Page 7 of Carpenter's Christmas Bride

“Thank you so much,” Kenzie told her.

“It’s nothing,” the lady said, smiling. “My mother-in-law has my kids today, and I honestly don’t know what to do with myself.”

Kenzie would have stopped to chat, but she was starting to feel the bone-deep sleepiness that sometimes settled over her these days when she left the house for an extended period of time.

She threw her right crutch into the cart with her bags and headed slowly out to the parking lot again.

After navigating her way down the ramp and managing to hold onto the cart, she finally made it to the car. She even got the back open on her third try without falling over. But when she went to transfer the first bag of groceries from the cart into the car she had a little trouble getting it in just right without spilling the contents everywhere.

And when she went to grab for the next bag, the cart had rolled away from her. It was headed down the slight incline, straight toward a pickup truck that was just pulling in.

“Oh, no,” she said to herself, moving for it automatically, and then realizing she couldn’t run.

She couldn’t get far at all, since her other crutch was in the cart.

“Look out,” she screamed when she realized the pickup’s engine had just cut off. She had been panicked that the cart would hit the truck, but what if the driver got out and was hit by it instead?

She shuffled down toward the truck as fast as she could on one crutch, but she knew her efforts were futile. She would never make it to the cart before it made impact.

Sure enough, she was barely halfway there when the cart hit the truck, making a nice loud bang, then bouncing back and smacking into it again before finally coming to rest.

Kenzie’s heart was in her mouth as she hobbled closer, trying to assess the damage.

Before she had a chance, the door of the pick-up flew open.

“What kind of overgrown child just lets their cart go in a parking lot?” a deep voiced exploded out, followed by a big body.

Exhausted, ashamed, and feeling exactly like a pathetically overgrown child, Kenzie opened her mouth to apologize but a sob came out instead.

Mortified, her whole face was instantly wet with tears that had begun streaming from her eyes like she was some sort of human fountain.

“I’m s-so-sorr-sorr-sorry,” she wailed. “I’ll p-p-pay for the damage.”

The big, blurry figure took a step back, hands raised slightly.

“Hey,” he said more gently. “Don’t cry.”

But the tears were coming fast and hard and it was all Kenzie could do to keep standing there. She hadn’t even cried like this when she got hurt. But she was just so tired of feeling helpless…

The big man was moving now, going over to her cart, most likely to see whether she had left a big ugly dent on his truck and then yell at her some more.

Instead, he held out her other crutch to her.

“Th-thank you,” she sniffled, her tears finally slowing. She raised her right elbow to try and wipe her eyes.

The figure in front of her cleared as she did, and she realized who it was.

Aidan Webb.

Mal was right, he certainly was grumpy these days. Although in fairness, she had hit his truck with her cart.

But no one could say he was any less handsome than he had been back in school. Even though he was a couple of years ahead of Kenzie and Mal, she had spent her fair share of time mooning over him. And now, his broad shoulders and muscular chest formed an even more impressive triangle with his narrow waist. And his almost-black hair and pale blue eyes still gave him the air of a dark prince from a fairy tale.

“You shouldn’t put that in the cart if you need it to walk,” he told her flatly, eyeing her crutch.

In all the times she had fantasized about what it would be like for gorgeous, popular Aidan Webb to come up and talk to her, this had never been how it played out.

She tried to pull herself together and think of a wicked comeback.

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