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“Oh, I am so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention.”
Her gaze traveled over the big hands wrapped around the end of her cart all the way up to the familiar bloodshot brown eyes of Asher Reid. Besides the eyes, she barely recognized him. In the last month, he’d lost weight and his cheeks were hollow. He seemed almost dazed as he stared back at her.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s a small town and there’s only one grocery store. If I knew you were going to be here, I would have waited to shop.”
Rylie bit her lip, that sick feeling of guilt twisting up her gut.
He threw a brick through Dustin’s pool house window. What do I have to feel guilty about?
She didn’t respond, surprised when he asked, “How’s your foot?”
Rylie stared up at him. “How did you know I hurt my foot?”
“Everyone has told me. When they’re not calling me an asshole and crazy.”
What was she supposed to say?
“You wouldn’t leave me alone and after…that night, I had to do something.”
“I didn’t throw that brick. I wanted you back. I didn’t want to hurt you.” He moved as though he was going to come around the cart and she took a step back, keeping it between them. “Are you really scared of me?”
Taking in his disheveled appearance, his wild eyes, and the bitter twist of his mouth, she nodded.
His face flushed nearly purple with rage. “All I did was try to show you I cared, that I was willing to work on things and what did you do? You shacked up with that rich son of a bitch, Dustin Kent.” He came all the way around the cart and she moved, keeping the metal basket between them. “Does he take care of you and buy you pretty things? Is that how he got you?”
“You… You need to go, Asher. You’re violating the restraining order.”
“You’ve already destroyed my life! Did you know I was fired from the garage? Once they heard that you’d accused me of throwing a brick through that prick’s window, Paulson let me go.”
Rylie backed down the aisle. “Just leave me alone.”
“Why?”
The way he said it, so cold and empty, caused sweat to break out across her body. She glanced over her shoulder, calculating if she could make it to the end of the aisle before he caught her.
“Because you’ll be violating the RO if you touch me.”
He sneered at her. “It’s just a piece of paper. You really think that or your new boyfriend can protect you?”
“Is there a problem here?”
Rylie had never been so happy to hear Luke Jessup’s Texas drawl behind her.
“Asher. If memory serves, you’re supposed to be five hundred feet away from Rylie.”
“How the fuck was I supposed to know she was going to be here?”
Luke took her arm and stepped between her and Asher. “I heard the lady ask you to leave from the next aisle over. So, you had a chance to walk away, and now I’m going to have to arrest you.”
Asher shoved her cart at Luke and took off out of sight. Luke chased after him and as she followed behind, it was as though she was floating, watching all of this take place in someone else’s world.
Another deputy had Asher pinned to the floor and pulled something from his pocket. Rylie couldn’t hear what they were saying over the blood pounding in her ears, but knew this couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t her life. She wasn’t the girl who dated abusive assholes and watched them get arrested in the middle of a supermarket.
Her gaze lifted and she realized there were a lot of people standing around watching and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Rylie turned and ran, losing her heels as she pumped her arms. She didn’t slow at the pain in her foot or when her bare skin hit asphalt. She unlocked her car with shaky hands, tears rolling down her cheeks as she climbed inside.
She peeled out of the parking lot, ignoring angry glares from several older women from church. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her, not right now. All she knew was she was scared and wanted to feel safe, to forget about what had just happened. There was only one place that offered her that.
