Page 36 of Chasing Kaylee Kringle

“You are not a guest!” she scoffed as she reentered the room, picking up a throw pillow that had fallen on the floor and launching it at him. “You are an unwanted squatter who has upended my life.” She sighed loudly. “I’m going to bed.”

Kaylee turned, but before she reached her bedroom, Rick called after her, “You asked why I didn’t have a judge come after you? It’s because we need more. Even with your eyewitness account, we haven’t recovered the … bodies. We’ve had eyes and ears on the Pit Vipers, but they’re slippery. The judge won’t let me force you back until we have evidence we can use to nail their asses to the wall.”

She spun around, her expression murderous, her voice shaking. “Why? My word isn’t good enough?”

Rick hesitated, afraid anything he said would support her determination to run. “Witnesses can be bought. They can be intimidated, and they—”

“Can die,” she finished for him. “I’m all too aware.”

“Kaylee,” he said, getting to his feet, intending to reassure her again, but she held her hand up.

“Don’t, okay? Please don’t make promises that you cannot keep.”

Chapter Nineteen

Rick

The next morning, Rick got up before Kaylee and headed to the grocery store. As soon as it opened, he grabbed a cart and started down the aisles, hitting the dairy section first. When he stopped in front of the empty slot of eggnog, he looked around for a worker, finally spotting a short man in a black apron.

“Excuse me, do you have any Darigold eggnog?”

The guy stopped, and his mustache twitched like it powered his brain. “I’ll have to go look in the back and check. It goes fast.”

“So I’ve heard. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

The man disappeared through two swinging doors, and Rick stood there, waiting in front of the milk case.

The guy came out with one carton a few moments later. “You’re in luck. I got a shipment in this morning.”

“Could I buy more than one?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Are you a reseller?”

“What?” Rick spluttered.

“Are you buying eggnog just to resell it?” the clerk said slowly.

Rick couldn’t believe that was even something to worry about. “People buy eggnog and resell it?”

“This kind of eggnog, they do. Last year, we had a shortage. People ran out before Christmas, and it was a big deal.” The man’s mustache frowned, and it was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. Tom Selleck would be jealous. “We don’t want angry customers because we ran out.”

“No, I am not trying to resell eggnog; I want to make a friend happy.”

The man’s face lit up, and Rick could have sworn the mustache had a life of its own. It lifted and curled along with his lips. “Oh, well, in that case, how many do you want?”

“How about four?”

“All right, I’ll be right back.”

Rick picked up a coffee cake from a nearby table while he waited and put it in the cart. He didn’t usually have sweets in the morning, but the smell of cinnamon in the air was making his mouth water. Whatever they were making back there in the bakery smelled so good, and he realized that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. He probably shouldn’t have gone shopping while he was hungry.

The mustache man, whose name tag read Sean, placed the four cartons into Rick’s cart and asked, “Will there be anything else?”

“No, thanks, I appreciate it.”

Before Rick could walk away, the guy snapped his fingers and asked, “Say, aren’t you Kaylee’s friend, the one from college?”

Rick’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Word really did travel fast in a small town. “Yeah, that’s me.”