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Harlow blinked a few times, like she was trying to gather herself, then shrugged helplessly. “Collin took my purse right after I got off the phone with you. It had both my phones in—” She quickly stopped and gasped, her eyes widened as she looked around her. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Collin’s here, I completely forgot. I can’t be near you. He has to be done talking to Ren by now,” she mumbled to herself.
If it weren’t for the facts that the woman I loved was freaking out over her abusive husband finding us, and that he’d taken away all my communication to her, I would have smiled knowing that I could make her forget about everything else.
Though I’d already pushed our luck enough, I pulled her close once more. “Quickly, Harlow. Does he know about our phone?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, please if you can, let me know how you are when you get your purse back.”
Her head was going back and forth to look all around us, but she nodded. “Of course, I—”
I gripped her chin and brought my mouth down to hers. The kiss was quick and hard, but she still stumbled toward me when I pulled away. I would’ve given anything right then to have more time with her. Relaxing my grip on her chin, I ran my thumb over her bottom lip and whispered, “I love you, Low.”
“To the stars,” she vowed.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to release her and walked away. It didn’t take long to find my crew; they were still lingering in the produce section, not even trying to act like they hadn’t been watching everything between us.
“Pete’s over here talking about the fortieth girl he’s fallen in love with, Knox finds random women to make out with in the store, and I can’t get girls to stick around for the third date. I think I’m doing something wrong,” Jake, one of the guys on my crew said. I laughed.
“Maybe because women want a man who is big enough to make them feel protected, not so big that they’re afraid he’ll suffocate them if he rolls over in his sleep,” Pete suggested.
“They love this,” Jake countered quickly, and slowly flexed, making every woman in the produce section stop to watch.
I rolled my eyes and turned to start grabbing what we needed, busying myself so I wouldn’t search out Harlow again.
“If you’re done putting on your show . . .” Pete trailed off in an annoyed tone as he gestured a
t Jake. “You’re over six and a half feet tall and have muscles on top of muscles. You’re a freak, dude. You look like you could kill someone just by thinking about it. That is why you can’t get someone on a third date. You scare guys by looking at them, and you scare women when they think of getting into bed with you.” There was a silence before Pete continued, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making you think I’m going to kill you just by thinking about it.”
I snorted and turned to see Pete roll his eyes while Jake continued to glare at him. Pete scoffed and said, “I know you’re more scared of spiders than most of the women I know, so there’s no way in hell that’s going to work on me.”
I opened my mouth to jump back into the conversation, but my words died in my throat when I looked up and watched Collin Doherty look down the aisle I’d just been in with Harlow, then turn and walk into it. We’d been too close.
Harlow
Present Day—Richland
AFTER TAKING A minute to collect myself, I turned my cart around to go to the produce section, and gasped when I found my husband standing right behind me.
“Collin!” I said breathlessly.
He put a possessive hand around my waist and growled softly into my ear, “People are not allowed to touch what is mine.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for whatever was to come. How long has he been standing there? How much did he see and hear? I wondered.
“Never take orders from someone else, especially someone like Ren.”
I held in a sigh and thanked God that he couldn’t see the relief on my face. “I didn’t,” I assured him, even though he had been standing with Ren and me the entire time.
“If he didn’t work with my dad . . .” he began, but didn’t continue. He took a deep breath in, then released it as he asked, “Did you get everything?”
My eyes drifted over the cart, and my face pinched with worry for a second before I could control it.
“What?”
“Well, we didn’t finish getting the produce.” Collin’s face fell, so I quickly added, “But I know you didn’t like being in there, so we don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can figure something out.”
