Read Predator (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 1) for Free Online Page B

a little afraid to know the answer.
    Seth nodded. “It’s a ways back, but that was all his.”
    Then he frowned, like he was thinking of something else, and he paused for a beat.
    Shit, she thought. The mine is going in his back yard. Does he know I’m working on the mine? That’s not why he asked me out, is it?
    “Anyway, legend also has it that he and all his descendants can turn into golden eagles at will, and that at night we wreak havoc on the townspeople.”
    “Well?” asked Jules. “Do you?”
    “Only sometimes,” Seth said, laughing. “You know, when Billy Bob’s chickens are looking really tasty. ”
    “So people don’t like you because your ancestor had better luck than their ancestors,” Jules summarized. “They can’t possibly believe that you turn into an eagle.”
    Seth shrugged.
    “Who knows,” he said. “People have believed weirder things, and there really are golden eagles here, and they really do steal chickens. And disliking us is mostly habit by now. Gives the people of Obsidian something to do.”
    “I bet you can’t wait until you get cable internet,” Jules said. “That should give people some new hobbies.”
    “That would be nice,” Seth admitted. “Right now it takes all night just to download a movie. We’ve still got a movie rental store, though.”
    The silent, surly waitress came back bearing burgers and fries and put them on the table without a word. Then she took out the check and put it on the table between them.
    “Pay at the register whenever you’re ready,” she said, and left again.
    Jules had to fight the urge to flip her off.
    Family establishment , she told herself.
    Seth nabbed the check off the table and put it on the bench next to himself, then gave Jules a look that practically dared her to protest.
    “I’m going to insist, so don’t bother,” he said.
    “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Jules.

Chapter Five

    Seth
    The bowling alley wasn’t much different. The guy at the shoe counter went suddenly robotic when Seth stepped up, despite laughing and talking with someone else not thirty seconds before. As he handed over two sets of bowling shoes, utterly stone-faced, Seth and Jules looked at each other, then Jules rolled her eyes and Seth shrugged.
    She probably still thinks that I’ve murdered everyone’s pets , Seth thought. He’d gotten used to the unfriendliness from the other townspeople over the years, but it pissed him off that she was getting dragged into it.
    As they walked to the only empty lane, Jules looked over at Seth, then at the counter behind them, screwing her face up a little.
    “They don’t do bumper lanes for adults, do they?” she asked.
    Seth laughed out loud.
    “Come on,” Jules said, laughing along. “I’m pretty bad at this.”
    “I don’t think they have bumper lanes for kids,” said Seth. “It’s the pioneer spirit to never make anything easy on children, you know.”
    “Right, because then they’ll never make anything of themselves,” Jules said, a note of bitterness creeping into her tone. “Bootstraps and all that.”
    Seth sat on the hard plastic chair, loosening the laces on a pair of shoes.
    “So you grew up poor too?” he asked.
    “West Virginia,” she answered. “Huntsberg, this little town in the mountains. First it was a mining town, and then it was a rust belt town, but then all the factories closed and now there’s still one mine open, but the biggest industry is probably meth,” she said. “Everyone’s poor, so at least I didn’t realize that’s what we were.”
    “But you got out?”
    Jules nodded, tugging the laces on her shoes.
    “I got lucky,” she said. “I realized that the only way I’d have a life different from the one my parents or grandparents had was if I got someone else to pay for me to go to college, so I buckled down and got a scholarship.”
    And now you work for the company that wants to put a huge mine in my back yard, Seth thought.  
    Then he pushed