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One
Betty
* * *
We may need a cleanup in the produce aisle. He’s back, and if he doesn’t stop looking so delicious in that leather vest and tattoos, I may combust right here between the eggplant and avocados. Jenna will have to mop me up from the floor…
“Betty, where are the sweet potatoes you have on sale?” Mrs. Fuller, a faithful shopper of The Hungry Grocer, asks. “Gonna make Richard a pie and the canned ones won’t do.”
I point her in the direction of the baskets of potatoes, casting a sneaky glance toward the muscled man browsing the fruit like he’s picking out a car.
“How’s your father?” she asks as she digs her frail hand through the potatoes, inspecting them, and inadvertently reminding me I should not be sneaking glances at the man currently fondling melons like they are a lover.
“He’s well.” I hustle across the tile floor to the berries in the far corner to avoid further questioning about my dad that I know is coming. As chief of police, my father knows everyone in this small town, which means everyone knows me too.
Sometimes, it can overwhelm me.
Normally, I love my job managing the local grocery store—somebody has to do it, and I do it exceptionally well—but many people thought I’d follow in Daddy’s footsteps, joining the police force right out of high school.
As if I’d ever want to be Daddy’s deputy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my father, but I’m not interested in leading the type of life where I’m critiqued through society’s magnifying glass.
Although, I am anyway. I can’t step a smidge out of line or else my father hears about it. Most of the time, I don’t mind following the rules, but now and then, I dream of a wilder life. A night full of naughty fantasies that would blow the wig off Mrs. Fuller’s head.
It’s just a dream though. The men of this town are a joke in the romance department. Trust me, I’ve dated a few in my twenty-three years, and they wouldn’t know the difference between my bellybutton and the spot between my legs. I want to be ravaged by a man, not the dweebs running around this small town.
“Excuse me, Miss,” a deep, growly voice says from behind me. “Are the strawberries sweet and ripe?”
The masculine voice rumbles through me like a freight train, setting off flashing red lights in all my erogenous zones.
I spin around and my eyes land on the leader of the Legendary Villains Motorcycle Club.
The hottest produce shopper in King’s City, Nevada.
Once a week, he comes in and peruses the fruits and vegetables, and once a week, after my shift, I go home and do scandalous things to myself, imagining he’s touching me with those tattooed fingers. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s forbidden. My father says if there’s anyone I should stay away from, it’s these guys. They’re bad news.
“Of course they are.” I step out of the way of the tall man and all his muscles. “These are from Marvin Zimmerman’s farm.”
“I like them juicy,” he says, reaching past me to pick up a container of plump strawberries and eyeball it.
He wears a tight, white t-shirt beneath his club vest, and the way his biceps poke out from his sleeves makes my mouth water. I scoot further away from his woodsy scent, trying not to stare at the big bulge behind the zipper of his worn jeans.
Or—Lord, help me—the sexy smattering of gray in his tousled dark hair, right by his temples.
Or—Jesus, take the wheel—those succulent lips surrounded by a close-trimmed beard.
Better yet, I move myself out of his tempting vicinity to the display of apples.
“Excuse me,” he says again, huskier this time. “How are these for pie?”
He selects a Red Delicious apple and holds it in his palm, tempting me.
“You bake pies?” seems the logical question here, so I ask it.
“Is that a problem if I do?” His brown eyes skim over my pink Hungry Grocer polo and khaki pants.
“Perhaps,” I snap at him, knowing I should be nice to all customers, but Silas Irons is not a man I want shopping in my store and making me the subject of gossip at church bingo because he’s talking to me. He’s not supposed to have a conversation with me. He’s supposed to quietly drift through the aisles and let me watch him. “Why are you shopping here?” I ask, my voice reflecting the turmoil churning inside me.
“Pickin’ up a few things.” His voice is rough and low—layered—like he’s lived a life full of experience. I bet he knows how to touch a woman the right way.
I stare at his big hands for a second and then snap my eyes back up to his brown ones.
My father would most likely kill me for talking to this man. He’d be even more upset knowing Silas Irons has even stepped foot on this side of town. My father and the Legendary Villains have a truce, a treaty of sorts. They stay on their side of town and my father looks the other way when they party a bit too loud.
