Another showed him as a Castilian prince in royal ceremonial robes with pitch-black hair and eyes entitled, Her Prince of Dreams.
In the third book, Undercover Love, he was a gray-eyed Royal Canadian Mountie in full red dress uniform wearing a hat that covered his hair.
The Star Grazer was the last book. It portrayed him as a man from the future with auburn hair and brown eyes.
On all of the covers he had his arms around a beautiful woman. It appeared the same person had done the artwork.
“That’s some life you lead,” came another crack from Mac, sotto voce.
Payne made no response as he looked at the spines. All four were a product of Red Rose Romance Publishers, and had been printed within the last year.
“How many publishers put out paperback romances besides Red Rose?”
“Dozens of companies throughout the world, but the ones on my shelves come mainly from the United States, England and Canada. Red Rose produces the most every year by quite a margin.”
“Have you seen my face on the covers of any romances other than Red Rose?”
“No.”
That was the only good news so far. He could hope Red Rose was a mom-and-pop outfit that probably didn’t have a large distribution base. “Do you have your romances sorted by publisher?”
“Yes.”
“Will you show me where the romance section is?”
She laughed. “It’s practically the whole shop except for the mysteries and science fiction here at the front.”
He tried hard not to reveal his shock. “Why don’t we try the Red Rose section first.”
“Follow me, Mr. Sterling.”
She led him a fourth of the way back. “It starts here and goes to the rear of the store.”
His eyes widened in incredulity. “These are all Red Rose Romances?”
“Yes. Their company has nine different lines depending on what kind of romance you’re looking for. Of course these are only the English versions. Their books are published in over a hundred languages. Something like that.”
A hundred! That meant—
“We keep a few copies in Italian and Russian for the occasional visitor,” she added.
He wondered how many times Catherine had been in here that her mother didn’t know about. Payne loved his sister Phyllis, but like their mother, she didn’t approve of a lot of things.
With her high-brow taste in the arts, music and literature, he doubted she’d ever had the curiosity to read a paperback romance. He couldn’t help but wonder if Diane disliked them on principle too.
Or maybe she’d read a few when she was a teenager and refused to admit to it. He’d like to know.
In Payne’s mind it would make Diane a more real person if she’d gone against her mother’s wishes the way Catherine had done, and could own up to it…
“How far do some of these books date back?”
“Red Rose has been in business at least forty years that I know of.”
Forty years?
He studied the voluminous amount of reading material. Evidently someone besides Nyla and Catherine had been gobbling these up by the thousands for at least four decades.
That was a long time… Too long not to be a reputable company.