Call My Bluff (The Cypress Valley Sweethearts #2)

1

N oah Campbell watched from the corner of his eye as Simon Provo, the store’s self-anointed “Customer Service King,” made his way toward his office in the corner. Noah kept his body turned toward his work, as if he weren’t paying attention, while his victim moved out of sight.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

An inhuman scream split the air, followed by a tremendous crash. “Get it away!!” Simon screeched, his voice two octaves too high.

Noah bit down on his bottom lip, eyes clenched tight, as he fought the urge to laugh.

“Somebody help me!” Simon screamed again, and two other managers came racing from the aisles toward the source of the commotion.

Noah’s friend Riley leaned across the end of her register. “What did you do?” she hissed, but he shook his head violently. He couldn’t speak—not while the sounds of battle raged inside the small office behind him.

That bag of rubber snakes was worth every penny .

“Kill it! Kill it!” Simon shrieked. Then there was a pregnant sort of pause. “What do you mean it’s not real?! ”

That was the last straw. Noah’s body shook with the effort of holding in his laughter, and tears started to leak down his cheeks.

“He’s going to kill you,” Riley whispered, though her voice trembled with her own amusement.

“He has to prove it was me first,” Noah muttered back. He sucked in a deep, cold breath and did his best to make his face behave; he was only partially successful.

“What’s all that about?”

A young woman’s voice caught his attention, and he turned to see a customer approaching Riley’s checkout stand.

She wasn’t one of their regulars; no, Noah knew them all, and this girl he would have remembered.

She was all bold colors and curved lines—from her reddish-brown hair to her green skirt, which stopped just above a pair of black, knee-high boots.

She looked like she’d just come from a photo shoot for ’50s pinup posters.

“It seems our manager had an unwanted visitor,” Noah answered, finally bringing his voice under control. “No reason to worry, though. You’re safe with me.” He shot her the kind of grin that normally made girls blush, but this one simply raised an eyebrow in response.

“That seems doubtful,” she deadpanned, and Riley snorted.

The angry voices from the office grew louder, and there was another ominous crash. Riley began scanning the girl’s purchases, and Noah packed them in bags as fast as he could. “Can I walk these out for you?” he asked as he lowered the sacks into the girl’s now-empty cart.

She swiped a debit card and waited for her receipt. “You mean you don’t want to stay and watch the fallout?” she asked .

“I’ll catch the reruns,” he replied quickly, stepping behind her cart and closing his hands around the handle. “Besides, we give carryout service with a smile!” He started toward the exit just as the occupants of the office emerged.

Simon’s hair was on end, his face still red, and one of the other managers was holding a very realistic-looking rubber rattlesnake by the tail. The poor thing had somehow been hacked to bits in the melee, and its head was hanging by a thread.

Noah passed through the automatic doors without looking back; either the girl would follow her groceries, or she wouldn’t, but he was getting out of Dodge just the same.

Footsteps hurried up behind him a moment later.

“A snake? Really?” the girl asked as she drew even with him.

Noah felt an incriminating smile stretch across his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as innocently as he could.

“Sure you don’t.”

There was a moment of silence as they walked farther across the parking lot. Noah waited for some indication they were approaching her car, but none came.

“You know this is pointless, right?” she finally asked.

“What is?”

“The whole ‘grocery store carryout’ thing. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, I guess, but I’ve got to haul these up three flights of stairs when I get home. That’s when I’d rather have help,” she said.

“Well, you could take me home, but you’d have to buy me dinner first,” he quipped, diving headfirst into the opening she’d given.

It was too good to waste. The girl huffed, but Noah saw the edges of her mouth twitch like she was trying to control a smile.

“Assuming you still need dinner after all this candy,” he added.

“Please tell me this will last more than a day.” He waved his hand toward her groceries, which included chocolate pretzels, gummy bears, half a dozen pints of ice cream and the biggest bag of Pixy Stix he’d ever seen.

The girl turned her head toward him as they walked, her eyebrows raised. “It’s breakup food, actually,” she said, and Noah’s ears perked up.

“Oh, really? I’m sorry. Do you need a hug?”

The girl rolled her eyes, her lips pursed, but Noah decided she was definitely laughing on the inside at least, though with him or at him was yet to be determined.

“It’s not for me, but nice try,” she said. “My roommate just had a nasty episode with her boyfriend, who I hope is a soon-to-be ex. Most of this is for her.”

Noah let out a low whistle. “Must have been pretty bad to need a hundred Pixy Stix and half the freezer section,” he said. He turned to look at the girl again and saw dark storm clouds pass across her face.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t be opposed to castration with a rusty kitchen knife, should the opportunity arise,” she said dryly.

Noah barked out a surprised laugh. “Wow. You gonna do it yourself?” he asked, only half kidding. A girl’s willingness to maim a man seemed like something a guy should know from the beginning.

“I know people,” she answered darkly, and Noah made a mental note not to get on her bad side. She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a small key ring before pressing a button on the fob.

He heard the chirp of locks nearby, and the trunk of a dark-purple Mustang GT popped open. He surveyed the car with a twinge of jealousy. “Nice ride,” he said as he brought the grocery cart to a stop. He slowly loaded the first of her bags into the trunk, certainly in no hurry to head back inside.

“Thanks,” she replied. She reached into one of the remaining grocery sacks and popped a hole in the package of Pixy Stix. Then she slid a red one away from the others before tearing off the end and dumping the powdered candy into her mouth.

Noah noticed a Cypress Valley State University parking sticker on the bottom corner of her back window, and he nodded toward it as he added a second bag to her load. “You go to CVSU? I don’t think I’ve seen you shop here before. What’s your name?”

“Yeah, I’m a senior, and I don’t, normally. But I was in the area, and my roommate is in desperate need of a sugar rush, so here I am,” she replied.

Noah loaded the last bag and reached up to close her trunk. “You didn’t tell me your name,” he pointed out, unwilling to let that omission slide. “If you don’t, I’ll just have to make something up.”

The girl turned away before popping open her driver’s side door and tossing her purse inside, but she didn’t climb in after it. Instead, she leaned one hip against the car’s frame and regarded him with something akin to curiosity. “Oh, really? And what would you make up for me?” she asked.

Noah thought hard, watching the way her eyes danced as she waited for an answer.

His gaze flitted from her outfit to her car and back to the paper tube still in her hand.

“Pixie,” he said, knowing the second it left his lips he’d never call her anything else.

His chest expanded in triumph as a slow grin spread across her face .

The girl folded the now-empty candy wrapper between her fingers and laughed. It was a bright, musical sound, just as Noah had somehow known it would be, and he almost did a victory dance.

“I like it,” she said, taking a few backward steps. “Points for creativity, Grocery Boy.”

Noah moved away as she ducked into the driver’s seat and snapped her door shut.

The pavement rumbled beneath his feet as the Mustang roared to life, and both her front windows rolled down to welcome the autumn air.

A classic rock station blared from her speakers as she pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from above the front visor and slipped them on, obscuring his view of her hazel eyes, though he could still feel her gaze on his skin.

“Good luck with your snake problem!” she shouted over the music. Then she waved as she put her car in reverse.

“Thanks,” he replied, unsure if she could even hear. The car pivoted past him and then shot from the lot, leaving him standing in a literal cloud of dust. He could hear the roar of her engine even after she’d driven out of sight, but it couldn’t erase the way her laughter still rang in his ears.

Noah could feel the wheels turning in his mind—which was usually what got him into trouble. She hadn’t told him her name, but that would only make the hunt more challenging.

And he had never backed down from a challenge.