Chapter Five
~Beckett~
Of all the days Beckett was scheduled at the station, grocery run days were probably his least favorite. Stocking the station up on food wasn’t the issue, nor was having to drive to the larger market on the far side of town to get all the necessary supplies. No, the worst part of shop days was that everyone and their mother wanted to stop and have a leisurely chat with him and anyone else he happened to bring along.
If he were off the clock, Beckett wouldn’t mind it one bit. In fact, he fully expected to be one of those older folks that sat in a rocking chair on their front porch, bending the ear of anyone who might pass by about everything from the weather to the meaning of life. Right now, though, he had nothing but determination coursing through his veins as he strode through the automatic glass doors of Beecham’s Market, with the probie trailing after him.
Normally one of the crew would shop alone, but today happened to be one of the few times where Freidman volunteered to stay an extra half hour so that they could grab some groceries together, having mentioned his wife being otherwise occupied with her mother. Although Beckett was grateful for the opportunity to stock the station refrigerator with something other than frozen meals, his social battery was running a little low today.
Most days, Beckett was one of the most affable people one could ever meet, but his loneliness was starting to make him grumpy. Even his brother had commented on it the other day when Beckett had stopped by the farm to help with a few things. Travis spent all of five minutes with him before declaring that Beckett was in danger of turning into “our grumpy ass older brother,” and ordering him to go home.
It had been an easy order to follow, as Beckett didn’t want to end up turning into Aiden any more than Travis did. Beckett spent the rest of that day alternating between working off his restless energy at the gym, installing and deleting the Apples to Apples dating app on his phone half a dozen times, and trying to concentrate on the latest book his dad had recommended. How the man could get into reading horror novels when he lived on such a large portion of land that was fairly far from the town center was beyond Beckett, but where his father lived for the dramatic, he preferred things a little more low-key. Beckett may have no problem with facing danger and unknown situations in his work life, but in his down time the last thing he wanted was a jump scare.
The cool blast of air as he and the probie entered the shop hit him like a sledgehammer, but it helped temper Beckett’s annoyance a bit as well as dissipate some of the heat that had built up in his core from being out and about during the hottest part of the day. Grabbing a small shopping cart, he handed Dale half the grocery list, intent on getting this shopping trip over with as quickly as possible and with as little socializing as he could manage.
“Divide and conquer is the name of the game here, probie,” Beckett told him sternly. “If you see a little old lady in need of help, by all means assist her, but do not engage in small talk. I repeat do not engage . If you get waylaid by them or a group of gossipy, stay-at-home dads, I will leave your ass here. You get me, probie?”
Dale gulped and nodded before spinning on his heel, his eyes pointed down. He was marching so quickly and inattentively that the young man didn’t catch the display of summer-themed candy until he ran smack into it. The bags spilled onto the floor, burying the probie’s feet and tripping up another customer as they wheeled their cart by.
“Well, shit,” Beckett muttered. So much for getting in and out quickly.
Fifteen minutes and one giant candy cleanup later, Beckett actually made some headway with the shopping. He’d apologized profusely to the manager for causing such a ruckus, and after spending five minutes answering questions about his family’s apple farm and enthusing about how bountiful this year’s harvest would be, Beckett managed to sneak away into the dairy section.
After procuring at least six cows’ worth of milk, and enough soft and hard cheeses to clog the arteries of the most seasoned marathon runner, Beckett headed for the cereal aisle. When his cart crashed to a halt and he nearly spilled over into the basket, his first instinct was to get annoyed. Then he found out just who he had crashed into. Suddenly, Beckett wouldn’t have cared if he’d done a double gainer and landed onto the linoleum floor.
Standing in front of Beckett, like she walked straight out of his dreams and into the grocery aisle, was the wild woman. In fact, it had been nearly impossible to banish her from his mind, especially when her bright smile and rapturous expression appeared in his dreams. No one had made such a lasting impression on him before. Now that she was in front of him again, he had every intention of returning the favor.
“Well, hello there,” he purred.
Her eyes shot up to his, the sea green staring back at Beckett instantly becoming his new favorite color. They widened slightly as they took him in, moving from the boots on his feet and trailing up his body like a sweet caress until they landed on his face. Beckett was a big man, tall and broad from both genetics and hard work, so there was a lot to behold. If he preened a little under the attention from the gorgeous woman, well, that was no one’s business but his own.
“Oh, hi.” Her melodious voice hit his ears like the sweetest symphony. Then she reached up to tuck a loose strand of that spun honey hair behind her ear, something he longed to do himself. The longer he stood there, the more he wanted to stay. “Sorry about bumping into you,” she said, appearing slightly self-conscious.
Beckett chuckled and backed his cart up an inch, but no further as he didn’t want to be too far from this woman. “Well, there’s no need for you to be sorry, seeing as how I bumped into you. I should know better than to turn a blind corner.”
The woman smiled shyly and nodded. “That’s okay. I won’t call the market police to come cite you for reckless driving or anything.” Her eyes danced with mirth before she glanced to the side. “Well, I better let you get on with your business. You might have somewhere important to be.” She nodded at the department logo on his chest before she turned and drifted a little further down the aisle.
Not wanting to miss his chance with this woman again, Beckett followed along, making sure to grab a giant bag of oats from the bottom shelf before he forgot why he was in the store in the first place. “Nowhere else seems quite as important as here at the moment,” he confided. When she looked up at him with an adorably furrowed brow, Beckett smiled and pointed to his half-full cart. “We can’t exactly do our job properly if we’re not fed properly.”
She peeked into his basket for a moment before glancing up at him again. “That’s a lot of food,” she remarked with a wry smile.
Since Dale hadn’t come back with the rest of the items on the list, she didn’t even know the half of it. “I will admit, we aren’t the lightest eaters.” Beckett tore his gaze from hers to peek into her own shopping cart. It was filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, a variety of cheeses, rice, beans, and a pint of ice cream. “Yeah, all that would maybe last one meal around the fire house. Two if you count the ice cream separately.”
The woman hummed prettily as she picked up two different boxes of cereal. “Don’t count me out yet. I’m not quite finished with my shopping.”
Her eyes bounced between the two flavors for a moment. Beckett couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched her. “Having a hard time deciding between sugar or more sugar?”
She narrowed her gaze at him, scrutinizing his face. Whatever she found must have put her at ease because her smile was back, albeit dimmer than before. “Actually, when you’re as big a connoisseur of sweetened cereal as I am, you can taste the differences. For instance, the red box is filled with fruity hoops, and the yellow box is filled with honey-flavored squares. So really, it’s about whether you’re searching for a bright burst of flavor or something more subtle.”
Beckett’s smile threatened to take over his whole face. The more he listened to this woman talk, the more he liked her. She was this interesting mix of wild energy and tight control, with just a little dash of adorkable thrown in for good measure. She was a puzzle he couldn’t wait to solve. He’d only gotten the first few pieces, but he had no doubt it would create one hell of a pretty picture the more he completed it.
“It seems like you’ve given this a lot of thought…” he trailed off. Beckett had been hoping she would supply her name, and after a weighted beat, she didn’t disappoint him.
“Willa,” she supplied. With a nod, Willa placed the brown box back on the shelf and tossed the red one into her cart. At Beckett’s raised brow, she lifted a shoulder and smiled prettily. “Subtlety is overrated.” Liking directness was nothing less than what he would expect from the wild woman in front of him and knowing that emboldened him.
Smirking, Beckett leaned a little closer, intending to shoot his shot. Pleasure flowed through him when she didn’t step away from his obvious interest. “In that case, it’s a pleasure to meet you Willa. My name is…”
“Kemp!” Dale shouted from the end of the aisle. Beckett turned just as the probie came to a halt next to him and dumped an armful of groceries into the cart. “I finished my half of the list, and in record time.”
Swallowing the rebuke that was on the tip of his tongue at the man interrupting his conversation with Willa, Beckett smiled politely at Dale and clasped his shoulder. It wasn’t his fault Beckett was finally getting somewhere with the woman of his dreams only to be interrupted. “That’s great. I was just enjoying Willa’s sugar-coated cereal manifesto.” Beckett’s body turned toward the woman, only to find the aisle in front of him abandoned. “Oh fuck a duck.”
“What’s that?” Dale asked.
Beckett ignored the question as his eyes darted around the empty aisle. Willa was nowhere to be found and his shoulders slumped in defeat. If he believed in fate, Beckett would think it was against him for all the close calls he’d had with that woman without ever actually getting anywhere and wondered if he shouldn’t just give up the ghost. But he believed people were in charge of their own futures, and right now he wanted nothing more than to make that woman a part of his.
“Nothing, Banks. Let’s grab the last few things and head to the checkout.” Beckett’s eyes roamed the market as they gathered the rest of their necessities, and when they landed on a certain blonde at the checkout stand, he smiled again.
As Beckett pushed the cart toward her lane, he took a long look at Willa. Her hair was tucked up in a sloppy bun, giving him a peek at her swanlike neck. Her slender body was encased in a long dress made of a material so light that it swayed with every subtle movement she made. She was a little more than half a foot shorter than him, the perfect height to be able to tuck her head under his chin as he held onto her. Beckett had been attracted to women before, but none as strongly as he was her. Willa was everything he desired in a woman with the bonus of also being someone he found inherently fascinating despite not even really knowing her yet. Those sea green eyes had a story to tell. Beckett wanted to curl up on the floor at her feet and listen to every word.
Unable to hold back any longer, he moved up behind her, frowning when the panic in her voice as she spoke with the cashier became evident. “I swear I had it when I left the house,” she insisted shrilly. She reached into her woven purse and rifled around a moment before coming up empty. “I’m so sorry. Is there a way we can put this aside and I can come back later with my wallet?”
The teenage boy she had been speaking with looked more like a deer in headlights than a cashier at that moment, so Beckett decided to save them both some trouble and slapped his personal credit card on the small counter. “Here,” he told them, pushing it forward. “It’s on me.”
Willa looked over her shoulder to gaze at him, her expression a mix of gratitude and distrust. “You really don’t need to do that,” she insisted. “I can handle it.”
Nodding, Beckett held his hands up. “I’m not saying you can’t. Just trying to be friendly.” He was always friendly, always ready to help someone in need, but he definitely wanted to get into her good graces so that he could ask her out.
Willa’s eyes pierced through him like she was trying to get a read on his aura, or soul, or whatever makes people who they are. Finally, she sighed and smiled at the cashier. “I guess it’s on him.” When she turned back to Beckett, the smile was still there but he could see her guard was back up a little. “I’m not always such a mess,” she mumbled.
Beckett’s eyes came together as he watched her curl into herself a little. “Who said you were a mess?” Fury at anyone who ever made her feel bad for a simple slip up ripples through him as did the need to draw her into his arms for a comforting hug. “We all forget things from time to time.”
Willa nodded, straightening herself again as the apprehension seemed to drain from her body. “Well, thank you.” She had all her groceries gathered and made to leave. Beckett knew that this might be his only shot, so if he was going to take it, he needed to move.
Passing the station credit card off to Dale, Beckett nodded for Willa to follow him toward the door. “You’re welcome.” Coughing into his hand, Beckett stood a little taller and decided to just go for it. “Earlier you said subtlety was overrated, so I am just going to go ahead and tell you that I like you and would love to take you out on a date.” Willa’s eyes widened with pleasure, but soon her apprehension returned.
Her teeth dug into the plush pink of her lower lip as she peered up at him. “I don’t know. I mean, we just met.”
Beckett reached up and started rubbing the back of his neck as he shrugged. “Well, how else were we supposed to get to know one another?” When he saw the wheels of her mind still turning, he smiled and tapped the department logo on my chest. “Tell you what. You know I’m a firefighter now. Why don’t you think about it, and come find me when you have your answer?”
Willa eyed him for a moment before nodding. “I can do that.”
No longer holding his breath, Beckett let the relief of making that first, small step fill his lungs along with some much needed oxygen. Smiling, he reached out to shake her hand. “Until then, it was nice talking to you Willa.”
Willa returned his smile and slipped her hand in his. Her skin was soft and smooth, and he couldn’t help but wonder if her whole body felt the same. “You too, Kemp.” Her fingers trailed lightly along his as she pulled back and turned to leave.
Beckett would laugh at the ridiculousness of her thinking his first name was Kemp if it weren’t for one thing keeping him silent and rooted to the spot. The sensations traveling all throughout his body at the brief touch had him staring down at the place their palms were just joined, searching for tangible evidence of what he felt so strongly, more than he had ever felt it before. There was no visible mark on his skin, but there was one currently being burned onto his soul.
“What’s up, Kemp?” Dale asked as he joined Beckett.
There was a cart full of groceries to get to the truck and a drive back to the station to make, but Beckett couldn’t be bothered with any of that. He stared blankly at his hand for another moment before he met Dale’s gaze, his lips pulling back into a grin. “Sparks.”