Chapter 21
Jessica
“What’s wrong with this?” Charlie’s holding up a salad kit as we stand in the produce section at the local Revival grocery store.
I wrinkle my nose. “It’s a breeding ground for bacteria, that’s what.”
“It’s convenient and prewashed.” He throws it into the cart. “We’re going for fast here.”
I take it out of the cart and put it back on the shelf. “Well, I’m not going for E. coli.”
“You’re not going to get E. coli.” His voice is filled with amusement.
I pick a head of romaine, putting it in a produce bag and tossing it into the cart. “The more a food is processed or handled, the more likely it is to contain bacteria. Food recalls on produce are almost always on prepared, packaged fresh foods.”
“How do you know that?”
“If you’d bothered to read my résumé, you would have seen that after college, I worked for a big law firm in Chicago for a year. One of my cases was a product liability suit where a dozen people got food poisoning. Let’s just say I’ve seen the pictures, and I promise you don’t want that.”
He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “You are so sexy.”
I laugh. “You’re so weird.”
He slides his mouth over my neck. I tilt to give him better access, leaning to rest against him. His erection presses into my back.
“How are you hard again?”
“You make me crazy.” His arm tightens on my waist.
“Good. I want you crazy.”
“Mission accomplished.” He kisses my throat, dragging his tongue over my skin. “You win the salad round, so can we hurry up? We have other things to do.”
We. Somehow, despite the odds, and in direct contrast to what we’d said we wanted, we’ve become a we.
And I don’t hate it. Actually, I kinda love it.
I glance over to find a woman with voluminous brown hair wearing a leopard-print dress covertly watching us. “We have company.”
“That’s Gina Bellini. She owns the salon.” He pulls me closer as I study the cucumbers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her look at Charlie’s arms around me with a frown. I pull away to bag my cucumbers before making my way to the next item for my salad.
“Hey, Sheriff,” she calls out.
He waves. “Hey, Gina.”
Her gaze slides to mine. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Jessica Moore. She’s Ryder’s sister and our new city attorney.” He laces his fingers through mine.
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
She looks at our clasped hands. “You too.”
“Have a great one.” I pull him to the stacks of cherry tomatoes and start my inspection. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“She got divorced last year and pretty much hates anyone she views as competition.” He picks up a box of an heirloom variety and hands it to me.
I inspect them and decide they don’t look firm enough. “Thought she had a shot with you, huh?”
“If she did, she’s delusional. It’s not personal.” He gives up and lets me take over the selection process. “She’s looking for revenge against her ex-husband, who knocked up a twenty-two-year-old.”
“That’s horrible.” Sympathy rises for the other woman. “Very revenge-worthy.”
He grins down at me. “You are fucking adorable.”
I loop my arms around his neck. “Are we obnoxious yet?”
He squeezes me tight. “Not yet, but we’re probably walking a line.”
“How about you get the hamburger supplies? I’ll grab the stuff for my dressing, and then we can get out of here.”
“Deal.” He plants a hard kiss on my lips, and we separate.
I spend several minutes wandering down aisles and learning the layout of the store while gathering my ingredients, when I once again run into Gina.
“Hello again.” I pursue the assortment of tin fish for the anchovies required for Caesar salad dressing.
“Well, hi,” she says, her voice cloying. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thanks.” I can tell by the gleam in her brown eyes she’s interested in probing for information to feed the Revival gossip circuit.
I put my guard up. Maybe I haven’t lived here long, but it doesn’t take a town historian to ascertain that Charlie is a hot commodity. That he might not have given the single women of Revival encouragement, but they still hoped.
She pulls her cart to a stop. “You and Charlie, huh? That’s a surprise.”
Ah yes, the passive-aggressive veiled insult. Always a favorite. “Oh? Why’s that?”
“It’s nothing personal. You’re quite—” she gives me the down-and-dirty once-over “—cute.”
Cute. I’ve been called a lot of things, but cute has never been one of them. But that’s okay. If Charlie had left me for a twenty-two-year-old, I’d be bitter too…after I castrated him.
I work on my compassion skills, and I let her have the dig. “Thanks.”
She waves, her pointy acyclic nails glinting under the fluorescent bulbs. “It’s just that after Gracie, I never thought he’d get involved with anyone close to home again. None of us did.”
The surprise jolts through me, and I work to keep my expression impassive.
So Charlie and Gracie were in a relationship? The beautiful, blond baker might be my exact opposite, but I can picture her next to Charlie.
Gina watches me, the light of expectation sparkling right along with her rhinestone necklace.
I smile pleasantly. “What can I say? I swept him off his feet.”
She goes to say something else but promptly snaps her mouth closed when Charlie turns onto the aisle, meat and hamburger buns in hand.
“Have a great night.” Gina nods at Charlie before taking off as fast as her kitten heels can carry her.
I turn to look at Charlie and find his dark gaze on me.
I contemplate the information Gina just dropped in my lap and compare it to what Charlie has revealed. He said he was with the out-of-town pediatrician for at least a year. Gracie is also married, so if they’d been in a relationship, it had to be long over.
They have the same friends. I’ve never sensed any tension. Nor did there appear to be any friction between James and Charlie. On game night, she’d invited me and pushed Charlie and me back together. Her husband hadn’t seemed worried that his wife was sitting half naked with her ex-lover.
The only logical explanation is whatever occurred between them is in the past and everyone has moved on.
“You ready?” Charlie tosses the ingredients into our cart.
“I am.” I’m not worried, nor am I jealous.
Still, this is information he should have revealed.
Especially considering everyone in town must know.
But he didn’t.
And sure, I could ask him, but what’s the fun in that?
The perfect opportunity to teach him a lesson will reveal itself.
Best to bide my time and be patient.
Charlie
“You said you had a grill.”
Jessica is being exasperating again, and it’s having the same effect on me as it always does. But as she stands across from me, innocently blinking like a babe in the woods, there’s something more.
An…amused affection I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before.
The two of us, along with Ryder and Sophie, are standing in a circle surrounding said “grill” in Jessica’s small backyard.
“I do.” Jessica gestures vaguely to the box we’re hovering over. “See? It’s right here.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “It needs to be assembled.”
She peers down at the large block of cardboard. “How hard can it be? I’m sure it won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”
I shake my head at Ryder. “Has she always been like this? Or is this something only I get the pleasure of?”
“Hey!” Jessica slams her hands on her hips. She’s changed from the skirt and blouse she’d worn to work into a pair of loose black cotton pants and a crop top. With her hair in a messy ponytail and her flashing eyes ready for battle at a moment’s notice, she’s so hot I can barely concentrate.
A grin slides across his face. “When she invites us for dinner, we assume we’ll end up ordering pizza at least half of the time.”
“Why am I not surprised?” My voice is dry.
Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, Sophie speaks up. “She makes a mean salad.”
Also not a surprise, based on her lecture in the produce aisle and her insistence on fresh and unprocessed food. She’s not a health nut, but she has lots of ideas about the way things should be.
Jessica huffs. “I don’t have to take this. It can’t be that hard. The guy at the store assured me I could do it myself.”
“Did he mention how long it would take to do it yourself?” I ask. She’s so impossibly adorable and sexy and chaotic.
“Not really.” She studies her nails. “Do you want me to do it?”
To Ryder, I say, “You in the mood to put together a grill?”
“Not high on my list right now.” He pulls out his keys from his pocket and uses one of them to open the box. “But since you already bought all the stuff, might as well get started so we’re not eating at midnight.”
I pull out the instructions as Ryder starts taking parts out of the box. I quickly scan the items required for assembly. “Do you have tools?”
She turns to Ryder. “Do I have tools?”
“Dad and I put them in the garage.” Ryder extracts a bag of at least fifty screws.
“I do!” She beams at me like she couldn’t be more pleased. Like she went out and bought the tools herself.
“I know where they are. I’ll get them,” Ryder says then ambles into the house.
I wave the instruction booklet in front of her face. “How were you planning on putting it together when you don’t even know if you have tools?”
“Duh, that’s what fathers and big brothers are for,” Jessica says, all cunning.
Sophie laughs. “If this is going to take a while, we need drinks and snacks.”
“I have chips, guac, and strawberry margaritas,” Jessica says.
“Fantastic.” Sophie hooks her arm into Jessica’s. “Let’s go drag Hailey from her dungeon and get started.”
The two women start to walk off.
“Wait,” I bark
They both stop on a dime and look back at me.
I hold up the instructions. “This is a gas grill. Do you have a propane tank?”
“Um…” Jessica’s brows pull as she studies the box like a tank will just pop out and present itself.
“How are you a lawyer and so awful at planning?” I ask.
She pulls away from Sophie and glares at me. “I’m not awful at planning. I just wasn’t planning on grilling anything today.”
“Then why did you say you had a grill?” I cannot believe how much I like her driving me crazy.