Predator (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 1) by Roxie Noir, Amelie Hunt Read Free Book Online

the thought away. It hadn’t been her idea, obviously. She wasn’t in charge. At best, she was testing soil samples or something, and might not know a thing about the project beyond the ground’s pH levels.
    Plus, her nose crinkled when she laughed in a way that made him feel really funny inside, like all he wanted to do for the rest of his life was make her happy.
    That would be a pretty good fate , he thought, watching her concentrate on the slip of paper for scoring.
    It’s your first date, he told himself. Save naming your children for date number three or four, okay?
    Not that you’ll get that many dates. Maybe one more before she leaves if you’re lucky.
    He didn’t think for a moment she’d ever be back in Obsidian. She’d clearly decided that the small-town life wasn’t for her, and as much as Seth loved his wild, desert home, he could understand why someone might not.
    “Okay, I think I get it,” Jules said, tapping the tiny pencil on the score card.
    “It’s not rocket science,” Seth teased.
    “I’ve never had to score on paper before,” Jules protested. “For all its failings, the Huntsberg Bowl-O-Rama was automated.”
    “I bet you’ve got cable internet, too.”
    “We’ve even got a McDonald’s,” said Jules
    “You bowl first, fancy pants,” Seth told her.
    She took a bright orange ball from the stand and hefted it, like she was doing some sort of calculation before finally standing up straight, assuming the position, and heaving the ball down the lane, her back to Seth the whole time.
    He didn’t mind the view at all .
    The ball went straight into the gutter, and Jules watched it roll all the way down, hands on hips.
    “Shit,” she said.
    In the next lane, a little boy looked at her, wide-eyed.
    “Sorry,” she said, then wrinkled her nose at Seth, grabbing another ball.
    This time she got two pins, and her hair bounced up and down when she jumped for joy. Seth couldn’t help but smile.
    “Beat that ,” she said, and winked.
    Seth felt that wink tingle all the way down into his toes.
    “I’ll give it a shot,” he said, and winked back.

    Seth won both games, which didn’t surprise either of them. The whole time, he wondered whether he should show her how to bowl, holding her from behind, their bodies moving together in concert, but he didn’t.
    After all, there were kids in the next lane, and he wasn’t about to make guarantees about what could happen next . Plus, she knew how to bowl. The concept wasn’t hard.  
    She was just really bad at it.
    At 7:45, a voice crackled over the PA system in the bowling alley. It was totally incomprehensible, but Seth knew it meant they were closing soon. He ticked off the second-to-last box in Jules’s score sheet — she’d gotten an amazing-for-her seven pins — and tried to think of anything else they could do in town. Obsidian didn’t even have a bar. If it had been in any other state, it probably would have, but not Utah.
    Vatican City probably has more liberal liquor laws than the state of Utah, Seth thought.
    Jules walked back to where Seth was sitting.
    “I’m feeling good about this game,” she said, grinning. “I bet I’m crushing you.”
    Together, they glanced at the score card, and Jules burst out laughing.
    “Go bowl,” she said. “Put me out of my misery.”
    A few minutes later, they were walking to Jules’s truck in the gravel parking lot. Seth felt the back of his hand brush against Jules’s, and his heart practically flipped over in his chest. Something about her made him feel like he was thirteen again and had a crush on a girl for the very first time, as if no one in the history of humanity had ever felt quite like this .
    “Where next?” she asked, jingling the keys.
    “Remember how I said that everything closed early?” Seth said. They stopped next to the truck, by the driver’s side door. She was so close that he could smell her scent, spicy and earthy all at once, like a pine forest after a