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“Wait up. I can help you carry those out to your car?” he calls out after me when I finish paying, grab my handful of bags, and make a run for the exit.
“I’m quite capable of carrying these,” I say, but he doesn’t take no for an answer.
It’s practically a wrestling match as he tries to take the bags from my hands. My hand gets caught, and he nearly dislocates my shoulder when he starts walking away while I’m still technically attached.
“Ouch.”
Mr. Cartwright stops and gives me a look like it’s my fault. I didn’t ask him to manhandle the bags out of my hands, and yet he looks at me like I’m the one to blame. The annoyance I’m feeling flickers to anger, but I hold it in. I’m still not sure if I need to be on good terms with this man or not, so it’s best not to burn this bridge just yet.
“My apologies,” he says. “I was only trying to help. Is this your minivan over here?”
Something about the way he acts so familiar with me makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Yes,” I say tentatively as he pulls open the sliding door and drops my bags in with the others that have accumulated from a day of shopping.
He whistles low. “Looks like someone enjoys spending above their means.”
“Hey!” I snap. “How dare you speak to me like that.”
“There’s no need to get so emotional.” He holds up his hands like I’m not reacting like any other person would in this situation. “I just know that if I were in your financial situation, I wouldn’t be so quick to rack up charges on my credit card.”
I’m stunned into silence that anyone would ever speak to another person like this.
“Then again,” he says, a Grinch-like smile spreading across his face. “It might just be in my best interest to leave you to continue shopping. You’d have no other choice than to sell to me.”
My throat tightens, and I can’t verbalize any of the creative cuss words I can think of to tell this asshole where he can go. When he’s only met with silence, his eyebrow ticks up with amusement. Something inside me snaps, and I lunge for him. But before my hands can wrap around his scrawny neck, something stops me.
Silas
I didn’t need to hear the words he was saying to Eloise to know that whatever it was, he deserved an introduction of my fist to his face.
“Whoa,” I say, looping my arm around Eloise’s waist and lifting her up and out of reach of this guy.
“Let go of me!” she yells, but I don’t listen.
I don’t want to have to explain to Cam and the kids why I was bailing their sister and mother out of jail today. So, I keep hold of her in the hopes that a cooler head will prevail.
“What’s going on?” I look between the two of them.
The man is dressed in a suit that doesn’t look like it fits him just right. Like he had to borrow his dad’s suit to wear to work today. And judging from the overpriced haircut, I can just imagine that he’s never worked a day with his hands in his life. I’m sure they are still just as soft as they were when he was still running around in diapers.
“She just lunged at me, completely unprovoked.” He points accusingly at Eloise.
“That’s a lie!” she yells again and tries to reach around me to get to him.
“Calm down,” I tell her, resting my hands on each of her shoulders. “Elle, you don’t want Brayden or Aspen to hear about this, do you?”
At the mention of her kids’ names, the fiery anger in her eyes is snuffed out. The last thing either of us wants is the town gossip to start exaggerating what has unfolded here, and then she has to explain to them what happened.
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Okay, let’s talk this out.” I look between the two of them.
“I’ll tell you,” the guy starts to yell loudly so anyone within earshot can hear him. “I was just helping her with her bags.”
“No, you were insulting me to my face about my finances which are none of your damn business.”
“I was simply stating a fact.” He shrugs. “And if you care at all about those brats—”
