Page 41 of Montana Freedom

He opened the door for me, and we walked in. The room was filled with people, and I only knew a few of them. Noah, Liam, and some other men were gathered by the fireplace and bar, while Kate and all the other women were in the kitchen and at the table, drinking wine and laughing. I didn’t see Mara, and more importantly, I had no idea where to go.

“Emma!” Kate saw me, and her eyes lit up. “I’m happy you’re here. I get to introduce you to everyone and induct you into the girls’ club.”

I smiled, but my chest was still tight with nerves. “There’s a club?”

A short, curvy woman with colorful streaks in her hair grinned. “There’s definitely a club, and while you’re here, you don’t have a choice but to join. I’m Lena.” She extended a hand, and I shook it. “I belong to that one.”

She pointed to the giant in the corner of the room. He had a glass in one hand and eyes that were only for the woman in front of me. I’d seen him around and knew his name was Jude. But we’d never directly spoken.

Now she was looking at him, and her cheeks tinged pink under his gaze. I glanced down at her fingers and spied a ring. “He’s your fiancé?”

“Yes, he is.” Her voice was breathy with awe, like she could hardly believe it.

Jude downed the drink he was holding and stepped around Liam to come straight for her. “Excuse me, ladies. I need to borrow Lena for a minute.”

“A minute?” A redhead sitting at the table laughed. “We’ll see you in fifteen.”

He was kissing her before the door fully closed, and my heart did a little flip. What would it be like to have someone so entirely focused on you they needed to have you despite being in a room full of their friends?

My eyes strayed to Daniel where he sat by the fire, and he was looking at me too. This was dangerous territory.

“Are they like that all the time?”

“All the time,” the redhead said. “Took them three years to finally get together. Now that they are? They can’t keep their hands off each other, and it’s kind of adorable.”

“Like you and Harlan weren’t exactly the same?” another woman asked. I tried not to do a double take when I looked at her. Her arms were covered in visible scars, and not the kind some people gave to themselves. They looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to her skin. “I’m Evelyn, and that one—” she pointed at the redhead “—is Grace. Don’t let her fool you. She and her husband were just as bad as them.”

“We werenot,” Grace said.

“Were too.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But we can all agree none of us are as bad as Grant and Cori, right?”

“Hey,” a small blonde with teal highlights in her hair pouted in mock sadness. “We’re not so bad.”

“As if you don’t love every second,” Evelyn said with a laugh.

Cori blushed and drank deeply from the wine in her hand. “Can’t argue with that.”

“Can I get you something to drink, Emma?” Kate asked.

I blinked. “What is there?”

“Anything from the bar. Wine, whiskey, we’ve got a bunch of soda and, of course, water.”

Wine? I could do wine. It might help the nerves swimming in my gut. “White wine, please.”

“You got it.”

I followed her over to the bar as she went. “Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“Does everyone here—” I paused, lowering my voice. “Does everyone here know who I am? Why I’m here?”

She made a face. “Yeah, they do. None of them will say anything or ask you about it. But we were all worried about the woman who disappeared.”

“Really?”

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