Mashed potatoes.I can do this.
Leaning wearily against the shopping cart, I stepped between the sliding doors of the supermarket. Rayko remained outside, smoking the cigarette I refused to let him light in the truck. It was a half mile from Ivan’s street to the store. And the goon could barely wait the three minutes to smoke.
In the absence of the guard, I could breathe easier. They must not think I was much of a threat. They assumed I wouldn’t tell the store manager that I’d been kidnapped and was being held against my will. Sadly, they were right. It crossed my mind, but I dismissed it.
Involving the law was messy.
Cops were dirty, and lawyers were worse.
Plus, if I crossed Ivan in such an obvious way, he might end up separating me from my son. Permanently.
No, I’d learned long ago that the legal path was never the way out of the mob. The exception was when the local sheriff kept me safe from my father. But this wasn’t the wild west, and the city police weren’t the deputies in the country.
Oh, blessed heaven, things were so much simpler in the country.
Brady wedged himself between two shoppers and selected an apple from the bin. “Mama, these aren’t organic.”
The child needed to keep his mouth shut in public.
I sighed and jerked my chin to the small section of produce with a big green sign over the top. “Over here, buddy.”
Ignoring the dirty looks the shoppers sent my way, I began selecting sweet baby reds. I just needed something soft, rich, and filling. Calories to fight the illness. But making something as simple as mashed potatoes was going to leave me exhausted.
“Poppy, wasn’t it?” a pleasant voice asked behind us.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I looked like shit in my yoga pants and slouchy tee, hair flipped on the top of my head in a bun, and face red, dry, and haggard.
But still I turned to the voice. “Mr. Dallas, how nice to see you again.”
The commissioner hadn’t missed the chance to chat me up—twice—at my cousin’s dinner party. Newly divorced, he was already sweeping the playing field. I had no interest in beinganyone’s conquest, and there was no way I was bringing home a guy like him to meet Brady.
Brady, who watched the commissioner with interest, fruit selecting abandoned.
“I was just walking the neighborhood with a team from Haroldson’s office. Now I’m glad I found myself so thirsty.” He held up the cola, but there was no missing the innuendo in his words.
I felt sick.
Iwassick.
But that feeling was a whole different thing, and it didn’t help.
“That has sugar and bad chemicals in it,” Brady informed the commissioner helpfully. “You should drink the soda with probiotics in it. That helps your tummy!”
I groaned. Why,why!I told my son those things in confidence, trying to teach him about life and how to live a good one. I never instructed him to teach the world. Yet the good, kindhearted boy seemed to have no problem offering his education to anyone and everyone at every available opportunity.
I blamed myself. We didn’t get out much.
Sure, there was the family. And church. But our small town knew who we were, and there were other things for him to talk about. Somehow, in the big city, he seemed to think everyone needed to be as “crunchy” as us.
“Well, hello, little fella, aren’t you cute?” the commissioner cooed and leaned down. Condescension dripped from his aura as he sized up my boy. “Who told you pop was bad? Hmm? Been hearing stories, have we?”
“Mama said,” Brady explained with a shrug.
“We should let Mr. Dallas get back to his shopping,” I hedged.
“Call me Steve, please, Poppy.” The commissioner wiggled his brows up at me before continuing to insult my son’s intelligence.“This here is a classic. Don’t let new fads tell you different, okay, bucko?”
The smug look on his face was asking to be slapped off.
