“Really?” She leaned over to look at his list. “What kind of order is that?”
“It’s the order that things popped into my head.”
“You’re going to do a big shopping and the first thing you think of is mustard?”
He pulled his list away so she couldn’t see it anymore. “Mustard is important. Let me guess, your grocery list magically comes to you in alphabetical order?”
“I have an app on my phone for groceries. I took the time to arrange the aisles the way they are in the store, so now as I add things, they’re in the order I’ll find them on the shelves. I still print it out, though, because I hate when I have to keep unlocking my phone over and over while I shop. But it’s all in order.”
“You sound very smug about that.”
She grinned. “Maybe I should agree to that race, after all.”
“Ready, set, go.”
“I’m not really racing,” she called after him, but he didn’t look back.
Only three aisles in, he made a mental note to ask her which app she was using for her grocery list. He spent more time scanning his list to see if any of the items matched the aisle he was in than he did putting things in his cart. And he’d already backtracked twice in three aisles, so it was probably a good thing they weren’t racing.
He ran into her in the pasta and rice aisle. She was looking at boxes of flavored rice, and he leaned over her shoulder. “I like the chicken flavored.”
After tossing two boxes of pilaf into her cart, she gave him a sweet smile and looked at his cart. “If we were racing, which we’re not, you’d be losing.”
He snorted and kept going. By the time he’d loaded up on boxes of macaroni and cheese, because a guy couldn’t have too many of those, she was gone again. He grabbed spaghetti fixings, then what looked like a lifetime supply of egg noodles. It was easy to throw meat in the Crock-Pot, then dump it over noodles at the end of a long day.
When Matt turned the corner into the canned vegetables and baked beans aisle, he saw Hailey again. She was talking to a guy who was seriously overdressed for a trip to the grocery store. Looking at his suit and tie, with the leather shoes and perfectly styled hair, Matt knew this was the kind of guy Hailey had been waiting for.
She laughed at something the man said, and Matt’s fingers clenched around the cart. Then he turned and went back the way he’d come. He could get baked beans once Hailey was finished trying to pick up Mr. Perfect in the grocery store.
His mood soured, he went about checking off everything on his list as fast as he could. He ran into Hailey a few more times and managed to give her a wave and a smart-ass comment each time, but he couldn’t shake the image of how she’d been smiling at the guy in the suit.
A guy in the woods with a beard and flannel shirt must be a serial killer, but put on a suit and hit the grocery store and you were Mr. Wonderful.
Hailey must have gotten held up thumping melons or whatever in the produce aisle, because he had three-quarters of his bags in the back of the truck before she wheeled her cart out of the store.
“I guess you would have won if we’d been racing,” she said.
“Yup. Since I’m already up here, just hand your bags up to me. And there’s room in this cooler for your milk and the meats.”
She handed the bags up to him a few at a time. Since he was standing in the bed of the truck, he had a perfect view when she paused to wave goodbye to the man in the suit, who was pushing his cart a few aisles over.
“Did you get his number?”
She handed him the last few bags, frowning. “What?”
He hopped down off the tailgate and slammed it closed. “I saw you laughing with him in the canned goods aisle, and he looks like your type. With a suit like that, he must be a great guy.”
“He is a great guy. He’s been married to one of my best friends from school since the summer after we graduated and I was laughing because she has a cold and sent him to get some groceries after work, but he doesn’t know where anything is.”
“Oh.”
She gave him a look that clearly broadcast her feelings about him being ridiculous, then walked away to return her cart to the corral. Cursing himself for an idiot, he got in the truck and fired it up.
The awkwardness faded as they argued over which fast food drive-through to hit. It was late enough so neither of them would want to cook by the time they got home and unloaded all the groceries. She won, of course, and he ate his burger as they drove back to Whitford.
“This is the weekend your parents are coming to visit, right? And the reason for the big shopping?” she asked, once all the wrappers were crumpled up and shoved in the bag.
“Yeah. Drew’s going to make sure somebody’s out on the department ATV to cover for me, which was what I was hoping would happen when I told Mom we’d barbecue.”
“That’ll be fun. Are they all coming?”
“Yeah. I’m fielding a little guilt over moving so far away. What about you? Is the library open?”
“No, it’s my Saturday off. I was planning to go to the grocery store, but now I’ll find something else to do.” She paused to take a sip of her soda. “I’ll probably visit Paige or see what Tori’s up to.”
Too late, he realized there had been an opening to invite her over for the barbecue and he’d missed it. Had she been fishing for one? He could casually throw an invitation out there, but how would he introduce her to his family? As his neighbor? He wasn’t sure how Hailey would take that, seeing as how they were sleeping together, but if he used the word girlfriend, his mother was going to be all over that like frosting on a cupcake. He didn’t think Hailey would take kindly to the kind of speculative glances and probing questions his mom and sisters would start pestering her with.
Then Hailey changed the subject, asking him about the ATV club and how things were going, and he shoved thoughts of introducing her to his family to the back of his mind. Work was something he had no trouble talking about, and they discussed it until he pulled into her driveway.
“I’ll help you carry yours in, then I’ll do mine.” He got out of the truck and tussled with Bear for a minute while Hailey unlocked her house and propped open her screen door.
After two trips he came up with a brilliant plan to ensure he got to see her again once their groceries were put away. He liked her company, but they’d already eaten and he was having a hard time just straight out asking if she wanted to spend the evening with him. So, as he loaded up for another trip in, he snuck a box of toothpaste out of her bag and dropped it into one of his.
“Why are you stealing my toothpaste?”
Busted. He hadn’t realized she was back already. “I forgot to buy some and you bought two.”
“Even if you weren’t lying, and I saw toothpaste in your cart, that doesn’t mean you can steal mine.”
He pondered which was more embarrassing—being thought a thief or behaving like a teenager. “Having your toothpaste in my bag gave me an excuse to knock on your door later. You know, to give it back.”
“Really?” He waited for her to laugh or at least make some mocking comment. Instead, she blushed. “My garlic powder might have already jumped into one of your bags. I was planning to come over later and ask if you found it.”
It took a few seconds for her admission to sink in, and then he chuckled. “Did the garlic powder jump before or after I acted like an idiot?”
“After.” She shrugged. “We all have our moments. I’ll come over when I’m done and we can watch TV...or something. And give me my toothpaste back.”
FOURTEEN
ON THE DAY his entire family was showing up for a barbecue, Matt’s phone rang at eight-thirty. When he saw the Northern Star Lodge on his caller ID screen, he knew there was a good chance he’d be going to work.
It was Andy. “Hate to bother you, but we’ve got a couple of idiots we need to catch. I know my boy was patrolling today because you’ve got a family thing, but I don’t think it’ll take long.”
“People are tearing the place up already? They couldn’t have had breakfast first?”
“You know how it is when they travel a long distance. They hit the trail early to cover every mile they can. These guys came in from the east and, from what I understand, they’ve already done some damage on the neighboring trail system. Went off trail and were verbally abusive to a woman—a landowner, no less—who gave them hell for trespassing. By tracking complaint calls, we know they’re coming into Whitford.”
“Do you know what trail they’re on?”
“No. We haven’t heard anything since the main junction, so we don’t know which way they went. I’d just wait for them at the gas station, but if they’re carrying cans, they might not risk coming into town. Josh headed out from here and Drew went in behind his property. If you can get into town and head in from the trail to the diner, one of you is bound to run into them.”
“On my way.”
He always had a uniform ready to go, so in less than ten minutes he was headed into town. Calling his dad from the road, he told him what was up. He’d left the door unlocked for them and he’d be home as soon as he could. They knew the drill. Deciding Paige wouldn’t care, he parked in the diner’s parking lot instead of the designated municipal parking to unload the quad and hit the trails.