More of You (Confessions of the Heart 1)

No wonder she stuck around.

“I swear you bribe me through food to make sure I’m home to study every night, don’t you?” Faith teased.

Her mama grinned. “Every mother has her ways,” she told her, leaning down to grab the gallon of milk she’d placed under the cart. “Yours happens to be through your stomach.”

“I thought that was Daddy?” Faith tossed out, laughing lightly.

“Like father, like daughter.”

“Oh lord, don’t tell me I’m gonna end up chained to a ratty old recliner watching sports every night.”

Her mama chuckled. “God forbid.”

The customer in front of them paid and walked away, and her mama moved around Faith to push the cart the rest of the way through to the bagging station.

Faith distracted herself with the garbage magazines that lined the racks.

Apparently, Angelina and Jen were fighting it out for the covers the way they always did, another child star had turned into an addict, and there was some poor waitress getting slammed for having the audacity to date a celebrity.

She didn’t believe a word of it, but she reached out to grab one anyway, only for her hand to freeze midair when she heard the low voice from off to the side.

“Would you like your milk in a bag, ma’am?”

She swore, she could hear the creak in her neck as she slowly shifted her head that direction.

A sizzle of intrigue and a shot of that terror slipped through her insides as she looked that way to find Jace Jacobs bagging their groceries.

That terrifyingly beautiful boy with those copper eyes that uneasily flickered between her and her mama before they dropped down, only to dart up again for the flash of a second.

As if he didn’t know where to look.

And Faith? Faith just stared.

“Oh, no bag, thank you. We can manage just fine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.

Those intense eyes stole a quick, furtive glance at Faith before they dropped back down in discomfort.

He started to work a little more quickly, tossing all their stuff inside as if just touching it made him self-conscious or uneasy, the barest hint of that hostility coming out with the way he worked.

His arms straining.

Muscles flexing.

Faith suddenly realized all the little luxuries he was piling high in those bags. And she wondered if he was hungry. If he hated her for flaunting it, literally right under his nose.

But she was sure there was something more to it. Something different that shot between them, as if he were hooking her with something unseen with every glance that he stole.

Something that made her heart flutter and her skin go sticky with sweat. Right underneath the air conditioning vent that was pumping freezing cold air.

She could feel her mama’s gaze bouncing between the two of them, and something sly rode to her mouth when she fully set her attention on Faith for a beat.

Warily, Jace placed the bags into the cart.

Her mama swung her attention back to him. “Well, you are a strong young man, aren’t you?’

Faith cringed.

She took it all back.

She was totally, one hundred percent embarrassed of her mama. What did she think she was doing?

“Uh . . .” Jace stammered, roughing one of those hands through his hair before he quickly said, “Have a nice day.”

Then he was off, moving to the next checker’s line and quickly filling those bags, though Faith could feel his secreted glimpses, that fire hitting her from behind as she all but dragged her mama out the door and into the blistering heat.

“What is wrong with you, Mama?” she scolded.

“What?” she defended, completely innocent. “I was makin’ a simple observation, that’s all.”

The trunk to their Camry popped open, and Faith started tossing the bags inside. “That he’s strong? That’s just . . . so weird and wrong and gross. You can’t say things like that.”

“Not the observation I was talking about.”

A frown pulled to her brow as she paused to look up at her mama, who was gazing down at her, some kind of strange smile lighting her face.

That was when Faith felt it again.

That feeling that she couldn’t put a finger on.

Something that made her sweat and shake and her stomach do funny things. Her mama looked over Faith’s shoulder, and Faith couldn’t help but do the same and follow her line of sight.

Jace was pushing a cart for an elderly woman who was parked in a handicap spot. He opened the driver’s door for her and helped her inside before he went to the back to load her groceries into the trunk.

Faith’s throat suddenly felt too tight.

Damned South Carolina heat.

He looked their way. Longer this time. Those eyes glittering beneath the sun as he leaned over the back of the woman’s trunk, his head angled to peer their way.

“That boy likes you, that’s the observation I was making.”

Faith’s attention snapped back to her mother. “He does not.”