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

except her eyes, which were as vivid as ever.
    She unbuckled and looked at him, like she was about to say something.
    “Wait,” said Seth.
    He leaned toward her, unbuckling his own seatbelt, letting it clank against the door.
    “Let me kiss you before anything else ruins it,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
    He could have sworn her eyes flashed, but before he could think her lips were on his, soft and warm and pliant, and he cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, her warmth sending a shock through him, her hand tentative on his shoulder, like a bird that wasn’t quite sure whether to stay or take off.
    When their lips separated they hovered close for a moment. Seth didn’t want to pull away — he didn’t think he ever wanted to pull away — he just wanted to stay there, close to her, forever, and then she closed the space between them one more time, pressing against him a little harder now, just a little more insistent.
    This time, when they separated, they both sat up straight in their seats, and Seth felt like his heart had grown wings and might simply fly out of his chest as he looked into her eyes, feeling like the entire world had shifted in some subtle way he couldn’t exactly name.
    “Stars?” Jules asked, after a long pause.
    Seth just nodded and got out of the truck.

    As promised, they sat on the front porch in the warm night air, feet up on the railing. Seth had offered Jules orange juice — it was the fanciest thing they had in the house at the moment — but she declined, laughing.
    “Next time, I’ll get sparkling grape juice,” he said.
    He thought he saw something pass over her face, and he remembered: she was leaving soon.
    Then she tried to smile, but it didn’t quite make it to her eyes.
    Finally, she spoke up again.
    “Is that big dark thing Copper Mesa?” she asked.
    “It is,” said Seth, and then he went silent, glancing her way. Jules wouldn’t meet his eyes, just staring at the mesa, like she was thinking hard about something.
    Does she even know what’s happening? He wondered.
    Then a much more insidious thought struck him.
    What if they sent her on a date with me to see if I had the document? He thought.
    It was a completely insane thought, but he was feeling pretty crazy at the moment.
    “That’s actually why I didn’t call you last night,” he said, careful to keep his voice neutral and even.
    “The mesa is?” she said. She still wouldn’t look at him.
    Seth took a deep breath.
    Fuck it, he thought. I know that she knows that I know and all that .
    “You work for Quarcom, right?”
    She nodded.
    “They’re going to build a giant mine right next to the mesa if I can’t prove that we own it,” he said. “I was up until two in the morning on shitty dial-up internet trying to figure out how land ownership even worked in 1870s Utah, while Zach went through all the legal stuff from my parents’ will again, trying to see if there was something in there.”
    Jules just shook her head, her posture stiffer than before.
    “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
    It’s not her fault , Seth reminded himself yet again, but now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop the floodgates.
    “A mine there would wreck the whole town,” he said. “I work with a guy who used to live in Tinville, and the same thing happened there. Huge open-pit mine, made the whole place basically unlivable.”
    “Did your family ever own all this land, or was it a legend?” Jules asked. “It seems like there’s a lot of legends around.”
    “I don’t know,” said Seth, beginning to feel a little helpless. He was no closer to saving the mesa, and now Jules had gone brittle.
    I can’t believe I wrecked a perfectly good date so badly , he thought.
    “You don’t have any ideas, do you?” he asked. “Any way I can stop this, whether it’s about ownership or just about environment stuff or, I don’t know, some kind of technicality?”
    “You should probably take that up with