by Erin Wright
Even before his hand could find the light switch and turn on the lights, though, his nose was telling him about something else that no one had bothered to do while he was gone: Empty the trash. The stench was overwhelming, almost to the point of making him instantly nauseous, and Maggie whined, immediately did a U-turn, and scratched at the door to be let out.
Wyatt chuckled. He couldn’t say as he could blame her. He opened the door and she shot back outside, into the darkness and away from the stench. He smiled for a moment into the January night. If he’d been able to run away from the smell, he would’ve followed her.
Instead, he propped the front door open and moved through the house, flipping on lights as he went, until he got to the kitchen where the smell was the strongest.
With a sigh, he tackled the biggest problem first – the trashcan. He carried it outside without even opening the lid. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He’d buy a new trashcan the next morning. This one was going into the dumpster whole.
Oh dammit, the fridge too. It wasn’t just his trash – it was every single bit of fresh food that he’d owned that night of the fistfight. The apples in the bowl on the counter were a mushy brown sludge that turned his stomach just to look at.
This was gonna be fun.
The bowl of apples, curdled milk, rotten sour cream, and a green brick he supposed used to be cheese followed.
Item after item, trip after trip, even to the two bathrooms in the house to empty out those trashcans, until finally, every rotten item in the house had been thrown away. He could only be glad that he’d been incarcerated during the colder parts of the year. If all of that food had sat in the summer heat instead…
He imagined he would’ve just burnt the house to the ground and started over again.
As it was, he was going to have to pull out his winter gear and sleep on the three-season porch that night. They were definitely in the fourth season of the year and he really shouldn’t be sleeping there, but there was no way to get a goodnight’s sleep with the lingering odor wafting through the air. He’d call a cleaning company first thing in the morning and beg them to come clean right away. He’d probably have to pay double for their services, but he didn’t give a damn.
Anything to have a house that didn’t smell like an enclosed garbage dump.
Except…his stomach rumbled. As much as the rotten food had turned his stomach, he’d also worked up a sweat cleaning everything out. He couldn’t believe what awful shape he was in. Months of enforced inactivity had kicked his ass. The county jail didn’t have an exercise room, only a courtyard that he got to walk around twice a day.
They just didn’t house that many long-term prisoners. He was probably the person who’d stayed the longest at the Long Valley County Jail in the last ten years. They usually shipped people off to another county if they were going to be incarcerated for longer than a week or two. He had to wonder if that was the sheriff’s doing – that he didn’t want to have Wyatt shipped somewhere else as “proof” that he couldn’t handle having Wyatt in his jail.
That sounded like the sheriff.
Well, nothing to be done for it. The only edible food still left in his house were green beans and baked beans, and despite their similarities in names, he wasn’t about to dump them both into a saucepan and eat them together. Which meant – he checked his watch – he’d better hurry over to the grocery store if he was going to get there before they closed at nine. Otherwise, he’d be stuck grocery shopping at the convenience store again, and wasn’t that what got him into this trouble in the first place?
With a groan, he grabbed his keys and headed out. It was going to be a long night; driving to go buy the food – and maybe a clothespin for his nose while he was at it – coming back and cooking it, then sleeping outside on the porch.
Not exactly the homecoming he’d been envisioning the last few months.
Maggie followed alongside as he headed to his truck, and jumped into the bed, tail wagging. Hot damn, he better buy her dog food, too. Her food was probably at Declan’s house, since he’d been trying to take care of her while he was in jail. Dog food at the Shop ‘N Go was going to cost an arm and a leg.
Nope, this homecoming wasn’t going one bit like he’d been dreaming the past few months.
Chapter 18
Abby
She studied the shelf in front of her. Bubba’s Honey-Sweet BBQ or Mesquite…She’d been standing there for five minutes, trying to decide, and finally with a sigh, threw them both into her cart. When in doubt, buy them both? Sure, why not.
She’d gone home after her shift ended and had changed into civvies, when she realized that she had no food for dinner. Of course.
She was tired beyond words, but out to the Shop ’N Go she’d gone. She could pick up a few items, cook dinner, and then take that bubble bath she’d been promising herself.
She pushed her little cart around the corner. Just one more—
Crash!
Her cart went skittering sideways and she fell over, right into…
“Uh…hi Wyatt,” she croaked, staring up at him. He looked sweaty and tired and smelled a little bit like…garbage?
She jerked away, upright, onto her own two feet. Even tired, sweaty, and smelling like garbage, her skin sizzled where his hands had touched her arms. She needed to keep her distance. She was his parole officer, dammit. “Out shopping for groceries?” she asked, and immediately wished she could shove her police-issued boots down her own throat. That was just about the most dumbass thing to ask ever. What, exactly, does a person do in a grocery store if it wasn’t grocery shopping?
He grinned at her, his face suddenly a lot happier than it’d been when they’d first crashed together. She smiled back. Wyatt smiling was a sight to behold, and it surely didn’t do anything for the twerking butterflies in her stomach. “Yeah, I didn’t think about it and apparently no one else did either, but my groceries at my house didn’t exactly keep for the last two months.”
Her mouth made a perfectly round “O.” “Of course,” she breathed. “Oh man, I bet your house smelled something fierce when you got home.” Which explained the garbage smell.
“I can’t say it’s the most pleasant smell I’ve ever come across in my life,” he said with a small grin. “Maggie came inside, took one whiff, and turned right back around and wanted out. If I thought that running away would make the situation better, I would’ve followed right behind her.”
“You got it all cleaned out, then?”
“Best I could.” He shrugged. “All I had left to eat was beans – baked beans and green beans. Even I knew better than to throw those two into a pot together.”
She shuddered. “Yeah, probably not. You want to come to my house for dinner?”
She didn’t know where the words had come from. Her jaw was moving and words were coming out and she felt like a total jackass because she couldn’t invite him to dinner. She was his probation officer. She absolutely, positively could not invite him to dinner.
And yet? She had.
And she desperately wanted him to say yes, stinky garbage smell and all.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes lighting up like she’d just offered him the best present a person could receive. “I’d love that! Let me buy dinner – I was going to go old school and just buy steak and potatoes and some salad. Are you okay with that?”
She grinned at him. Such an Idahoan dinner. The only thing that could make it more Idahoan was to add on a dessert like peach cobbler or apple pie. “I’d love it,” she said. And she would. And she knew she shouldn’t, but somehow, she couldn’t seem to make herself care right at that exact moment. She would later.
Just not right then.
They went wandering up and down the aisles, arguing over the best salad dressing – blue cheese was just downright nasty, obviously – and what to include in the salad. Not surprisingly, he didn’t want tomatoes, not even little cherry tomatoes.
“Sometime, you’re going to have
to tell me what your major malfunction is about tomatoes,” she said, dropping a small container into the cart for her own salad. He could leave them off his if he wanted. Far be it from her to force him to eat all the good stuff.
“Tomatoes are God’s little joke on the world,” he said as they browsed through the meat section, finally settling on a couple of marbled New York Strips. “They’re food…with some assembly required.” They’d moved over to the produce section, where he swung a 25-pound bag of russets into the cart. She didn’t normally buy potatoes in those kinds of quantities, but considering how far south his potatoes would’ve gotten in the last two months, she figured he must be planning on taking the extras home with him when he left.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Some assembly required?”
“Yeah. Salsa, ketchup, spaghetti sauce – they’re all great and wonderful. But you have to cook ‘em up before you can eat them.”
They moved towards the front checkout counters. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” she said. “But don’t you at least love the smell of tomato plants during the summer? I always figured I’d throw in a few stems from a tomato plant into my bridal bouquet when I got married. I love that smell more than roses.” She snapped her mouth shut. What on earth had possessed her to bring up marriage? She was such an idiot.
The cashier, a few years younger than her – was he Matthew Blank’s younger brother? She wasn’t quite sure – looked back and forth between them with interest. She sent him a pained smile. “How are you this evening?” she asked politely as Wyatt ran his debit card through the machine.
“Just fine, Officer Connelly,” he said as he bagged their groceries up. She stifled a groan. Any chance that he had no idea who she was, was obviously out the window.
And the way he was looking between her and Wyatt? The chances of this little foray not getting back to her father were growing vanishingly smaller by the moment.
Whoops.
And yet, she couldn’t seem to make herself care. She should. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was jumping up and down and screaming in panic right now but that part of her brain just seemed so far away. And unimportant.
Wyatt scooped up the grocery bags and a bag of dog food and asked, “Ready?”
“Yup.” She turned away from the cash register, and the kid called out after her, “Have a good evening, Officer!”
She nodded, still heading for the door, trying to escape as quickly as possible.
What were the chances of her father not hearing about this? About zero percent or so.
Which, strangely, meant that she had nothing left to fear. If she was going to get into trouble for hobnobbing with Wyatt at the grocery store, well then, why not actually do something to get into trouble about? So far, she’d gone grocery shopping with a drop-dead sexy man…who smelled like garbage. Not exactly something to get arrested over.
Might as well make the crime worth the punishment.
Chapter 19
Wyatt
He put Abby’s groceries into the backseat of her Toyota Corolla and then hopped in his truck to follow her to her house. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t quite sure where she lived. Surely not at home with her father, right? Because that would just about make for the most awkward dinner of his life.
Thankfully, she pulled up to the old Brightbart’s place instead. He was surprised. He hadn’t realized that the Brightbarts’ children had sold it after Mr. Brightbart passed away last year.
“When did you buy this?” he asked as he helped her pack her groceries in, Maggie Mae settling down onto patio cushions on the front porch with a happy sigh.
“Oh, I haven’t. Just renting,” she said, unlocking her front door and flipping on the lights. Like a good police officer, she actually locked her house up when she left it. She was probably the only one in the county to do so.
“Really? The kids wanted to hang onto it after their dad died?” The Brightbart kids had scattered to the four winds after high school graduation. Wyatt was surprised they were the sentimental type.
“No, it just needs work done to it and they don’t want to bother. There’s some dirt-to-wood contact – the person who installed the back porch oughta be taken out back and shot – and the wiring isn’t up to code.” She shrugged. “It was easier for them to rent than to worry about it, and I get to have a whole house to myself, with no neighbors. It’s kinda nice.”
Just then, a gray-and-white tabby cat came into the kitchen, butting her head up against Abby and then Wyatt’s legs.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty one?” he said, scooping her up into his arms. She rewarded him with a lick across his chin and a loud purr that rumbled through his chest.
“Jasmine,” Abby said with a grin. “And she’s a lover.”
“I can tell,” Wyatt murmured, running his hands over her head and down her back. “How does she like dogs?”
“Hates ‘em. The only good dog is a dead dog.” Abby flashed a smile at him. “She had more than a few cross words for me when I came home smelling like Maggie.”
“She must’ve thought you’d turned traitor.”
“Pretty much. I’ve never been given so many nasty looks in all my life.”
Wyatt looked down at the purring cat in his arms, her eyes at half-mast as she enjoyed his attention.
“Hard to believe she could give someone a nasty look,” he said, stroking through her soft fur. She had these little white paws that made her look like she had white gloves on. She had to be the prettiest cat he’d ever seen. And the nicest.
“Don’t let her fool you,” Abby said, arranging the food on the counter. “As much as she loves you right now? That’s how much she hates dogs.”
That was too damn bad. Wyatt set her down on the floor regretfully and with a mournful meow, Jasmine moved to the corner of the kitchen and began watching the preparations with crossed blue eyes. He turned back to Abby and smiled.
“Okay, now that I’ve broken your cat’s heart by putting her down, what do you need me to do to help you get dinner ready?”
She set him to work chopping veggies for the salad – no nasty tomatoes, thank God – and they began chatting as they worked, about nothing in particular. It was so much damn fun to be around her. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever enjoyed being around someone as much as he did her. He hadn’t felt this at home around someone this quickly before, not even Shelly. It was casual and friendly and…
The sparks between them could very well set her crappy back porch on fire. She felt it too, he knew it. The heightened color on her cheeks. The sparkle in her eyes. The way she sent him sideways glances through her eyelashes, as if wanting to catch a peek of him without him noticing.
Of course he knew just what she was doing, because he was doing it too.
Being around Abby…it just lit him up inside. He hadn’t felt this way around Shelly until a half-dozen dates in.
Stop it, Wyatt. You can’t keep comparing Abby to Shelly. It isn’t fair to either one of them.
He had to let her go – his dead wife. As much as it hurt, as much as the idea held little appeal to him, he knew that if he was ever going to be happy with someone else, he had to let her go. He had to let them both go – his daughter too.
It wasn’t fair to keep comparing and letting ghosts get in the way of his future.
Abby carried plates over to the table. “Wanna grab the glasses?” she asked, jerking her head towards the cupboard. “They’re in there.”
He snagged a couple and a pitcher of juice she’d had him make after the salad was done. Once they carried everything to the table, it was quite the spread. They made a damn good pair in the kitchen.
He ducked his head towards her and then jerked himself short. He’d almost kissed her on the lips. It’d been instinctual – he’d always kissed Shelly on the lips before each meal. His parents had done it growing up, and so he’d picked up the habit once he got married. It just felt right.
But he co
uldn’t lay one on his probation officer. No how, no way.
She caught the awkward movement and asked, “Are you okay?”
He sent her a pained grin. “Never better.”
They began dishing up the food, and of course, Wyatt had to give her shit about putting nasty-ass tomatoes onto her salad. She just rolled her eyes at him and popped one in her mouth, groaning with fake ecstasy. He couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up inside.
“So I should probably tell you why I hate them so much,” he said, grinning at her.
She rolled her eyes. “No good reason, I’m sure of it.”
“Say what you want, I think it’s a damn good reason.” He put a bite of his steak into his mouth and closed his eyes, chewing ecstatically. It wasn’t a turkey sandwich, thank heavens. After months of eating that for lunch every day, he was quite sure he never wanted to see a turkey again in his life. Dead or alive. “My mom,” he finally said, once he’d swallowed the steak.
“Your mom made you hate tomatoes?” Abby asked, one eyebrow cocked in disbelief.
“My mom was like all gardeners everywhere – her seed catalog was bigger than her ability to can the stuff.”
She giggled, a sound that he realized he loved hearing. It was so much fun. He made a mental note to make her do it again. “Every year, my dad would go out and rototill this huge area – I swear, some years I think my father was trying to start a truck garden. And my mother was no better. She always encouraged him because this year, she was actually going to get everything picked and dried and frozen and canned on time. She never did, of course.”
“Was your mom one of those people who went around and snuck zucchini into the backseats of cars?” Abby asked, laughing. The joke had always been that people in town only locked their car doors when zucchini season hit, so as to keep all of the unwanted squash out of their vehicles.
There was more than a little truth to that joke, which was of course why it was funny.
