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“This from a girl who hasneverleft Luna.”
A shocked Grady looked at Janie. “Never?”
“Not yet,” Janie said.
“Not because she lacked the opportunity.”
Lips pressed tight, she shook her head. “Maybe just not therightopportunity.”
Hunter’s mind nearly exploded. The right opportunity? How could leaving to go with the man you said you lovednotbe the right opportunity?
“You wouldn’t,” Hunter seethed.
She merely arched a brow.
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t last the month. You wouldn’t last five days.”
“No?” She stepped closer. “You’ve never believed in me, so I don’t know why your doubt surprises me. But know this, Hunter Wallace—you’ve underestimated me for too long.”
“Does that mean you want to come?” Grady’s timid voice sounded hopeful and fearful at the same time.
Janie whipped around. “Am I invited?”
“Yes.” Grady cleared his voice, then looked around Janie and right at Hunter. “I mean, it would be totally on the up and up. Nothing sketchy. There’s another woman in our group—and it’d be the five of us, and we would all have solo tents. Nothing . . . I mean . . .” He swallowed. “It’d be . . .”
“Hunter doesn’t need to know all the details. I’m not beholden to him.”
Of course she wasn’t. She’d only promised to marry him, was all.
“Bet.” Hunter spat the word out like he’d just bit into a bitter wild rose hip.
“What?”
“You won’t last the month. You won’t last half of it.” He crossed his arms and stepped toward her. “I’ll bet on that.”
Janie fixed a hard look on him and then drew her brows together. For a moment he thought she’d back down, but then her stare flickered toward the woman at Hunter’s side. Fire and fury blazed from her eyes when she set them back on him. “Fine. What shall we wager?”
“The café.” He went for the last thing she’d risk.
“What?”
An anchor tethered his wild, out-of-control storm. She wouldn’t. Not her café. Not the thing she’d put her heart and soul into for the past several years.
Janie wouldn’t risk that for some stupid bet she knew she wouldn’t win.
“The café. That’s the wager. You lose, you leave the café and come and work for the lodge instead.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No.” Hunter leaned nearer, lowering his voice. “I know you, Janie Truitt.”
Her glare went as hard and cold as the Black Gulch. “You arrogant—” She seamed her lips before the rest of that not-so-nice phrase escaped. Then she stepped back, slipped her left hand into Grady’s, and held her right hand out toward Hunter. “Fine. The café.”
The world stopped turning. An icy pain sank through Hunter’s chest. She wouldn’t . . . she couldn’t actually mean . . . “F-fine?”
“When I win, and I will win, you’ll owe me.”
Hunter blinked. She was doing this? She . . . she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
