Page 26 of All For You

“Oh, excuse me,” I said, sweeping my hand away.

I stretched my hand at my side, feeling a tingle up my arm at the memory of touching her. Wasn’t there a scene in some movie of a bloke doing the same thing? I had a flash of men with ruffled necklines and curls around their faces. One of those movies that annoyed and bored me at the same time.

“Next, veggie aisle,” she directed, striding ahead.

We turned a corner, and her hip bumped against my thigh.

“Excuse me,” she said, and we both laughed. Her eyes lit up, her dimples deepening.

And my heart gave a strange tug.

Suddenly, the contest seemed less important. I wanted to understand these odd sensations. Not just be polite for the camera back at the inn. I was going to win the battle against my awkwardness with her. My aim for the rest of the day was to preserve this camaraderie between us.

CHAPTER 13

Lizzy

However much I wanted to keep disliking Darcy, his energy and determination were infectious.

“There are no truffles,” he called from the produce section. “Would morels do?”

“They’re not the same, but I feel like most mushrooms go with chicken.”

“Got them,” he said, holding up a box of morels like a prize. “And what do you know? They actually have heart nuts!” He held up his other hand, triumphantly showing me a bag of brown nuts.

It was the most enthusiastic he’d been about anything this weekend, and his boyish excitement was quite endearing.

I inspected them as he got closer. “Such a cute name for an ordinary-looking nut.”

“There’s a slogan in there somewhere,” he said.

“Or an inspirational quote,” I replied.

“Or a life hack.”

“Or a haiku.”

We were both grinning as we whizzed past the frozen section. This would be a fun scene for my Peony and Thomas story, though I knew for certain neither of them would do the foodshop in the village market. And then there was the reality of what they would buy in the early 1800s—dead swans, live chickens—assailed by the sight of cheese with live maggots and the smell of boiling sheep’s trotters. Ugh, no.

Darcy was staring at me strangely, unaware of the grotesqueries swirling in my brain. “Anything from here? Oh, look, there’s some pastry.” Darcy reached into the freezer.

“Frozen pastry is going to take way too long to defrost,” I said. Surely he knew that? Maybe in all our high spirits, he’d forgotten?

We wheeled toward the deli fridge and stopped.

“There’s pastry here,” he said, reaching in. “Short pastry.”

“That’s not the same as puff pastry,” I said. “One’s fluffy, one’s heavier.”

Again, how did he not know such a crucial component of his own recipe? I felt an uneasy prickling on the back of my neck.

He shrugged, as if to dismiss that as a detail. “Near as, damn it,” he said and threw it into the cart.

His cavalier confidence, about ingredients anyway, buoyed me to take some risks too.

He peered into the fridge again. “There’s none of that special French blue cheese,” he said.

I shrugged. “I’m sure Stilton would be fine,” I said, reaching in beside him.