“I’ll take care of it.”
“Sweetheart, I bet you’ve been taking care of it on your own for a long time. Now, which supermarket is it gonna be?”
I sank back in my seat.
“Jill, baby, come on.” His voice softened.
My stomach curled, and I glanced at him. “Safeway, please. They’re having a sale on Becca’s diapers this week.”
“Safeway, it is.” He licked his lower lip as he hit the left turn signal at the stop sign to take us to the main road to the store on the outskirts of town. “That wasn’t too hard now, was it?”
“What?”
His eyes slid to mine, an eyebrow raised. “Telling me what you want.”
I squirmed in my seat, my hand squeezing the seat belt across my chest. “Not too hard.”
He let out a laugh. “Liar.”
What was hard was being in a closed space with him. His scent was so interesting. It was spicy but earthy and mellow all at the same time. I cast a quick glance at him. The relaxed way he drove, one arm slung on the wheel, his long legs stretched before him, his other hand draped over the center console—it was downright sexy. All I wanted to do was stare at his profile and run my fingers through his long hair to finally know what it felt like. Just that—a touch—and I’d be happy. Maybe I should try bumping into him on purpose at some point. Then, my hands could get caught in his fantastic mane, and he’d grab me— Shut up, Jill.
All this one-on-one attention from him was making my tummy do flip-flops in addition to the flip-flops it’d already been doing as I settled into the first trimester of pregnancy. Usually, Boner and I were in the company of others, never alone. Either at Rae’s house, when he’d stop by with Grace, or at the club, if I’d stop by to meet up with Grace. I’d seen him in town many times, but I’d usually duck out, not wanting to bump into him.
I trained my gaze outside the window. Get a grip. Get a grip.
At the supermarket, he took Becca from my arms, fit her in the child’s seat and took charge of the shopping cart. “You got a list, or we winging it?”
I waved the piece of scrap paper in my hand. “A list.”
“Of course you do.”
“Why, of course?” I asked as we strolled down the pasta aisle.
“I figured, with you having Becca, you living in a new town, being pregnant, taking care of Rae and her house, and it being just over two months in, and you’re still walking and talking with a smile on your face, then you must be organized with a capital O.”
He took the cans of tomato sauce I had piled in my arms and tossed them in the cart.
“You would be correct,” I replied, adding boxes of ditalini, fusilli, elbow macaroni, and linguine to the cart.
“You liking Meager?”
“Actually, it’s not much different from where I grew up, which is just north of here, so it feels comfortable to me.”
“You ever go home?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Are you always this inquisitive?”
“Usually helps being inquisitive when you’re trying to get to know a person, don’t you think?”
I stacked the tuna cans next to the tomato sauce in the cart. “I don’t go home because there’s nothing to go home to.” I shot him the plastic smile that I’d perfected over the years, the one that kept the quivering emotions away. I turned my attention to the ketchup, my fingers brushing the bottles on the shelf.
Becca sang to herself. We turned the corner onto the cereal aisle. Suddenly, her back straightened and her eyes widened. She’d noticed the big colorful boxes with her cartoon heroes and heroines lining the shelves “Uh oh,” said Boner.
“Whatever you do, don’t stop,” I whispered. He kept the cart moving at a quick clip.
I twisted my shopping list in my fingers. “Are you from Meager originally?”
“Nope. Denver.”
“Really? Nice. You ever go home?”
His eyes remained on Becca. “Nothing to go home to.”
The flat tone of his voice had me do a double take. There was that severity again. He ignored me as he squeezed Becca’s hand.
Boner and I had things in common.
Suddenly, dizziness and a queasy swell in my stomach gripped me. That smell. I grabbed the edge of the shopping cart, a cold sweat beading on my forehead. “Oh, no.”
“What is it? Shit, you’re pale.”
“The rotisserie chicken from the deli department.” I gulped in a breath, the nausea swirling up my throat. “Not good.”
Boner immediately turned the shopping cart around and grabbed me by the arm. “This way, babe.”
Half an hour later, I had filled the cart with everything on my list. “I’m done. Do you need anything?”
His eyes creased. “What do you mean?”
“Food, paper goods, household cleaning items, feminine products?”
His eyes lit up, and my insides warmed again.
“Yeah, there is one thing.” He wheeled the cart to the household goods aisle and stopped in front of the slim selection of toys. “This.” He grabbed a small baby doll packaged in a plastic box and handed it to Becca.