“Because you didn’tuseit.”
“I would never.”
“I know. See? I love you.”
“I still want to punch her.”
“Doesn’t change how I feel about you except that maybe you rose a couple of degrees in my estimation.”
“I hardly know what to think about you sometimes.” She paused, considering. “Most of the time.”
“That’s good, right?” He didn’t wait for her to confirm or deny. “You should know that the first few family dinners will be a little awkward.”
Ramsey jerked her head away from his shoulder and sat up. “Family dinners? What family dinners?”
“Aunt Kay expects me to show up to her Thanksgiving table. Christmas too.”
“I will probably work.”
“Ramsey. I know the Ridge is closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.”
“Maybe you’ll work.”
“She’s made adjustments for my schedule before.”
“I thought she merely suffered you.”
“I know. I figure the invitations are either a diabolical method of punishing me or some kind of self-flagellation on her part.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah. Ew.” He pulled her to him again. “There will be a whole new dynamic having you there.”
“Hmm. Can’t wait.”
Chuckling, he found the remote on the end table and turned on the TV. “Anything you want to see on Netflix?”
“Die Hardif it’s available. Somehow it feels appropriate.”
40
Ramsey could hardly believeshe was spending any part of her day off at the Ridge. She’d met Briony for the best of three racquetball games at the rec center and lost two of them, and tag-along Maggie, sensing weakness and an opportunity, challenged her to another set. After a steam and shower, she went to a salon that accepted walk-ins and asked for a cut. On a whim, she got a manicure. With her nails trimmed, buffed, and polished with a clear coat of Shine on Harvest Moonshine, she felt ready to face the thing she disliked more than robocalls: grocery shopping.
Even though she had checked the parking lot for a pearl white Rogue and hadn’t seen one, she found herself looking over her shoulder and scanning the aisles with irritating frequency. She should have gone for groceries at Kroger or the Marketplace, had meant to, in fact, but she’d been day dreaming, literallyDaydreaming, and the SUV more or less drove itself to the Ridge.
She picked through the produce, fruits and veggies, for something in every color, hesitating only when it came to the lettuce. Was Romaine on the FDA’s hit list again? How was a person supposed to keep it all straight? After she had what she considered a balanced and conservative selection (because it was a certainty she’d end up tossing away at least a third of it), she turned her cart toward the bakery for artesian bread and a six pack of Krispy Kremes.
She made a double pass in the meat section as she contemplated cooking something for Sullivan. After settling on chicken breasts and a small beef roast, she weaved her way up and down the aisles for staples, snagging a box of Cap’n Crunch because Sullivan had looked so pathetically put out at breakfast when he learned she hadn’t any.
The Ridge was laid out to encourage shoppers to meander, and working there didn’t stop Ramsey from being sucked into the vortex of consumerism. Without quite knowing how it happened, she found herself in electronics when she could have sworn she was just in the dairy aisle. She wandered around, looking at gadgets that she had no use for but was intrigued with all the same. That detour set her on a path to home improvement, and although she had no projects in mind, she pushed her cart that way when she saw Mason Calabash was working in paints. Surely Paul couldn’t object if she visited Mason on her own time. And if he did, well, that was tough.
She waited until Mason finished with a customer before she cruised up to the counter. He had a wide smile for her that faltered a little when he looked over her cart.
“I’ll be darned,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not working. You’re shopping. What? You don’t get enough of this place in your work life?”
“That’s a fair but false assumption. My car kind of drove itself here.”
“Uh-huh. Funny how that happens. Drove here one Sunday with my wife when we were supposed to be on our way to church. She let me do it too. Stayed quiet until we were in the lot and then she had a good laugh.”
