Page 1 of Extreme Romancing in Idaho

Chapter 1

Angie

Worldtraveler. Check.Loves kids. Double check.Collects skulls of small animals?

I read the last line again on Theo’s eHarmony profile. Why would anyone admit that, let alone put it on their profile? But this guy had such a darn sexy body. Too bad he was going to be the next Ted Bundy, and I’d be safer on a date with a rattler.

I swiped left.

My green hospital scrubs caught on the stiff fabric of my chair. I glanced up from my phone, arched my back, and rubbed along my lumbar spine. A couple of flight attendants gabbed as they rolled their bags to security. The server at the café wiped an already clean table nearby.

“Good morning,” she beamed when she caught me looking.

“Thanks. You too,” I said through a yawn. Ugh. Morning people. I would never understand them.

The air filled with the scent of freshly brewed, dark French Roast, and I glared at my empty disposable cup sitting on the floor beside my foot. I’d consumed four cups to get through my shift at the NICU last night, and at some point, I had to cut myself off.

Only three flights a day came into this airport: six a.m., noon, and six p.m. Why couldn’t my parents have been on the six p.m. plane? I arrived here before the sun got out of bed, which should be illegal. This morning was the most abysmal one yet. I flipped from eHarmony and re-read my parents’ text strand.

It’s not good. Stage four.

Mama tacked on a sobbing emoji to her last sentence.

What’s our next option? Another round of chemo? We can still fight this.

I’d written that message knowing this type of stage four cancer equated to a death sentence. I hadn’t wanted to give up on a miracle.

Papa’s responses gutted me.

No more treatments … I want to be home …Sorry, Muffin. Looks like I won’t be able to be there on your wedding day after all.

By wedding, he meant a hypothetical wedding in the distant future, one we’d been joking about since elementary school—the wedding where the groom was yet to be found.

I couldn’t deny any longer that his colon cancer had come back like the Terminator dragging itself from underneath the hydraulic press. Only in Papa’s story, the robot was going to win in the end. We were headed into the world of hospice care.

Hospice was worse than mornings—and coffee didn’t make it better.

At the onset of his cancer diagnosis, we’d made a deal with each other; he’d fight this Terminator inside him and be a survivor to walk me down the aisle. It was one of his greatest dreams, that and meeting his grandkids.

Given the few months estimated time frame, I couldn’t make the second happen. But I could make the first a possibility. I was a doer. My other half existed out there, and come hell or high water, I’d find him before Papa left this Earth. So, I jumped headfirst into online dating, creating profiles on every dating app imaginable. Tinder—before I knew it was for casual hook-ups. Learned this the hard way—eHarmony. Bumble. Match. Hinge. Coffee Meets Bagel. Plenty of Fish. And even FarmersOnly.com, because city folks just don’t get it. All of which led me to some epic no-good-very-bad dates.

Dates like Fart Boi at the driving range. He literally let one go with every swing. Then the guy who Facetimed with his mother during dinner on our first date. I live with my parents, and even I couldn’t handle the Oedipus vibes oozing off him. Oh, and how could I forget about Pee Pee Pants McGoo, who was so drunk he wet himself while trying to make out with me?

The past year, Papa had been in remission. My drive to find someone had slackened, believing my dad would be with me for at least another decade. But now, time was running out.

What would I do without Papa? Who would envelop me in a hug, let me cry into their chest, and make this lonely wasteland of a world bearable? Sure, I had other friends and family, but it was like I was trapped in a desert surrounded by people offering me salt water, and Papa was the only one holding the clearest spring water out to me.

My eyes burned. My thoughts drifted between the real world and the dream world until the rumble of the jet engines rattled the airport. Instead of curling up on the chair and falling asleep, I opened my newly downloaded dating app: ExtremeSingles, a place where lovers of extreme sports looking for long-term relationships could meet. With the failures of the other dating sites, I was becoming desperate. I needed a fresh pool to fish in. Never mind that I hated anything extreme.

With a swipe of my thumb, I scanned over the next potential Mr. Angelina Johnson.

Daniel Smoot. Loved dogs. Lived in Boise. Favorite extreme sports: climbing, rappelling, and BASE jumping. I shuddered at the thought of doing any of those things. This guy also played guitar and piano. Believed in love at first sight, and he was looking to settle down!

Boom. Drop the mic. Someone on the hunt for a committed relationship wouldn’t be opposed to a quick marriage. Perfect! Minus the extreme sports hiccup, but I could make it work.

I went to swipe right, but I stopped. I gnawed at my thumbnail. He could be a total loser like my last three online heartthrobs. But who was I to call anyone a loser? A thirty-five-year-old woman still living with my parents? I raised my eyes enough to see the plane’s wheels touch the ground.

But I would never find true love if I wasn’t willing to take risks. I chewed a loose chunk of my thumbnail off, spit it on the floor, and swiped right.

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