Read Online Wild Card: Boys of Fall by Mari Carr - Free Book Online

started working early. Like I didn’t know he wasn’t meeting her for a quick screw in the backseat of his car. One morning, he comes in to kiss me goodbye and says he’s going to work. I told him if he considered that work, he obviously wasn’t doing it right. He left and I got up, packed my bags, and parked myself right outside the lawyer’s office, waiting for it to open, so I could file for divorce.”
    Ruby told the story with such gusto, it was impossible to keep a straight face.
    “Your life is a country song waiting to be written,” Glen declared.
    It was clear she liked the sound of that. “Oh, I got a million more stories like that if you’re serious. We could fill an album.”
    The three of them laughed as they brainstormed possible song titles.
    “Hiya, Ruby.”
    Glen glanced up when a stranger approached the table.
    Ruby lit up when she saw the man. “Rodney Babcock. You old scoundrel. What are you doing in town?”
    “Changed jobs. I’m a Quinn boy again.”
    “I had no idea. Been in my own little world since leaving Earl.”
    Rodney didn’t look surprised by the news. In fact, Glen thought he looked a bit like a man on a mission. “Yeah, a little birdie behind the bar was telling me about that. Was hoping I could come steal a few dances from you.”
    Ruby was up and out of the booth in record time. “I’ll see y’all later,” she threw over her shoulder as she followed the tall cowboy to the floor.
    “Ruby’s sweet on Rodney?” Glen asked.
    Lorelie nodded. “They dated back in high school, but he moved to Phoenix for a job after graduation and she married Earl on the rebound. He moved back a few weeks ago. We think he found out Ruby was single again and decided he wasn’t going to miss his chance at scooping her up.”
    “Who’s ‘we’?”
    “Me and Sadie and Charlene and the rest of the girls.”
    “Y’all are a pretty tight-knit group, aren’t you?”
    Lorelie smiled. “Hell yeah. They’re my best friends. I love them.”
    “Trying to figure out if I should be grateful or upset that you keep trying to sabotage all these hookups Wade and his friends are putting together for me.”
    Lorelie feigned innocence, but he wasn’t fooled for a minute. “I don’t have a clue what you mean.”
    “Wade wasn’t expecting Buck at the dinner party. And he wasn’t expecting you to be here tonight.”
    “He wouldn’t have invited you out if he’d known I was coming.”
    Glen realized that was true. “I’m going to have to give him a word. Tell him to back off on setting me up.”
    “Thought you wanted to meet a pretty Quinn girl and have some fun?”
    “Sadie’s been telling tales, I see. I already met the prettiest woman in Quinn.” As he spoke, Glen scooted closer to her. He was pleased when she moved toward him at the same time.
    The music changed, a faster tune. Neither Wade nor Rodney were finished dancing with their girls. Then Glen recognized the song and groaned.
    Lorelie didn’t miss the sound. “Big Trent Maxwell fan, huh?”
    He lifted one shoulder, hoping to appear casual. The last thing he wanted to talk about tonight was the asshole. Part of him was afraid Lorelie would start waxing poetic over the idiot’s sexy eyes and chiseled jaw and dimples and whatever the fuck else women saw in the jerkoff, and Wade’s fantasies of her would be ruined forever.
    “He strikes me as too pretty to be a country singer,” she said. “More the type to be in one of those cheesy boy bands. And what’s up with his voice?” She pointed one finger in the air, cueing him to listen to the song. “Seems like the studio takes a lot of liberties. Always covering up his actual singing with that fancy stuff.”
    “That’s because he can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
    Her eyes widened and she laughed. “Seriously? That makes sense then. I guess. How does someone who can’t sing make it so big?”
    Glen had never talked to anyone—with the exception of Wade, who’d been in