A trio of tipsy gazes fixed on her, waiting…
“You’d tell me if I wasn’t living up to expectations, wouldn’t you?” Stephanie asked, a not-so-innocuous question.
As she was currently revising her third contracted book, Stephanie’s curiosity about her editor’s expectations was natural. But this question came out of left field, reinforcing Ellen’s impression that this conversation was headed somewhere.
“Of course I would. But wretched title aside, your latest book is coming along beautifully. You’re not letting these jaded old hacks worry you with their war stories, are you?”
Tracy huffed. “Watch who you’re calling old there, Ms. I’m-getting-ready-to-turn-thirty.”
“You’re right behind me, Ms. I’m-getting-ready-to-turn-thirty-a-month-after-me.” Ellen forced a laugh, but she caught Lennon’s frown across the table.
“What else did you do on Bourbon Street tonight, besides pound Hurricanes?” Lennon neatly diverted the conversation.
“Visited a few sex toy stores to get ideas for our books,” Tracy said.
“And pinched a few cute butts.” Stephanie grinned.
“The usual Saturday night fare for horny women,” Susanna added. “You’ve been so busy that we haven’t had a chance to chat. How’s the family? Parents, siblings, all those aunts, uncles and cousins doing okay?”
Ellen nodded. “Everyone’s fine. How’s Joey making out?”
Susanna’s son had recently started summer session here in New Orleans at Tulane University, leaving Susanna, a divorcée of many years, with an unusually quiet house in Shreveport.
“Great. Except that life without mom-the-maid is coming as a shock. For me, too. I’m astounded at how much I’m not running the washing machine.”
Susanna laughed, but Lennon eyed her narrowly. “Don’t let her fool you, Ellen. I happen to know she just dropped big bucks on a laptop so she can still work when the urge to hop in her car and visit Joey strikes.”
Ellen guessed this might have something to do with Lennon’s invitation for Susanna to participate in Miss Q’s murder-mystery training. “A laptop is a good idea with your tight schedule.”
“My schedule,” Susanna said, “wouldn’t be nearly so tight if I hadn’t forgotten how to write a decent hero. But alas…” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I have, which means I’ve been riding my deadlines because I’m rewriting half my books.”
“You, too?” Tracy chimed in, peering at Susanna with what had to be feigned astonishment. “I’ve forgotten how to write a decent hero, too. I don’t know what’s going on. If I’d turned thirty already, I might worry about senility, but as I’m still in my twenties—”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Stephanie covered her eyes with a shaky hand. “I thought I was the only one having this problem. The rewrites on this book have been so extensive that I’m completely off schedule with my other projects. And if I miss my deadline, I’ll never sell another book.”
“Try not to let revisions undermine your confidence,” Susanna suggested pragmatically. “Revisions are just part of the process. Right, Ellen?”
Ellen stared at the three tipsy faces, recognized high drama at its finest, and knew this scene had been staged, rehearsed and fortified with alcohol.
“Okay, ladies.” She steepled her fingers before her and assumed a professional mien. “What’s on your minds?”
“Heroes,” Susanna said.
Not surprised that Susanna had been appointed the spokesperson of the group, Ellen asked, “What about them?”
“Our normally brilliant and insightful editor doesn’t seem to like them anymore.”
The woman didn’t pull any punches, but it wasn’t her delivery that blew Ellen away, but her allegation. “What on earth makes you think I dislike heroes?”
The trio stared at her, but they suddenly didn’t seem so tipsy.
“The fact that you hated my last one,” Susanna said.
Tracy nodded. “And mine.”
“And mine, too,” Stephanie added.
Ellen stared, expression carefully schooled as her mind raced to assess the accuracy of this accusation.
Susanna’s last hero…the medieval bastard—no, baron—who kept abandoning the heroine to run off to battle.
Hmm, Ellen remembered him well and Susanna was right, he’d required some serious revision. She wouldn’t say exactly half a book’s worth, but abandoning the heroine was not a quality she or the romance readers considered heroic.
Who wanted a man who would leave at the drop of a hat, a man who wouldn’t hang around long enough to fight for his heroine when the going got tough?
Tracy’s last hero…the Elizabethan nobleman who’d gone to court as a spy and made love to the heroine without revealing his true identity.
Lying to any woman suggested a character flaw that was tough to tackle successfully in any commercial book-length novel. But lying was especially dastardly when it involved an affair of the heart. It was never easy for a woman to let her guard down, to trust a man enough to become vulnerable, especially knowing she might wind up heartbroken.
Stephanie’s last hero…the Scottish lord whose heroine had been kidnapped by a rebel clan. His lame attempts to rescue her had spanned several chapters.
If Ellen had been Stephanie’s heroine she’d have been disappointed in a hero who couldn’t manage a decent rescue in a timely fashion. Any hero who left the heroine alone for so long was lucky his woman didn’t run off with the villain. A true hero would have pursued his heroine at all costs, quickly….
Okay, so she’d had some problems with their heroes. Valid problems? Ellen had thought so. But writing was a subjective business, a creative business. Even at their most professional, her authors were still artists, emotionally attached to their work. Editing often required performing a delicate balancing act of compliment and critique, to get the job done.
Okay, she saw where they were coming from, knew they wouldn’t have approached her unless sure their concerns were valid.
She glanced at Lennon, who’d risen, hightailing it toward the bar. The coward. She’d known this conversation would invariably circle around to her latest hero.
…The Regency smuggler who was more interested in his wants and needs than his heroine’s.
A true hero would have found a way to satisfy both. And even all those scrumptious orgasms in some very steamy cave scenes didn’t make up for the lack.
Uh-oh.
Ellen stared into the trio of worried faces whose careers were currently riding on her ability to be as brilliant and insightful, and reasonable, as they believed her to be.
And they must have seen something encouraging in her expression because Susanna threw a hand across her forehead in true Sarah Bernhardt fashion and sighed breathlessly.
“Woe is me, I’ve forgotten how to write a hero and now my publishing house will stop buying my books. My agent will have to hit the streets, scrambling for new offers—”
“At least you’ll get offers.” Tracy shot her a dubious look. “You’re a New York Times bestselling author. Publishing houses will be fighting over you. Even with all my promotional efforts, I’m still only in the mid-list with seven books.”
“But at least you’ve got numbers.” Then Stephanie met Ellen’s gaze with a look of entreaty. “My third book isn’t even out yet. I’m completely at your mercy.”
Folding