Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Axe perused the list. “A Christmas tree?”
“I know it’s early, but I wanted to make sure we have one, or pre-book. Frank takes early bookings, and I thought we could have one delivered.”
“I have a tree and all the decorations in the basement.”
“You do?”
He nodded.
She’d not been in the basement. It was the one place he didn’t ask her to go, and she wasn’t about to argue with him.
“That’s good to know.”
She watched as he swiped the pen through the list. Christmas tree and decorations were there. Everything else he left on the list.
“I’ll take my car.”
“Okay.”
He slid the list back toward her and she took it. Clarissa paused as she looked at Axe. Their fingers had touched. It was just a small touch, but it was enough to get her pulse racing.
“I wanted to offer my condolences on your mother,” Axe said.
His words took her by surprise. She let go of the list and sat back in her chair, staring at him, a little bewildered.
“You knew my mother?”
He nodded. “She was a kind woman. When she worked at the supermarket, she always gave me extra meat, but she’d add that after the ticket was made. She was a good woman.”
Her mother had worked at the local supermarket before she had gotten sick. Even after her cancer diagnosis, she had worked until she couldn’t anymore.
“Thank you,” Clarissa said.
“She’s been gone three years,” Axe said.
“Yes.”
“I went to the funeral. You did an amazing job.”
“You were there?”
He nodded.
“I had no idea.”
“You were grieving.”
She nodded her head and then forced a smile to her lips. “Yeah, I was.” She hadn’t paid attention to anyone who had arrived at the funeral. All she had felt was her own grief. After the funeral, her mother’s lawyer had been there to give one final letter from her. It was a letter where her mother begged her not to allow pain to get in the way of living her life. Her mother had wanted her to live, to find love. She’d told her to grieve, but to do so quickly. Time was too precious to spend it angry or sad.
Clarissa looked over at Axe. To many people his outburst had seemed rude, bringing up such painful memories, but she knew this was his way. He wasn’t being cruel, he was … starting a conversation.
For three years she’d been alone. Three Christmases full of grief. Three birthdays with no one to share it. Three years of jumping from job to job, trying to find her place.
This was the first time in all those years that she felt she had found where she was meant to be.
****
Axe hated shopping. After a very busy Sunday of having to deal with a torn-down fence that he’d missed, working late, and then having to get up early to work on morning chores on Monday, he wasn’t in the best of moods. The breakfast Clarissa served him helped to deal with his mood, but shopping was close to putting him in a bad one.
They had gotten through the vegetable section, and it had taken them thirty minutes to do just that. Clarissa had nothing in her cart, because they had home-grown vegetables, but the people stopping her, wanting to talk, offering him a smile, or attempting to say a few words, were infuriating.
“Are you always this … popular?” Axe asked.
Clarissa snorted. “Nope. In fact, this is the longest I’ve spent in the supermarket.” She shrugged.
Axe frowned. “Then why are people stopping you?” They were at the meat section. He noticed Clarissa had gone past the butchery section and straight to the packaged meat.
He had to wonder if she was trying to deal with the pain of losing her mother.
“Honestly, I think it’s because of you. In all the time I’ve worked for you, not once have I been stopped, but this is the first time you’ve come with me.” She sighed. “I think they have a crush on you.”
He shook his head and grabbed a couple of packages of steak.
“That’s not on my list,” Clarissa said.
Axe raised a brow and she sighed.
“Fine. Fine. But I like to keep to a list.”
“I’m the boss. What I say goes.”
They walked around the supermarket and he saw several women trying to gain his attention, but he ignored them. They could thrust their chests out, or tuck the waistband of their skirts all they wanted to. He had no interest. Instead, the beauty at his side had his attention. She wore a pair of old black dungarees, with a green turtleneck shirt.
The heat had taken a dramatic turn and it had gotten cold. It was such a shock considering a few days ago he was working without a shirt on as sweat dripped from his body.
They got to the baking section and he watched as she grabbed some chocolate chips, bars of baking chocolate, and icing sugar. She’d already purchased many blocks of butter for baking. His stomach was looking forward to whatever concoctions she came up with.