“I had to pick up some things,” he said.
Her eyebrows stretched high on her forehead as she looked at his empty shopping cart. “I can see that.”
“I just got here.”
“Me, too. Just a warning. You may have to elbow your way through the aisles. It looks like everyone in Sweet is here now that the weather is better. I can't believe that last week we had such a horrible blizzard and now the snow is nearly gone.”
“Down here. Up on the mountain there’s still a good bit of it. But that's Mother Nature for you. A good pack of snow should bring some beautiful spring flowers though.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Really?”
“A heavy snow is a poor man’s fertilizer.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
They were making small talk and it made him feel like a stranger.
“Well… I guess I'll just be getting what I need.”
She opened her mouth to speak but then didn't. His eyes were transfixed on her lips, lips that he revisited kissing in his mind for the past week since she'd been gone.
“So that's it?” she finally asked.
“What do you mean?”
“After spending almost a week together we’re just going to be passing strangers in the vegetable produce section of the grocery store?”
She had a smile on her face that he was sure was forced. Her eyes gave her away though. He'd remembered that when talking to her in front of the fire her eyes were so expressive, and sometimes so animated. But right now, she was hurt by his brush off.
Guilt should be eating away at him. But he'd been here before. He wasn’t like a lot of the other men around town. Men she’d known. Nash didn't have to know them by name or have grown up with them his entire life to know that.
It was the same wherever he went. He was meant to be alone. Carol had been the only one to bring him out of his shell and make him think there was a place for someone else in his life. She’d fit there. But she was gone now. He wasn’t about to allow another person in no the matter how much Nash ached to touch Harper's hair and run his fingers through it. He could almost feel it against his fingertips.
Good God, how was he going to get any work done if all he did was think about Harper Madison? Her name alone sounded like a candy bar. She was sweet and gentle and her heart was something that she wore for the world to see just as easily as the jacket on her back.
“I have to go,” he said.
She looked confused. “But you just got here. You didn’t buy anything yet.”
“I know. I thought what I had would last me. But there were two of us up there and…”
Her expression collapsed. “Oh, of course. I didn't realize. I made all your food. I can give you some money for it or bring you some fresh food to make up for it.”
He shook his head. He was fumbling this badly. “No, no. That’s not what I mean. If anyone comes to my door, any hiker or something or someone who is lost, I feed them.”
“Someone or something. Was I a something?”
“You really want to talk about this now in the middle of the grocery store?”
She looked away for second and then turned her eyes back to him. “Yeah, I guess I do. I’d like to know exactly what that was up there on the mountain.”
People were staring and he hated that. He didn’t like it when people got into his business, especially when he didn't fully know what his business was. At least not with Harper.
“It's simple. You were stranded and I gave you shelter.”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” she said quietly. “You kiss everyone you give shelter to that way?”
He shifted uncomfortably when a woman who'd been intently looking at some broccoli lifted her gaze to them with interest.
“You really want to talk about this here?”
“Actually, I’d like to make you dinner. My famous lasagna.”
He wasn't used to women being this forward and he both liked it and was unnerved by it.
“Dinner?”
“Sure, I told you my lasagna was prize-winning. We can eat at my house or I can cook it and bring it up to the cabin.”
“Your grandmother won’t mind my coming over?”
“She won't know. Or actually she will know because I'll tell her. But she won't be there. She has friends in town that she gets together with every so often. She and Lucy play bingo and then go out to eat on Thursdays. Does that sound like something you'd like to do?”
“Bingo or eat dinner?”
She smiled. “Well if you'd rather play bingo with my grandmother and Lucy, that's totally up to you.”
“I'd like you to make lasagna,” he said without hesitation which surprised him. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, it filled him with panic. When Harper had left the cabin, he was resolute in the notion that he wouldn't see her again except in passing. Here he was accepting a dinner invitation.
He needed to either get out of Sweet or get his head examined for even entertaining the idea of being alone with Harper Madison again.
* * *
Harper hated that she kept looking at the clock as she waited for Nash to arrive. She’d gotten out of work early so she could start on the lasagna. It had been baking for a while and now the kitchen smelled heavenly. She’d bought a bottle of wine that she knew went well with Italian food and set out two crystal glasses.
And she was alone.
Maybe Nash had decided not to come. Or maybe he had gotten
