Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,23
hair. She was wearing scuffed cowboy boots and a form-fitting tee that stated, “The only way to tap it is hard and fast.” Her smile seemed genuine, as did the looks I was getting from the rest of the ladies, but I wasn’t ready to lower my guard just yet. Once burned, twice shy, and all that.
“I hope you’re right,” I said on a laugh as I grabbed an empty chair and sat down. “And I apologize in advance if I screw up any of your names.”
“Don’t sweat it,” the blonde I thought might be Gypsy said. “Our group grows in number every year. You’ll get who’s who squared away soon enough. By the way, I totally dig your style. It’s very . . .”
“Mountain bling,” a woman with long mahogany hair almost as wild as mine chimed in. I recalled that Nona had introduced her as Sage. And I dug her look. It screamed biker babe through and through. Ivy would have flipped.
“Yeah, that’s the perfect way to describe it. Mountain bling,” Gypsy agreed. “It’s working for you in a serious way, hon.”
My cheeks started to heat as my smile grew even bigger. “Um . . . thanks.” I looked down at my top, giving one of the ends of the knot a little tug. “I tossed pretty much everything in my closet right before I moved here and bought all new clothes.”
That garnered looks of appreciation and curiosity from the women in our group. I let out a grateful sigh when a waitress stopped by, and I quickly ordered a Blue Moon.
“So, what prompted the move to Hope Valley and a brand new wardrobe?” the older woman with bright, fire engine-red hair, asked. I believed she was Roxanne. If I had to guess, she was somewhere in her mid-fifties. She was sporting blue eyeshadow and an extreme amount of cleavage in her skin-tight shirt, and somehow, she made the crazy look work. She was sitting beside Sage, and had the same biker babe vibe, but in a well-seasoned way.
I snatched up the beer the waitress had just set down and took a hearty gulp. “Well, um . . . I kind of needed a change . . . after I caught my husband having an affair.”
“Oh honey,” the brunette by the name of Tessa said, her gaze turning sympathetic. “I think you’re gonna need something stronger than beer tonight.”
“With my best friend,” I quickly added. The group went silent, some of the women slow blinking in shock.
Gypsy was the first to shake herself out of her stupor. “Definitely something stronger than beer,” she said, turning in her chair and waiving down our waitress. “Tonight calls for shots.”
“Shots!” the rest of the women—excluding Eden, of course—shouted in unison. And I suddenly got the impression that the night was about to ramp up in a serious way.
“What a heinous bitch,” Sage snapped as soon as I finished regaling the group with the story of my marriage’s demise. “I mean, there’s a special place in hell for women like her.”
“Amen to that,” Tempie declared. “Karma always comes around in the end though, so she’ll get hers one of these days.”
“To karma!” Nona prompted, lifting her glass high.
“To karma!” we all repeated, clinking our glasses together before sucking back more booze.
The night seemed to move at warp speed after that. Three Blue Moons and two shots of whiskey later, I was feeling nice and floaty. The band had been amazing, so good that some of us had danced for an entire set before the burn in my thighs forced me to take a break. The Makin Hardware Store Guys—terrible name, but the men could rock—were currently on a break, so we were back at our tables, drinking, chatting, and laughing so much and so hard my abs were getting a serious workout.
These women were absolutely nothing like my so-called friends back in Richmond, and it had taken no time at all to loosen up. Hours later, I felt like I’d been a part of this group for years.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I waved my hands to stop McKenna, mid-sentence. We were sitting near the end of our cluster of tables and leaned in close so we could hear each other over the din of music and other conversations happening all around us. “So, your club used to be a strip club until it went under because some bad dude was selling drugs and happy endings out of the back rooms? That’s when you