Page 60 of Hunter
“What? Rick being Rick?”
“He never hangs out with us,” I point out. “Why now?”
Kit shrugs like it doesn’t mean anything, but I also notice she’s not meeting my eyes. “Maybe he realizes what a jerk he’s been now that the show’s ending soon.”
I scoff. “Or maybe something’s up. I don’t trust him.”
“Well,” says Kit, gathering the paper confirmations for Nome into a neat pile, “if heisup to something, I’ll be there, too.”
What doesthatmean?
“I don’t get it,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.
She shrugs again, a jerky little motion that doesn’t come naturally to her.
“You know Rick,” she says. “He wasn’t going to drop it. Better just to let him have his way.” She stands up and scoops the pile of paper into her arms. “See you back here at ten?”
“Yeah,” I say, with plenty of questions still unanswered.
I guess I’ll just go with the flow until I can figure out what’s going on.
***
At ten o’clock, the three of us pile into a taxi headed to the Spur, even though I’m still missing Isabella, who responded briefly to my texts, telling me that the crew had a whole “itinerary of fun” planned for tonight and she’d text me when she got back to her room later.
Rick sits in the front seat of the cab, saying nothing, texting someone non-stop, and Kit sits beside me, posture tense, looking out the window. The weird vibe continues, but I’m just along for the ride at this point.
We get to the Spur, which looks a lot like a strip club from the outside—especially with the giant poster advertising that Chippendales will be appearing LIVE in three weeks—and hop out of the cab.
“I’m not staying long,” I mutter, feeling annoyed. I assumed we were going to a run-of-the-mill Alaskan bar, but this spot appears seedier than most, which is saying something.
“Nut up,” says Rick. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, my voice taking on an edge at the mere thought of cheating on Isabella. We agreed to monogamythis summer, and I have absolutely zero desire to meet anyone else.
“You never know,” he says in this singsong voice that makes me want to pop him in the nose.
“Iknow,” I growl, following him inside.
As predicted, the scene inside the Spur is rowdy and loud, but also a lot more crowded than I expected. We weave through the crowd to get to the bar, and I order myself a pint of Spruce Tip Blonde, which is a Skagway-made beer. It cheers me up a little to see it on tap.
As I’m sipping on my welcome taste of home, I lean my elbows back against the bar and survey my surroundings. The place has a loose country-western theme, with a small stage in the far corner of the room that’s adorned with white lights, game antlers and a couple of bear skins.
The band on the stage plays decent country music, and the dance floor is covered with guys in wide-brimmed hats and girls in cowboy boots. It’s packed for a Thursday night, which is a little strange, especially with all of the University of Alaska students on summer break, but despite its dive-y appearance outside, I guess it’s pretty popular.
I take another sip of my beer, trying to relax.That is…until I notice a woman on the fringe of the dance floor who appears to be getting some unwanted attention from a couple of drunks. She’s several feet away from the bar, with her back to me, but I have a clear view of the two guys bothering her—they’re a lot bigger than she is, smiling at her in a way that makes my skin crawl.
One of them has his hand around her waist, his fingers spread out wide on her ass. She’s reaching around trying to move his hand, but he’s digging his fingers into her jeans, which makes her twist and wiggle, trying to get away. Meanwhile, the other guy is acting like her wiggling is some sort of voluntarydance move, using it as an excuse to gyrate against her front, while his friend holds her in place.
Fuck!She’s being assaulted on the sidelines of a public dance floor, and no one else seems to notice. Where are her friends? Who is she here with? If that was Harper, Parker, or Reeve being manhandled like that? My brothers and I would have those guys on their backs and bleeding in a matter of seconds. Solo? It’ll take me a little longer to shut this shit down, especially if these two are scrappy and have some fight in them, but I’ve got an advantage in that I’m mostly sober. I’m confident I can take them both on if I need to.
I leave my beer and shove off from the bar, cutting a path through a dense crowd of drinkers and dancers, beelining for the woman in trouble. As I get closer, I can see that she’s really struggling to get away now, crowded by these two nasty assholes who have her trapped, one of them still groping her ass, and the other “dancing” way too close to her for comfort.
Moving faster, I stop saying, “Excuse me,” aggressively pushing through a group of oblivious drinkers, who yell “asshole” at my back as their beers slosh onto the floor. I don’t care. This woman is in trouble, and these guys need to be stopped.
When I reach her, I grab blindly for the guy’s hand on her ass, ripping it from her person and yelling, “Get off her!”
At the same time, the woman turns around, her hot-pink, party-store cowboy hat falling to the floor, and revealing her to be—holy shit!—Isabella.