The Perfect Lie (Hope Falls Universe)(7)

“You’re a smart man, Josh Dooley. I will see you tomorrow,” she said as she backed away, heading back to the bar.

Tomorrow. He had a non-date. Well, hell, this day had started weird and just got stranger and stranger.





Chapter Three



Stephanie looked at herself in the reflection of her car door. When Josh had stumbled upon her yesterday, she had been exhausted from driving for hours and not prepared to meet super-hot locals at all. Now that she was firmly in the right mode to impress the local Adonis, she was on her A-game.

She had no idea what he had planned for her, so she tried to dress flexibly. Her shorts were super short to show off her toned legs and she finally had that black see-through cover-up on. It was so large that it was perfectly modest, but just transparent enough to show off the outline of her body and let in air so the dark material wouldn’t become suffocating in the summer heat.

To top it off, she wore her sneakers. And not the brand-new purple ones she’d recently purchased. She got the ones she’d been going to the gym in for six months and were worn enough so she knew she wouldn’t get blisters. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and even though she wanted to truly rough it and go without makeup, she’d ended up throwing on a coat of foundation and mascara. And then brows. Once she started with makeup, it was hard to stop. Besides, she was trying to impress someone…

Right then, Josh’s truck pulled in. Steph glanced at her phone and saw that it was ten minutes before they were supposed to meet. Maybe he was as nervous as her.

When he got out of the truck, the morning sun hit him just right through the trees and Steph swore that if she had to relive yesterday all over again, she would lie about her identity once more to spend more time with him.

“Morning,” she said cheerfully, trying to sound more collected than she felt.

“Morning.” He walked around the car. He thought she was supposed to work for him yesterday. Now he was just there to see her. But it wasn’t a date. Just a tour…

She tucked a nonexistent piece of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t sure what to wear. I have a swimsuit in the car.”

“Let’s do a little hike while it’s still cool. If there’s time, I know some private places we can swim when it gets warmer.”

She imagined him taking that t-shirt off in front of her, but shook the image away when she realized she was drooling. “Well, fearless tour guide, lead the way. I’m yours for the day.”

He looked her over. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

She bit her lip and followed him as he started down the trail. Josh was different than yesterday. He was confident and sexy and…flirty. Josh was flirting with her. But that wasn’t the surprising thing. What was surprising to her was how she was responding to it.

Back home, she and Willa had guys throwing themselves at them all the time. Most of them went after Willa because she had more money, but neither of them were lacking for options. But it had always been so easy to go home alone at the end of the night. Yet, going back to the picturesque Mountain Meadows Bed and Breakfast alone last night had left her …wanting.

But when Josh flirted with her, it made her feel elated. Charged. Wired. She walked alongside him, not touching but a tad closer than she would be to someone who was just a friend. “So, you haven’t always lived here?”

“Nah. I’m actually a California export.”

“California? Which part?”

“LA.”

“Fancy.”

He snorted. “Not the nice part of LA.”

“So we’re both from the city.” At least they had that in common. She didn’t know much about him, but she supposed she hadn’t told him much about herself, either. “Though she didn’t really want to rehash the embarrassment of her parents. Maybe there were parts of his past he was hiding, too? Considering they’d just met, he was more than welcome to keep things from her, but she found herself desperately curious. “Tell me more,” she said.

“More what?”

“Something about you. Anything.”

He squinched his face. “Hate to break it to you, Steph, but I’m boring. Very boring. CPA levels boring.”

She rolled her eyes at the obvious lies. “Sure.”

“It’s true. What about you? You who rolls into strange towns and makes up a fake identity. You have to have a cool story.”

Well, she had a story, but she wasn’t sure how cool it was. But if she wanted to know about him, she’d have to be honest with him, so she was going to start with the worst bit. “Well, I’m a bad person.”

He let out a laugh. Not exactly the reaction she was expecting. “Not a lot of bad people lead with that.”

“Well, I don’t want you to hate me when I tell you so I wanted to lead with that.”

“Okay. So tell me what makes you so bad.”

“I’m an unemployed trust fund baby who is currently running away from her parents’ messy divorce. I’m basically a first-world problem walking.”

“You thought I wouldn’t like you because you come from money?”

“No… Yes… It changes things. Back in Chicago, a lot of guys hit on me because of my family. It’s part of the reason I almost never date. It’s part of the reason I felt so bad about yesterday. I didn’t want you to think I was some bored rich girl.”