Page 3 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

She took a step back. Oh shit, had she—

‘Did you just … ?’ He looked bemused, but not unhappily so.

She had. She’d sniffed him. Zoey prided herself on keeping her intrusive thoughts from interfering too much in her daily life, although she did avoid walking too close to the edge of the Hawthorne Bridge just in case, but today was apparently the day they’d decided to prevail.

‘Allergies,’ she lied, although they were past the sneezy months of May and June, when the entire city managed to coat itself in a carpet of yellow pollen, like the yellow brick road from Oz had decided to take an extensive, itchy detour.

Nick was clearly biting back a grin. He wasn’t buying her excuse. But at least he hadn’t called her out: apparently her state of evident mortification was penance enough. Even Alice was thumping her tail in amusement.

‘Here, let’s get you rung up. Cash, card, phone … I do it all. Especially big jars of change, because I have a neighbour embarking upon a serious penny-tiling job.’

Zoey made a show of patting her jeans pockets. ‘I left my piggy bank at home.’

She passed him her work credit card instead.

‘Phone number or email for the receipt?’ he asked, handing his phone to her. ‘Not a 503 area code, huh?’ he asked, peering over the screen as she typed.

A small thrill ran down her spine.

No. She mustn’t let herself be swayed by the fact that he was paying such close attention. Just because he was a handsome small-business owner with a cute dog didn’t mean he wasn’t going to break her heart. Not that she was imagining them in a situation where heartbreak could even be an option.

‘I grew up in the California desert,’ she admitted, passing the phone back to him. ‘But I’ve been out here since college. I’m trying to catch up on the rain I missed during my childhood.’

‘It takes a while to grow those webbed feet, but you’ll get there.’

‘I’m working on it. I’ve been very vocal about refusing to carry an umbrella.’

‘Look at you – you’re practically a local. All you need is a rainproof jacket and you’re set.’ Nick pulled a card from a stack rubber-banded together, then stapled it to Zoey’s bag. ‘Here. In case you want to place another order. Or, you know.’ He shrugged.

Zoey cocked her head. She did not in fact know. Or rather, she suspected she knew, and was afraid she was correct. There was a reason Zoey kept her distance from astonishingly handsome men. That way lay heartbreak, debt, late-night realisations about secret texting and work trips that were definitely more of the pleasure variety.

‘In case I have mushroom questions?’ she asked, feigning stupidity.

‘Sure.’ He scribbled something down on a notepad. ‘Or if you want to tour the farm.’

‘Mushrooms in situ, huh?’ Zoey hoisted her paper bag, then gave Alice a last pat. ‘I’ll let you know how the smoothies turn out.’

‘You have my number.’ He said it with a grin – the sort of kind, slightly crooked grin that did things to your knees and affected your ability to walk.

‘I’ll send pics. Not nudes,’ she clarified over her shoulder, as she strode off down the waterfront, not sure whether she should be proud of the quip or dismayed at herself for falling prey to her intrusive thoughts twice in one day. Probably the latter given that she’d just bashed into a balloon-animal stand and sent a balloon giraffe flying.

But a quick glance back showed that Nick was watching her go – even if it was over the shoulder of a double-denim-clad dude wobbling under the weight of a towering man bun and brandishing a bag of champignons.

All right, so she hadn’t had an instant crush on a mushroom farmer on this year’s bingo card, but as she’d found out playing bingo at the Palm Desert Community Center with Gran during high school, bingo was full of surprises. And surprising amounts of swearing.

Bingo could get you hot under the collar. And so too could browsing for produce.

Dammit, she hated when that happened.

She’d have to add it to her list of pet peeves.

2

Nick

Nick’s vintage Dodge truck, which his sister Cleo had named Deirdre, let out its habitual groan as he coaxed it up the tyre-rutted road that led to his farm. His farm. He could barely believe he owned it – or that the forces of the universe and local economics had aligned in such a way that he’d managed to pick it up for a song from the county website. For the price of a couple of years’ back property taxes and about half the materials they’d had on hand at the local hardware shop, all thirty acres of it were his.

Before signing on the dotted line, he’d called up a couple out in Bend that the county said were related to the previous owners and might want to step in, but they’d waved him off and said that they didn’t want any part of it. This was about fifty per cent due to the tax situation and fifty per cent because they’d had their fill of the rain and were all about that dry, Central Oregon life.