.
    Rosanna shifted her own car into park, cut the engine and pulled the key from the ignition. Opening the door, she grabbed her purse and stepped outside. The brisk mountain air blew past. It was a bit chillier than down in L.A. She reached into the back seat and grabbed the light sweater she always kept hanging in the car. She’d learned from experience that she could never tell when a