Page 138 of Love Me Fierce

“Probably,” I grumble.

An hour and two margaritas later, I call us a cab.

“Remember, tonight is about you being a free woman,” Quinn says as we touch up our lipstick in the guest bathroom. “Whatever your little heart desires, you take it, okay?”

“I’m not bringing a cowboy home.”

She gives me a playful wink.

Outside my front window, the cab pulls into the driveway so we snatch up our purses and head out the door.

“Who’s playing tonight?” Quinn asks.

“Boxcar Doves,” I reply as we climb into the backseat of the cab. From Linden’s driveway comes the steady dribbling of his basketball.Good. Maybe that means he’ll be done by the time we get home.

“Local?”

“Yeah, actually.” I roll down my window to let in the fragrant evening breeze. It’s one of the things I love about Finn River. What Imissed most. How rich and earthy it smells here. In the spring, I swear I can smell the snowmelt and the flowers pushing through the tough mountain soil. “And according to Annaliese, they’re really good.”

“Too bad she can’t make it tonight,” Quinn says.

“Might be better for Finn River that it’s just us.” I bump her shoulder, and she laughs. Annaliese is the one friend I’ve stayed in touch with since I left Finn River in seventh grade. She’s a journalist for the Bitterroot Journal and lives for adventure like Quinn, a quality that bonded them like long lost sisters at my bachelorette party—and got us kicked out of two bars that weekend.

We reach the top of my driveway just as Linden fires off a shot to his basketball hoop. In the bright outdoor lighting, with his arms arched overhead, it’s like catching him in the flash of a photographer’s bulb. He’s changed into a sleeveless t-shirt that in this lighting outlines his shoulder muscles, paired with a pair of mesh athletic shorts. His face is a little sweaty, and his dark eyes are fixed on the hoop.

Next to me, Quinn gives an appreciative hum.

I ignore her. What kind of neighbor plants a fake rattlesnake? Did he relish my scream of terror?

The ball drops through the hoop with a softswish, but Linden’s not watching it anymore. His dark eyes are on me.

My cheeks heat and the knot at the base of my spine twists a little tighter.

He gives me a cocky arch of his brow before I can force myself to turn away.

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