Jett reached for his wallet. “Nice. Very Pacific Northwest. I’ll take it.”
“Great.” Zai tossed the sweatshirt onto the table. “Now, I brought a lot of stuff, and you don’t have to take all of this, I just wanted to give you choices. There’s sweatpants…” She yanked several pairs in different shades of blue and gray from the bag. “Skull caps.” The one she pulled out had the Seahawk decal on an upturned cuff. “Gloves. And sweatshirts.”
Jett made a face at the Color Rush green hoodie. “I think I could be seen from space wearing that thing. That one is a no. I’ll take everything else.”
Zai’s jaw dropped. “Really, I just brought all this stuff so you’d have choices. You don’t have to take it all.”
“A guy’s got to stay warm. It’s practically freezing up here. I might be wearing two or three of these at a time.” He winked at Salem.
Salem felt a curl of camaraderie sweep through her. Jett was just an all-around nice guy. And she knew Zaire could use the extra money. Ever since her husband walked out on her last year, she’d been having to work doubly hard to make ends meet and keep her little lake house just outside of town.
Jett stepped over next to Zai, pulling a wad of bills from his wallet. And watching Zai with her cute blonde wispy cut and her animated chatter about how she hoped Jett would enjoy his time in Riversong despite the cooler temperatures, Salem couldn’t help but think what an idiot Landon Breckenridge was.
Salem knew Zai wasn’t ready to jump into a new relationship—that in fact she felt it would be a sin for her to do so—but Jett didn’t know that. Salem watched him. Was he flirting with Zai? Why did her stomach tighten up in rebellion at that thought?
Zai’s enthusiasm and perkiness might come off as flirting to someone who didn’t know her. Even now Zai laughed at something Jett said, and held the Color Rush sweatshirt toward him. Jett chuckled, took it from her hands, and carefully draped it back over Zai’s shoulder with a firm shake of his head.
Salem couldn’t tell if he was flirting or just being a nice guy.
She rolled her eyes at herself and reached for her purse. “Thanks for staying, Zai. I’ll be back in a bit.” She headed for the front door.
But before she even got to the foyer she realized Jett was following her. He yanked the tags off the wolf sweatshirt.
As he slipped it over his head, she did her best to ignore the precisely chiseled contours of his biceps. And failed miserably.
He tugged the material down to his hips and propped his hands there. “Where are you going?”
“I’m running to the grocery store. Zai’s going to watch Gran for me for a bit. But I’m glad you caught me. I owe you dinner for all the work you did for me today. What would you like me to get?”
Jett tilted his head. “Not sure. How about you let me tag along and pick something out?”
Salem pursed her lips and put her back to him on the pretenses of sorting some papers at the front desk. She’d been only feet from being able to give herself a few moments alone. Moments which she needed to lecture herself about why she shouldn’t be getting interested in another guy right now—especially not a rich and famous guy who was only going to be in town for a month and who would never be interested in someone like her.
But the problem was, she was getting interested. Way too interested, since she’d only known him for such a short time. But…the contrast between Jett and Dale seemed so striking. It made her curious to see what made a guy like Jett tick. If she could figure that out, then maybe she would be able to find a good guy like him at some point when she was ready for a relationship again. She wrinkled her nose at herself. Who was she kidding? She was going to get her heart broken when Jett went home in a month if she didn’t put the brakes on her runaway emotions, and fast. And spending more time with him would only exacerbate the issue.
She couldn’t delay any longer, so she angled her glance back to him. “You should rest. Watch some TV. Read a book. Take a walk by the river.” Realizing her tone had risen to an octave of desperation, she took a breath. “You’ve been working hard all afternoon. I’ll get something good, I promise.”
He stepped closer and folded his arms. “If I’m going to be staying here for the next month, I should get to know the town a little. What better way than to have someone who’s lived here most of her life give me the tour?” He tilted her a pleading look that had probably gotten him anything he ever wanted from every woman in his life, starting with his mother.
Salem steeled herself, but couldn’t help a little smile. “Going to the grocery is hardly ‘giving you a tour.’”
His voice lowered a few notches, and his expression turned suddenly serious. “Maybe it’s not so much the tour I’m wanting as the fact that I’m loathe to give up the company I’ve been enjoying all afternoon.”
A pleasant wave of warmth washed through her. “Well, when you put it like that…” What was she saying? His putting it like that was the exact reason she should be declining to let him come with her right now.
A grin lit his face. “Great. Let’s go.” He reached above her to hold the door open, then followed her out and shut it behind them.
When he sank into the passenger seat of her little Honda Civic, he had to bend forward to keep his head from hitting the roof. And as he reached for his seatbelt, his shoulder bumped into hers. “Sorry,” he mumbled. His knees were actually pressed against the dashboard. The man looked like too much bread dough spilling over the edges of a bowl.
Salem chuckled and nodded toward the door side of his seat. “The button to push the chair back is on the right side at the base. You can lower the seat too, if you need a little more headroom.”
The gentle whir of him getting more comfortable filled the car as she pulled from the drive.
He angled toward her, and she could feel him studying her.
She flicked him a glance.
He smiled, those gray-blue eyes making her breath hitch.
Mouth dry, she darted her focus back to the road.
“So tell me about yourself.” He propped his elbow against the doorframe and rested his head against his fist.
Her brow ticked. That was pretty broad and open ended. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, considering that you are the first person since I signed with the Bucs not to blab to every one of your friends that you know me, I’d like to know why?”
Salem frowned at him. “You’re a Buccaneer. Why would I want to tell people that I know you?” She couldn’t quite maintain a serious face.
Jett grinned and jabbed her in the shoulder. “Very funny.”
Seeing that he’d meant the question seriously, she decided to give him a straight answer. “No, really, I just…I think it would be hard to always have people thinking they had the right to dig into your personal information. Just because you are one of only thirty-two guys in the nation who can do your job—and wow when I say it like that, it really drives home how amazing of an athlete you must be—but that doesn’t give me the right to trample on your privacy.” She zipped a glance at him.
He methodically rubbed one finger around the curve of his jaw, studying her like she might be a rare jewel in a glass case.
She swallowed. Squirmed in her seat. “What else do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Her stomach did that crazy jittery dance it had been doing every time she caught him looking at her all day. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, unsure where to start.
He settled back into the corner where his seat met the door. “Earlier, you mentioned you’d pray for me. You go to church here in town somewhere?”
Salem relaxed a little. Her faith was something easy to talk about. “To be honest, since I’ve been taking care of Gran, my attendance has been spotty. But I do, yes. We’ll pass the building on the way to the store. It’s called Riversong Community Church. Pastor Duncan has been the pastor there for the past five years. He’s younger than most senior pa
stors, but his sermons are amazing. You sort of feel like you’ve been to a masseur when you walk out after Sunday service—he’s dug his elbows into you and found achy muscles you didn’t even know you had, but by the end of his sermon he’s worked out all your knots and you leave feeling like a new person.” She downshifted for a corner, and her fingers grazed his knee which was crammed up against the gearshift. Poor guy. This car really was too small for him. Focus. “D-do you go to church?”
She heard more than saw him scrub one hand over his cheek. “Football season is—was—hard because we played so many Sunday games. I’d try to make it to a Saturday evening service, though, when I could. But…I should have been better about attendance over the past few years.”
So many questions tumbled through her head. Salem would have liked to ask him about football, and that part of his life, but she doubted he was ready to talk with her, or anyone for that matter, about it. So she said, “Well, if I’m going to give you the tour, I’d better get started.” Shifting gears gingerly to avoid another connection with his knee, she pulled up to the stop sign at the main street of town and swept a gesture the length of the street.
In her best tour guide voice, she said, “This is the thriving metropolis of Riversong, Washington. To your left you will see the Riversong Community Church we were just discussing.” She pulled the car onto the road, heading to the right. “Here we have the library, city hall, and the town’s one and only movie theatre.” She leaned closer to Jett and lowered her voice as though about to offer the juiciest of secrets. “It has about twenty seats and never shows a movie that is less than a year old, but the proprietor, one Mr. Fitz Farmsworth, is quite proud of it being the first theatre in town.”
Jett chuckled, and the melodic sound of it filled her with pleasure.
She pointed out Riversong’s only hotel and Zaire’s little tourist shop, skipped mentioning the police station, even though they drove right past the place, and then pulled them into a parking spot directly in front of the Riversong Grocery and Gas. “And this”—she gave a grand sweep of both hands—“is the G & G.”
A lone shopping cart sat on the walk out front, next to the display of ripe produce stacked atop wooden crates to the right of the main doors. A large cardboard bin filled with watermelons sat to the left of the doors.
Jett leaned forward, peering through the windshield to study the G & G sign above. His face contorted into a wince of disgust.
Salem leaned forward too, to see what had caught his eye. One corner of the grocery store’s fiberglass backlit sign had been broken at some point. And rainwater had collected inside. The water must have been there for some time, because the inside of the opaque fiberglass on that corner was coated with black mildew. Even as they watched, a slow drip of water oozed out and fell from the seam at that end of the sign. “Eww.” Salem shuddered.
Jett looked over at her, humor dancing in his eyes. “We better not linger too long under the sign.”
Salem used the steering wheel to pull herself a little more forward so she could get a better look. “How have I never noticed that before? I wonder how long it’s been like that?” She glanced over at him. That was when she realized how close he was, with both of them leaning forward and craning to see like they were.
And Jett was looking right at her.
His gaze took in her eyes, then lifted to her hair, then lazily drifted down across both cheeks and paused on her mouth. Salem held her breath, and moistened her lips. She could feel her heart knocking against her sternum.
Jett blinked and eased back a little, clearing his throat.
Salem took a breath and yanked the keys from the ignition. She grabbed her purse and her list and clambered from the car, stuffing her keys away and tugging the zipper closed. She could hear Jett’s athletic tread following her into the store. She grabbed a cart and started to spin out of the little alcove where they were kept, but Jett’s hand landed on the handle beside hers, his body so near she could feel the warmth of him. She stopped but didn’t look up, afraid of what her reaction to being this close to him might be.
He leaned down and spoke quietly into her ear. “Here’s the deal…I have to head back to Florida in a month. And since you are listening to breakup songs and your grandmother keeps mentioning this Dale character, I assume you aren’t ready for a relationship right now. So since neither of us is in the place for a relationship, if you could help me out and try to look less…beautiful, that would be great.”
She sucked in a breath and darted a glance up at him.
His flirty smile kicked her right in the heart.
Obviously, this was a guy who was used to having women simply fall at his feet. Her resistance to his charm was likely the only reason he complimented her like that after knowing her for less than twenty-four hours.
He heaved a longsuffering sigh. “Like right now, you are failing miserably and I just made my request. You have no idea how much self-control I’m calling on right now, Angel.” His gaze dipped to her lips.
Salem could hear each heartbeat rushing through her ears, even as a furrow tightened her brow. “Angel?”
“Mmm.”
She blurted the first thing that popped into her head. “You’re really practiced at laying it on thick, aren’t you?”
His brow crimped. “What—”
“Hi, Salem, honey. Is that you?” Old Mrs. Thompson laid a hand on the cart right beside them. She lowered her chin and scrutinized both of them above her half round spectacles, her brows nudging toward her hairline as she skimmed Jett from head to toe. Her mouth worked, and she swallowed like she’d just tasted the most delectable of chocolates, but the woman had enough decency to return her gaze to Salem. “And how is your dear gran, today?”
Relieved for the interruption that had likely saved her from throwing caution to the wind and letting Jett kiss her right here in the entryway of the G&G, Salem lunged toward the woman and pulled her into an embrace. “Hi Mrs. Thompson! Gran is fine—thanks for asking. And how is your hip today? Do we have rain on the horizon?”
There was a knowing sparkle in Mrs. Thompson’s old blue eyes when she pulled back. “Glad to hear it. And no. I don’t believe we’ll get rain at least for the next several days. My hip is feeling downright chipper.”
“That’s good.” Salem fumbled awkwardly with her list and her purse.
Mrs. Thompson tipped up her chin and assessed Jett once more, then winked boldly at Salem. “Enjoy your shopping.” And with that, she glided off like a runway model walking on air.
Salem bolted, leaving Jett to grab their cart and follow in her wake. In the produce section, she loaded potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cabbage and green peppers into the cart. Not once did she look at Jett, yet somehow she could feel his eyes drilling into her with every movement. Lettuce, cucumbers and carrots followed. Still she could feel him studying her.
She stopped and spun towards him. “Could you please stop that?”
He crossed his arms and draped them lazily against the cart’s handle, leaning forward to grin at her. “Stop what?” He never once broke eye contact.
She could tell by the expressive gleam in his eyes that he knew exactly what she’d meant. Before she could give in to the smile begging for release, she turned her back on him and headed to the next aisle. She ignored him while loading in eggs, cheese, sour cream and milk. She smiled at Connie behind the meat counter and ordered double the bacon that she normally purchased. Along with three pounds of link sausage, and a large roast.
“How about burgers and fries for dinner?” Jett pumped a fist like it was the best idea he’d had in a long time. “I haven’t had a good homemade burger and fries in forever.”
Salem conceded without ever looking at him. She smiled at Connie. “And a pound of your lowest fat ground beef please.”
“Three.” Jett’s feet shuffled.
Salem only looked at him in disbelief. How were the three of them going to consume three pounds of meat?
Jett pegged Connie with a smile. “Connie, is it? Make that three pounds of burger, please.”
Salem studied him. Apparently Jett used that flirty smile on everyone.
He glanced over at her and shrugged. “What?” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Leftover burgers are the best for lunch the next day.” His brows pumped.
Salem swallowed and turned to accept the package of meat from Connie. “We are talking leftovers here, not a steak dinner at a five star.”
“That would be good too.”
She glanced over at him, but he was innocently studying the ceiling with a hint of humor softening his mouth.
Instead of responding, she determined to ignore his flirting. She assessed the other meats in the case. Did she need to buy more? She contemplated the amount left in her account. She had plenty, but she might need that for next month to tide them over if no guests checked in after Jett left. Or to do more grocery shopping later, especially if he ate as much as he had this morning.
How much could he eat, anyhow?
She studied her list, reminding herself to add french fries to the cart when they went by them. The aisle closest to them would have the oatmeal and cornflakes she needed.
She could still feel Jett watching her as they traversed the rows. Her last nerve finally stretched taut just as they entered the pasta aisle. She spun towards him and stabbed one finger into his chest. “Listen, you may be used to women everywhere falling at your feet, but I’m not—I can’t—” Drat, why couldn’t she seem to put two thoughts together? “I won’t be one of them.”
He loosed the cart, grabbed her finger, and stepped closer to allow another shopper to pass them in the narrow space. Her back came up against the shelving unit. Still holding her hand pressed to his chest, he propped one arm alongside her head and leaned down to look into her face. “Believe it or not, I’ve never been a guy who made it a practice to have women ‘fall at my feet.’”
She huffed. “I doubt you had to ‘make it a practice.’”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember the last woman who made me feel I wanted to get to know her better. I’m just as surprised by my feelings as you are.” That flirty smile nudged up his lips. “I know what I said a few minutes ago. We live so far apart, but maybe we could make it work? Would it be so terrible? Going on a few dates with me to see if our feelings go anywhere?” His thumb caressed the finger he’d captured.
Angel Kisses and Riversong Page 6
