Page 13 of An Adventure For Aster

She frowned. “Crappy food?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Talking too much. I suppose all the women are wearing off on me.”

Hmm. That didn’t sound good. “Oh,” she said. “Guess I’ll let you go.”

“That came out wrong,” he said.

“How was it supposed to come out?” she asked. If he wanted to stand here and talk she wasn’t going to rush him along. Maybe she’d get enough information out of him to see if he was single or not.

But the comment on women made her think that wasn’t the case.

“I work around a bunch of women. Even Zane told me it takes getting used to.”

“Zane?” she asked. “I only know one Zane and that is Zane Wolfe. He’s married to my future sister-in-law's boss.”

“So I found out the other day,” he said.

She lifted her eyebrow. Was he talking about her?

“How is that?”

“Ivy,” he said. “I work for Blossoms. She came over to talk to me after the fire call and said you worked at the school. Well, that her sister-in-law did and she was trying to find out what happened.”

Raine smiled. “Ahh, and one thing led to another. Ivy is one of those women who talks a lot. Is she rubbing off on you?”

“Not likely,” he said. “She’s nice and friendly. A big change of pace from what I’m used to.”

“You know I’m going to want to know what that is,” she said. “I’m curious like my kids are.”

“Kids?” he asked.

“Students,” she said. “No kids for me. I thought I’d be married and have them by now but thinking and hoping doesn’t make it happen.” She learned that the hard way.

“Looks like you keep your students active,” he said. “I walked through your room.”

“I love my job. It makes it easier when you love what you do. Can I ask what you do for Blossoms?”

“I run the facility. Right now I’m helping Zane build the expansion. I was working for him and now for Lily, but still for him. I just go with the flow.”

“The guy from the service?” she asked. Ivy had talked about it. She couldn’t remember his name now, but it was something different.

“That would be me,” he said.

“I have to ask. Is your first or last name Allen?”

“Last name,” he said. “First name is Aster.” He held his hand out. “You’re Raine. Though we met, not quite formally.”

So that was what she’d heard. What a unique name.

She tried to switch the basket to her left hand to shake with him and it tipped again because she’d been trying to balance it all in there rather than getting a cart and overloading it thinking she had enough room.

“Raine,” she said and dropped down to pick up the few things that spilled out again.

He did the same, then shook her hand as they were both picking up her groceries.

Hadn’t she had this silly idea in her head that maybe she’d run into a sexy stranger in the grocery store?

She started to laugh.

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