by Dakota West
They bickered a bit in the parking lot over who would drive, and Zach won, since his fifteen-year-old sedan at least had a real backseat. Seth gave the front seat up to Jules, and they rode in almost complete silence for an hour and a half.
“You guys really live in the middle of nowhere,” she said at last.
“We like it,” said Seth.
“It’s beautiful,” said Zach. “Kind of inconvenient, though.”
True, thought Seth. Right now, for example, when we’re going on an expedition to find the nearest fax machine.
A gas station came into a view, and Zach slowed down. The three of them watched it anxiously, craning their necks to see the window. It looked deserted, and for a moment, Seth thought it was closed.
It’s okay, he thought. Blanding will have something else.
Then they pulled into the parking lot, and he could see the car parked in the back, and the signs in the window came to life. They were mostly junk food and soda advertisements, but in one corner, in LED lights, there was a small sign that said:
COPIES, 15¢
FAX
Seth whooped. Zach parked diagonally across two spots in his hurry, and the three of them got out of the car, the wind tousling their hair. Jules’s fiery curls practically exploded around her head and she made a face tugging at it. She glanced at the road and spotted a large black car slowing down.
Jules frowned, and cast Seth and Zach a look.
“Go fax that,” she said. “I’ll be right in.”
Seth and Zach just did as she said, opening the door to a faded chime. The clerk barely looked up from whatever he was doing, and Seth spied the copier in one corner, heading toward it.
“Make a copy first,” Zach said. “I think you have to feed the paper through the fax machine, and I don’t want to risk tearing it.”
The copier had to be from the 1990s, if not before, a positively ancient piece of office machinery. Seth put the deed face-down on the glass plate, then stared at the buttons. The text had worn off of them long ago, so he hit the green one.
PLEASE INSERT CHANGE, the machine flashed at him.
Seth looked around for a coin slot on the machine, feeling the edges and sides with his fingers.
“Excuse me,” Zach said behind him, to the clerk. “How do you pay for copies?”
“The coin slot,” the clerk said, sounding bored. “It’s on the left.”
Practically hidden behind the machine was the same kind of coin slot that washers and dryers in laundromats had, and Seth dug through his pockets for change.
Outside the gas station’s plate glass windows, the black car had pulled into the gas station and was idling a couple of spots away, like it was waiting. No one got out, though Jules was still watching it, one hand over her eyes. Something in the way she was standing, waiting, gave him pause.
“Here,” said Zach. “I got a quarter.” He slotted it into the machine and it fell down the metal tube. The copier sprang to life, just once, the paper sliding out of the tray.
It was so light it was unreadable. Seth rolled his eyes.
I hate these things, he thought, and hit buttons until he had found out how to turn up the darkness.
“Oh yeah,” said the guy at the desk, who was beginning to get interested. “It probably needs toner.”
Thanks, Seth thought sarcastically. He reached into his pocket and pulled out another quarter, slotting it into the machine.
Why does this thing only take quarters if a copy is fifteen cents? He thought.
He hit the green button again, then raised his eyes to the parking lot.
Two men got out of the car, both looking at Jules. They walked toward her, slowly, a menace in their steps that Seth couldn’t exactly identify, but the intimidation was evident.
Before the machine had even finished scanning the deed, he was out the door again, the hot desert air in his face.
“Juliana?” one of the men asked. He wasn’t wearing a suit, but his khakis had a neat seam down the front and his polo shirt was perfectly tucked into them.
It wasn’t how people from the area dressed, not at all. Seth’s spine straightened.
“Yes?” Jules answered, her arms crossed in front of herself.
Seth moved to her side. He felt like every muscle in his body was twitching, jumping, like he was just daring these guys to try something on Jules.
For now, the man seemed confused.
“I thought you were on-site today,” he said. “What are you doing all the way out here?”
At his side, Seth could almost feel Jules tremble.
“The mine would have ruined peoples’ lives,” she said, not answering his question. “You were willing to wreck a whole town. A whole river, and who knows what else, just so you could make a little more money,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes.
“What do you mean would have?” he asked. “Everything’s cleared the Utah Environmental Board. It doesn’t matter who you tell about porous sandstone and toxic runoff. It’s not illegal.”
Jules didn’t say anything, and for the first time, the man seemed to notice Seth standing there.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Seth shrugged, sneaking a glance back through the plate glass at Zach. His little brother was standing in front of the fax machine, looking down at it, pressing buttons.
He needs more time, Seth realized. That’s what Jules was doing: preventing the two Quarcom men from coming inside. It was bad luck that they’d shown up more or less in the middle of nowhere, but Seth was glad that she’d noticed.
“I’m just some guy,” he said, shrugging.
In the store, Zach hit the buttons, balanced the copies in the feed, and waited.
“No,” said the man in the polo shirt. The second man still hadn’t moved. “No, I’ve seen your face before.”
“I don’t think so,” said Seth.
Just try something, he thought. His hands itched to punch the guy who’d tried to take away his home, his town, his entire life, and he could feel the rage surging through him. Underneath his skin he could nearly feel the ripple of feathers, the urge to shift and tear the guy’s arms off or rip his throat out.
It would feel so, so good to clock you, he thought.
Then he felt Jules’s hand on his arm, like she’d read his thoughts, and he calmed down.
“Don’t worry about it, Gilbert,” Jules said. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. This mine isn’t happening, and given what I found, I don’t think there are going to be more.”
Inside the gas station, the paper started moving through the feed at an agonizing pace.
God, I hope that thing works, thought Seth.
“I know who you are,” Gilbert said, suddenly. “You’re one of those hillbillies who thinks he owns that goddamn mesa.”
“Nope,” said Seth. “I’m one of those hillbillies who does own that goddamn mesa, and who has documentation to back it up.”
Gilbert hissed through his teeth, and tried to move around Seth, but Seth was too quick, blocking his way with his big, muscled frame.
Inside the gas station, he could see the gawking face of the clerk. It was probably the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.
Gilbert tried again, and Seth moved with him, looking down at the shorter man.
“Let me through,” Gilbert hissed, but Seth stood there, arms in front of his chest. Off to the side, he could see Jules looking worried, her hair still framing her face like an alarmed orange halo.
Gilbert got a smug look on his face, then reached in his pocket, pulled out his phone, and hit a button, holding it up to Seth’s face.
“This man is publicly harassing me,” he began. “When I tried to enter this gas station, he grabbed me and—“
From the side, Jules stepped up quietly.
Then she quickly snatched the phone from Gilbert’s grasp, stepped back, and threw it as hard as she could onto the asphalt. Seth heard a metallic crunch as
it skittered across the pavement back toward the highway.
“Hey!” shouted Gilbert. He tried to go after the phone, but Seth grabbed him by the upper arm. Gilbert winced in pain and tried to jerk free, but Seth didn’t let him go.
“Be glad it was just your phone,” Seth whispered.
Inside the gas station, he saw Zach grin and give him a thumbs up, waving a piece of paper.
Seth let go, and Gilbert made for the door, only to see Zach standing against the window, holding up the copy of the deed so that Gilbert could read it. He did, his lips moving slightly, then looked from Seth, to Zach, to Jules.
The other man hadn’t moved at all from where he stood by the car, looking nervous about the situation, and now he got back in quickly.
“This isn’t over,” Gilbert said, stalking back toward the car.
Then he stopped and pointed one finger at Jules.
“You’re—“
“I quit,” she interrupted him. “Also, go fuck yourself.”
Gilbert looked like he wanted to call her a name, but then he took a look at Seth and decided against it.
The black car squealed out of the parking lot, not even stopping to retrieve the broken phone.
As he watched it go, Seth couldn’t help but grin.
Then Jules leaped onto him, laughing, and Zach shoved the door open.
“It sent!” he shouted to Seth.
Even the gas station clerk was cheering and clapping.
Epilogue
Jules
Nearly a month later, Jules hadn’t gotten around to leaving Obsidian. About two weeks after she’d quit her job, the cable internet had finally come through, and now that she was unemployed, why not job hunt from a dining room with a gorgeous view of a mesa?
The job hunt was kind of a problem, though. As much as she was discovering that she liked being in Obsidian — beautiful landscapes, starry nights, oh, and Seth in her bed — there weren’t any geology jobs there. In fact, Obsidian had almost no jobs, period, so she was having to look further afield for work.
Much further afield. The closest cities of any size were St. George, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, each about four hours away. Neither had a lot of science jobs. For what she wanted to do, she’d probably need to go to Salt Lake, Denver, or maybe Flagstaff.
The thing was, how did she bring that up to Seth? The two of them, along with Zach, had fallen into their lives together almost instantly, in a way that felt so perfect and right that Jules knew she could never bring herself to leave.
But she also couldn’t resign herself to a lifetime of waitressing at Big Mary’s, not if she could help it. She loved what she did.
It was a hell of a pickle, that was for a sure.
Before Jules could get any further in her worrying, she heard tires on the gravel driveway. Seth had finally fixed his truck — for now, anyway — and she didn’t have to drive him to his job anymore. The front door opened and she heard the familiar sound of his footsteps, the pause as he took off his shoes, then the slight echo as he walked down the hallway.
“Hey there,” he said. He crossed the room and moved to kiss her, leaning his tall frame down.
“Hey yourself,” she said back.
Seth flopped onto a couch, letting out a long exhale.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Jules bit her lip. She hated to have this conversation as soon as he got home, but what else could she do?
“One of my former professors emailed me about an opening at the Geological Survey outpost in Salt Lake,” she said.
Seth raised his eyebrows.
“Are you going to apply?” he asked.
Jules put her laptop on the coffee table and twisted her hands together in her lap, pulling her feet up under her.
“What’s going on... here?” she asked, gesturing to indicate everything around them. “It’s just, Seth, there are no jobs in a two hour radius of Obsidian, and I really like being here with you, but...” she trailed off, shrugging helplessly.
Seth nodded, his face darkening a little.
“Yeah, I knew this was coming,” he said. Slowly, he rubbed his hands together, then sat forward. “You ever heard that if you love something, you should let it go?”
Jules’s mouth dropped open.
Did he just say he loved me and then break up with me all in one platitude? She wondered.
“What are you trying to say?” she asked, holding back tears.
“I think you should apply for the job in Salt Lake,” he said. “It’s closer than Dallas, isn’t it? Some weekends, I’ll drive up there, you can come back down here. We can do that video thing you showed me, on the internet.”
He looked at her, eyes pleading.
“Maybe after everything has settled down with the land ownership, Zach and I can rent this place out and I can move to Salt Lake. He’s gotta move to college anyway.”
“You can’t do that,” whispered Jules. “You can’t move away from here. You can’t sell this place, and nobody’s gonna rent it out, it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
Seth grinned.
“It’s a relaxing, holistic retreat in the middle of the most untouched natural splendor that Utah has to offer,” he said, grinning.
Jules blinked.
“You’ve been thinking about this,” she said.
“Of course I have,” he said, his face going serious. “Look, I know I sound insane, but when I see you, when I hear your laugh or watch you stick three pencils into your hair or see the way your freckles scrunch up when you get mad, I think to myself, this is it. And God knows that there’s not a whole lot in Obsidian. I love it here, yeah, but I’d rather be with you.”
Don’t blink or you’ll cry, Jules thought, her eyes welling.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“It’ll work out,” Seth said, taking Jules’s hands in his. “Trust me.”
The End
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Copper Mesa Eagles
Book One: Predator
Book Two: Prey
Coming September 11
Book Three: Pariah
Coming September 18
Shifter Country Bears
Read the whole series!
Book One: A Bear’s Protection
Book Two: A Bear’s Nemesis
Book Three: A Bear’s Mercy
Book Four: A Bear’s Journey
Book Five: A Bear’s Secret
Shifter Country Wolves
Book One: Running With Wolves
Book Two: Betting On Wolves
Book Three: Fighting For Wolves
Book Four: Uncaging Wolves
Book Five: Longing For Wolves
Contemporary Romance Novels
(As Roxie Noir)
The Savage Wild
An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
The Dirtshine Trilogy: Rockstar Romance
Never Enough (Dirtshine Book 1)
Always You (Dirtshine Book 2)
Ever After (Dirtshine Book 3)
Slow Burn
A Bodyguard Romance
Torch
A Second Chance Romance
Convict
A Criminal Romance
Reign
A Royal Romance
Ride
A Cowboy Romance
Loaded
An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
14
EXCERPT: Chapter One of Prey (Copper Mesa Eagles #2)
Zach
“That sounds really nice,” the woman sitting across from Zach said, her hands folded in front of her, a polite smile on her face.
Zach just nodded. That was one of those phrases that he just didn’t have an answer for.
What am I supposed to say? He thought. “Yeah, it does sound totally nice that
I’m twenty-eight and still in college?”
Just in time, the sound of a knife clinking a wine glass echoed through the room. Zach could have cheered with relief, but instead he stood from the small table, lifting his glass of red wine.
“It was nice meeting you,” he told the woman, reaching out to shake her hand.
“You too,” she said, putting her well-manicured hand in his, limp as a rag.
Zach had already forgotten her name, but it didn’t matter. He was pretty sure she’d forgotten his as well. That was how these speed-dating things went: you met a bunch of women at once, and at the end, struggled to remember which one had been which.
He walked three feet to the next table, where a brunette with an empty wine glass sat, looking at her phone. He waited a moment for her to look up at him. Then he waited another moment, and another, until she finally finished texting someone and looked up at him.
“Hi,” he said, trying not to be annoyed. “I’m Zach.”
“Emma,” she said.
They shook hands. Same limp-rag handshake. Zach sat, carefully placing his almost-full wine glass on the table. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could tell that she was pretty in a classic sort of way: dirty blond hair, blue eyes. Her face was nice enough to look at.
It just wasn’t doing anything for him. No spark. No wiggling feeling in his stomach. Nothing.
