Saving Sofia Read online

  Saving Sofia

  The Russo Sisters, Book 1

  Linda Seed

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  Contents

  Copyright

  By Linda Seed

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

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  Keep reading for a preview of First Crush, the Russo Sisters, Book 2

  This is a work of fiction. Any characters, organizations, places, or events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  SAVING SOFIA

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  Copyright © 2019 by Linda Seed

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  The author is available for book signings, book club discussions, conferences, and other appearances.

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  Linda Seed may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected] or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LindaSeedAuthor. Learn more about Linda Seed’s novels at www.lindaseed.com.

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  Cover design by Teaberry Creative.

  By Linda Seed

  The Main Street Merchants

  Moonstone Beach

  Cambria Sky

  Nearly Wild

  Fire and Glass

  * * *

  The Delaneys of Cambria

  A Long, Cool Rain

  The Promise of Lightning

  Loving the Storm

  Searching for Sunshine

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  The Russo Sisters

  Saving Sofia

  First Crush

  1

  Sofia Russo liked to tell people she lived in a whorehouse. It was true, after all—even if the whores in question had long since moved on.

  One thing hadn’t changed since the days, a hundred and fifty years before, when her house had been an establishment of prostitution: it was now, as then, occupied entirely by women preoccupied with the subject of men.

  “All I said is that I’m lonely,” Sofia told her sisters as the four of them bustled around in the kitchen on a sunny August morning, getting ready for work. “I didn’t ask to be psychoanalyzed.”

  Martina, the youngest of the sisters, was spreading almond butter on a slice of whole wheat toast, her dyed auburn hair piled on top of her head in a precarious updo. “And all I said is that you wouldn’t be lonely if you’d stop dumping every guy you go out with.”

  “I liked Steven.” Benny—short for Benedetta—extended her index finger to emphasize her point. She held a mug of coffee in her other hand. “He was hot. Those abs …”

  “Why were you looking at Steven’s abs?” Sofia demanded.

  “Oh, please.” The oldest sister, Bianca, rolled her eyes as she stood at the kitchen counter slicing fruit on a wooden cutting board. “We all looked. The man took his shirt off so often you’d think he was allergic to cotton.”

  That was true. Steven had enjoyed showing off his body, which had been one of the reasons she’d broken up with him. He hadn’t just displayed his abs to her sisters—he’d displayed them to everyone who came into visual range.

  When he was doing yard work? No shirt. Housework? No shirt. Of course he’d worn no shirt at the beach, but you’d have expected him to put one on at the taco truck, say, or at Soto’s Market.

  Steven’s abs had been viewed more times than The Wizard of Oz.

  She sighed. They really had been nice.

  “What about Greg?” Martina asked. “What was wrong with him?”

  “Forgot her birthday,” Benny reminded her.

  “Jason … what was his last name?” Bianca tried.

  “Elliot. Jason Elliot,” Martina filled in. “Liked shellfish.”

  “I’m allergic to shellfish,” Sofia pointed out. “Was I supposed to just ignore it when he ate lobster in front of me? Was I supposed to just die?”

  “The point is,” Bianca said, putting her coffee mug in the sink and filling a plastic container with the fruit she’d prepared, “You might be a little … what’s the word?”

  “Picky,” Martina offered.

  “Self-defeating,” Benny put in.

  “Can’t I complain that I’m lonely without getting a lecture about what’s wrong with me?” Sofia asked.

  “We offer that as a bonus service, at no extra charge,” Bianca said sweetly. “I’ve gotta go. I have the Donaldson triplets at eight.”

  Bianca, a pediatrician, was dressed professionally in black slacks, a white button-down shirt, and low-heeled pumps. Her dark, glossy hair had been smoothed with a straightening iron, and it lay to her shoulders in a shiny bob.

  Briefcase in hand, she grabbed the container of fruit and headed for the door.

  “It’s your turn to cook!” Martina called after her.

  “I remember!” Bianca called, then shut the door behind her.

  Sofia glared at her younger sister. “It’s your turn to cook.”

  Martina shrugged. “If she can’t remember whose night it is, she deserves what she gets.”

  Unlike Bianca, Sofia didn’t need to do much to get ready for her day. Her wardrobe didn’t matter because she wore a wetsuit to work. There was no point in wearing makeup because it would just smear and run the first time she went underwater. And obviously, any effort to do something with her hair would be a waste of time.

  All she had to do was brush her teeth, put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of boots, and run a brush through her long, dark hair, and she was ready to leave the house. It was one of the perks of leading kayak tours at San Simeon Cove.

  She probably should have used some of the time she saved on primping to clean her room, she thought, looking around her cluttered, chaotic space.

  The house, a big log cabin with an ocean view, had belonged to her parents, who had bought the place ten years before. With their girls grown, they had treated the house as their baby. It had originally bee
n two side-by-side log cabins on adjoining lots, each in such desperate disrepair that they were on the verge of falling down. The cabins had originally been houses of prostitution in a neighborhood that, at the time, was full of them—giving Cambria’s Happy Hill neighborhood its name.

  Aldo and Carmela had worked with an architect and a contractor to merge the two structures into one. Then they had painstakingly restored and improved it until the house had become so cozy, so quirky and charming, that it had been featured in a Central Coast design magazine.

  The idea had been for them to live out their golden years in the house, welcoming their eventual grandchildren into this haven that was so much a part of them, so intimately theirs.

  But then, there’d been the cancer diagnosis. Carmela was at stage four by the time the disease was discovered. She’d died just a few months later, and Aldo had followed shortly after in a car accident—vehicle vs. tree—that no one was certain was truly accidental.

  In the wake of that one-two punch, the four women had inherited the house. None of them had wanted to sell it, given how much their parents had loved it. And none of them had been able to agree on who should live there.

  After a couple of months of bickering, Martina had pointed out that there were four of them and four bedrooms.

  The solution was obvious.

  Sofia’s room had white wood paneling, an oak floor the color of caramel, a stone fireplace, and a big window facing the ocean. There was still some grumbling from the others that she’d scored the prime bedroom, with both the fireplace and the view, but the room assignments had been chosen randomly, so here she was.

  The least she could do was take care of the room better than she had been, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. This room had belonged to her parents—it wasn’t supposed to be hers. If she were to make it her own—if she were to take pride in the space and truly enjoy its comforts—she’d be admitting that her parents weren’t coming back. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  And right now, there wasn’t time to think about it, because she was running late. She grabbed a duffel bag containing her wetsuit, a towel, a bar of soap, and travel sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Then she went outside, climbed onto her bike—a Triumph Tiger—put on her helmet, and headed toward Highway 1.

  She had a tour group at nine, and she didn’t want to keep them waiting.

  Patrick thought, not for the first time, that he might be making a mistake.

  He’d never been kayaking. He had no interest in kayaking. He was terrified of the water. And he couldn’t swim.

  But he had to meet Sofia Russo, and if that meant risking death by drowning, then so be it. Besides, wasn’t that what life jackets were for?

  “You sure you want to do this, man? You look a little green.” Patrick’s friend Ramon was peering at him with concern as they got out of Ramon’s truck in the San Simeon Cove parking lot.

  “Uh … yes. Let’s just … yes. I can do this.” Patrick nodded his head firmly to reinforce his positive self-talk.

  “At least put on some sunscreen.” Ramon tossed him a tube of SPF 50. “If you don’t drown, you’re gonna fry to a little smoking crisp.”

  Patrick accepted the tube and went to work on the few areas of his body that weren’t covered by his board shorts and rash guard. With his white-blond hair, pale blue eyes, and skin that freckled at the mere suggestion of sun, he would be courting melanoma if he didn’t slather himself in the stuff.

  With that done, the two of them looked over to where Sofia, her curves deliciously encased in a wetsuit, was pulling kayaks off of a stack in preparation for the tour. A few tourists in bathing suits were gathered around her.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Patrick.” Ramon slapped him on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward. “You’re putting yourself out there. You’re going to get shot down like a duck during hunting season, but at least you’re going for it.” Ramon started off toward Sofia and the kayaks, and Patrick followed him.

  2

  The whole ill-conceived kayaking plan had come about earlier this week after Patrick had stopped in at Jitters, a coffee place on Main Street in Cambria, to grab a large latte for his drive to work in San Luis Obispo.

  He’d walked in the door and had been struck senseless by the sight of the woman ordering at the counter.

  Five-foot-eight, probably. Thick, dark hair that flowed down her back in waves. Skin that spoke of Mediterranean climates and sun-baked cobblestone streets. Long, smooth legs in very short shorts. Eyes the color of espresso. A body that sloped and curved in all the right places.

  He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He forgot why he’d come into the shop.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me, please.”

  He moved aside with a start, realizing he was blocking the entrance. A couple of tourists pushed past him, shooting him annoyed looks.

  He was still standing there when the woman—no, the goddess—walked past him with her coffee cup in her hand and headed out the door.

  Once she was out of his immediate vicinity, he was able to breathe again. He walked to the counter, managed to order his drink, then asked Connor, the guy behind the counter, “Who … um … who was that?”

  “Which who are you referring to?” Connor took Patrick’s money and put it into the register.

  “The dark-haired woman who just left. Tall. Very …” He cleared his throat. “… Very pretty.”

  “Oh, her? That’s Sofia Russo.”

  Sofia Russo. Even the name was like music. Lost in his reverie, he didn’t notice that Connor was handing him his change.

  “Dude?” Connor wiggled the coins a little.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Patrick took the change, dropped it into the tip jar, and headed toward the door. Before he got more than a couple of steps away, he turned back. “Um … Connor? Do you know anything about her?”

  “Not nearly as much as I’d like to.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “But I do know that she leads kayak tours out of San Simeon Cove.”

  “Kayak tours.” Patrick let the information sink in.

  “Dude. You’re way out of your league,” Connor observed. “I asked her out once, and she teed off on me like it was the fourth hole at Augusta.” He shook his head at what seemed like a fond memory.

  Connor was probably right. Patrick was probably headed off on a fool’s quest. But how would he know if he didn’t try?

  So here he was, strapping on a life jacket and hoping he wouldn’t get eaten by a shark. People did get eaten by sharks, didn’t they? That was a real thing that happened sometimes, not just in movies.

  “Everybody ready?” Sofia asked the group—seven people, most of them looking far more enthusiastic than Patrick. “Terrific,” she said, in response to the mostly affirmative answers. “Come on down, and I’ll show you how to launch.”

  The kayaks were already laid out near the waterline, each with its own paddle. Sofia stood with her back to the waves, addressing the group, a teacher in front of her eager students.

  The procedure was simple enough: They were to drag their kayak as close to the water as possible without it actually floating. Then they’d get in, keeping the bow perpendicular to the waterline.

  Using their oar on one side and their free hand on the other, they were to shove the boat forward until they had enough water under them to paddle. Then, keeping the bow pointed straight oceanward, they were to paddle hard through the breaking waves until they were out into the calmer water.

  “Don’t worry, this is extremely low surf,” she said. Because the beach was sheltered within a cove, the waves came barely to an adult’s waist. “You shouldn’t have any problems getting through the breakers. I’m going to go last, so I can help anyone who needs it. Once you’re out there, just stay in the group and wait for me.”

  It seemed simple enough. Patrick watched while one person after another followed the procedure Sofia had laid out, shoving their little vessels toward the water and then pad
dling beyond the waves, letting out the occasional whoop of exhilaration.

  Soon, there was no one left except Ramon, Patrick, and Sofia.

  “You got this?” Ramon looked concerned at the naked fear on Patrick’s face.

  “Uh … yeah. Sure. I’ve got it.”

  “Okay. Remember, if things go sour, don’t go toward the bright light.” Ramon stepped forward to take his turn.

  He got out there with no trouble, which wasn’t surprising, considering that he was much more outdoorsy than Patrick. He liked to jog and ski and probably wrestle alligators. It was why Patrick had asked him to come along.

  Ramon had made it look easy. Surely Patrick could do this.

  “You’re up,” Sofia said, giving Patrick a smile that almost made him forget his fear, or even why he’d come. “Nothing to it.”

  “Okay. Right. Nothing to it,” he repeated, trying to convince himself.