on the counter, resting on his elbows. “You’re not from around here,” he says.
I smile back. “You don’t remember me, do you?” I lay my hand on my chest. “Abigail Marshall? Maimi Marshall is my grandmother.”
His grin grows. “I do remember you. You were always with Ethan.” He looks toward the parking lot. “Speak of the devil,” he says softly.
Suddenly the door opens, and I look up when I hear the bell over the door. It’s Ethan. I quickly try to hide my purchases by shoving them back into the basket. I cover the cake up with the shirt and also make sure that’s unreadable.
The guy frowns. “You don’t have to worry about him, Abigail,” he says. “He’s harmless.” He glares at me. “He’s honestly one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. I can’t figure out why the people in this town can’t get over their hatred for him.” He clucks his tongue disapprovingly.
“I need to get a few more things,” I say, as I dash back down the aisle to hide.
“Morning, Shy,” I hear Ethan say. “Everything going your way?”
Ethan walks right past me, and I stare at the shelves in front of me and try to make myself look small and unassuming.
Suddenly, he stops right next to my ear. “If you didn’t want me to know it was you, you should have put some of that hair away,” he says. He tugs a lock of my hair, which makes me chuckle.
“You suck,” I reply. I shove my basket behind my back. “Don’t look at my purchases,” I warn, as I shake my finger at him.
“Oh, see, now I want to see what you have in that basket,” he says, as he tries to look around me. I volley from side to side blocking him. “Abigail Marshall!” he sings out. “Are you buying porn?”
I gasp out a laugh. Shy barks out a laugh, too. He’s full-on leaning on the counter now so that he can watch us.
“Shy, I bet you didn’t even know who she was, did you?” Ethan calls out.
“Soon as I saw you two together, it came right back to me,” Shy calls back.
“She’s nosy and she smells like lemons all the time, but she’s pretty nice.”
I stand up a little taller. “I do not smell like lemons,” I mutter.
“You always have,” he says. He rubs his hands together like they’re cold. “So, what are you buying?”
“None of your business,” I reply as I lift my nose into the air a little.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” He nods. “Okay. Fine.” He grabs a shopping basket from a nearby stand of them. “But don’t you look in my basket.”
He’s being playful and funny, and he’s so damn cute. He looks really good with the haircut, but I can see that he hasn’t shaved since I shaved the thick beard from his face, and his cheeks are covered in stubble.
“I like the new look!” Shy calls out to him.
“You can thank Abigail for the new me,” he says with a mock bow in Shy’s direction. “She hooked me up with a pair of scissors.” He paws the top of my head, his fingers spread wide as he gives me a scruff. I try to duck away from him, but he’s so cute now that he’s playing, I don’t want him to stop. “She told me she was tired of looking at my ugly face. Then she set out to make me brand new. And pretty.”
Shy guffaws. “Well, we have her to thank, then. It’s a mighty big improvement!”
Ethan walks over to the grocery aisle and throws a few things in his basket. He hides it behind his back, so I won’t look inside. Now I’m curious as all hell about what a man like him needs from the store.
The door chimes again, and Ethan sees who it is, walks straight to the counter, says something quietly to Shy, who rings him up quickly and lets him pay. Then he dashes out the door as quickly as he arrived.
I walk up to the counter. “What just happened?”
Shy looks toward the couple that just walked in. They’re staring out the front window toward where Ethan is backing out of his parking spot, looking angry. “He doesn’t care much for people talking about him,” Shy says softly, his eyes still cutting over to look at the pair.
“Why are they talking about him?”
He stares at me. “You don’t know about what happened?”
“No. Was it big? It must have been huge.”
He nods.