Collin’s smile never faltered, but I felt the way his body stiffened and noticed the slight change in his eyes. “I’m sure your wife will enjoy the dinner.”
Ren made an annoyed face. “So, the sheriff threw a fit over the new chief yesterday; it didn’t . . .” He trailed off and his hand shot out to rest on my hip. “Young girl, be a sweetheart and leave the men to talk about things that you don’t need to be around for.”
I tensed when Collin’s fingers dug into my back but tried to relax my body. I knew it wasn’t because of something I’d done, and I knew Collin was thinking of a hundred different things he could do to make Ren pay.
I didn’t move, mostly because I couldn’t with Collin’s hold on me, and we both stayed silent as Ren opened his mouth to talk to Collin, only to shut it when he realized I wasn’t leaving.
“Young girl,” he began again, “that wasn’t a suggestion.”
A low rumble sounded in Collin’s chest as he turned me toward him. Dread filled me when I noticed the dead look in his eyes, but he just pulled me close and kissed my cheek. “Keep shopping; I’ll come find you when we’re finished here.”
“You need to teach that wife of yours how to listen,” I heard Ren say as I escaped down the aisle, and a tiny smile pulled at my lips with Collin’s response.
“She does listen . . . to me.”
I grabbed the last two things on the list, then headed back to the produce section since Collin had been too frustrated to stay in it for more than a couple of minutes earlier, and I knew there would be hell to pay if I didn’t get the rest of the vegetables. Using the face of my phone as a mirror, I glanced around to make sure no one was looking at me before holding it up for only a second to make sure the infinity scarf was still hiding what needed to stay hidden. Even though Collin had spent five minutes before we’d left making sure it wouldn’t move, the light material had me second-guessing it every time I started walking. And now that Collin wasn’t next to me to keep an eye on it, I was shaking just thinking that someone might see something they weren’t supposed to.
My head instinctively snapped up when I heard a screech, only to find a small girl running across the produce section to launch herself at a man.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Knox was standing with a few men in dark blue Richland Fire Department shirts and was holding up the smiling, dimpled girl.
A girl with dark brown hair nearly identical to Knox’s. A girl who was talking a mile a minute and looking at Knox like he was her favorite person in the world. A girl whose mom had just joined them.
I took a few quick steps backward, not wanting to look at the mother, not wanting to see the woman Knox had a daughter with, and hit something.
“Excuse you!” a woman hissed.
“I’m so sorry!”
“You do realize you are in a crowded store; you can’t just go flying around without looking where you’re going.”
“I know,” I whispered, even though I hadn’t been able to hear Knox and the girl, so I knew they couldn’t hear me. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
She rolled her eyes and threw the can of food she’d been holding into her cart. Her already loud voice grew louder and raised an octave. “Well, don’t you think that was a little obvious when you tried to run me over?”
“Yeah, prob—” The word cut off when I felt a presence behind me, and the woman’s eyes snapped up and rounded.
“Low,” Knox’s deep voice rumbled. “Everything okay here?”
Knox
Present Day—Richland
“I’M TELLIN’ YOU, this girl is the one. I’m gonna get a ring and put it on her finger, and get out of the bachelor life for good,” Pete said as we walked into the grocery store to get food for the firehouse. The rest of the guys and I rolled our eyes.
Every couple of months or so Pete had a new girl he liked to claim was “the one,” only to replace her with someone else not long after. So if he was talking about getting a ring, then I was sure this girl only had a few days to a week left with Pete before she found herself single.
“I saw that! I saw you roll your eyes, but none of you have met her. You haven’t seen her . . .”
I turned to look at the guys, and mouthed the rest of what Pete said as he said it.
“. . . she’s got wife material written all over her.”
I laughed when Pete smacked my arm. It was what he said about all of them. “One day you’ll actually find someone, Pete,” I said. “And maybe then we’ll stop making fun of you.” I gave him a look and shrugged. “Maybe.”
We all tensed at the high-pitched shriek, ready for whatever it could mean, but my body relaxed and a smile crossed my face the second I caught a dimpled three-year-old running full speed toward me.
I bent down and grabbed her up into my arms as she yelled, “My Superman!”