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The warmth of guilt swims on my face, heating it so much, I know Walker can see it on my cheeks.
He fights a smile, rolling his lips between his teeth.
“All I know is I saw you one minute, and then you were gone the next. Come to think of it,” he says in that comical way where he taps his finger against his lips as if he’s in deep thought. “Madison skipped out on her tab as well.”
“Weird,” I tell him, refusing to gossip with him about my very personal life.
I don’t think Walker is the type of guy to go around and tell secrets. I have no doubt he’s the keeper of more secrets than he even realizes, being the bartender in the only watering hole in town. He will, however, continue to give me shit about what he believes to be true.
“You two are living together, right?”
“What? No, I, yes, but not living together. She’s the boys’ nanny.”
And I’m her boss with benefits as she called it.
“Did you hear someone else talking about it?” I fight the urge to lift my finger to my lips, remembering that I saw Madison do that when she was nervous the other night, and it made it very clear that the topic of conversation made her nervous.
“No more than usual. Listen, I wanted to see if my order was in.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“You had an order?”
“Placed one with your dad last week.”
“I was here last week. You sure?”
“He’d said you were at the vet or something. Did you finally let the boys get that Husky? Corbin mentioned it last week.”
I take a deep breath now, having a better understanding of his commentno more than usual.
This small town drives me nuts.
“We’re not getting a dog,” I tell him as I turn back to walk toward the counter. “Cole cut his finger.”
“Oh right. The magic trick gone wrong. How’s the little guy doing?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, refusing to let irritation simmer inside of me. I make a mental note to ask Corbin if him being a vet and treating my human child still gives us doctor/ patient privileges, but I doubt it was even Corbin who spilled the beans on that one.
“He’s good. It was just a small cut.” I bend down, looking under the counter. “That day was the only day I was out of the store. I haven’t received any special-order deliveries.”
Walker is frowning when I stand back up.
“What was it exactly?”
“I had to special order some of those long bulbs for the backroom of the bar. I haven’t gotten around to putting LEDs back there.”
“What kind?”
He shrugs. “Your dad said he could look up Tony’s account and pull the item number from those.”
“It looks like he forgot,” I tell him, hating to admit to a customer that we’ve managed to screw up his order.
“No big deal. Think it’s something you can work out for me?”
“I sure can,” I tell him, writing it down on the notebook Dad always has at the counter. It’s the most ridiculous way to track shit in this store, but it’s the only system we have right now because he refuses to get an electronic one. If he’s using old files to pull item numbers from, now I know why he was so pissed when he caught me throwing decades of these notebooks away shortly after I came in to help him get the place ready for sale.
“Usually takes about a week to get stuff in,” I tell him. “But I can bring them to you and install them for you when they get here.”
