Page 33 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

It took a little time, but Aspen picked out a coffee table, an end table, an old entertainment center, and a couple of lamps. She also found two throw blankets for the sofa—light gray and dark blue—and some pillows to match.

“Because, you know, it’s cold, and I might want to snuggle up in front of the fire.” She said the words as if she had to justify her purchases.

“Good thinking.”

They were on their way to the front when he spied a display of winter gloves. He aimed her that direction. “The ones you have are as impractical as they are pretty.”

“I discovered that last night when my fingers nearly froze off.”

While he took her things to Trudy, who started ringing everything up, Aspen looked at her glove choices. When he returned, she lifted a pair. “These’ll work.”

He checked the tag. They were cheap for a reason. “You should get a better brand.”

“Is it that big of a deal?”

“Said the woman who wore a hood to walk from the car to the door.”

“It’s freezing out there.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. I see your point.” She turned back to the display but seemed flummoxed.

He snatched a pair, checked the brand—Hamilton Clothiers—and held them out. “These.”

She slid them on, aiming a smile his way. “They’re really comfortable. And warm.”

“Which would be the point.”

“Wise guy.” She punched his shoulder, but between the puffy gloves and his flannel shirt, he barely felt it.

“Ow,” he deadpanned. “That’snotgonna leave a mark.”

Laughing, she headed toward Trudy, who he guessed had kept one eye on the whole exchange, definitely getting the wrong idea about him and Aspen.

Except it didn’t feel all that wrong. It felt right.

Which was, all things considered, very, very wrong.

Garrett glancedtoward his passenger seat, where Aspen’s fingers were flying over her cell phone screen. He didn’t mind. She had no service at her house, and she had things to manage.

After hearing about her middle-of-the-night visitor, he’d wanted to stay by her side. Dumb, but the thought of somebody outside her house, watching… It raised a level of protectiveness in Garrett he hadn’t known he had.

Much as he wanted to ensure her safety, he hadn’t looked forward to spending an entire day with her, not because he didn’t enjoy her company—he did, too much. It was shopping itself he hated.

But shopping with Aspen had turned out to be a breeze. After he bought the alarm and floodlights at the hardware store, he took her to a discount super store, dreading it. He should have known better. She’d picked out a thousand dollars’ worth of furniture and household goods in less than an hour at Trudy’s. She proved just as fast, efficient, and cost-conscious at grocery shopping. She chose the few household items still on her list—including a small microwave, a toaster, and two cordless phones—in record time, then headed to the food, where she led him down the aisles, snatching this and that along the way, all the while laughing, smiling, sharing stories about her life in Kona—not to mention rejoicing at the prices as if it were unimaginableto be able to buy a pineapple for two dollars, less than half what she usually spent.

“Don’t they grow pineapples in Hawaii?”

She shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain it. Just trust me.”

That he did. Despite Uncle Dean’s suspicions, he found Aspen open and honest.

They’d turned onto the highway back to Coventry by the time she set her phone down.

“Get everything taken care of?”

“There wasn’t much. My best friend lives in Nepal. She wanted to know how I was doing. We don’t get to talk much with the time difference, so I caught her up on what’s going on.”

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