Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Now here I am.
Shoulder to shoulder with the other locals—on a Friday no less, the worst time to grocery shop.
I’ve got no one to blame but myself, so I suffer in silence, as one does.
I’m standing at the meat counter, arms crossed, waiting for Britt Collier to finish wrapping the couple pounds of sirloin ahead of me, when I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.
Blond hair. Navy leggings. Oversized canary-yellow Iowa State sweatshirt. Pristine white tennis shoes that wouldn’t last a day on the farm. Shopping cart filled to the brim with enough food to stock a bunker. She looks like she got hit by a long day and backed over by it twice. Her hair’s a mess—some kind of bun situation piled haphazard on top of her head—and she wears a tired semblance of a smile, like she’s trying to make the best of it. I’ve never seen someone so exhausted yet somehow so distractingly gorgeous at the same time.
In fact, this woman turns no less than five heads as she makes her way through the produce aisle. Three men. Two women. All of them just as curious as I am because we don’t have anything like her around here.
It takes a second for me to realize how badly I’m staring, but something about her holds me captive for longer than I’d care to admit.
She’s a pretty little thing.
No, not just pretty—stunning. Messy hair, slightly smudged mascara beneath her eyes, and all.
I turn back toward the meat counter, but not before she sees me.
She stops a few paces behind me and releases an audible exhalation. I’m certain she’s about to say something about my staring. But she doesn’t. Just parks her cart and waits her turn like everyone else. Only now I can’t help but notice how the air seems to have shifted—like the electric heat of a late spring storm moving in close behind me. Except this air smells like berries and almonds: sweet and clean and wildly out of place in a town where most of us smell like dirt, grease, and a hard day’s work.
“Hey there, Hunter,” Britt says, drawing my attention back to the counter. She gives me that syrupy smile she’s been practicing since 2017 when she took over as head butcher at her daddy’s meat counter. “The usual?”
“Two prime select rib eyes,” I say, keeping my eyes on the cuts of meat in the case to make sure she picks the best ones. She usually does, but it’s Friday, there’s a long line, and she’s looking at me with those hungry eyes she gets every once in a while.
“You should come over and cook those on my back porch later,” she says with a little wink, like it’s the first time she’s made that joke and not the hundredth. “I’m off in an hour. Just saying.”
Per usual, I don’t laugh. I remain stoic. I don’t want to be a jerk, which is why I can’t give her false hope. Britt’s not my type for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because I don’t have a type. Not anymore. I’ve got a list of priorities a mile long and dating is dead last on it.
Her smile fades, and I feel like a jerk anyway. But it’s for the best. She only wants me because she can’t have me. If she had me, she’d stop wanting me real quick. That’s usually how it goes.
“Your smoker’s nice,” I say to soften the exchange, “but I like mine better.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the blonde watching us.
Britt clears her throat, trying to reclaim her pride. “You ever going to give me that recipe you use? That spicy marinade you always talk about?”
“Nope.” It’s a secret family recipe—not that I have much family left these days. At least not around here. But very few things in life are sacred and special, and I’m keeping that one for myself.
She laughs like I’m flirting.
I’m not.
I never am.
I miss the days when her father ran the show. He didn’t inflict any kind of small talk on anyone. He wrapped their meat tight, called “next,” and kept the show on the road like a good butcher should. That, and he sure as hell didn’t try and flirt with me.
I take the wrapped steaks once she hands them over, nod to thank her, and turn to leave—only to meet the blonde’s eyes—deep blue and hypnotic—locked square on mine.
My breath hitches, but I tell myself to pull it together. She lifts a single brow and wears a knowing, tight-lipped smirk on her rosebud lips, like she fully understood the nuances of that little exchange. The whole thing lasts maybe a second or two at most, but in that time my boots refused to leave the ground and I’m pretty certain time stopped moving.