Wake My Heart (Jasper Falls 1)

Wanting to avoid freezing his biscuits off, he pushed the cart quickly along the outer aisle, reading each hanging sign. The meat department was the coldest aisle yet. He loaded the cart with over eighty pounds of salt-cured brisket. Then he went in search of potatoes.

The checkout seemed chaotic. Clerks moved around carts with wireless scanner guns, ringing each customer out and sending them to a counter with a tallied receipt to pay. He awkwardly followed what others were doing and tried not to look out of place.

A large man, with wrinkles carved from a permanent grimace, scanned his items. “That all?”

“Yup.”

The man stared at him expectantly. “I need your membership card.”

“Oh.” Fingers frozen to the bone, Ryan could hardly pull the plastic card from the folds of his wallet.

The man scanned the membership card and waved him out of the way. Ryan raised a brow, never understanding perpetually grumpy people. Was have a nice day such a difficult sentence to manage?

His thoughts jerked to a stop as he recognized the small woman ringing out customers, and his mouth curved with a grin.

Perched on a battered wooden stool, bundled in a bulky thermal jacket, sat his neighbor, Maggie. Her fingers were partially covered in wool gloves with the tips cut off and her head was in the same beanie cap she’d had on the other day.

A rosy flush tinged her cheeks, and from what he could tell, she didn’t wear a speck of makeup. She looked nothing like the girls he knew, which might be why he found her so captivating.

He steered his cart forward, waiting for her to finish ringing out the man ahead of him and make eye contact. He used the time to study her. She didn’t flounce her hair or bat her eyes. There was nothing stereotypically girlie about her, yet he found her unquestionably adorable.

She seemed to have a gritty stubbornness about her. If he hadn’t insisted on helping her the other day, she’d have stayed out there battling that lawnmower until dark. Headstrong seemed a fitting word for her.

It made sense that she’d work in a place that employed mostly men. Maggie Harris was a class A tomboy by the looks of it. The job fit with her no-nonsense attire and cosmetic free appearance. He wondered if she hated when one of her coworkers pulled out a chair for her at a staff meeting or held a door for her.

He glanced back at the guy with the scanner. Maybe she worked here because these guys didn’t do those things.

The customer in front of him pushed his overloaded cart toward the automatic doors and her gaze lifted. Only she didn’t smile when she recognized him. In fact, she did the exact opposite.

He probably just caught her off guard. “Howdy, neighbor.” He pushed his cart closer to her register and handed her the bill.

“What are you doing here?” She glanced at his cart. “That’s an obscene amount of potatoes.”

“St. Paddy’s day is coming up. It’s for the bar.”

She frowned. “The bar?”

“Yeah, O’Malley’s. Remember?” Had their conversation been that forgettable?

“Oh. Right.” She scanned the bill.

He tried to think of something interesting to say. “You know, it’s actually reading the white space in between, not the black lines.”

She stared at him in confusion, frown lines etched between her brows. “Huh?”

“The barcode. People think the black lines are the code, but it’s the negative space actually.” He tapped his temple. “I’m a fountain of useless knowledge.”

“How … lucky for you.”

He handed her the O’Malley’s credit card. “Do you like trivia? We have trivia night at the bar in the spring.”

“Not really.” She swiped his card.

“You should come by next Tuesday. I’ll be working. Neighbors get a green beer on the house.”

She frowned. “So, did you take it over after your dad?”

“No. It’s sort of a family business, but my cousin runs it. He’s been traveling a lot for his other business lately. I’m helping out. He’s a local artist. You might have seen his work around. His name’s Kelly McCullough.”

“Never heard of him.”

She never heard of Kelly? That was a first. He didn’t know a girl in Center County who hadn’t dated his cousin or at least had a crush on him, especially someone in their age group. Before settling down and marrying Ashlynn, his cousin was the town player.

The charge went through, and he wished the process took a while longer so he could talk to her more. When she handed back the card and receipt, he noticed how tiny her hands were. Nails, bitten down to nubs, peeked from the cutoff tips of her gloves.

He hesitated, carefully folding the receipt into his wallet. “So, you work here?” He inwardly winced. There were a million other things he’d rather ask, but everything seemed too personal. Best to keep it superficial.