Call Me Wild Read Free

only to be met by a grin—a dimple bracketing one side of his mouth and a Tic Tac commercial smile. Crap, the guy must be thick too.
    “If you’re uncomfortable dancing here we can go to Humpin’ Hannah’s or Shorty’s.”
    Jessie struggled to keep from rolling her eyes. “Not interested, but thanks anyway.” She was surprised to see his smile widen.
    “Okay, then. I guess I’ll see you around.”
    “Not if I see you first.”
    He shot her a wink before he turned toward the door. His smile hadn’t dimmed one little bit. Yeah, he was definitely not a member of Mensa. Maybe he had processing problems. He’d figure out that he’d been turned down sometime in the middle of next week.
    Jessie took her place in line and waited. Once the couple in front of her placed their half-hour-long, amazingly complicated order, and paid—having to not only dig for their gold card, but also refill it—she told herself to calm the hell down. After all, she wasn’t in New York, she wasn’t on deadline, and it wasn’t as if she even had a job to go to.
    For the first time in her life she had more free time than she knew what to do with. No wonder her mother had always warned her to be careful what she wished for. Jessie had always wanted to have the time to write a novel—she just didn’t want to lose her job and sublet her beloved apartment to get it.
    She let out a sigh, pasted on what she hoped was a friendly smile, and stepped toward the counter.
    Starbucks’s answer to Lady Gaga with a go-go dancer twist leaned toward Jessie, wide eyed. “Fisher asked you out, and you blew him off? What’s wrong with you? Are you married?”
    “No.”
    “Gay?”
    “No.” Jessie had worked with people for six years who hadn’t asked her such personal questions. The woman had only served her a cup of coffee, and she wanted her life story?
    Andrew had warned her that people were a whole lot friendlier in Boise. He didn’t say friendly was synonymous with nosy.
    “Why the third degree? So, a guy asked me out, and I said no. What’s the big deal?”
    “Hmm. Maybe you have a vision problem. Did you look at the man?”
    Jessie did roll her eyes then. “Just because he looks great doesn’t mean there’s anything there, if you know what I mean.”
    The barista appraised Jessie’s outfit, a Mets T-shirt, holey, ragged-out jeans, and black Converse high-tops. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”
    Jessie wasn’t sure if Lady Gaga referred to her taste in men or clothes. She decided it didn’t matter. “May I have an employment application, please?”
    “Applications are all online. Just go to Starbucks dot com, slash careers, and you can fill it out there. Lucky you, we’re hiring. I’m sure Steph, our manager, will give you a call.”
    “Great, thank you.” Jessie ordered a lemonade iced tea, and after a barista with a pixie face and curly brown hair slid it across the counter with a smile, Jessie went back to the document on her computer that contained nothing but a blinking cursor. At least she had a plan for her forced sabbatical. Write a book and work part-time at Starbucks for the health insurance. It wasn’t much, but it was her plan.
    ***
    Fisher rubbed his stiff neck as he got out of his ancient Toyota Land Cruiser in front of the local Albertsons grocery store. He lifted the door a little to make sure it closed properly. His brothers always teased him about driving a beater, but he didn’t mind. He loved his old truck. He’d bought it used and put another quarter of a million miles on the darn thing, and except for having to replace the engine a hundred thousand miles ago, just as the odometer passed four hundred K, he hadn’t had one problem with it. The same couldn’t be said for his BMW Roadster, or his BMW sport-touring motorcycle, even though he loved both with the unbridled passion of a sixteen-year-old.
    Fisher grabbed a cart from the parking lot and made his way into the grocery store—the