Page 7 of Daddy's Little Convict
Creamy peanut butter. There was a plastic jar of it with a bright yellow discount sticker. The sides were bent in and the lid was cracked, so it had obviously been dropped. But the safety seal was still intact, so she put it in the cart and went into the next aisle to grab a loaf of bread.
“You should really try switching to wheat,” Sheriff Barnes cheerfully pipped up as he came walking down the aisle behind her again. “White is fine for french toast, but it has next to no nutritional value.”
She gritted her teeth and, even as she was telling herself to keep walking, not to say anything back or encourage him to keep hounding at her, she stopped and turned around. “What if I like white bread?”
“Wheat’s better for you.”
“How the hell doyouknow what’s best forme? Stop following me!” she hissed and marched away, turning down the next aisle only to have him turn into it right behind her.
She whirled around on him, but his hands were already cupped around his mouth as he mock whispered, “It’s where my next items are. I can’t help where the store puts the things I need, or that you’re going in the same direction I am.”
Bullshit.It echoed over and over in her head. That excuse was nothing but bullshit, and yet she couldn’t say anything. He must really think she was a major shoplifting threat, and yet she’d never stolen anything in her life. Well… not since she was five, anyway. And she sure as hell hadn’t been a part of stealing that damn Trans-Am!
Snapping around on her heel, she rushed past the soups and broths, and finally found the ramen, the cheapest stuff in the store. Just add water and, since she didn’t have a microwave, hope it came out of the tap hot enough to soften the noodles. She grabbed a case of chicken-flavored packets and threw it into her cart a little harder than was necessary. All right, way harder thannecessary. The shrink-wrapped box almost bounced right back out again.
“Gently,” Jeff sang from where he was perusing the soup shelves.
“Stop acting like I’m trying to rob the place!” she blew up, and yet her tone remained every bit as soft as his. He was whispering at her, so she whisper-screamed back. “Admit it! You’ve been following me, giving me the stink eye ever since I got here. And you’ve been mean every time!”
“Mean?” He arched both eyebrows behind the mirror reflections of his sunglasses. She wished she hadn’t said that. Hell, she wished could see his eyes, but they were hidden from her. “I have been anything but mean,” he countered.
“You gave me a ticket!” She ripped it from her back pocket, showing it to him so he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t. “That’s not being nice.”
“In my defense,” he said, “I have had to deal with every single person to step off that prison bus in the last seven years. Some were great people who stepped off that bus. You aren’t the only lady, or fellow, newly deposited here who did, in fact, rob this place blind. Not everyone acclimatizes to life in Starvation without problems.”
“I blame the local sheriff,” she returned, giving the stitched label on his chest a sneer. She dumped another orange box of noodle bricks into her.
“I’m trying really hard not to say how bad for you those things are,” he commented. “The sodium content alone…”
If she weren’t so angry, she’d have recognized his tone was gentle rather than critical, but it set her temper off anyway.
“It’s what I can pay for!” she hissed, and out of spite, grabbed the last box of beef ramen, since she’d already grabbed all the chicken. There was no telling how long she’d have to go before she got her first full paycheck. She fully expected Travis to takeeverything she’d earned so far on Friday, and the last thing she could handle was having to deal with her new life on a constantly empty stomach. No, ramen wasn’t the most nutritious thing she could eat, but it was the cheapest and it would keep her from going hungry. And what business of his was it anyways?
She snapped around on her heel. Angry as she was, she hadn’t even noticed that the sheriff was trying to go around her until she smashed her cart into his. Her finger got pinched.
Yelping, she snatched her hand back from the sharp pain and accidentally elbowed him in the chest. She jumped to get a safe distance between them again, tripped, and down she went.
Her wildly windmilling arms grabbed for anything strong enough to arrest her fall, but he grabbed her instead. For just a moment, she was grateful. Then she remembered who he was.
“Get off me!” Rearing back, she ripped her arm out of his grip, the force of it knocking them both off balance. Stumbling, Jeff caught himself before he fell; Tabby didn’t. Her back cracked against the sharp edge of a shelf behind her right before the whole thing collapsed, and down she went, crashing to the floor along with about sixteen feet of industry shelving, a hundred disposable tubs of instant noodles, and fish sauce.
“Are you all right?” Bending to help her up, Jeff shoved her cart out of the way, and the next thing she felt was the heavy wheel going right over the top of her right ankle.
She yelled, the pain sharper than her ability to keep quiet, but it was too late. Already Jeff had her by the wrist and in a single heave, he hauled her up off the floor and back onto her own feet.
“Oh my god.” She grabbed onto his arm, hopping to keep the weight off her injured ankle. “Ow, that hurts!”
She immediately locked her jaw, refusing to say that again. Her leg wasn’t really hurt. It was overreacting, and she refused to allow it to be injured. This one-horse town didn’t have amedical clinic and for sure she didn’t have money to throw away on anything less than certain death.
“Can you put your weight on it?”
Tabitha yanked her arm out of his grasp, turned and shoved him away with all her might. He obligingly took a step back; she didn’t even knock him off balance this time.
So angry she could barely keep from screaming, she blinked back the involuntary flood of tears that her pain and frustration had conjured. “I’m fine,” she managed, half hopping and half limping through the scattered mess of noodles and broken bottles of soy and fish sauce, and specialty oils now spilled all over the tiles.
Her cart had tracked right through the mess. So had his.
And now she had no choice but to walk right through it too, this colossal, horrible, embarrassing mess she’d just made.
