Page 55 of A Bloom in Winter

Meeting up with her on the opposite side of the SUV, he had a stupid impulse to take her hand—and he cured the problem by shoving his fists in the front of his jeans. He told himself that it was better to keep them physically separate as much as he could. He was nothellrenmaterial, and going down some kind of rose-colored rabbit hole with a female he didn’t know, who was keeping secrets like an FBI agent, and possibly on the run from somebody dangerous, was not going to be a good outcome for him or her.

Well. Wasn’t that a nice little pep talk.

Too bad his libido totally middle-fingered the shit—

“What do you fancy,” he asked, to get himself to stop thinking.

“How do you feel about meat sauce on a big ol’ plate of pasta?” she countered.

He glanced over. Her stare was fixated on the glowing Hannaford sign over the entrance like it was the promised land, her rapt concentration the kind of thing someone sported when they were desperately trying to convince themselves that Everything Was Just GREAT.

“Great, that would be great,” he said.

Fuck.

“You’re so easygoing,” she murmured.

“I’m not sure Mr. Personality would agree with that.”

“You mean Apex? Yes, he is intense. I mean, he’s always seemed disapproving to me, too.”

Mayhem looked over sharply. She was still staring at the entrance—and no doubt hadn’t heard her own words.

“You got a freezer?” he asked. Before he followed up on things that shouldn’t have been any of his business.

“Oh yes. A walk-in.”

That was right, he thought. He’d—well,walkedinto it last night when he’d foraged for food.

“We can get some Tater Tots, too. I love those little—”

A scent filtered through the wind from behind him and shut him up. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder. A human man was getting out of a truck, and pulling a broad-billed trucker’s hat down on his head. His field camo flak jacket seemed like it was two sizes too big for him, the folds billowing out as the guy leaned back into the cab.

Flaring his nostrils, Mayhem tested the air again.

“Whoa!”

Mahrci threw out a hand as she slipped on some black ice. With a quick grab, he caught her and pulled her against him—and for a split second, all he could feel, all he knew, was the sensation of her coming up to his body, his arm around her waist, a wisp of her hair tickling his chin, her thigh brushing against his own.

With a laugh, she locked a hold on the front of his jacket—and then they were looking into each other’s eyes.

Clearing his throat, Mayhem kicked his own ass as he set her on her feet properly. “Close call.”

“Ah . . . yes. It was.”

As they awkwardly entered through a preliminary set of electric glass doors, they were greeted with a rush of warmth and distant Muzak, and he glanced at a lineup of little two-level pushcarts. “We’re going to need something more heavy-duty than that.”

“We are?”

Heading for the big-boy version, he yanked one free and pinned a let’s-do-this on his face.

“I say we take this one row at a time.”

“Oh, you are serious.”

“I don’t mess around with meals.” He clapped himself in the six-pack. “Energy is required to keep my God-given talents upright and moving, and though there is no shame in frozen dinners, I say we home-make everything but the pasta.”

On that note, he indicated the way through the next set of doors, where a surface-of-the-sun-bright interior filled with seventeen thousand different brands of twenty million different comestibles awaited them.

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