Page 13 of Sweet Surprises

Heading downstairs, she tried to convince herself that Tag wouldn’t fire her. Maybe, if she did a good job cleaning up, and promised it would never happen again…

For about the hundredth time, she marveled over the fact that he was the man from the gas station. She hadn’t even noticed a cute guy since Bryce dumped her. It was just her wacky luck that the first man who got her attention would be Allie’s oldest brother, but the fact that he wasn’t very nice seemed right on brand for her. At least he was up front about it.

Shake it off, Charlotte,she told herself.You’re already a little bit scared of him, and this weird attraction will definitelydisappear if you spend like ten more minutes with him. He took you by surprise. That’s all.

She definitely hadn’t made a good impression. She had banged her head the first time they met, and blasted herself with strawberry ice cream the second.

He probably doesn’t even remember you from the gas station,she told herself.Strange women probably get distracted and have accidents around him all the time.

But his eyes had widened when he saw her today…

Charlotte popped out into the shop and found Tag with a customer. Not wanting to interrupt, she stayed in the back part of the shop.

Her first surprise was that the area behind the counter was perfectly clean. There wasn’t a drop of ice cream anywhere that she could see, and the only signs that there had been a mess at all were the mop and bucket still leaning against the creemee machine and a pile of rags on the counter. Maybe the customer had come in before he had a chance to put it all away.

“Thank you so much, Tag,” the sweet little old lady with the worn coat said to Tag, taking her small cup of ice cream in one hand and digging in her big purple purse with the other.

“Our cash register is jammed, so it’s on the house today,” Tag told her gruffly.

Charlotte winced, wondering how ice cream had managed to get all the way to the register. She was definitely in trouble if it wasn’t fixable.

“Is that so?” the lady asked, her eyes brightening. “Thank you so much. That’s so kind of you, Tag.”

Tag made a noise of acknowledgement and watched after the lady as she tottered out the door with her treat.

“Hi,” Charlotte said softly as she approached him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, turning to her. Somehow, he seemed bigger and taller and even more handsome than before.

“Yeah,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Just embarrassed.”

“It’s your first day,” he said.

She glanced up in time to see him shrug.

“Thank you for cleaning up,” she said, looking around and confirming that he had done an incredible job removing all the evidence of her incident.

“It’s fine,” he said. “What else do you need to know about this place?”

“Well, the questions are all coming from the customers,” she said. “So, I guess I won’t know until they ask.”

“They’re just eating ice cream,” Tag grumbled, heading over to the creemee machine and grabbing the mop and bucket. “Why do they need to know all this stuff?”

Was he just being grouchy, or was he really that clueless?

“It matters to people,” she said carefully as she grabbed the rags from the counter and placed them in the bucket to be cleaned later. “A lot of people don’t even eat dairy anymore. I think you have to be… well, sort of an ambassador.”

“An ambassador?” he echoed, shaking his head as he put the mop and bucket back in the broom closet by the door to the stairs. “I’m a farmer, Charlotte, always have been. And that’s enough for me.”

“They just want to be reassured that the cows are happy and healthy, Tag,” she said. “Or are they right to be worried?”

The look on his face told her she had crossed a line.

“The shop will be closed tomorrow,” he said, his voice suddenly cold. “You’re coming to the farm instead. I’ll pick you up at seven. Or is that too early for a city girl?”

“It’s just fine,” she told him. “But I can drive myself.”

“See you here at seven,” he said firmly, pinning her with his icy blue gaze. “I’ll drive.”

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