Love Me Wild (Love Me Dangerous #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I check my boarding pass again while the paper cup of coffee I stupidly stood in line for twenty minutes to buy scalds my fingers. But there’s no escaping this disaster. My ex’s mom is not only on this flight, she’s my seatmate.

Dressed in a dark denim skirt, red mules, and a peasant blouse embroidered with colorful flowers, her hair and makeup flawless, Margaret Healy appears as put together as ever. Her cell phone is pressed to her ear and she’s laughing while gazing out the window at the snow, totally at ease.

I’m sure I look like the half-wild field rat I am. My long hair is scraggly and in need of a trim. My jeans are tight on my thighs after months of winter field work. My beauty routine this morning included a four-minute shower and lip balm.

Nobody talks about how hard this is.

Everything is too loud, too bright, too…artificial. I miss my crimson sunsets and wide-open spaces and the sound of my steady breaths broken only by a hawk’s lonely cry or the trickle of meltwater beneath the snowpack.

So maybe I’m the only one who struggles to re-enter city life.

Which means I need to get tougher.

The people lining up behind me aren’t interested in waiting for me to get my shit together, so I sling my backpack that probably still smells of marmot pee to my front and settle into the seat. That I manage to do so and not spill coffee should earn me a medal.

At least I remembered to remove the bear spray canister from my backpack’s hip belt and relocate my pocketknife to my duffel this time.

Nathan’s mom’s eyes go wide as she recognizes me. “Of course!” she says into her phone with a smile that reveals a lipstick stain across one of her front teeth. “See you soon.” She ends her call and gives me a look of awe. “Linnea, what a lovely surprise.”

“Nice to see you, Mrs. Healy.” I force a smile as the passenger in the aisle hoists his wheeled carry-on into the luggage bin above my head before sliding into his row behind me.

The bin across the aisle is already full. Where am I going to put my backpack? I should have just asked Nate’s mom to hold my coffee while I stowed it. Or asked someone else. Why do I always choke like this around people? This is why I’m better off with wild animals.

“It’s Margaret, remember?” Nate’s mom says, crossing her legs.

I take a tentative sip of my coffee, but it’s still too hot, and I wince as my tongue practically ignites.

At least I can partially rest the cup on the backpack now lumped in my lap, giving my scorched fingers a break.

But it becomes clear that I’m fucked because the flight attendant comes over the PA system announcing the doors are closing soon and to buckle our seatbelts.

“Heading home for a visit?” Margaret asks me, clicking her belt into place as the flight attendant comes down the aisle, scanning side to side to make sure we’ve complied with her instructions.

I give Margaret an awkward uh-hmm while sliding my pack beneath the seat in front of me, but it’s too bulky, and the camp mug I clipped to the outside of it—the same one the airport barista refused to use, forcing me to choose between being caffeinated and conserving our forests—clangs against the metal supports, drawing curious looks from a few of the other passengers.

Though I shove the pack with my boot, I can’t get it all the way into the space.

I should have ditched my coffee, but after coming out of the field late last night and barely sleeping in the stuffy, overheated hotel room, I need the caffeine. Or at least some small reward for adulting today.

“We’re going to have to gate check that for you,” the flight attendant says with a concerned frown when she gets to my row.

Now everyone is staring. My face heats. “Sure,” I manage, and lift the pack by its top loop.

The flight attendant’s manicured nails and smooth fingers look sleek and clean against the black webbing stained by DEET and sunscreen and frayed from months in the field, but in one swift motion, she carries my pack to the front of the plane, where another flight attendant deals with the tagging process before it’s handed to a baggage carrier out of sight.

Too late I realize I forgot to pull out my book.

I close my eyes for one tense moment. Force in a deep breath. It’s a fifty-seven minute flight, I tell myself, I’ll survive.

“So, hon, tell me about life as a wildlife biologist,” Margaret says as the plane pushes back from the terminal.

Margaret was always nice to me, but I know it’s only a matter of time before she starts oversharing about Nathan. And I don’t want to hear about how amazing my ex’s life is now that he’s free of me.

“I just finished an internship in the Selkirks. There’s an outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease and we were—”

Margaret wrinkles her nose, warning me that an infomercial about the fatal and contagious neurological disease killing wild deer, moose, and elk in several counties is not the direction she wants to go with this chat.

It’s another reminder that I need to recalibrate my conversation topics now that I’m not in the field.

“I’m actually headed back home to start a job with Idaho Fish and Wildlife.”

Her eyes soften. “Is your family still in Finn River?”

“Yeah.” Except for Mom, of course, but I don’t talk about her. “How have you been?” I ask to move the conversation along.

Her entire face lights up. “I’m sure you heard the news?”

My stomach drops. Not only have I been living at a remote field station in the Selkirk Mountains off and on since August, I’ve been purposely avoiding all things social media and even checking in with mutual friends.

The breakup was…confusing, and taking some space seemed like the best way to make sense of it. “I…what news?”

She gives me a light tap on my arm. “Oh you. Always so focused.”

I grimace, but my pulse is already tapping into my throat. Her use of focused came out lighthearted, but it was a dig nonetheless. Oblivious is probably what she would say behind my back. It’s okay. I’m not sorry for the way that I am. I just wish I could pay for it a little bit…less.

Her eyes widen. “Oh dear. You really haven’t heard?

Well…” She shifts in her seat and brushes back an invisible hair from her forehead “…Nathan proposed to Georgia last July. They wanted to have a winter wedding at Bear Mountain, but let me tell you, it was quite a feat to make it happen with such little notice. We had to settle for a Tuesday, if you can believe that. Thank goodness I could take this week off to get everything ready.”

The plane sways and rattles, the roar increasing, and then we’re lifting off into the gray clouds.

But my heart is still on the runway.

Nathan is getting married? At my favorite ski lodge?

My chest feels too tight, and I suck in a wheezy breath.

I was the one who introduced Nathan to the summer concerts at Bear Lodge.

He’s the only guy I’ve ever danced with like that.

Carefree, flirty. That was before things changed.

Before he changed. Or had he always been that way, and the fun we’d had in the beginning was just one more example of his manipulation skills?

“That’s exciting,” I manage as the landing gear beneath the plane folds up in a series of thumps. “Tell them congratulations.”

Margaret’s sleek eyebrows arch. “They’re picking me up, so I’m sure you’ll get a chance to tell them yourself.”

I sip my still-too-hot coffee. Is she serious? “Sure.”

The caffeine is my lifeline throughout the rest of the flight.

I smile and nod and use my manners when what I really want is for her to stop talking, or at least find a new subject.

Instead I hear all about Nathan’s new job at a private biotech research facility and the gobs of money he’ll be making, the grand wedding at my hometown ski area two Tuesdays from now, the house he and Georgia are building in Bozeman, the honeymoon ski trip in the Italian Alps.

Has Georgia begun to feel smaller and smaller already, or is Nathan waiting to turn on his full powers until after they’re married?

When the flight finally ends and I’ve managed to extract myself from Margaret, I beeline for our tiny baggage claim area, but it’s so crowded with passengers and family members that I nearly run into Nathan’s back.

I dart sideways behind a tall guy carrying a giant snowboard bag.

Luckily, my duffel is rounding the carousel bend closest to me, so I can snatch it up without breaking my stride.

But at the exit, I risk a glance. Nathan is now huddled near Margaret at the opposite end of baggage claim, a pile of suitcases and a matching dress bag folded over one of them.

Glued to Nathan’s side is a young woman wearing crisp tan chinos and a pink sweater, her dark hair in flawless waves.

She’s impossibly pretty, with a warm smile.

But is she strong?

I hurry through the sliding doors to the curb and blink at the snow falling in big, fat flakes.

Dad steps down from his old pickup, his smile a mile wide. I race over and he scoops me up.

His strong arms hugging me tight. “God, I’ve missed you.” When he steps back, his handsome blue eyes look tired, but they’re shining with quiet joy. The kind that’s always been my anchor.

“You brought Bruneau?” I laugh, wiping the corners of my eyes as Dad’s sidekick tries to push his massive brown head through the crack in the window, his wagging tail a blur.

“Of course.” Dad hoists my duffel and opens the passenger door for me. Immediately Bruneau attacks my face with his cold nose and sloppy tongue, making me laugh.

I give his thick chest a firm shove. “Okay, boy. Let me in.”

“Hey, Rowdy!” an older man with a neatly trimmed beard calls from the car behind us. I don’t recognize him, but Dad knows just about everyone in Finn River thanks to his career as a conservation officer. Dad gives him a friendly wave before closing my door then rounding the front of the truck.