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This is when Hunter shows up and sets off a cataclysmic chain reaction. Lola spots him, her face lighting up.
Sarah Jo shifts nervously. “I think I need to stage an intervention.”
But it’s too late.
Lola’s pretty fucking unstoppable. Under other circumstances, she’d make an awesome hotshot. She heads straight for Hunter, breaking stride just once to grab a beer from the tray of a passing waitress. Maybe she’s thirsty? Fuck if I know what she’s doing. Lola chugs her stolen booty and tears off the tab. Her belch is loud enough that I hear it over all of the goddamned country music. And then she rubs the stupid purple rabbit’s foot hanging off her purse and makes for Hunter.
I’ve spent hundreds of hours with the man. I’ve had his back, and he’s had mine. You learn a few things about danger when it’s you, Mother Nature, and a shit-ton of flames. You learn to trust your instincts, when to advance, and when to back the hell up and retreat. Hunter needs to run. Instead, the idiot stands there and smiles as Lola charges toward him. He’s in the hot zone with the mother of all fires coming for him and he doesn’t seem to realize it.
She leans into him.
They kiss (Sarah Jo and I do it much better).
She drops to her knees.
Sarah Jo curses and starts steering us toward the happy couple. “She’s all in.”
I’ll admit it. My first thought? That Lola’s about to deliver a world-class blow job right here, right now. Her mouth’s on the level of Hunter’s dick, and while there are things I’m happy to watch on the big screen, there are also things I don’t want to see in real life.
“What is she doing?”
I sound like an idiot, but Lola can’t be doing this, can she?
“It’s so romantic.”
Does Sarah Jo sound… wistful?
“Hunter Black.” Lola holds up the beer can tab. “Will you marry me?”
“No,” I say before my brain catches up with my mouth.
Hunter looks stunned. He didn’t see this coming. Weeks of hanging around Lola, and she still manages to surprise him. He blinks at her, hands opening and closing by his side. She could be explaining quantum physics in Hindu for all he gets it. Drink Up holds its collective breath. Well, all except Colt, who yells out something congratulatory. Hunter looks like he just got brained by a falling snag.
Maybe the good folks in charge of the forestry department are fucking with us. Maybe we’re on one of those reality TV shows that sends in hidden cameras and then stages some drama. Because naturally this is the moment a gorgeous woman in a short, tight, black cocktail dress marches into the bar and right up to Hunter, and shit gets weird. Because that’s his ex.
The woman who couldn’t dump his ass fast enough.
The woman who sure looks like she’s entertaining some hotshot-sized regrets—and itching to rumble with Lola.
And rather than take Lola’s side, Hunter just makes it worse. Not only does he deny an engagement with Lola, but he tells her to stop being so dramatic. As if all this—her feelings, her proposal, her sharing air space with the ex—is her fault. As if it’s not what he wants. At all.
“Way to fuck things up,” I observe.
Lola must agree because a few painful, loud seconds later she gives Hunter the bird and runs out of the bar.
Chapter Thirteen
Sarah Jo
After the drama with Lola and Hunter went down, I line-danced with several smoke jumpers and at least half the Rogues. The guys are smoky, tired—and exhilarated, swapping war stories and bad jokes. An honest-to-God jukebox belts out country tunes, and some super energetic dancing is reflected in the big glass mirror behind the bar. When Colt approaches me, hands out, I beg off. There’s no way I dance another step until I’ve had a beer—and possibly an entire pitcher of water. I collapse, flushed and laughing, at our table.
Pick grins at me. He’d laid down the law, going all gruff and stern on me, insisting we date. Okay. So he claims tonight’s a hostage exchange and that he plans to swap my panties for his T-shirt. Yes, I slunk away from his RV panty-less. Apparently, he did some housecleaning after I left, and now said AWOL panties are in his possession. As long as he doesn’t fly them from the roof of the RV or run them up the camp’s flagpole, I’ll live.
