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“Oh. You seem young. I thought you were a student.”
“I’m 26, never went to college, and I’ve been writing since I was 14. I went full-time with it when I was 20.”
Bonnie slaps his shoulder again. “I guess you don’t know everything, kiddo?”
“I know she likes coffee ice cream,” he says with a low guttural noise.
Oh wow, he’s hot when he’s angry. I imagine he’s hot all the time.
He glowers at me. “Twenty-six. So it’s plausible that you could be a student. Also, you…dress young.”
Many unsaid things are in that pause, as well as in the slow drag of his eyes across my bare midriff.
Huh. He doesn’t hate me as much as he thinks he does.
That’s good to know, because I think he’s adorable.
ChapterThree
Cash
At the bigbox supermarket in Sault Ste. Marie, I’m filling up my grocery basket with an assortment of items Mom likes to keep at the store when someone snatches the last carton of eggs.
“Hey, stranger!”
The voice tells me who it is before I can look up. Caroline stands before me with a shit-eating grin on her face and her hands full of eggs. My eggs.
“I was going to buy those eggs for Mom.”
A lock of sandy hair escapes from her bun and dances across her bare shoulder as she chirps, “I know, but I’m here, and I’ll get them. It’s no problem. Bonnie is so much fun; it’s the least I can do to help her out.”
“That’s my job. I’m here to take care of her.”
“You’re really overthinking things, Cash. Let me handle it,” she says.
I should just let it go. It’s only eggs. But that’s not the point. The principle of the matter is that Caroline’s presence is taking over the whole damn bait shop and general store, and I won’t have it.
“I’ll take it from here,” I say, holding out my hand to accept the eggs from her.
“Well, it was nice chatting with you. See you around.”
“Caroline, give me the eggs.”
I hate how her name pleases me when I say it out loud. A warm sensation fills my stomach, and that’s not okay. She’s too young for me. And anyway, she’s a terrible brat. Isn’t she?
Am I just behaving like a jerk?
I suppose Caroline couldn’t bethatbratty if my mom loves her so much.
Still, she makes me crazy, and I don’t like that.
Caroline laughs. “I don’t think I will. Toodle-ooh!” She waves goodbye with a wiggle of fingers in the air. And what do I do? Dumbfounded, I watch her walk away, her oversized midriff sweatshirt brushing over the skin of her exposed lower back, the barest hint of a tattoo showing on the left side.
Toodle-ooh? Who says that?
What an absolutely terrible, annoying, presumptuous, infuriating woman.
ChapterFour
