Page 18 of Crashing Into Me
“Sorry,” she said, starting the engine, “there was this idiot who hit me on the way up here—oh, that’s right! You already know this story,” she said, chuckling, and he laughed.
“Okay, I had no idea it was this bad.”
She reversed the truck slowly out of the driveway, forgoing the forty-minute warm-up, turned, and began rolling down the hill toward the town square.
“I’ll be sure it gets fixed before you have to leave. Scouts honor,” he raised his hand and put it over his heart.
She smiled at him the way he liked.
Maybe he wasn’t such a bad person, but he definitely had some issues to work out,Lana thought. He reached over to the heater and turned it on, and ice-cold air blasted through.
“It takes a while for that actually to work,” she said.
“Time for a new ride, ya think?” He replied while rubbing his hands together.
“Nothing wrong with this one, Richey Rich.”
He grinned and relaxed back in the bucket seat, his knees hitting the dashboard. As they drove down to the roundabout, it seemed the whole town was milling about, carrying firewood or pushing shopping carts through the snow. Winter storms were not taken lightly. The snow cast a different light on the town. It was still cozy, but the amount of snow falling was unforgiving, and she doubted anyone would be holding hands and taking evening strolls again anytime soon.
“You sure about that time frame for the storm?” she asked as she observed the frenzy around them.
“Yeah. I’ve lived here my whole life, practically. This is just the way people are here. Better safe than sorry.”
She nodded and pulled onto the roundabout, past Main, and turned onto Patterson Court. Along this street were clothing and jewelry shops, boutiques, an outdoor farmers market, and a grocery store. The store sat across from the only hotel in town, Spence Hotel. Patterson Court was considered a strip mall of sorts rather than a busy thoroughfare. The owners of the farmer’s market, a couple in their mid-sixties, were putting thelast of their produce in the back of a pickup truck when Lana pulled into the grocery store parking lot. She cut the engine just as the heater finally began to kick in.
ONCE INSIDE FRESHPicks Grocery store, Kayden immediately walked up to the employee standing near the customer service counter. The grocery store was quite warm, with a faint smell of apple pie and cinnamon. Lana observed Kayden and his interaction with the tall man in his blue vest.
“I’m going to need a few assistants if you have them,” he said to the man wearing a name tag that read “Sherman- Manager” on it.
A smile erupted on his face as he scurried away behind the customer service desk.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Capshaw, give me one moment,” he replied proudly. He walked behind the counter and grabbed the intercom receiver on the wall.
“Jason and Dominic, to the front, please, VIP service. Jason and Dominic, to the service desk, please.” Sherman said, then placed the receiver down with a proud smile on his face.
An older couple passing by them turned to Kayden and Lana and glared at them as they walked out of the store. If she weren’t already cold, that look would have frozen her solid. Kayden leaned in close to her ear.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “it’s me they can’t stand. Not you.”
Then two teen boys, around seventeen, arrived with a shopping cart apiece. They’ve obviously done this before. Kayden handed them each a list and a hundred-dollar bill.
“What was that?” Lana asked as they giddily ran away down separate aisles.
“They’re going to get the dry goods, and we’re going to get everything else. He pushed one of the carts down the produce aisle, and she grabbed the second one and followed.
TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS later,they had just put the last bag in the back of her Ford. Jason and Dominic also had to pack up their own cars to haul it all up to the house. The snow fell a lot harder now, as three hours had passed since they started this mission. Lana tried to keep her cool to not alarm Kayden, but it was getting increasingly harder to see as she barely navigated the truck through the snow. Twenty minutes later, they finally reached the estate to Lana’s relief, and she almost let out an audible sigh as she cut the engine.
They spent another half hour getting everything in the house with the help of the grocery boys, after which Kayden paid them each an additional two hundred dollars.
“Thanks!” Lana called out from the doorway as they pulled away from the house and back down the hill.
She hoped they would be OK getting back to the store, as it was eleven o’clock and the snow was already falling harder than when they had arrived. Closing the door, she walked back into the kitchen to help Kayden with putting things away.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said, looking at the mess in front of her. There were grocery bags everywhere. All the counters, the entire kitchen floor, as well as the living room, were filled with bags.
“I guess, let’s start with the cold and frozen that way if we need a break, nothing important goes bad.” He said, tossing a frozen bag of peas to her.
Lana caught it and opened the freezer. Luckily, it was empty, and there would be plenty of room for things to go. Watching him in the kitchen, she watched the way he moved—he had a slow and peaceful grace about him now. More relaxed and calm as opposed to the nervous, overly flirtatious guy she met a week and a half ago. She could tell, as they worked, that he was also in deep thought.
