Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) Read Online Free PDF Page B

focus on making a decent dinner everyone would enjoy—not
get distracted by Cade, no matter how hot he was.
    I
turned the car around and went up the long driveway from the house out to the road,
doing my best to focus on something other than the new, handsome farmhand my
father had hired. I needed to make the most of my trip into town, not be
distracted and fantasizing.
    “It’s
not like it’d work out, anyway,” I reminded myself, talking over the radio. Mom
liked to keep it on NPR, and I hadn’t bothered to hook my phone up to the sound
system to listen to my own music. “You’re a single mom—not many guys would be
into that, and anyway, you shouldn’t even be looking at guys.”
    Ever
since Titan had left me, I’d felt more than a little lonely—especially at
night, taking care of Adelyn more or less by myself. You should have known better than to get involved with Titan in the
first place, I thought glumly. But
then I wouldn’t have Addie. Just because he’s useless...
    I
stopped myself short of completing that thought. I had promised myself that I
wouldn’t say anything negative about the father of my child—and while thinking
it wasn’t exactly the same as saying it, if I let myself get away with thinking
about Titan negatively, I knew I’d end up eventually saying something.
    I
pushed all thought of him out of my head and reminded myself that all things
considered, I actually had a very good life: my parents were more than happy to
have me around, even with Addie, and Mom gladly helped me take care of my
little girl. I had money coming in from my share of the farm, and my daughter
was healthy.
    There
wasn’t very much at all that I could say I truly regretted—though the
loneliness was sometimes a bit much. But I knew I’d probably have to wait until
Adelyn was a little older before I could find someone who’d be willing to take
on the baggage she represented in my life. I tried to tell myself every time I
felt a little left out of the world that it was for the best—but sometimes it
was hard.
    I
got to the store finally and took out my lists, determined to spend no more
than maybe thirty minutes getting what I needed; if I was going to make fried
chicken, I needed as much prep time as possible. I knew the grocery like the
back of my hand—I’d been coming to the same one ever since I’d been a child, at
my mother’s side, and they hadn’t changed very much over the years.
    I
started with the dry goods and non-perishables, since that stuff could sit in
the cart and wouldn’t spoil on the way back home. I grabbed Tuck’s razor
cartridges and the few other things he’d wanted and Dad’s stuff, all the while
thinking of what I would make to go with the fried chicken I was going to cook
up for Cade and my family.
    Almost
as soon as I got to the produce section, the answer jumped out at me: mashed
potatoes, of course. I’d make mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans. Nothing
too fancy, but absolutely satisfying and delicious.
    I
grabbed a five-pound bag of potatoes and a pound of green beans—we could eat
the leftovers on Sunday with a pot roast or something like that. I knew we had
bacon in the house; our neighbors, the Knowleses, kept pigs and had given us a
couple of slabs at Christmas that we still hadn’t worked our way through just
yet. I grabbed buttermilk and sour cream form the dairy section, and picked up
some things to make a quick relish to go with the meal.
    I
did another lap through the store, checking my list again to make sure that I
wasn’t forgetting anything. I did have to pick up one or two things that I had
missed during my first walk through. I divided up my purchases at the cash
register, separating my parents’ purchases, my own, and my brother’s so that I
could pay for them with the different cards I had in my keeping.
    I
loaded everything up and got it out to the car, and thought about how good it
would be to see the look on Cade’s face when he tried the